At The Movies @ Boonah Cultural Centre

Ticket prices:

Adult: $10.50
Children / Pensioners / Students: $7.20
Cultural Foundation / Arts Collective & Art Gallery Members: $10 Adults; $6.70 Children/Pensioners / Students

One for the Money - One for the Evanovich fans

One for the Money (M) screens at Boonah Cultural Centre at 10am and 7pm on Friday 11 May and 7pm on Saturday 12 May.

Unemployed and newly-divorced Stephanie Plum lands a job at her cousin's bail-bond business in One for the Money. Her first assignment puts her on the trail of a wanted local cop from her romantic past. The first novel in Janet Evanovich’s bestselling Stephanie Plum series has been in development as a film for nearly 20 years. Katherine Heigl is cast as rough-and-tumble Stephanie Plum, a laid-off lingerie saleswoman who discovers an unexpected aptitude for bounty hunting.

Stephanie’s biggest fish is the high-school lothario who broke her heart (Jason O’Mara), now a police officer wanted for murdering an informant. Tracking him down is the easy part, but without a gun, handcuffs, or much common sense, the only means she has to bring him in are her none-too-robust powers of persuasion.

One for die-hard Evanovich fans.

Rated M

The Artist - A tribute to the magic of silent cinema

The Artist screens at Boonah Cultural Centre at 10am and 7pm on Friday 18 May and 7pm on Saturday 19 May.

In Hollywood in 1927, George Valentin, (Jean Dujardin), is a hugely popular star of silent swashbuckling movies and is invariably accompanied by his talented and faithful dog. Though adored by millions all over the world, he is stuck in a loveless marriage – Penelope Ann Miller plays his wife. When talking pictures are introduced Valentin is unimpressed by the new medium. Meanwhile he's become attracted to bubbly Peppy Miller, (Bérénice Bejo) a starlet on the way up.

The Artist is a delight, especially for anyone interested in cinema history. Perhaps it took the courage of a French production company, and writer-director Michel Hazanavicius, to make a contemporary film in black and white, and almost entirely silent, to evoke the era before movies talked.

The film is made with love and respect for the films and the stars of the silent era, and the actors, including John Goodman as the studio head and James Cromwell as George's butler/chauffeur, succeed wonderfully well in adapting their acting to the silent style - which isn't easy to do these days. There are nods to many celebrated films of the past and the plot is part Singin’ in the Rain and part A Star is Born, with George playing a character similar to that of Douglas Fairbanks and Peppy a cross between Clara Bow and Joan Crawford.

What a wonderful picture this is: one of those films you yearn to watch again and again, while yet being fearful of spoiling the experience. It is one of the most eloquent movies imaginable.

Rated PG

My Week with Marilyn – The icon, the woman, the legend

My Week with Marilyn (M) screens at Boonah Cultural Centre at 10am and 7pm on Friday 25 May and 7pm on Saturday 26 May.

My Week with Marilyn takes place in 1956 when Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams) travelled to England to star in The Prince and the Showgirl with Lawrence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh), who was also directing.

Young Colin Clark, (Eddie Redmayne), has connections and wangles a job as third assistant director on the film. Olivier is not impressed when Marilyn (Michelle Williams) arrives with husband Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott) and method acting coach Paula Strasberg (Zoe Wanamaker). Colin manages to become a favourite of Marilyn’s and when Arthur Miller decamps to France their relationship blossoms.

This completely delightful, funny, poignant film has at its heart a simply wonderful performance by Michelle Williams as Marilyn. She embodies the uneasy sensuality, the insecurity, the flirting with fame that we are led to believe Marilyn Monroe was all about. The film is based on two books by Colin Clark, diaries he kept about this time, so there is a sense of authenticity throughout. It was directed by Simon Curtis, his first foray into feature films after extensive experience in British television.

The solid cast of Branagh, a delight as Olivier, with Judi Dench as Dame Sybil Thorndyke and Julia Ormond as Vivien Leigh, to whom Olivier was married at that time, are all charming, as is Redmayne as Colin. This is just a moment in time of someone ridiculously famous, captured beautifully in an intimate way.