Tag: 2023

Dream Horse

Dream Alliance is an unlikely race horse bred by small-town Welsh bartender Jan Vokes. With no experience, Jan convinces her neighbours to chip in their meagre earnings to help raise Dream in the hopes he can compete with the racing elites.

Shown: 5 April 2023

Exminster Film Club Rating: 96%

2019 BBFC Ratings Badge PG

Dream Horse Plot Synopsis

Experience the inspiring true story of Dream Alliance, an unlikely race horse bred by small town bartender, Jan Vokes (Toni Collette). With very little money and no experience, Jan convinces her neighbors to chip in their meager earnings to help raise Dream and compete with the racing elites. Their investment pays off as Dream rises through the ranks and becomes a beacon of hope in their struggling community.

Film Reviews

We can see every plot point rounding the turn long before the finish line, but that’s OK, because we’re having a (dare I say it) jolly grand time every step of the way.

Richard Roeper – Chicago Sun Times

Sure it’s hokey, but this fact-based crowd-pleaser starring a terrific Toni Collette as a struggling Welsh villager who risks everything on a racehorse she breeds and raises is an underdog story that works like a charm.

Peter Travers, ABC News

Official Film Trailer for Dream Horse

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< March 2023

Top Gun: Maverick

After thirty years, Maverick is still pushing the envelope as a top naval aviator, but must confront ghosts of his past when he leads TOP GUN’s elite graduates on a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those chosen to fly it.

Shown: 1 March 2023

Exminster Film Club Rating: 83%

BBFC Ratings Badge 12A

Top Gun: Maverick Plot Synopsis

After more than thirty years of service, military awards, medals and decorations for extraordinary heroism in combat, distinguished US Navy Captain Pete Mitchell, call sign Maverick, finds himself exactly where he belongs: pushing the limits as a top test pilot. Having spent years avoiding promotions after the events of Top Gun (1986), Maverick must now confront the ugly past and an uncertain future while tasked with training the next generation of elite fighter pilots for a nearly impossible suicide mission. As the veteran naval aviator prepares the brilliant graduates for the top-secret assignment, stretching the rules to the breaking point, Mitchell has to face an equally critical challenge: navigate through an uncomfortable relationship with a hotshot lieutenant holding a grudge. Can Maverick and his Top Guns perform a miracle, give the enemy hell, and come back home in one piece? – Nick Riganas

Film Reviews

This is the ideal example of a big summer blockbuster and one of the best legacy sequels we’ve ever gotten: a movie that knows how to move along and give you what you came for.

Trace Sauveur – The Austin Chronicle

Thrilling, moving and gloriously Cruisey, Joseph Kosinski’s sequel to the 1986 hit is unquestionably the best studio action film in years.

Robbie Collin, The Telegraph

Official Film Trailer for Top Gun: Maverick

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< February 2023

April 2023 >

Finding Your Feet

On the eve of retirement a middle class, judgmental snob discovers her husband has been having an affair with her best friend and is forced into exile with her bohemian sister who lives on an impoverished inner-city council estate.

Shown: 1 February 2023

Exminster Film Club Rating: 97%

BBFC 12 Rating Badge
  • Date of release: 2017
  • Running time: 1h 51m
  • Director: Richard Loncraine
  • Writers: Meg Leonard and Nick Moorcroft
  • Country: UK
  • Language: English
  • Links: IMDB Rotten Tomatoes Metacritic BBFC

Finding Your Feet Plot Synopsis

When “Lady” Sandra Abbott discovers that her husband of 40 years is having an affair with her best friend, she seeks refuge in London with her estranged, older sister Bif. The two could not be more different – Sandra is a fish out of water next to her outspoken, serial dating, free-spirited sibling. But different is just what Sandra needs at the moment, and she reluctantly lets Bif drag her along to a community dance class, where she starts finding her feet.

Film Reviews

Finding Your Feet finds its own footing by putting its trust in its sturdy performers and avoiding many of the usual tea-time clichés as it allows its British cast to be defined by their relatable human circumstances more than quaint Anglo quirks.

Susan Wloszzczyna – RogerEbert.com

The modest rewards in Finding Your Feet are ones of sprightly human chemistry rather than great narrative discovery, of all-round good humour rather than outright hilarity.

Guy Lodge, Variety

Official Film Trailer for Finding Your Feet

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< January 2023

March 2023 >

Belfast

From director Kenneth Branagh, Belfast is a personal story about the power of memory. Set in late 1960s Northern Ireland, a young boy on the cusp of adolescence and childhood hijinks. Yet, with his hometown caught up in turmoil, his family faces a momentous choice: hope the conflict will pass or leave everything for a new life.

Shown: 4 January 2023

Exminster Film Club Rating: 93%

BBFC Ratings Badge 12A

Belfast Plot Synopsis

From lauded director Kenneth Branagh, and starring an acclaimed ensemble cast, Belfast is a personal and joyful story about the power of memory, set in late 1960s Northern Ireland. At the centre of the film is Buddy, a young boy on the cusp of adolescence, whose life is filled with familial love, childhood hijinks, and a blossoming romance. Yet, with his beloved hometown caught up in increasing turmoil, his family faces a momentous choice: hope the conflict will pass or leave everything they know behind for a new life.

Film Reviews

Taken all together, Branagh’s film is in its own special way like a cinematic equivalent of the Irish brogue that fills it: It’s lovely, it’s lyrical and it’s next to impossible not to be swept up by its charms.

Mike Scott

There’s only one trouble with his semi-autobiographical account. It’s so polished—so spirited, funny and skillfully calibrated—that it could be taken for a while as a crowd-pleaser and not a lot more. Sign me up for the crowd, though. This is surely the most pleasing film I’ve seen so far this year, but also the most affecting.

Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal

Official Film Trailer for Belfast

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< December 2022

February 2023 >