Anora
Out in cinemas now (Available at Shaw Theatres)
Stars: Mikey Madison, Mark Eidelstein, Yura Borisov
Anora (Madison), also known as Ani, is working at a strip club when a scrawny young man comes looking for a good time. He requests a dancer who can speak Russian, and soon Ani and Vanya (Eidelstein) meet. After they hit it off, he proposes she become his girlfriend-for-hire, and stumps up $15,000 cash for Ani to stay with him over a weekend. They go to Las Vegas on a whim, where Vanya this time proposes marriage. Seeing a way out of her miserable life, Ani accepts. However, Vanya’s godfather soon arrives to try to break the young lovebirds apart.
SAFRA members enjoy special discounts on MovieMax Member rates and Combo Sets at Shaw Theatres. For more info, go to safra.sg/promotions/shaw-theatres
Mikey Madison: Out of nowhere, an Oscar contender
A relative unknown, Madison was in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and 2022’s Scream. She could soon win the Academy Award for her role in Anora.
Mikey Madison has been acting for over a decade.
A former competitive horseback rider, the 25-year-old appeared in short films and her first feature film, Liza, Liza, Skies Are Grey (2017), when she was a teenager.
At around this time, she was starring in a well-regarded, award-winning series called Better Things, playing the unhappy teenage daughter of a single mother.
In 2018, she appeared in the drama Nostalgia, in a small role as part of an ensemble cast that included Jon Hamm, Nick Offerman and Amber Tamblyn.
Her first notable role came in Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, where she played a criminal member of the Manson Family opposite Brad Pitt.
In 2022, as her role on Better Things ended, she played a significant part in the fifth Scream movie, playing a deranged and violent young woman opposite Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega.
Her career-defining role, however, is in her latest work, Anora, which won the Palme d’Or prize at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.
Directed by Sean Baker, the film follows Madison as Anora, a sex worker who meets the son of a Russian oligarch and gets caught up in a whirlwind romance.
After getting the best reviews of her life, seemingly out of nowhere, Madison is currently the early frontrunner for the Best Actress award at the next Academy Awards.
She could soon be Hollywood’s next “it” girl.
Bookworm
Out in cinemas now (Available at Shaw Theatres)
Stars: Elijah Wood, Nell Fisher, Michael Smiley
Eleven-year-old Mildred (Fisher) is a self-sufficient, self-confident self-proclaimed bookworm. One day, after an accident puts her mother into a coma, her ne’er-do-well father, Strawn (Wood), suddenly appears. The absent father, a magician by trade, is desperate to make amends with Mildred, which leads him to promise to take her camping. Her objective for going into the great outdoors is to get photographic proof that the legendary Canterbury Panther actually exists. With her hapless father in tow, Mildred is determined to achieve her mission.
Red One
Out in cinemas now (Available at Shaw Theatres)
Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans, Lucy Liu
In a world where Santa Claus, also known as Nick, with the codename Red One, is kidnapped by shadowy operatives, his head of security Callum (Johnson) is forced to find an external contractor to help track down his boss. The contractor, a renowned bounty hunter named Jack (Evans), is reluctant to help at first, mainly because he is being forced to do so against his will. But when he realises that there is a possibility of Christmas being cancelled, he warms up to working with Callum to fight otherworldly creatures and monsters, to help rescue Red One.
Gladiator II
Out in cinemas now (Available at Shaw Theatres)
Stars: Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Denzel Washington
More than 20 years after the events of Gladiator, which saw the great gladiator Maximus (played by Russell Crowe) kill the Emperor Commodus, political intrigue once again reigns in Rome. Lucius (Mescal), the son of Maximus and Commodus’ sister, Lucilla, is taken prisoner by an invading Roman army and forced to fight as a gladiator. The leader of the armed forces, Marcus Acacius (Pascal), also ends up as a gladiator as punishment. As the pair are set on a collision course, a former slave named Macrinus (Washington) plots to take control of Rome.
Wicked
Out in cinemas 21 November (Available at Shaw Theatres)
Stars: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Michelle Yeoh
Are people born wicked? Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them? This first part of a two-film adaptation of the acclaimed stage musical of the same name tries to answer these questions. With characters drawn from the classic novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the story follows the twin arc of two aspiring witches, Elphaba (Erivo) and Galinda (Grande), as they embark on their studies at Shiz University. Under the watchful eye of Madame Morrible (Yeoh) the women are roommates and “frenemies” as they seek to discover if they possess true magic.
Moana 2
Out in cinemas 28 November (Available at Shaw Theatres)
Stars: Auli’i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Nicole Scherzinger
Three years following the events of the first movie, after Moana (Cravalho) tag-teams with the demigod Maui (Johnson) to save her people and nature from evil, Moana is called upon to break a curse. As a wayfinder, she and her crew seek to connect with the other people of the ocean. To do so, they need to break the curse the god Nalo has placed on the hidden island of Motufetu, which once upon a time was the link between the various ocean peoples. Along the way, Moana enlists the help of Maui again, to face new enemies and overcome old foes.
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