Supersonic - Documentary Review

A documentary tracing the career of Oasis. Everything from their council estate beginnings to their record breaking shows at Knebworth in 1996, taking in all the breakthroughs and bust-ups along the way. This is the journey of five lads from Manchester who started a revolution

On 31 May 1993, five lads from Manchester hired a van to drive up to Glasgow, where they played a show to “seven people”. A little over three years later, they headlined one of the biggest gigs in history when a quarter of a million people went to see them at Knebworth over two nights. Supersonic documents the rise of the great Oasis.

The film opens up with Oasis at those record-breaking gigs — the camera follows them out onto the stage as Columbia plays in the background. This is them in their pomp — kicking oversized footballs into the crowd, and taking in the noise and sheer vastness of the crowd in front of them. Then there’s a seamless segue to video footage of them recording a live demo of the same song in the basement of Manchester music venue The Boardwalk just a few years earlier. Their quick climb from unknown five-piece to tabloid-dominating brand, and the pressures it put them under, is one of the documentary’s major themes. And no-one interviewed — from Noel and Liam Gallagher, through the rest of the band, to the various people who shared their journey — shy away from this, discussing incidents such as Noel quitting the band amid a disastrous, crystal meth-fueled gig in LA and original drummer Tony McCarroll’s sacking with admirable honesty. Even McCarroll, who admits, “I think about it every day, believe it or not,” two decades on.

But the first 30 minutes are spent tracing first how the band came into being and then the time they spent before they were signed. Given this was the early ’90s, it’s remarkable how much footage of their pre-stardom years exists. Yes, there are gaps — and such stories are told via old photos, animation and voice overs — but what little we do have allows director Mat Whitecross to tell the story at the pace he wants, rather than rushing through it to finally get his stars on the screen. And they’re interesting snippets, too, from the band playing unreleased tracks (such as Take Me and See The Sun) to a live demo of Be Here Now single All Around The World recorded before they were even signed. And then, after Definitely Maybe became the fastest-selling debut of all time, the band were everywhere.

And so we see them being interviewed on TV, touring Japan and America (Liam: “First time on a jumbo plane”), at the recording sessions for (What’s The Story?) Morning Glory (although, sadly, no footage exists of Noel attacking Liam with a cricket bat), and then hitting the road again. It’s only here — as we move from Earls Court to Maine Road to Dublin — that the film begins to drag, but it’s ultimately justified as their estranged father resurfaces when they’re in Ireland. When that’s dealt with, it’s on to their grand finale at their record-breaking gigs.

Accompanying us on this journey is the era-defining music that reminds you just how vital the group were in their early years. But perhaps Oasis’ greatest strength was its two figureheads, Noel and Liam. Plenty of bands have good songs — but their charisma, bravado and (let’s be honest) flare-ups took Oasis to another level. They’re put to good use here — it’s their story, and they’re the main two voices telling it — speaking with typical wit and dubious wisdom about a time that feels simultaneously recent and impossibly long ago. And as the nostalgic memories from summer 1996 shimmer on the screen and we’re played out by The Masterplan, it’s as powerfully emotional an ending as any film will have this year.

The story of Britpop’s iconic band at its peak is told with wit, honesty and swagger. Which, given its two leads, is entirely fitting.Supersonic boasts as powerfully emotional an ending as any film will have this year.

Independence: Day Resurgence - Movie Review

You remember the first alien invasion, back in ‘96? The White House got the explodo. Will Smith was chairman of Earth’s welcoming committee. We killed the alien mothership with an apple computer. It was a simpler time where we didn't need one of the Hemsworth brothers to save the world time and time again.

Cue 2016 (and Independence Day: Resurgence). Set 20 years after the first Independence Day, humanity has come together, co-opted the alien tech salvaged from the first invading force, and done everything possible to prepare in case the aliens ever came back. It’s easy to see those two decades between the movies actually happening.

It might not be something you’d expect from the sequel to Independence Day, but there’s a sophistication to the world building, and it’s a tragedy how little time the movie has to explore it. The post-war golden age feels fresh and clever, but we only get the barest taste before things start exploding. And the explosions come early and often.

Director Roland Emmerich--who was hemmed in by ‘90s special effects when he made the first Independence Day--is back at his annihilative best. It feels like the director behind the wanton destruction in Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow, and 2012 finally has the means to kick things up to an interplanetary scale. If you go see Resurgence on a big screen, this is what you’re paying for.

There’s hardly a reprieve for the remainder of the two-hour running time. It all looks great, but it’s hard not to get a little fatigued before the big finish. There’s also little room for escalation after the initial, impressive reveals, so the ending felt much flatter than it should have.

The majority of the 1996 cast returns for Resurgence, but 20 years and a Law & Order spinoff later, Bill Pullman and Jeff Goldblum aren’t exactly the blockbuster box office draws they once were.

That said, Jeff Goldblum gets to step out from Will Smith’s shadow in this one, even if his whole role seems to be tricking you into enjoying confusing exposition. He steps back into character somehow entirely po-faced and in on the joke.

The problem is that after a throwaway explanation for Will Smith’s notable absence, Resurgencelargely hands over the reins to new cast members fronted by Jessie T. Usher (playing the son of Smith’s character) and Liam Hemsworth (not Thor, the other one).

Usher and Hemsworth’s characters spend the early parts of the movie competing over who has the bigger chip on his shoulder and the later parts shooting their way from one plot point to the next. And then still more characters get thrown at the screen. Between cameos and a horde of new faces,Resurgence spends so long jumping between its unwieldy cast you never really get the chance to connect with anyone.

Everyone gets a character moment or two, but the front-and-center newcomers don’t seem comfortable enough to indulge in the cheesy blockbusterness of it all, and the movie suffers for it. Goldblum, Brett Spiner, and Judd Hirsch manage to make hay with their screen time and inject enough enthusiasm to keep everything from flatlining, but their all-too-rare comedic beats are at odds with the overly dour younger cast.

Emmerich is known for making a certain kind of movie. Resurgence is exactly what you expect from him, down to the predictable story beats, laughably earnest dialogue, fundamental misunderstanding of science and plot holes deep enough to reach the Earth’s gooey delicious center.

The first Independence Day was all those things too. Except back in 1996, it was at the forefront of the modern wave of sci-fi revival. It made it easy to not only ignore, but revel in the B-movie blockbuster spectacle of it all.

Go watch aliens get blown up, go laugh at the parts that are intentionally funny, go laugh at the parts that are unintentionally funny.

Like Jurassic World before it, Resurgence is a throwback that feels like a slightly off-key greatest hits. Credit where it’s due, it works overtime to outstrip the effects-driven extravaganza of the first, but it feels like it loses the point along the way.

It’s paying dutiful homage without embracing what made the original fun, and the result is that 20 years from now Resurgence won’t have its own Will Smith forming Earth’s one-man welcoming party, or the day being saved with rousing patriotism, or that one precision beam destroying the White House.

The Missing Hand - Movie Review - Indie Film

The Missing Hand is the rare movie that succeeds on almost every level, where each character, scene, music, and joke firing on all cylinders to make a film worth watching over and over again. An excellent script written by Daniel Harding really drags the viewer into every scene and makes you question what you would do yourself if you was in the position of the characters.

