Selma
“People are dying in the street Mr President; it can’t wait,” Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo) to Lyndon B. Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) The silences between sentences, as Coretta Scott King (Carmen Ejogo) confronts husband Martin Luther King (Oyelowo) over his infidelities, is a scene showing how high SELMA holds its audience. Marital tension is adroitly handled, almost arthouse in its ellipses, and then also humanising the civil rights leader without robbing him of his legend. Bland hagiography could easily have been the modus operandi; rather the filmmakers have reached for an almost Ken Loach-ian political layering. [To read more, click here.] |
Tokyo Tribe
“Tokyo tribe never ever die,” Kai (Young Dais) A yakuza rap musical from Japan. Violent, funny and with a great soundtrack, what’s not to like? A collision of cocky filmmaking and breakneck storytelling make for an intoxicating experience. Director Sion Sono (LOVE EXPOSURE, WHY DON’T YOU PLAY IN HELL?) is never one to hold back; his exuberant imagination makes even the craziest mainstream filmmaker (e.g. Spike Jonze) appear relatively tame. [To read more, click here.] |