Got some spending money in your pocket post payday? It seems like cinema chains are trying to lure you in this weekend with a handful of diverse new feature releases.
And that doesn’t even include Bollywood romcom Param Sundari; IMAX-exclusive music experience Prince: Sign O’ The Times; and concert recording André Rieu’s 2025 Maastricht Concert: Waltz The Night Away! this weekend only (also book here). Also on the stage recording front is the National Theatre production of The Importance of Being Ernest, with Ncuti Gatwa. Then there’s the Throwback rerelease of Daniel Craig’s first (and arguably still best) James Bond outing Casino Royale. Finally, if you’re in Johannesburg, you can check out the four-day Resonance Archive Festival, which puts the spotlight on thought-provoking, often-hard-to-find local films.
We’re entering that time of year when people start to get irritated with everything. Their jobs. Their partners. With that in mind, you may get a kick out of black comedy The Roses, the second on-screen adaptation of The War of the Roses. Picture-perfect couple Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Ivy (Olivia Colman) Rose find their marriage threatened when Theo’s career nosedives and Ivy’s takes off, igniting long-simmering resentments. Also with Andy Samberg, Kate McKinnon, Ncuti Gatwa and Allison Janney.
Read our The Roses review here.
Bizarre that this is literally the first time we’re hearing about comedy-tinted crime thriller Caught Stealing. Auteur Darren Aronofsky directs this all-star adaptation of Charlie Huston’s book, about a ex-baseball player turned bartender Hank Thompson (Austin Butler) who, in 1998, finds himself caught in the middle of a rival gang war after he agrees to look after his neighbour’s cat. Also in the ensemble are Zoë Kravitz, Matt Smith, Liev Schreiber, Bad Bunny and Regina King.
For something homegrown there’s Afrikaans-language (with English subtitles) comedy drama My f*k Marelize, which is based on the video clip that went viral on social media. In this true story, set in Windhoek, Namibia, strong-willed Heidi is hiding a cancer diagnosis from her family, while encouraging her accident-prone daughter Marelize to learn how to ride a bike, so the latter can become an au pair in the Netherlands. Starring Je-ani Swigelaar, Zandelle Meyer, Neels Clasen and Nichola Viviers.
Didn’t Dave Bautista just make a trashy B-grade movie exactly this this? In post-apocalyptic actioner Afterburn, the world’s technology has been destroyed by a solar flare, sending civilisation back to the Dark Ages literally and figuratively. Bautista’s Jake is a treasure hunter who retrieves pre-flare treasures, and his latest target, for Samuel L. Jackson’s collector, is the Mona Lisa. Also with Olga Kurylenko and Kristofer Hivju.
The movie that gave birth to the concept of a Summer blockbuster, and super-charged Steven Spielberg’s directorial career, returns to the big screen. Catch Jaws (50th Anniversary Re-Release) in select cinemas on giant format screens. Summer tourist destination Amity Island is terrorised by a Great White Shark, forcing Sheriff Brody (Roy Scheider), marine biologist Hooper (Robert Shaw) and local fisherman Quint (Robert Shaw) to hunt down the relentless beast.