In terms of the visual elements of the film, there really isn't much that needs to be said but perfection. A few of the shots have a very distinctive symmetrical style. The use of framing and focus really improves the overall viewing experience of the film and gives it a very professional aesthetic.

The first thing that really gripped me was the original score that was composed and orchastrated by Jack Blume, it really captures the mood and essense of the film. The music is full of suspense and mystery. It's a sound that even Ennio Moricone would be proud of.

Excellent performances from all the cast that really suits the dark comedy narrative. For me the most stand out performance was from Meryl Griffiths who really seemed comfortable in the role she was playing which lead for a very natural and overall great performance.

The directing from Daniel Harding is excellent, it really makes for a smooth flowing film from start to finish because your eye is always looking at something.

Overall I am incredibly impressed with The Missing Hand and it definitely exceeded my expectations by a couple of miles. I'm looking forward to seeing what the future holds for 231/2 Productions.

Taxi Driver - Movie Review - Classic Film of the Week

A compelling and unsettling film exploring many of the fears, aches, and dislocations of contemporary urban life.

Travis Bickle (Robert de Niro) is a lonely, frustrated, and disoriented young Vietnam veteran from the Midwest who is working as a night cabbie in Manhattan. He despises "Sin City" with all its pimps and prostitutes, pushers and perverts. As a taxi driver, he stays somewhat sealed off from this ugly external world. He exists in the private space of his room and his cab — two isolated realms serving as a womb. Travis is the anonymous man. The other people to whom he should normally relate in his development as a person have become constant irritants and challenges to his self-will. By the middle of the film, his womb has been transformed into a fantasy chamber giving him the only opportunity he has to assert himself as the center of the universe.

Director Martin Scorsese who did such a masterful job using New York City as a backdrop for Mean Streets again succeeds in capturing the frantic and frightening side of the metropolis. Whether the scene is set in the slummy East Village, as the Bellmore Cafeteria (a hangout for hack drivers) or at Columbus Circle, the picture is a continuing presentation of an oppressive urban soulscape — the ever unfriendly environment.

Travis prowls the city in his cab. The wretched tenements, the glare of traffic lights at night, the eerie vapors emanating from the streets — all combine to create a feeling for Manhattan as an evil octopus. We begin to feel claustrophobic — closed in and pressed upon. The atmosphere of the film is feverish with constant intimations of impending violence.

Travis is hungry for love and recognition. He aggressively inserts himself into the life of Susan (Cybill Shepherd), an attractive, bright, and socially conscious woman who is working at the campaign headquarters of Presidential candidate Charles Palatine (Leonard Harris). Their encounters at her office, over coffee in a restaurant, and on one date are both bizarre and extremely revealing. The relationship is doomed from the start. Seeing her as "an angel in this filthy mess," Travis puts Susan on a pedestal. When he discovers that she is something less than an angel, his despair deepens.

If he can no longer be an adoring prince, Travis wants to be a savior. He showers his affections upon Iris (Jodie Foster), a twelve-year-old hooker who is the property of Sport (Harvey Keitel), a self-obsessed pimp. The taxi driver offers Iris some money in hopes that she will leave the city and the degradation of her life as a prostitute. She laughingly tells him: "I don't know who's weirder — you or me." But we know.

One of the movie's more poignant scenes takes place one night at the Bellmore Cafeteria. Travis tries to convey to Wizard (Peter Boyle), a veteran cabbie, what he feels about the meaninglessness of his life. He struggles to into words his depression, anger, and bewilderment. Although Wizard is somewhat tuned into that same feeling, he can offer nothing except the suggestion of cheap thrills. This vignette works on a gut level; it puts before us in a very realistic way the many situations in our lives when we have played either the role of victim or adviser. And when the scene is over, we feel the sense of loss in both the failure to communicate and the botched opportunity to help a despondent friend.

Robert De Niro's performance as the nervous and psychopathic Travis is a tightrope act of sustained intensity. It is to the actor's credit that he can involve us so deeply with this person's disequilibrium and rage. De Niro doesn't allow us to distance or disassociate ourselves from this character. He places us in the cab and by the sheer insistence of his performance takes us along for the whole ride This is acting worthy of an Academy Award.

Although Taxi Driver contains an assassination attempt on a Presidential candidate, the movie is not about that subject. By taking us inside a killer's mind, it reveals a very important truth: most murders are little murders. What shocks is the ease with which basic human aches can add up to murder — the working out of private grudges thought political symbols (Travis tries to get back at Susan through Palatine) and the sudden anger which finds release against whoever is at hand (the stomach-turning carnage of the film's finale). Taxi Driver is not for those who are unable to handle cinematic violence.

Batman V Superman - Movie Review

A dark force has been unleashed in a new cinematic universe—an enemy of levity, a besieger of vulnerable psyches, a merciless wielder of advance technologies against which ordinary humans sit defenseless. And Zack Snyder is only the director of “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.” The other two guys are really downers.

This underdeveloped, overlong and stupendously dispiriting duel of unlikely antagonists is the first in a projected series of interconnected films based on DC Comics characters. Ben Affleck plays Bruce Wayne/Batman—he’s impressive, within the script’s limits, even though Christian Bale’s Caped Crusader in the Christopher Nolan trilogy was a formidable act to follow. The Clark Kent/Superman role is reprised by Henry Cavill, who is just as inexpressive as he was almost three years ago in the superviolent, ultraturgid “Man of Steel,” which was also directed by Mr. Snyder. The ending of that film and the beginning of the new one overlap. Gotham is again under attack from the cosmically evil General Zod, and Superman, in fighting him, causes vast collateral damage—to the city, and to Bruce Wayne’s enterprises and employees.

That provides the pretext for the conflict between two mythical figures. For Bruce, “Batman v Superman” becomes a tale of revenge. For Mr. Snyder and his writers, Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer, it’s a would-be dissertation on the nature of heroism—“The Incredibles” without the fun—and on two deeply flawed superheroes. Would-be as opposed to what is, because spasms of highfalutin philosophy, and howlingly pretentious dream sequences, serve only as the thinnest of veneers for incessant action in one of the most assaultive movies ever made. (I saw it on a big IMAX screen—there are not-so-big IMAX screens these days—that upped the assaults into virtual felonies.)

In the philosophical scheme of things, Superman is seen as a good guy in a time of terror—a suicide bombing links the movie’s sci-fi fantasy to current reality—but also a loose cannon, a unilateral interventionist and, when public opinion turns against him, an illegal immigrant. (Who knew that extraplanetary visitors needed green cards?) Batman, by contrast, turns into a brutal vigilante who brands his victims with a bat sign. (He’s an aging vigilante, as we’re meant to see when he takes on younger adversaries in a labored ballet of martial arts set in Africa.)

