Pomona Rewind

Earlier this year, British television viewers were mesmerised by AMC's gripping tale of a doomed Arctic Naval expedition in ' The Terror '. Within a matter of months, there was another tale of murder and betrayal on the high seas with Andrew Haigh's five part miniseries 'The North Water'. Based on Ian McGuire's Booker Prize nominated 2016 novel, which made the New York Times' list of the ten best books of that year, it's a savage and atmospheric story. It's so atmospheric, you might find yourself reaching for a hot water bottle to keep warm. Jack O'Connell plays Patrick Sumner, an Irish born former Army veteran, who applies to serve on a whaling expedition leaving Hull in the north of England for Greenland and Canada. The commercial vessel is owned by Tom Courtenay's Baxter and is captained by Stephen Graham's Arthur Brownlee. Among the crew are Sam Spruell's shifty second in command Michael Cavendish and Colin Farrell's sinis

  Movies based on video games have a very poor record. But what about movies based on Disney theme park rides? Perhaps the best known entry in this genre is 'The Pirates of the Carribbean' series of movies - a huge box office success whose films are relentlessly vapid and awful. Brian de Palma's 'Mission to Mars' in 2000 was also based on a shortlived Disney attraction and counts among his weakest films. In 2003, Eddie Murphy starred in Rob Minkoff's 'The Haunted Mansion' - based on another Disney theme park ride and which performed decently despite terrible reviews. Probably the best of the bunch was Brad Bird's  'Tomorrowland'  with George Clooney and Hugh Laurie but even that was just okay and had to work hard to make a profit. Now we can add Jaume Collet-Serra's 'Jungle Cruise' to the list. On paper, it's easy to understand why Disney would expect the Spanish American director's movie to be a surefire hit. Not only has

Legend has it that Dracula isn't actually Romanian. Irish author Bram Stoker may have set his celebrated vampire tale in Transylvania but some claim  the legend he based it on originated in Northern Ireland . Retired Ulster University academic Bob Curran told the BBC in 2018 that Stoker had a keen interest in Irish folklore and based his character on the Celtic chieftain Abhartach, who is purported to have been buried between Garvagh and Dungiven in Co Derry/Londonderry in the townland of Slaughtaverty. Local legend has it that Abhartach was one of the walking dead who terrorised the local community, demanding a bowl of blood every time he appeared. He was eventually put to the sword - a special sword made from the wood of a yew tree and was buried upside down. According to Mr Curran, the story was familiar to Oscar Wilde's mother who he believes passed it on to Stoker who was a regular visitor to the family home in Dublin. The writing and directing team of Chris Baugh and Bren

  Few films in 2021 have been as emotionally intense as Uberto Pasolini's 'Nowhere Special'. The Italian director's Belfast drama tells the story of a terminally ill single dad making preparations for the future of his four year old son. However the genius of Pasolini's film lies in the matter of fact way it tells its desperately sad story. As a slice of realist cinema, it is exquisitely packaged. But it also steadfastly refuses to use obvious narrative devices to manipulate its viewers' feelings. In a riveting performance, English actor James Norton steps well out of his comfort zone to play John, a Belfast window cleaner who is devoted to his boy, Daniel Lamont's Michael. When he isn't earning a living after dropping Michael off at pre-school, John is engaging adoption agents as they try to find a suitable home for his son. Michael's birth mother left him for her homeland not long after he was born, leaving no address of where she was going. Writer

Do you think you have seen Westerns made from just about every possible angle? Well, think again. Kelly Reichardt's 'First Cow' fuses the prospector spirit of 'Goin' South' with the culinary delights of 'The Great British Bake Off' (or at least, its US equivalent). An allegorical tale about a Jewish baker and a Chinese immigrant hitting upon a brilliant business idea in 1820s Oregon but eventually falling foul of a wealthy English landowner, it is a wonderful meditation on entrepreneurship and the American Dream. Directed by Reichardt from a screenplay she co-wrote with Jonathan Raymond, it begins in the present day with a woman stumbling upon two skeletons in a shallow grave by a riverside as she walks her dog. Reichert and Raymond transport us back to the 1820s as John Magaro's Otis "Cookie" Figowitz travels through Oregon's forests with a group of rough trappers. The group harangue him for not finding enough food for them to eat. Coo

When you get an idea as brilliantly executed as Harold Ramis' timeloop comedy 'Groundhog Day,' it's really hard to better it. And that probably explains why few writers and directors of comedies have taken up the challenge, with producers preferring to apply the concept instead to other genres. Over the years, time loops have featured in films as varied as Disney's straight to video animation 'Mickey's Once Upon A Christmas,' Christopher Landon's horror franchise,  'Happy Death Day' and 'Happy Death Day 2 U,' Doug Liman and Joe Carnahan's sci-fi action films 'Edge of Tomorrow: Live, Die, Repeat' and 'Boss Level' and Shawn Levy's recent hi-tech comedy action adventure  'Free Guy' . Even this year's Best Live Action Short winner at the Oscars, Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe's ' Two Distant Strangers'  on Netflix gave the timeloop concept a Black Lives Matter twist. Depending on your op

Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII have had many incarnations on film and on television screens over the years. Emil Jannings, Charles Laughton, Robert Shaw, James Robertson, Donald Pleasance, Richard Burton, Sid James, Keith Michell, Ray Winstone, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Eric Bana and Damian Lewis are just some of the actors who have played the Monarch. Henny Porten, Merle Oberon, Vanessa Redgrave, Genevieve Bujold, Dorothy Tutin, Charlotte Rampling, Helena Bonham Carter, Natalie Dormer, Natalie Portman and Claire Foy have all depicted his second wife. However none of the TV shows or films they appeared in have stirred up the kind of controversy that Jodie Turner Smith's casting attracted in the title role of the Channel 5 drama 'Anne Boleyn'. When it was announced, some people took to social media to fume that Anne Boleyn was white and it made no sense having an English actress of Jamaican origin playing her. Some even had the audacity to argue a white person would never have been