#OntheBigScreen: Storks & aliens

Storks

Storks deliver babies…or at least they used to. Now they deliver packages for a global internet retail giant. Junior (Andy Samberg), the company’s top delivery stork, is about to be promoted when he accidentally activates the Baby Making Machine, producing an adorable and wholly unauthorised baby girl. Desperate to deliver this bundle of trouble before the boss gets wise, Junior and his friend, Tulip, the only human on Stork Mountain, race to make their first-ever baby drop – in a wild and revealing journey that could make more than one family whole and restore the storks’ true mission in the world. Directed by Nicholas Stoller and Doug Sweetland, with the voices of Andy Samberg, Kelsey Grammer.

Shut in

A heart-pounding thriller about a widowed child psychologist who lives in an isolated existence in rural New England. Caught in a deadly winter storm, she must find a way to rescue a young boy before he disappears forever. Directed by Farren Blackburn, with Naomi Watts, Jacob Tremblay, Oliver Platt.

Arrival

When multiple mysterious spacecrafts touch down across the globe, an elite team is put together to investigate, including linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams), mathematician Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), and US Army Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker). Mankind teeters on the verge of global war as everyone scrambles for answers - and to find them, Banks, Donnelly, and Weber will take a chance that could threaten their lives, and, quite possibly, humanity. A science fiction drama film directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Eric Heisserer, based on the short story Story of Your Life by author Ted Chiang.

Desierto

What begins as a hopeful journey to seek a better life becomes a harrowing and primal fight for survival when a deranged, rifle-toting vigilante chases a group of unarmed men and women through the treacherous US-Mexican border. In the harsh, unforgiving desert terrain, the odds are stacked firmly against them as they continuously discover there’s nowhere to hide from the unrelenting, merciless killer. This Mexican thriller was co-written and directed by Jonás Cuarón and stars Gael García Bernal, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Alondra Hidalgo.

The Golden Age

In a seaside town where business and mafia are flourishing, The Golden Age cabaret is the favourite nightly haunt of dancers, bandits and young revellers, where the young fisherman Boris falls in love with Rita, a beautiful dancer, but also the friend of a local gangster.

A satire of Europe during the Roaring 20s, The Golden Age makes for an original, colourful, and dazzling ballet, with its jazzy score and music-hall atmosphere. This ballet that comes to the big screen from the Bolshoi, has everything in it: crazy rhythms, vigorous chase scenes, and decadent cabaret numbers. With its passionate love story featuring beautiful duets between Boris and Rita, the Bolshoi dancers plunge magnificently into every stylised step and gesture.With the musical score from Dmitri Shostakovich, and choreography by Yuri Grigorovich, the ballet stars Nina Kaptsova as Rita and Ruslan Skvortsov as Boris, with Mikhail Lobukhin (Yashka) and Ekaterina Krysanova (Lyushka).

The Golden Age releases on South African screens on Saturday, 12 November for four screenings only – on 12, 16 and 17 November at 19.45 and on 13 November at 14.30 – only at Ster-Kinekor’s Nouveau theatres in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town. Bookings are now open. The running time of this ballet production is 2hrs 30mins, including one interval.For booking information on the Bolshoi Ballet’s The Golden Age, visit www.cinemanouveau.co.za.