Yet the contrasts are blurred by the movie’s penchant for equal-opportunity pessimism—“We’re all criminals,” says Batman; “No one stays good in this world,” says Superman. (These are indeed dark times, but so was the Great Depression, and Hollywood in the 1930s gave us Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire along with violent mobsters.) And the conflict between them, far from seeming inevitable, feels exactly like what it is, an arbitrary notion for a big-budget extravaganza that contains trailers—disguised as disjointed action sequences—for sequels to come. Among the characters who surface is Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, played unwonderfully by the Israeli actress Gal Gadot.

The action gets blurry too, not from a deficit of energy—Mr. Snyder, a merchant of bleakness, is also a maestro of high-tech kinetics—but from a lack of variety. After a while everything looks the same, thanks in large part to the ugly blue-and-teal palette the filmmaker favors (the cinematographer was Larry Fong), and everything sounds the same, thanks entirely to a pitiless score, by Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL, that suggests platoons of percussionists high on magic mushrooms. The climactic battle between you-know-who is a slugfest, as inelegant as it is extended. Amy Adams is back as Lois Lane, though she doesn’t have much to do. Jesse Eisenberg has lots to do as the villainous Lex Luthor. This time Lex is conceived as a demented version of the Internet icon Mark Zuckerberg, whom Mr. Eisenberg played in “The Social Network,” but the dementia is more embarrassing than funny. (Oh, for the days of Gene Hackman’s exuberant evil.)

Honor bound as I am to avoid spoilers, I can tell you without fear of divulging too much that there’s a product placement toward the end for Turkish Airlines—an odd if not unseemly aberration in a production that supposedly cost a quarter billion dollars—and that a crucial, and preposterous, plot point turns on mother love.

High Rise - Movie Review

If you enjoy shots of dogs leaping to safety from flaming near-doom in disaster movies, steel your eyes. It’s no spoiler to say the mutt sizzles in this adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s 1975 novel from Kill List/Sightseers director Ben Wheatley. As a paw is spit-roasted, the point is well made: faced with extreme material for his first adaptation, biggest budget and biggest cast (not his only hapless hound, mind – RIP, Sightseers’ Poppy), Wheatley doesn’t flinch.

Wheatley and screenwriter/wife Amy Jump’s Ballard riff is unrulier than Crash, David Cronenberg’s take on Ballard’s other supposedly ‘unfilmable’ novel, also produced by Jeremy Thomas. But Wheatley and Jump pull off a similarly seamless author/filmmaker hybrid, honouring the novel while making it their own highly cinematic beast.

The result drew mixed festival reviews, but roll with its anarchic satirical punch and you’ve got rare meat: a Brit-film of singular vision, blackened wit and dog-toasting audacity, cooked with such brio that its flaws seem like acceptable casualties. As the dog cooks, we meet Tom Hiddleston’s Dr Robert Laing, a seemingly vacant neurologist reclining on a Brutalist tower-block balcony in mid-’70s London.

As placid as he seems, one of many clear mergers of the Ballard/Wheatley/Jump mindsets is established as the voiceover comments, “Now that so many residents were out of the way…” Hell is often other people in Wheatley/Jump’s films, from the singing Christians in Kill List to the fellow holidaymakers up for the chop in Sightseers. Here, the resentment is largely class-based, a point emphasised as we rewind three months and Dr Laing moves into the isolated tower’s 25th floor.

With his charm, looks, slippery personality and copious medicinal know-how as pass-keys, Laing floats between classes and floors. Just above him is Sienna Miller’s free spirit Charlotte Melville; down below, there’s arch-revolutionary documentary-maker Wilder (Luke Evans) and his class-strapped clan, pregnant wife Helen (Elisabeth Moss) and watchful son Toby (Louis Suc). Way up on top is the architect Anthony Royal (Jeremy Irons), who designed the tower as a “crucible for change”, a kind of “experiment”.

If Irons’ roles in Dead Ringers and M. Butterfly provide a roundabout link to Cronenberg, so does a med-school scene where the skin of a cadaver’s head is peeled away in a kind of metaphor for society’s thin surface.

The results of Royal’s experiment also recall the dabblings with sex parasites in Cronenberg’s tower-block ‘splatire’ Shivers, where orgiastic chaos bloomed. As power cuts and class-sparked clashes over swimming pools stoke rage in High-Rise, society’s lid blows and apocalyptic rioting erupts, with Che Guevara-loving Wilder its enthused advocate and Dr Laing our amoral eyes.

In Ballard’s spirit, Wheatley and Jump play out this scenario as a retro-futurist sci-fi allegory. Ballard was writing about the near-future in the mid-’70s: Wheatley and Jump smartly stick with a period they know well. The overflowing bin bags, broken bottles, nasty sideburns and swingers’ indulgences reek of late-’70s Britain, even before a familiar prime minister’s voice intones over the climax.

If that final nod is faintly on the nose, one or two performances also stumble. Whether it’s the effect of asking a large ensemble to evoke the chaos of a kids’ party ‘gone a bit Game of Thrones’ or not, a couple of comic turns overstate their grotesque case.


Yet the core cast are electric. Hiddleston is terrifically nonchalant (and quite a mover) in a role that links a Wheatley/Ballard theme: the psychosis behind British reserve. Miller makes bright work of Charlotte, Moss’ neglected wife is touching, the Oliver Reed-ish Evans is seedier than a ’70s ’tache and Irons oozes curdled aristocracy. And he gives good press-ups.

Wheatley and Jump’s flair for comic incongruity and deadpan dialogue is equally well pumped. Recalling the camping/killing collisions in Sightseers, weaponised tinned goods are deployed in an all-out supermarket civil war. A child scoffs cereal as he watches a man brutalise another over paint tins; as hell erupts, someone casually remarks, “There’s some very unhappy bunnies bouncing around.” That skewed sensibility extends to some fabulous surreal flourishes: horses and goats roam a top-floor garden paradise.

Even as the plot turns choppy, eye-watering marvels of artful detail keep its grip sharp. Mark Tildesley’s lavish production design ranges from mouldering fruit bowls to posh parties decadent enough to cause a French revolution. Indelible money shots include a kaleidoscope of death and a suicide plunge, while the music is practically an extra character. Clint Mansell’s deliciously jaunty, drunk-baroque score ingeniously offsets the darkness; equally startling is a lush ABBA cover by Bristol torch-noir titans Portishead.

As Portishead’s Beth Gibbons coos her ‘SOS’, the cry for help comes too late for the dog. But anyone who likes their cinema off-piste should ignore the sniffier reviews and give Wheatley’s call the chance it deserves: a good shot at some cult love.

The Witch - Movie Review

It’s safe to say that writer/director Robert Eggers‘ feature debut, The Witch, giveth no shites about your genre expectations. The film is a powerful slow burn dripping in period detail, dialogue authenticity and atmospheric dread, and while it moves at its own pace the end result is like a Halloween-themed episode of Little House on the Prairie by way of Ben Wheatley’s Kill List.

The oldest daughter, Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), is tasked with multiple chores and responsibilities, but when her baby brother is stolen during a game of peekaboo she finds herself under increasing suspicion by her God-fearing family. Accusations of witchery are lobbed her way by her fraternal twin siblings — who, let’s be honest, add to their pre-existing creepiness inherent in all twins by having conversations with their ominously named goat, Black Philip — and the familial tension continues to ratchet upwards as things go bump in the night and the isolated farm fails to deliver a bounty.

