Netflix takes on cinemas

There's a fight going on in Hollywood between cinemas and online streaming service Netflix.

Cinemas are refusing to screen films that Netflix has acquired to stream on the service at the same time as they open in cinemas. This has implications for next year's awards season because films have to have cinema screenings to qualify for most of them.

Netflix has just announced that it will pick up Beasts of No Nation, starring Idris Elba, as well as several as yet unannounced documentaries to be produced by Leonardo DiCaprio. How long the distributors can hold out remains to be seen.

Ray Winstone is headed to South Africa to shoot the pilot for ABC's Kings and Prophets, a biblical epic series in which the gruff 'n tuff British actor will star as Saul, the paranoid, violent first king of Israel.

Remember that painting of a certain president's genitals that caused all that trouble? It's now the subject of Shield and Spear,a documentary directed by New York filmmaker Petter Ringbom. You can see it this week at The Bioscope in Johannesburg. www.thebioscope.co.za

Also opening

Blackhat

A hacker plot of spectacular malevolence propels Blackhat, Michael Mann's alternately heart-pounding and disappointingly dry new thriller starring Chris Hemsworth.

Sheri Linden, hollywoodreporter.com

The second-best exotic Marigold hotel

Lacking the narrative clarity of its predecessor, this patchy sequel juggles too many character threads to be anything more than episodic.

Mark Kermode, theguardian.com

The women in black

Daniel Radcliffe helped win the first film's considerable success. But the sequel is murky and unsatisfying.

Tim Robey, The Daily Telegraph

Playing it cool

For those who don't mind the romcom formula, it looks pretty serviceable for a date-night movie.

H Shaw-Williams, screenrant.com