Spielberg’s ‘BFG’ and ‘Our Kind of Traitor’ Now Screening (Thurs., 7/6/16)

1) The BFG – Stepven Spielberg returns to a land of children’s fantasy (a world he last visited in 2011’s Tintin) with this adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1982 contemporary classic about a young girl, Sophie, who teams up with a Big Friendly Giant. Hollywood’s been trying to turn this thing into a movie since the early 90’s and now Spielberg directs from a script by the late Melissa Mathison (the writer of E.T.). Via motion-capture photography, Mark Rylance (who won an Oscar in Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies) plays the eponymous character, an outcast from the world of giants. He collects and distributes happy dreams to children. The rest of the giants, who like to eat kids, understandably aren’t all that crazy about BFG’s do-gooder ways. When Sophie stumbles into this bizarre world, she and BFG have to capture the evil giants and, with the help of Queen Victoria, put them away so they can’t hurt anymore children. The score is by John Williams, of course, and the film features Penelope Wilton, Rebecca Hall and, as Sophie, newcomer Ruby Barnhill. Check Fandango for screens and times.

2) Our Kind of Traitor – It’s amazing to think that spy novelist John le Carré is still churning out espionage thrillers. His first was published in 1961 and his latest in 2013 … at the age of 82. God bless the little scribe! His 2010 novel, Our Kind of Traitor gets the big screen treatment in this version directed by Susanna White and adapted by Hossein Amini. Ewan McGregor, and Naomie Harris play British tourists in Morocco who meet up with a flamboyant Russian, Stellan Skarsgård, who turns out to be a money launderer for the Russian mafia and he wants McGregor to help him seek sanctuary in England in exchange for information on terrorist financing. It’s blows up into an international, globe-trotting game of hide-and-seek with deadly consequences. Damian Lewis, Jeremy Northam, Mark Stanley, and Mark Gatiss also star. Check Fandango for screens and times.

3) Jaws – Among it’s many claims to notoriety, the 1975 horror movie Jaws is famous for it’s by-now legendary movie poster, created by Roger Kastel, depicting that huge shark coming up from the depths to eat that poor woman swimming above. (There are fewer grains of sand on the beach than the number of times that poster has been parodied.) Jaws is also known as one of the films which ushered in the “new” film industry. This movie, along with Star Wars, invented the summer blockbuster business model which, depending on how you look at it, either saved or destroyed talking pictures. Jaws is also Steven Spielberg’s first box office bonanza, he was only 28 at the time! Based on Peter Benchley’s novel, the story concerns a New England summer beach community terrorized by a great white shark. Town officials and business leaders try to keep the attacks hush-hush … until the body count becomes too high. So Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss head out to sea to kill the shark; the animatronic model of which was affectionately called “Bruce” by the production crew. 7:30 p.m. Ends today. Hollywood Theater, 1449 Potomac Ave., Dormont.

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