Eggers’ film, subtitled “A New England Folktale,” hits fast and early with the kidnapping/mulching of the youngest family member, but it settles down some as they decide to believe a lone wolf made off with the baby. Life goes on and all of that, but their loneliness and crop troubles quickly bring everyone — characters and viewers — back to the edge. The film’s design, from production to sound, is partly responsible for that as a score made of strings and choral voices works alongside crisply terrifying sound effects to immerse us in this dark new world. That same level of meticulous design and construction is evident in the house, costumes and conversations.

The dialogue adds immensely to that immersion, and Eggers has credited written period accounts with achieving that authenticity. “Did ye make some unholy bond with that goat?” asks William at one point, and it’s both amusingly on point horror-wise and frightening in its implications.

The film does take a minor misstep around its midpoint as the finger pointing grows out of control. Accusations of devilish intervention roll across the screen like a game of whack-a-witch as William reacts violently towards one child, then the next, and then back again without pause. It speaks to the conflict between knowledge and religious belief, where unexplained events could easily be blamed on or credited to supernatural design, and while the back and forth frustrates for a short while it ultimately adds to the uneasy atmosphere. Equally noticeable (and ultimately forgivable) is the film’s desire to build its mystery by intentional misdirection and flat-out avoidance of the truth.We’re made to wonder as to certain characters’ allegiance even though another present in the room should be able to reveal what’s happened.

The cast does strong work, from Ineson and Dickie on down to the twins, but it’s Taylor-Joy and Harvey Scrimshaw (as the family’s oldest boy child) who connect emotionally through powerful, fear-filled performances. Scrimshaw delivers with one scene in particular that sees his character speaking in tongues and terrified of what lies beyond the curtain of our world. Taylor-Joy has the tougher role of balancing her innocence in the face of increasing suspicion.

Make no mistake, The Witch is a horror film, but it’s as interested in the terrors we bring upon ourselves as it is the ones well out of our natural control. The dangers of blind faith, the trouble with interpretation, and the inability to accept the unknown as simply a temporary gap in our knowledge all combine to form a world where man continues to be his own worst enemy. Well, the witch in the woods still isn’t helping matters any either.

Goodnight Mommy - Movie Review

Like many of you I’ve been following the hype and reviews for the Austrian film Goodnight Mommy for months. When twins Lukas and Elias’ mother arrives home from an apparent cosmetic surgery operations they begin to have suspicions that this woman may not be their beloved mother. She’s cold, distant, and prone to violent rages which she takes out on the boys. Isolated by rolling fields of corn and farm houses, the boys are left to their own devices and set out to find the truth. But is it the truth they want?

The film opens with the boys, Lukas, and Elias, playing hide and seek in a giant cornfield and exploring the woods around the house. I immediately got a strong sense of texture from the first scene. Everything in this film has a distinct texture whether it’s the corn field swaying or the blinds in the home that are continuously being opened and shut. I wanted to reach out and touch everything. Once back home the boys run in to find their mother grotesquely bandaged from her surgery making their first encounter unsettling. The language barrier helps with the dread and overall ferocity that spews from Mother (who’s name is unknown) as she explains the new rules in the house. Complete silence, blinds closed at all times, no bringing things in from outside, etc.

Goodnight Mommy suffers from a misleading trailer. Everything that happens in the trailer happens in the first 20-25 minutes.The film is full of haunting imagery, namely the gigantic collection of hissing cockroaches the boys keep and follows a somewhat slow-burn structure which mainly consists of following Lukas and Elias around their giant house and endless trails. The build up does a fine job of inducing a sense of dread in the atmosphere. In a particular scene, Mother grabs Elias by the hair and forces him upstairs away from Lukas and forces him to say multiple times he will not talk to his brother anymore while Lukas bashes his fists into it.

As I mentioned before, Goodnight is highly texturized but that’s not the only interesting aesthetic too. Overall the theme of the film is isolation and this is extremely evident within the home. Despite the giant floor to ceiling glass doors/windows in every room, the house seems very clinical but what I found the most intriguing was the wall art. There are various pieces of artwork hanging up featuring blurred or distorted female figures. This plays heavily into the is she/isn’t she their real mother. I found that little nuance to be a nice touch.

The film is also wrought with disturbing imagery such as the fish tank of cockroaches, a dead cat, and images of torture. Let’s talk about that list bit for a moment. Once the boys decide to find out the truth it’s on like Donkey Kong between them and mommy dearest. I don’t want to give away too much because what occurs between the boys and Mother happens to be where the movie slides into predictability. However, I was genuinely disturbed by some sequences between them. It’s worth mentioning that the twins in this film are quite good child actors. They never grate on your nerves and because they are really brothers it almost feels like they aren’t acting at all when paired together and on their own.

But unfortunately, all the dread and suspense is undermined by the highly predictable ending. I was really annoyed with it honestly because I had enjoyed the film so much up to that point. This was a co-written and co-directed debut feature from Severin Fiala & Veronika Franz who’s only other works consist of a few shorts and a documentary. So perhaps I’m being too critical but the twist ending just really blew it for me. Mad props for filming on 35 mm but…ugh. I will say that this team has enormous potential so I do look forward to what they do next.

Alien: Covenant and The Predator Get New Release Dates

Not to be distracted by the small matter of the Oscars this weekend, studio Fox have been doing a spot of release-date reshuffling. And while the news is muted for X-Men spin-off Gambit, it's more positive for the return of two monster franchises. Alien: Covenant will now be with us sooner than we thought, while The Predator now has a firm date for his unleashing.

Unlike its predecssor Prometheus, which came out in December of 2012, Fox have now staked Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant as a full-on summer tentpole, picthing it on August 4, 2017. That shows a good deal of confidence on Fox's part that a "proper" new Alien after the curveball of Prometheus is a big thing indeed. It also gets it safely out of the way of Star Wars: Episode VIII, with its only direct competition on its new date currently Pitch Perfect 3 and Blazing Samurai.

Shane Black's The Predator, meanwhile, opens on March 2, 2018, likely more-or-less kicking off that year's "summer" blockbuster season. It currently shares its slot with an as-yet unnamed Warner Bros. big-hitter: probably a DC superhero movie; possibly the Ezra Miller- starring The Flash (Aquaman is slated for July the same year).

Fox has also shifted Tim Burton's Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiars out of its packed December slot into a quieter berth on September 30 this year. Avoiding Rogue One and Assassin's Creed, it'll now face Peter Berg's oil rig disaster movie Deepwater Horizon.

Alien: Covenant stars Katherine Waterston, Michael Fassbender, Demián Bichir, Jussie Smollett, Carmen Ejogo and Danny McBride. It's set ten years after Prometheus, has proper Aliens in it, and has been confirmed by Ridley Scott as aiming for an R-rating: itself significant for an August blockbuster.

Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiars is adapted by Jane Goldman from Ransom Riggs’ novel, and finds Hugo’s Asa Butterfield discovering the ruined gothic institution once run by Eva Green. Samuel L. Jackson, Judi Dench and Allison Janney are some of the inmates who never left...

