By Eric Hillis
In case you hadn’t noticed, the Christmas season is now underway, and that means screenings of seasonal classics on the big screen. On Saturday afternoon the Lighthouse cinema starts the music and lights the lights the light with The Muppet Christmas Carol. Adapting Dickens’ classic in the way only Kermit and friends can, this was the last great Muppet movie of the original cycle of films. Michael Caine makes for a great Scrooge alongside all your favourite Muppet performers.
The highlight of the week’s new releases is Black Sea. This stars Jude Law as an unemployed submarine pilot who assembles a crew of misfits in order to steal Nazi gold from a sunken U-boat at the depths of the Black Sea. Things go pear-shaped when the half British, half Russian crew members begin to fall out. It’s a tense, claustrophobic thriller with an old school flavour.
St Vincent is a mediocre comic drama with Bill Murray as an old grouch who befriends the young boy next door. It never quite hits the right notes and offers little we haven’t seen from this sort of premise in the past.
Men, Women & Children is a ham-fisted attempt to look at the evils of the internet, and despite an impressive cast, plays out like a ridiculously over the top piece of scaremongering. Don’t be fooled by the trailer, which makes it look like a sequel to The Fault in our Stars.
