Wyrmwood
“This morning I shot my wife and child with a nail gun,” Barry (Jay Gallagher) The title supposedly refers to a biblical apocalypse. WYRMWOOD is too budget to be apocalyptic. This Australian zombie-comedy tries to jumble the rulebook; but while being gory genre fun, lacks scope and panache. Do we really need another addition to the patience-zapping undead genre? Even television’s THE WALKING DEAD is patchy (season two is a dreary dud). Let’s have a moratorium shall we filmmakers? Think of it in farming terms, where a field can be over-ploughed unless it is allowed to lie fallow. [To read more, click here.] |
Nymphomaniac: Volume 1
Opening on snowmelt tinkling off dustbin lids, roofs and assorted paraphernalia in a grungy alley, the viewer is being eased into the mind of a filmmaker who pulls few punches. Heavy metal music, Rammstein to be precise, kicks in, ramping up unease as we find the movie’s subject, Joe, lying prone on the ground, badly beaten. Her discovery is through Seligman, who takes her back to his small apartment to administer relief and a cup of tea. You see this is meant to be England, though it never feels it. The population of an undisclosed corner of the country seem made up of mostly Scandinavians and Americans. Like the entire oeuvre of Lars von Trier, we are in an alternate reality. Maybe he understands that for us to digest the work, we must be at a slight remove? Or, the plot-holes can be forgiven due to the skewed reality? Lars continually lets us steep in the uncanny valley. [To read more, click here.] |
Nymphomaniac: Volume 2
“I love your wildness, your desire,” Jerôme (Shia LaBeouf) to Young Joe (Stacy Martin) Raise your hand if you can sit through a four-hour-plus Lars von Trier project not quite firing on all cylinders. Yes, of course we can. Our opinion of his perceived persona is irrelevant, his work is on another plane – exhilarating and entertaining. VOLUME II is somewhat of disappointment though. [To read more, click here.] |