And we don't know much about The Predator yet, but we're very excited.

Anomalisa - Movie Review

There's everything else happening in America cinema, and then there's whatever Charlie Kaufman is up to.

Ever since 1999's "Being John Malkovich," he has been on a short list of American screenwriters whose work is so original that he must be thought of as an auteur, even though film is supposedly a director's medium. Formidable filmmakers have adapted his scripts, including Spike Jonze("Malkovich" and "Adaptation") and Michel Gondry ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "Human Nature"), but however assured the results, they were still unmistakably Charlie Kaufman movies, speaking their own alternately down-to-earth and elevated language.

Kaufman's mix of mordant humor, broad slapstick, self-aware storytelling devices, and images and language drawn from psychoanalysis, poetry and dreams coalesced even more strongly in his directorial debut, "Synecdoche, New York," about a playwright spending years (or a lifetime?) rehearsing and rewriting a massive production that was about his life but seemed indistinguishable from it. The undercurrents of wonder and despair ran deeper there than in any other Kaufman story, even "Eternal Sunshine."

They course throughout "Anomalisa" as well. The film could be described as a midlife crisis drama with puppets, about a depressed corporate efficiency expert (voiced by David Thewlis) who hears every voice, male or female, as the same voice (Tom Noonan's), and who becomes infatuated with a shy young woman (Jennifer Jason Leigh) who is attending his seminar in Cincinnati, Ohio. "Anomalisa" is based on an "audio play" by Kaufman. It was originally presented as part of a series of such plays, in collaboration with Joel and Ethan Coen and composer Carter Burwell, who has scored movies by both directors, including this one. The actors performed their lines while Burwell conducted a live score and sound effects artists provided background noises. Kaufman co-directed this film version with stop-motion animator Duke Johnson, whose work includes the "Community" episode "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas." It puts a "visual track" to Kaufman's audio play. The puppets are physically recognizable as "puppets," down to the segmented lines of their "face plates." But they move so realistically and speak so naturalistically (even when they're skipping across the tops of desks, as in the image at the top of this page) that there are times when you may forget that they're not people.

The puppet characters in most other films are more sprightly. They exist mainly to amuse. The characters in "Anomalisa" unsettle. Their plight makes you think about 21st century loneliness, despair and alienation— subjects that would be unpalatable if Kaufman didn't write his characters so compassionately and with such dry humor. Kaufman and Johnson shoot the characters in a carefully considered way, not cutting much, just sort of letting them sit there, and be. There are a few stealthy "long takes" in this film that would be much praised if they appeared in a live-action feature—sequences where the filmmakers simply follow characters as they traverse levels of the hotel, or have sex in a slab-like bed.

It might sound strange to say, but this puppet movie gives you a more accurate sense of what it's like to spend a few days in a nice hotel in a city of bad memories than most live-action films ever do—not that that's necessarily the kind of description that will make people want to rush out and see "Anomalisa." Like so many Kaufman characters, the ones in this movie are struggling, stumbling even, towards what might be a mirage of happiness, while battling both their own social conditioning and pathologies and the bland indifference of the world around them—a world that includes billions of other people who all think they are the stars of their own life-movies, and at times seem deeply frustrated by the fact that they haven't experienced one of those transformative moments that tell moviegoers, "Everything is going to be fine for this character now, don't worry."

Thewlis' Michael Stone is clearly unhappy with his work, his marriage, even his child. He seems disconnected from himself and the world. Not much happens to him in the plot sense. His plane touches down in Cincinnati. He settles into the hotel and orders room service while pacing and smoking a cigarette. He impulsively invites an old flame out for a drink hoping to get lucky, oblivious to the fact that he hurt her so terribly that it's painful for her to be in the same room with him.

Then he becomes smitten with a guest at the conference, a young woman who wears her hair to one side to hide a scar on her face. Her name is Lisa (Leigh), and she's the only character in the film who has her own voice (everyone else is voiced by Tom Noonan, remember). It's love at first sight—or Michael thinks it is. He seems to view Lisa as a redemptive figure, somebody who will pull him out of his existential malaise. But by that point we've spent enough time with Michael to know that he's not the best judge of what he needs. In fact his judgment is consistently terrible, and in typically Kaufman-esque fashion, we move from feeling for Michael and rooting for him to be happy to wondering if he's got some sort of debilitating emotional or mental condition (beyond the titular disorder). Then we progress into thinking about ourselves as much as Michael, contemplating our own fears, weaknesses, blind spots, and repetitive behaviors in relation to a world that barely seems to notice us.

For all its visual audacity and honest feeling, "Anomalisa" is a modest, even slight work, aesthetically sealed off from the same reality it engages. It ends a bit abruptly, just when it seemed to be ramping up towards a more definitive statement of some kind, and the general outlines of Michael's story aren't new. (Middle-Aged, Upper Middle-Class Male Grappling with Despair is pretty much a genre by this point.) But there's so much beauty and sadness in it, and so many exquisitely conceived scenes (including an impromptu musical performance that ranks with Kaufman's greatest moments), that it would be miserly to underrate it. Whether you leave the film ecstatically impressed, indifferent or disappointed, you will know you've seen something unique. Too many movies speak in a boringly typical storytelling voice. This one speaks in a voice as singular as Lisa's.

Triple 9 - Movie Review

John Hillcoat’s Triple 9 sees Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave) playing a bad-ass alongside a team of thieves and corrupt cops who find themselves in the deep end of organized crime.

‘999’ is led by a notable cast, which include Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad), Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead), Clifton Collins Junior (Star Trek), and Anthony Mackie (Captain America). After the enraging death of one of the crew, Chiwetel’s character is forced to take on a near impossible task of stealing some files for the Russian mob, headed by Kate Winslet, whose self-consciously languid cigarette-smoking bring a slight element humor to the otherwise gritty two-hour thriller.

Daryl and Jesse as brothers?! If you’re a fan of Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead you’ll know what we mean. It makes for an interesting watch when two iconic TV characters come together to pull off mission impossible, but we’ll leave our fantasy of a Breaking Bad and TWD crossover at the door. Yet to transcend typecasting, Aaron Paul’s character felt a little like Jesse’s long-lost twin, only he’s not driving around the desert making meth in an RV; though refreshing seeing Norman Reedus looking well-scrubbed for once.

In order to successfully pull off the heist, the authorities must be distracted elsewhere. Their solution is to pull a “triple 9” AKA as an “officer down” call. Casey Affleck plays partner to one of our corrupt cops. Targeted as the “mark”, uncertainty, betrayal and fear embroil the team after he survives the attack. Like dominoes, bodies fall one after the other. Filled with enough nudity even HBO might re-evaluate it’s airing, Triple 9 will hold your attention, unapologetically throwing you shocker after shocker.

With enough blood, guns, boobs, and over-saturation to keep you desensitized for a while, could you survive with not seeing this film? Probably, as it rarely strays into a field of originality. We’ve seen the decaying results of inner-city demographics before. Triple 9 serves no further purpose, other than to further perpetuate negative stereotypes. Even Woody Harrelson plays a familiar role, that of a corrupt southern cop with very few ethical boundaries.

