Out to own today:
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.] |
In Order of Disappearance
| “I guess I’ve become a kind of pathfinder myself,” Nils Dickmann (Stellan Skarsgård) Jet-black humoured revenge gems don’t come along often enough. Ranging from the blurt-out-laughing, to incidents of wince-inducing violence, IN ORDER OF DISAPPEARANCE walks a beguiling tightrope. Achingly, slickly shot across a wintry, snowy Norwegian landscape, the film might be classified as a fairy tale; the moral: Do not murder someone’s offspring for something he didn’t do. Devoid of any quarter given over to mawkishness, there are of course consequences. [To read more, click here.] |
Words and Pictures
| “Be who you were,” Elspeth (Amy Brenneman) to Jack Marcus (Clive Owen) The Wilhelm scream is less piercing than the cry emanating from WORDS AND PICTURES for awards glory. A drunk English teacher and a disabled French painter coming together at a wealthy prep school is as cringeworthy as you’d imagine. Making the endeavour just about watchable is the casting of Owen and Juliette Binoche. Both play annoying, fragile egotists. Normally a winsome duo, the script’s tantalising Oscar whisper must have been too great an allure. Director Fred Schepisi (ROXANNE) is better than this. [To read more, click here.] |
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