Out to own today:
20,000 Days on Earth
| “At the end of the 20th century I ceased being a human being… That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Nick Cave Music documentaries are ten a penny, and most carry the whiff of hagiography; every so often though, filmmakers and artists go against the grain and we get a MISTAKEN FOR STRANGER (on The National) and now 20,000 DAYS ON EARTH. Experiment, narrative and non-fiction swirl to portray a dissection of creativity and performance. At 97 minutes, the only complaint is being too short. Each scene was desired to have gone on longer, to continue the insight proffered. [To read more, click here.] |
Belle
| “Do not be afraid. I am here to take you to a good life. A life you were born to,” Captain Sir John Lindsay (Matthew Goode) Do historical costume dramas induce expectations of staid romance and simplistic social analysis? BELLE has taken the genre ingredients and crafted something fresh. It wholly satisfies where Andrea Arnold’s WUTHERING HEIGHTS fumbled the second course. [To read more, click here.] |
Cold in July
| “Sometimes the good guy wins,” Sheriff Ray Price (Nick Damici) Home invasion, police corruption, snuff movies, COLD IN JULY certainly packs in at least three crime movies into its 109-minute running time. Even if we were not told it is East Texas, 1989, we’d guess the locale/period from the pseudo-John Carpenter synthesiser score and Michael C. Hall’s hillbilly ‘tache and comedy mullet; he is certainly a world away from the ice cool lead in DEXTER. [To read more, click here.] |
Maleficent
| “True love does not exist,” Stefan (Sharlto Copley) Fifty-five years on from Disney’s cartoon classic, SLEEPING BEAUTY, a live action revisionist blockbuster has emerged to tell the story from the perspective of the titular villain, played by Angelina Jolie. Blandness has seeped into the very fabric of the movie, punctuated by moments of out-of-place violence. [To read more, click here.] |
Two Days, One Night
| “You mustn’t cry,” Sandra Byu (Marion Cotillard) to herself Social realism often fills the mainstream cinema-goer with dread - Why would I allow myself to be put through the ringer when life is hard enough? - One imagines the question posed. Now more than ever, when entertainment sidesteps art (the look at the truth of the world), and plays to wish-fulfilment and numbing escapism, appraising our treatment of each other is necessary. Even soap operas like EASTENDERS wallow in outlandish misery, devoid of gravitas and indifferent to credible cause and effect. Then along comes Ken Loach making IT’S A FREE WORLD or Amma Asante turning in A WAY OF LIFE or Clio Barnard offering THE SELFISH GIANT or Icíar Bollaín slamming down EVEN THE RAIN. And of course the Dardennes brothers are true masters at holding up a mirror. [To read more, click here.] |
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