With its testosterone-fueled shoot-outs and not-so-subtle decapitations, Triple 9 might be a film you’d stay in and watch on a Friday night, but, despite its top-notch cast, there’s little here to lure you to your nearest multiplex. With its electric score and rough aesthetic, Triple 9 is definitely for fans of the no-nonsense, straight-to-point action thrillers – think Oceans 11, Inside Man, and The Equalizer all wrapped into one – but this would seem to be a case of identity theft.

Indie Film News - 10th February 2016

Dark Dignity




Dark Dignity is the story of the women of a nomadic tribe, searching for a new home five years after the world crumbled. Civilization as we know it is gone due to The Infected that plagued North America and beyond.
This diverse mix of former suburbanites – teachers, doctors, police officers – must always be prepared to fight for survival in the badlands of rural landscapes and desert vistas. The dangers hiding behind every shadow may be thieves or gangs… or perhaps creatures once human and now forever changed.

Website - www.darkdignity.com

A Legacy of Whining

The ghosts of both past and present collide as two former high school friends reunite after thirty years and embark on a darkly humorous nocturnal fever dream of a journey where old emotions and resentments bubble to the surface once again. Written by Ross Munro

I have been granted an exclusive online viewing of this movie so that I can review it, the review will be up withing the next day or so.

Website - http://www.nextoneproductions.ca/

Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnEUlrPdfxg

Street Shots

Go check out my friend's blog "Street Shots". Posts are about photography, skating, street culture etc.

Website - http://streetshots-ds.blogspot.co.uk/

Twitter - @StreetShots_ds

Hail, Caesar! - Movie Review

If self-plagiarism were a criminal offence, the Coen brothers would be facing a long stretch in San Quentin.

Hail, Caesar! shares the Hollywood-studio setting of Barton Fink, and, no doubt to the delight of Coenverse theorists everywhere, the exact-same fictional studio: Capitol Pictures (they’ve come a long way from Wallace Beery wrestling flicks). Its plot, such as it is, hangs loosely on a kidnapping hook, just like The Big Lebowski, whose Busby Berkeley dream sequence also finds good company in Hail, Caesar!’s elaborate musical numbers. It’s slathered with the ’50s period sheen of The Hudsucker Proxy, tussles with similar existential issues to A Serious Man, and gathers a sprawling ensemble of big names in character-actor roles, as Burn After Reading did. There is an ill-fated suitcase full of money, a shouty fat man, a little yapping dog, philosophical monologues from an eccentric white-hair, and George Clooney mugging.

Though it’s not really Clooney’s film. As kidnapped matinée idol Baird Whitlock, another George-shaped Coen creation who’s two steps behind the rest of the room, he is merely their MacGuffin; like the baby inRaising Arizona, only not as smart and a touch more helpless. It’s Josh Brolin as Capitol’s Head Of Physical Production, Eddie Mannix, who drives things — albeit not always using the most direct route.

Mannix, the closest thing this movie has to a main character, is another of the Coens’ serious men. A fixer for the studio, there’s a little of Tom Regan from Miller’s Crossingabout him, though he’s armed with petty cash rather than a pistol. He will do something as objectionable as slapping an actress for taking part in an unsanctioned photo-session, but is also wracked with Catholic guilt over lying to his wife about quitting smoking. And there’s a greater temptation than tobacco: a big-time job offer from aerospace company Lockheed. “Aviation is serious,” he’s told. “You won’t be shouldering a load of crackpot problems.” But Mannix — played by Brolin as a charming bruiser who’s not quite as unflappable as he’d like people to think — thrives on the crackpot problems.

Of which Whitlock’s disappearance is but one. There’s also the matter of cherub-faced B-Western star Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich) being roped into a pristine, drawing-room drama, to the despair of its mannered English director, Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes). Then there’s the Esther Williams-ish mermaid (Scarlett Johansson), facing the scandal of being both pregnant and unmarried. Plus, rival twin-sister entertainment columnists Thora and Thessaly Thacker (Tilda Swinton, tasked with basically playing a double Hedda Hopper who’s at war with herself) are on Eddie’s back, too.

This is the Dream Factory operating at maximum productivity, and Joel and Ethan revel in the absurdities of the studio system, whereby directors can’t pick their stars, and stars have to change their image at the wag of a fat finger and date who they’re damn well told. On the one hand, the brothers are snickering at the silliness of how things used to be, but on the other they are celebrating this bygone Golden Age. Because, beyond all the trademarks, gags and Georgian gurning, whatHail, Caesar! essentially amounts to is a series of impressively mounted pastiches.

There’s the Johansson-centred synchronised-swimming sequence, featuring a giant, mechanical whale. There’s a full-on, astonishingly inventive song ’n’ dance number featuring a tap-dancing Channing Tatum and a bunch of sailor-boys lamenting that “We Ain’t Gonna See No Dames”. There’s cowboy Doyle’s latest picture, a twee Western named Lazy Ol’ Moon, complete with a cantankerous prospector-type. And there’s Hail, Caesar! itself, which glows convincingly with all the grandeur and pomposity of a true, old-school Hollywood epic. In each case, the Coens’ A-crew (including Mary Zophres on costumes, Roger Deakins as DP and Carter Burwell scoring) nail the genre perfectly. It’s an astonishing technical achievement.

Where Hail, Caesar! falters, though, is in the glue that binds all these elaborate sketches. Mannix’s travails don’t entwine satisfactorily, and while the flourishes are fantastic, none really move the story forward. It’s clear the Coens aren’t interested in sustaining the sense of mystery at who exactly has starnapped Whitlock, so it’s hard for the audience to care either when the big reveal hits. And, as good as Brolin is, the character lacks the culty appeal of, say, The Dude in The Big Lebowski, whose shambolic nature matched that film’s saggy, shaggy storytelling. It’s not like the film is hollow — hidden at its heart, in fact, is a struggle for the soul of Hollywood — it’s just that it feels more like a series of pleasant diversions rather than a single, solid journey.

That said, if you’re a committed Coenophile (as we all should be, right?), you’re unlikely to be too bothered by all this. Likely to fry the mind of anyone who hasn’t yet built up a resistance to the brothers’ foibles and predilections over the past 16 films, it’s easily the most Coen-y Coen movie they’ve put out. But then, they are stealing from the best.

Point Break - Movie Review

Takes the outline of the original and translates it for an audience that has chugged 15 Monster Energy drinks and stayed up for a week mainlining Dude Perfect videos.

“If a tree falls in the forest and no one puts it on YouTube, did it really happen?”

This is an actual line of dialogue, delivered with total sincerity, from Ericson Core’s remake of Kathryn Bigelow’s Point Break. It’s one of several dumb “wisdoms” suggested by a screenplay that’s littered with bubblegum philosophy. But if you’re OK with the pseudo-Zen sentimentality of the insta-upload message in that statement, then the shallowness of this derivative and unnecessary reboot might not bother you as much as it did me. The original Point Break wasn’t Shakespeare, by any means. But it was never insultingly stupid. This is.

