It is nearly upon us; to whet your appetite:
'71
| “You’re just a piece of meat to them,” Eamon McCarthy (Richard Dormer) Imagine a British APOCALYPTO, set in Northern Ireland, during the 1970s. ’71 is a small-scale, yet more tense BLACK HAWK DOWN. Positioning an action-thriller during the Troubles might have been tasteless in the wrong hands, but writer Gregory Burke, director Yann Demange and cast/crew concoct a story that traverses a political knife-edge without taking sides; and actually offers a fascinatingly bleak take on that civil unrest. [To read more, click here.] |
What We Do In the Shadows
| Asked why vampires like drinking virgins' blood, Vladislav (Jemaine Clement) deadpan replies, "Would you eat a sandwich someone had f*cked?" The New Zealand Documentary Board crew were granted protection while filming a vampire coven situated in a Wellington suburb. And by coven: A house share of four dorky ancient bloodsuckers. Our initial guide is Viago (Taika Waititi – also co-writer/director with Clement), a 379-year old, ladling on a thick pseudo-German accent. The documentary team, who the audience don’t see (this isn’t a Michael Moore/Nick Broomfield style film), is there to cover “The Unholy Masquerade” ball, where a secret society of the undead meets only every few years. In the lead up to the event, we get to know (and grow to love) these vamp subjects. What a hilarious mockumentary, from three quarters of the FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS team! (Bret McKenzie must have been busy with MUPPETS MOST WANTED.) [To read more, click here.] |
The Voices
| “I was afraid to say yes, and said yes,” Jerry Hickfang (Ryan Reynolds) Russians used to be cast as the baddies, then the British. Lazy cinema loves a shorthand. Mental illness, especially schizophrenia, is still a go-too modus operandi for unimaginative, insensitive filmmakers. One can forgive the use in pioneering fare like PSYCHO or FIGHT CLUB, but the likes of De Palma’s DRESSED TO KILL and RAISING CAIN and many others have the whiff of dubiousness. In KUMIKO, THE TREASURE HUNTER, apparent clinical depression is an excuse for a quirky mini-adventure. Beyond race, gender and sexual orientation, disability is the next frontier for enlightenment. As much as THE VOICES has charisma to spare, the portrayal of someone charmingly disturbed, as the motivator for comedy homicide, is misguided at worst, a bit tired at best. [To read more, click here.] |
Alleluia
| “Are you a sorcerer?” Marguerite (Édith Le Merdy) to Michel (Laurent Lucas) Forget the seductive glamour of BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967) as far as killing sprees go, movies don’t come as skin-crawlingly sexual as ALLELUIA. For all the copulation, erotic is not a word that would be used to illustrate. While the characters are being exploited, thankfully the actors are not – the otherwise usual default mode it feels for the horror genre. [To read more, click here.] |
Maps to the Stars
| “Our lives are rich and full, made from the ashes you left behind,” Dr Stafford Weis (John Cusack) to daughter Agatha (Mia Wasikowska) Fashioning a psychotic, hilarious Hollywood soap opera on celebrity, amorality and self-obsessed ambition is an odd choice for a director who normally trawls the bleakest aspects of humanity. But like Martin Scorsese, being a septuagenarian has not dulled the verve or talent of David Cronenberg. Flexing his creative muscles have made for a trio of uneven immediate predecessors (COSMOPOLIS, A DANGEROUS METHOD, EASTERN PROMISES); though he is back on form, creating his usual unsettling hermetically sealed worlds, and this time bringing the laugh out loud. [To read more, click here.] |
The Guest
| “He is programmed to clean-up all loose ends,” Carver (Lance Reddick) Disney’s POLYANNA (1960) had Hayley Wells titular outsider enter a town and bring positivity to its inhabitants. DOWNTON ABBEY’s Dan Stevens throws off cloistered post-Edwardian Britain for a new guise, an American veteran fresh from soldiering in the Middle East theatre. Turning up to a grieving household, at first it looks like Stevens’ David is going to shake the family up for the better. This ain’t no Disney flick; it’s from the writer-director team of horror-thrillers A HORRIBLE WAY TO DIE and YOU’RE NEXT (those titles say it all, right?). [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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