#OnTheBigScreen: 'Onward', 'The Gentlemen' and 'The Photograph'

Onward

This modern suburban fantasy film is a new genre for Pixar is set in a suburban fantasy world, populated their world with elves, sprites, satyrs, cyclops, centaurs, gnomes and trolls, among other creatures from mythology, folklore, fables and fantasy fiction.

Two teenage elf brothers embark on an extraordinary quest to discover if there is still a little magic left out there.

“The story is inspired by my own relationship with my brother and our connection with our dad who passed away when I was about a year old,” says Dan Scanlon, who wrote the screenplay with Jason Headley and Keith Bunin. “He’s always been a mystery to us. A family member sent us a tape recording of him saying just two words: ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye.’ Two words. But to my brother and me – it was magic.”

Competition: Biz readers can win an Onward movie hamper that includes a backpack, beanie, notebook, patches and a sticker set.

Read more.

Gretel and Hansel

Some stories linger for centuries, burying their way into our psyches like worms, intertwining myth with history. Hansel and Gretel is one such story.

A long time ago, in a cursed land, a young girl (Sophia Lillis) and her little brother (Sam Leakey) are forced from their family home to search for food and work. Despite assistance from a noble huntsman, they become disorientated and lost in a deep, dark forest. When they stumble across a magical cottage, inhabited by a seemingly kind old woman (Alice Krige), Gretel and Hansel believe they have found sanctuary. But the woman’s limitless feasts in a time of famine, and her home’s strange murmurings of lost children and magical incarnations, suggests all may not be what it seems. Can Gretel protect her younger brother, or will she succumb to the temptations that rise within her? Something wicked this way comes, in this dark reimagining of a classic fairy tale.

The film is directed by Oz Perkins, produced by Fred Berger, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, and Dan Kagan, and the screenplay is written by Perkins and Rob Hayes.

Read more.

The Gentlemen

The story follows American expat Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey), who has built a highly profitable marijuana empire in London. When word gets out that he’s looking to cash out of the business, a host of colourful, if entirely illegitimate figures scheme, bribe and blackmail their way to try and steal Mickey’s domain out from under him.

The film also stars Charlie Hunnam, Henry Golding, Michelle Dockery, Jeremy Strong, with Colin Farrell, and Hugh Grant – all under the the direction of master filmmaker Guy Ritchie, who returns to the genre and type of characters to which he gave an indelible and unique flavour in films such as Sherlock Holmes, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch.

Written and directed by Guy Ritchie, from a story by Ivan Atkinson, Marn Davies, and Ritchie,

Read more.

The Photograph

While audiences have seen an abundance of romantic dramas throughout Hollywood history, only a tiny fraction have centred on Black characters and that dearth of contemporary Black love stories hadn’t improved over the past two decades.  Writer-director Stella Meghie who has a passion for the romantic-film genre decided it was time to fill that void with The Photograph, a sweeping love story about forgiveness and finding the courage to seek the truth, no matter where it may lead you.

On Valentine’s Day, Issa Rae (HBO’s Insecure, Little) and Lakeith Stanfield (FX’s Atlanta, Sorry to Bother You) connect in a romance where a woman must learn from the secrets in her mother’s past if she is to move forward and allow herself to love and be loved. When famed photographer Christina Eames unexpectedly dies, she leaves her estranged daughter Mae Morton (Rae) hurt, angry and full of questions. When a photograph tucked away in a safe-deposit box is found, Mae finds herself on a journey delving into her mother’s early life and ignites a powerful, unexpected romance with a rising-star journalist, Michael Block (Stanfield).

Read more.

Read more about the latest and upcoming films.