Core’s Point Break essentially takes the outline of the 1991 genre thriller starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, but translates it for an audience that has chugged 15 Monster Energy drinks and stayed up for a week mainlining Dude Perfect videos. In the process, Core misunderstands everything that was important to the original film, believing that ramping up the “EXTREME” at every turn will lead to a more rewarding experience. It isn’t. It’s exhausting. Remember the exciting skydiving sequence in the original? This time out, you are going to get large-scale skydiving, surfing and motorcross stunts in the first 15 minutes! But the skydiving sequence from the first movie mattered because by the time it arrived, you cared about the characters involved in the stunt. The new Point Break people have as much depth as actors in a Mountain Dew ad.

Right off the bat, Point Break 2015 makes a fundamental error in setting up Johnny “Utah” (Utah is a nickname this time out, which makes no sense). Keanu Reeves’ version of the character in 1991 was a former athlete but a clean-cut and dedicated FBI agent who reluctantly joined a group of surfers suspected of robbing banks wearing masks of dead Presidents. (The crooks wear similar masks in one scene of the reboot, and never again, because the remake doesn’t get why that gimmick was important.) When Reeves’ Utah gets pulled into the wake of Patrick Swayze’s Bodhi, it goes against everything that Utah stands for, setting up an internal conflict that transcended the impressive stunts.

Point Break 2015 paints “Utah” (Luke Bracey) as a former extreme-sports addict who recognizes the actions of Bodhi (Edgar Ramirez) and his crew because they behave the way that he one did. No internal conflict. No stakes in the game. It’s strange, too, how after one criminal mission at the start of the movie, Bodhi and his team of elite athletes stop committing crimes (hence, the lack of presidential masks) and really don’t create any conflict that would need the FBI… taking the wind out of the movie’s sails. We’re left with new versions of Bodhi and Utah, and the comparisons between the original and the remake – which are inevitable when reviewing this movie – show how wrong this remake is. Swayze’s Bodhi was a charismatic Zen flame drawing Keanu’s moth. Ramirez’s Bodhi belongs more to the tattoo-and-leather Euro-trash category of extreme-stunt seekers. There’s far less appeal – to both him, and to the movie.

Is Point Break 2015 bigger than the original? Yep. Where Kathryn Bigelow limited her action to the sleepy beach communities of Southern California (for the most part), Core’s Point Break is a global affair that has “Utah” chasing Bodhi to the far-reaches of the Earth to stop him from… well, again, he’s not really committing any crimes, so I’m not surewhy the FBI is so hellbent on bringing Bodhi to justice. The members of Bodhi’s gang are interchangeable and forgettable. Teresa Palmer has a painfully thankless role as the Mother Hen of the gang, cooking meals for The Boys after they complete their missions, and sleeping with “Utah” because the script thinks it needs an emotional conflict. Does bigger mean better? Nope. Because really, how often does “bigger” equal “better” when it comes to Hollywood remakes?

“Let’s just be here.” That’s another pearl of wisdom spoken by a serene criminal in Point Break 2015. When you are at the movie deciding what to see, however, you should just be anywhere else.

Star Wars Rogue One News - Boba Fett

We caution you that the following is all speculation, but it's intriguing. Design and manufacturing lead times often mean that toy companies unwittingly reveal a potential spoiler or two. In this case it's Lego who've set the womp rat among the banthas with an image of a ship in its Rogue One: A Star Wars Story range that has all sorts of implications. Leave now if you don't want to know, before you look too closely at this tweet.

Still here? So yes, that image above the words "Rogue 1 Oktober" (it's a toy fair in Nuremberg) - spotted by Twitterer @StudShooter - looks very much like Slave 1, the iconically odd craft belonging to Boba Fett. Does that mean the cult-favourite bounty hunter will be making an appearance? There have been rumours before about the second of the non-numbered Star Wars "anthology" films - following Rogue Onein 2018 - centring on Fett. Is this just a fly-past cameo teasing that? Or is it simply some other modified Firespray-31-class patrol and attack vehicle? Can't be too many of them in the system...

Some rumours that have already surfaced even peg Felicity Jones' character as Fett's daughter. We couldn't possibly comment - except to say that if everyone in the revivified Star Wars turns out to be the kid of a legacy character, it's getting to be a small bloody universe.

Gareth Edwards finished cranking his cameras on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story at the end of last year, with the post-production process now well underway. The story of how the rebel pilots stole the original Death Star plans arrives in UK cinemas on December 16.

The Birth of a Nation - Movie Review - Sundance 2016

For film historians, the audacity of Nate Parker's Nat Turner biopic begins with the title: The Birth of a Nation. It shares its name with D.W. Griffith's century-old ode to the creation of the Ku Klux Klan — which, like Leni Riefenstahl's Nazi propaganda, is too innovative for its time to completely ignore, at least from an academic point of view.

But Parker beats Griffith at his own game. His take on the largest slave rebellion on American soil, which Parker directed and wrote as well as starred in, may be a little choppy, but it's also a remarkable and important teaching tool.

The story begins in Southampton County, Virginia, where young Nat, a slave on the Turner plantation, is adored by his parents and grandparents, who believe he will grow to a special purpose. As far as these things go, the Turners are “good” slavers who refrain from doling out brutal punishment and even aid young Nat by teaching him to read.

The Mistress of the house offers Nat Bible lessons (no other books, she says; those are only for whites), and he grows to become a preacher. Nat's sermons gain attention, and soon his master Samuel Turner (Armie Hammer) is essentially pimping him out to other plantations, hoping that hearing the Word of God from a fellow slave will have a quieting effect.

But seeing the enormity of slavery — especially when it takes a more demonstratively brutal form on other plantations — begins to open Nat's eyes. It's increasingly difficult for him to reconcile the Gospels with the reality around him.

As calamities befall people close to him (his wife is raped and beaten by a group of slave catchers that harassed his father), Nat decides that armed insurrection is actually his true calling.

The Birth of a Nation's most effective moments come in sequences that show the total madness of the antebellum South. The auction scenes are nauseating; even so-called “nice” whites gifting human beings to one another is almost too shocking to contemplate.

Unfortunately, Parker's style is extremely conventional in much of the film's plotting. Too often, the dialogue is on the nose, and some dreamlike images don't seem underpinned by much else in the film.

When the violence finally comes, it happens abruptly. Turner's change from a preacher to guerrilla isn't very smooth, and the independent film's low budget doesn't do the action sequences any favors.

Still: Nat Turner is, for many, just a few paragraphs in a history book. He's an important figure who reflected sentiment prior to the Civil War, but also killed a lot of random white people. Who needs to think about whether he was a hero or a crazy person; let's turn the page.

The Birth of a Nation takes a deeper dive into a man too often relegated to footnote status. The film suggests that, no, there weren't any “good whites” so long as they were enjoying an economic advantage derived from exploiting slaves. Maybe the wives of the slavers didn't “ask” to be put there, but neither did the descendants of those stolen from Africa.

It's a thorny topic, and still a relevant one; no, America hasn't solved its “race issue.” Stories like these must be told, not buried — and while this movie isn't a masterpiece (it has little of the cinematic grace and emotional resonance of Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave, for example), it is absolutely one of 2016's must-see films.

