#OnTheBigScreen: Fantastic beasts, widows, and a sci-fi thriller

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald

The second of five all-new adventures in JK Rowling’s wizarding world. At the end of the first film, the powerful dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) was captured by Macusa (Magical Congress of the United States of America) with the help of Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne). But, making good on his threat, Grindelwald escaped custody and has set about gathering followers, most unsuspecting of his true agenda: to raise pure-blood wizards up to rule over all non-magical beings.

In an effort to thwart Grindelwald’s plans, Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) enlists his former student Newt Scamander, who agrees to help, unaware of the dangers that lie ahead. Lines are drawn as love and loyalty are tested, even among the truest friends and family, in an increasingly divided wizarding world.

It is directed by David Yates from a screenplay by Rowling. 

Read more about Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald here

Anon

A meditation on the fraught relationship between technology and humanity.

In the near future, private memories are recorded and crime has almost ceased to exist. Sal Frieland (Clive Owen) is a detective in a world with no privacy, ignorance, or anonymity; where everyone’s lives are transparent, traceable, and recorded by the authorities; where crime almost ceases to exist. But in trying to solve a series of unsolved murders, he stumbles upon a young woman known only as ‘The Girl’ (Amanda Seyfried). She has no identity, no history and is invisible to the cops. Sal realises this may not be the end of crime and it could be the beginning of it.

This British science fiction thriller film is directed and written by Andrew Niccol. In Anon, Niccol focuses this exploration on information technology and the evaporation of privacy in the time of social media, Snowden, and WikiLeaks, while returning to a film noir aesthetic.

Read more about Anon here

Widows 

This a blistering, modern-day thriller set against the backdrop of crime, passion, and corruption. It tells the story of four women with nothing in common except a debt left behind by their dead husbands’ criminal activities. Set in contemporary Chicago amid a time of turmoil, tensions build when Veronica (Oscar winner Viola Davis), Alice (Elizabeth Debicki), Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), and Belle (Cynthia Erivo) take their fate into their own hands and conspire to forge a future on their own terms. It also stars Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall, Daniel Kaluuya, Lukas Haas, and Brian Tyree Henry.

Based on the popular UK television series of the same name, Widows - created by Lynda La Plante - is directed, co-written, and produced by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steve McQueen and co-writer and bestselling author Gillian Flynn.

Read more abour Windows here

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