New Releases 03/07/14

In cinemas this week: Calvary, Belle and Sebastian, Tim's Vermeer, Rio 2 and Jersey Boys.

Calvary - Father James (Brendan Gleeson) is a good priest who is faced with sinister and troubling circumstances brought about by a mysterious member of his parish. Although he continues to comfort his own fragile daughter (Kelly Reilly) and reach out to help members of his church with their various scurrilous moral - and often comic - problems, he feels sinister and troubling forces closing in, and begins to wonder if he will have the courage to face his own personal Calvary.

Belle and Sebastian - Based on the much-loved 1965 children’s book which was later adapted into a popular French TV series. Set high in the French Alps during the Second World War, it is the timeless tale of a boy and his dog. Six year old Sebastian lives on the mountainside with a kindly but gruff caretaker and no real family of his own. As such he is left to his own devices and is often found roaming the countryside. Belle is a wild mountain dog who has escaped from her cruel owner. The villagers have mistaken her for a “beast” that has been killing their sheep. When Sebastian first crosses paths with Belle he must keep their friendship a secret and the two of them form an unshakeable bond. Their adventures take them through the mountains and ultimately they become pivotal in the successful escape of refugees fleeing Nazi Germany for the safety of Switzerland.

Tim's Vermeer - Tim Jenison, a Texas based inventor, attempts to solve one of the greatest mysteries in all art: How did 17th century Dutch master Johannes Vermeer ("Girl with a Pearl Earring") manage to paint so photo-realistically - 150 years before the invention of photography? The epic research project Jenison embarks on to test his theory is as extraordinary as what he discovers. Spanning a decade, Jenison's adventure takes him to Delft, Holland, where Vermeer painted his masterpieces on a pilgrimage to the North coast of Yorkshire to meet artist David Hockney and eventually to Buckingham Palace, to see the Queen's Vermeer.

Rio 2 - It's a jungle out there for Blu, Jewel and their three kids in RIO 2, after they're hurtled from that magical city to the wilds of the Amazon. As Blu tries to fit in, he goes beak-to-beak with the vengeful Nigel, and meets the most fearsome adversary of all - his father-in-law.

Jersey Boys - The story of the rise of the music group The Four Seasons, with a special focus on their lead singer, Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young) the small kid with the big falsetto. In addition to following the group’s coming of age as performers, the core of the show displays how an allegiance to a code of honor learned on the streets of their native New Jersey got them through a multitude of challenges: gambling debts, Mafia threats and family disasters.

Weekly Recommendation: Set in the spectacular French Alps the touching Belle and Sebastian is a great choice for the families in the school holidays, while Calvary is a tense, riveting, and deeply affecting Irish drama that will leave many viewers shaken. Tim's Vermeer is a lot of fun; a documentary about a man who took on centuries of art theory and created something truly extraordinary. Rio 2 and Jersey Boys I am personally not going to bother with, but they will no doubt have an audience and likely will be the top grossing films this week.