Swiss Army Man - Movie Review - Sundance 2016

"Swiss Army Man" is a comedic action-drama that stars Paul Dano as a lonely guy who, while sailing one day, gets swept up in a storm in the Pacific Ocean and is washed ashore on a deserted island. Daniel Radcliffe is the dead body that washes up at the moment when Dano's character, Hank, is about to commit suicide.

We're not even close to the weird part yet.

Directed by Daniels (Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), who are best known for their music videos and commercial work, the duo have created for their feature-length debut a movie that highlights what it's like to be a recluse and not taking chances in life — a topic not uncommon to Sundance Film Festival entrants. The story plays out in a fashion that's funny, touching, but most importantly, original.

Let's take the film's opening 10 minutes, for example.

After he comes across the dead body, Hank gives this touching speech on how his hopes have been dashed that it isn't a live person. He's lonely, and desperate for human contact. But as he opens up in this revealing moment, the dead body passes gas.

It's funny; Hank even finds it amusing, but the body does it again. Even as Hank prepares to try suicide again, the body continues to pass gas.

The body then gets pulled into the current and moves further into the water — because of its relentless flatulence. Eventually, Hank sits on top of the body and floats it like a jet ski off the island. The film score is triumphant. Hank is cheering as he moves further away from the island. Is this all a dream?

That's a question you'll be asking yourself often as the body doesn't just use its biological function to help Hank out of his predicament, but as Hank continues to search for civilization the body turns into a multipurpose tool. The body chops wood with its arms, can start fires with its fingers, is a source of hydration by spewing water from its mouth — which Hank drinks.

Importantly, over time, the dead body begins to talk. Manny (the body's name) is curious about everything and Hank is happy to have someone to share his life with. Hank talks about what he wants to do when he returns home to reunite with his love, Sarah (Mary Elizabeth Winstead).

Hank and Manny build little moments from Hank's memory with sticks, brush, and trash found in the woods. But there are moments where Hank is too shy to go through with talking to Sarah, and tries to make Manny understand that doing almost anything instinctively will make a person look weird. "Swiss Army Man" is a look into the side of ourselves that's too weird to be revealed in public. But, what the Daniels show here, is that the eccentricities in us that we hide may, in fact, be the best version of ourselves. The Daniels just chose to drive home that point by creating a silly film with A-listers in it.

And that's the best part of this movie. Because the Daniels were able to land top-shelf talent like Dano and Radcliffe in their gonzo movie, it makes your chances of seeing "Swiss Army Man" outside of the film-festival circuit that much greater. So get ready.

Star Wars Rogue One News - Darth Vader, Stormtroopers and More!

The Star Wars franchise returned to the big screen with Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens in December 2015, and that film was only the beginning. Disney and Lucasfilm have grand plans for the galaxy far, far away, taking the movie series beyond the traditional Skywalker saga with standalone anthology projects. The first of these, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, hits theaters this holiday season and focuses on the team of Rebels who stole the plans for the original Death Star.

With the hype surrounding The Force Awakens starting to cool down, attention will be shifting towards Rogue One, especially on the ever active Star Wars rumor mill. Keeping that in mind, fans should be eager to check out a new report that provides alleged details on the various new characters Rogue One will introduce, as well as one returning Dark Lord of the Sith.

JoBlo has an exclusive scoop covering information about the initial Star Wars spinoff. There’s nothing too juicy in their rundown (i.e. crucial plot twists), so those concerned about spoiling the experience don’t have much to worry about. Their findings are presented in a bullet list below:
The film will feature stormtroopers that wear all-black armor called Death Troopers, seemingly taking a cue from the Shadow Troopers of the now defunct Star Wars Legends series.
There’s a new droid character that works with the Rebels, and he’s a “scene stealer”
One of the main characters is named “Cashen,” but it’s unknown which actor is playing him/her
A new TIE Fighter design and AT-ATs will be shown in Rogue One
Darth Vader is in the movie, and he has a “larger role than originally thought”

The report elaborates that the new droid was originally an Imperial robot that gets reprogrammed to aid the Rebels. As for his appearance, he has long arms, two legs, and is dark grey or black in color. The character is described as being a change-of-pace from the normal protocol droid design fans are familiar with (C-3PO). JoBlo is speculating that this could be Alan Tudyk’s motion-capture role, but there’s nothing to confirm or deny that so far. It’s a logical guess, since it sounds like the technology would be necessary to bring this particular character to life. Time will tell, but after Lucasfilm won fans over with scene stealing BB-8, it isn’t surprising that they’ve apparently created another droid poised to be an instant fan-favorite.

As for Darth Vader, it’s difficult to say what exactly JoBlo means when discussing his part in the film, since it’s never been stated how much screen time the villain will receive. From the wording, it sounds like Vader will be one of the central antagonists of the film, making life miserable for Felicity Jones’ character and her team. If Vader were to have a primary role in Rogue One, it would be a smart move on Lucasfilm’s part. Nostalgia was used to great effect in the Force Awakens marketing campaign. Since Rogue One takes place before the original trilogy heroes even met, their options are limited when playing that card for the spinoff. Placing a recognizable character like Vader front and center is almost a necessity when promoting Rogue One, as that would help sell casual audiences on a Star Wars movie disconnected from the main story line. His appearance is a huge selling point.

The other items from the scoop are not so instrumental to the overall story, but do show how director Gareth Edwards will be making his film differentiate from what came before. The revelation of the Death Trooper brings to mind a behind-the-scenes image Rogue One star Donnie Yen shared, which showcased a black helmet that hadn’t been seen in a previous Star Wars movie. Not only would a new stormtrooper outfit (along with a TIE Fighter redesign) give Rogue One something unique to call its own, it would also give Disney more merchandising opportunities when it comes time to launch all the Rogue One tie-in materials. As for why they’

Exclusive Revenant Behind the Scenes Documentary

Mind blowing western from the visionary director Alejandro González Iñárritu. The Revenant has turned the heads of everyone, and I would go as far as saying it's the biggest advancement in cinematography that we've seen in the past 16 years.

Whilst feasting my eyes on The Revenant the biggest question I kept asking myself all the way through the movie was how the heck did they manage to pull off all of those incredible shots. And thankfully my questions have been answered by this intriguing 45 minute Behind the Scenes documentary answers all of my questions and showcases all of the incredible work that went into creating this blockbuster.

If you're a hardcore movie fan like me, or even just a casual viewer then this documentary will blow your mind, highly recommend watching this.

Here's the link to the video - The Revenant | "A World Unseen" Documentary

Batman V Superman News : Empire Magazine

With only 2 months left until the massively anticipated Batman V Superman movie, Empire Magazine is jumping on the hype wagon and help build the excitement for the movie.
We finally get to see our two favourite superheroes clash in possibly the most thrilling superhero film that we've seen come out of Hollywood. Empire magazine put it in the most perfect of words "History's two greatest superheroes face off in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice".

Here are the two Batman V Superman covers, also featuring articles about Star Wars Episode 8, Trainspotting, The Coen Brothers and The Walking Dead.