Month: August 2023

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Klokkenluider

Director – Neil Maskell – 2022 – UK – Cert. 15 – 84m

*****

A couple have seen something; two men are assigned to look after them as they wait in the middle of nowhere for a journalist to come and interview them – a subscription exclusive on BFI Player from Thursday, February 22nd

Mr. Appleby (Amit Shah) and Mrs. Appleby (Sura Dohnke) arrive at the house on the outskirts of a small village in Belgium they’ve booked for a party. Appleby is not their real surname, and nor will there be a party. He is what the Dutch call a ‘klokkenluider’ or bell ringer, slang in that language for whistleblower. He has approached a newspaper and is following instructions. They are at the house awaiting the arrival of a journalist to interview them.

Meanwhile, Brits Kevin (Tom Burke) and Ben (Roger Evans) are driving to meet them. They have guns in the boot. We don’t really see them at first. For the first few minutes, they are shown only in little details cropped or in shade so as to be almost unrecognisable – a fragment of a detail in a wing mirror here, a view beyond a car window part obscured by a reflection there – and they choose their words carefully so as not to give away anything more than they need to.… Read the rest

Categories
Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Bobi Wine:
The People’s President

Directors – Moses Bwayo, Christopher Sharp – 2022 – UK – Cert. 12a – 121m

*****

Aided by his wife Barbie, Uganda’s opposition leader, the musician Bobi Wine, takes on the country’s corrupt dictator of 35 years President Museveni, in the run up to the 2021 election – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 1st

At the start of this remarkable documentary about Uganda, a small group of people engage in impromptu Christian prayer in a car before going about their business. While few more outward religious trappings are shown, the subject is a man possessed by a desire for justice for ordinary citizens, especially the underprivileged and voiceless, facing a corrupt regime determined to stay in power by any means possible, with the army and police under their control.

Successful pop singer and musician Bobi Wine… [Read the rest at Reform magazine]

Bobi Wine: The People’s President is out in cinemas in the UK on Friday, September 1st.

Trailer:

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

And Then Come
The Nightjars

Director – Paul Robinson – 2023 – UK – Cert. 15 – 81m

***1/2

The deep friendship of a Devon farmer and a local vet is tested by the UK government’s culling of herds in the 2001 Foot And Mouth outbreak – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 1st

Michael (David Fielder) is a Devon farmer. Everyone knows everyone else in his local, rural community, and he is often visited by the vet Jeffrey (Nigel Hastings), first glimpsed in an uncharacteristic, bright red cowboy hat he won at a local village do when he turns up to help with the delivery of a calf. He’s previously tested Michael’s cows for Foot and Mouth disease, and all the results have been negative.

Later in 2001, Jeffrey visits Michael again, but this time with three other white-protective-suited colleagues and some bad news. With the Foot and Mouth outbreak reaching epidemic proportions, the government has decided to cull all cattle within a three-mile radius of any infection, regardless of whether they test negative or positive for the disease. Michael, shotgun at the ready, thinks there’s a mistake because, as Jeffrey knows, Michael’s herd has tested negative. But, as Jeffrey attempts to explain, government policy doesn’t work like that…

There are further scenes in December 2001, eight years later in 2009 and four years later still in 2013.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Afire
(Roter Himmel)

Director – Christian Petzold – 2022 – Germany – Cert. 12a – 102m

*****

Two male friends’ plans to stay in his mother’s woodland house are disrupted by first a car breakdown, then a female guest of his mother’s, and finally forest fires – out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 25th

Summer. Leon (Thomas Schubert from Breathing, Karl Markovics, 2011) and Felix (Langston Uibel) are driving to the latter’s mother’s holiday home on the Baltic coast when their car breaks down. Felix knows a short cut so they go through the woods,. When they reach the cottage, after getting lost, a guest is already there, a young woman Nadja (Paula Beer from Transit, Christian Petzold, 2018; Frantz, François Ozon, 2016), the daughter of a friend of Felix’s mother. At least, her belongings – underwear strewn around the big bedroom, cereal in the kitchen – are there.

Felix phones his mother to learn there’s a double booking. Not to worry – the pair can stay in the small bedroom. Except, Leon can’t sleep at night because of the sound of Nadja enjoying sex with someone through the paper-thin walls.

He doesn’t know how to confront her about this.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Mob Land

Director – Nicholas Maggio – 2022 – US – Cert. 15 – 110m

****

Needing money to pay off debts, a family man, mechanic and racer gets sucked into a robbery by his uncle, then finds himself working alongside a mob killer hired to clean up the loose ends of the crime – out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 25th

A small. rural town in the Southern States. Shelby Conners (Shiloh Fernandez) completely in love with wife Caroline (Ashley Benson) and devoted to young daughter Mia (Tina DeMartino), pops pills to get through the day and hasn’t yet told his wife about the mounting household bills. His uncle Trey (Kevin Dillon), the proud owner of an expensive, lurid lime green, Japanese car, offers him a way out in the form of a sure fire robbery about which Shelby is less than sure.

There’s this pills / meds store called the Happiness Pain Centre which, Trey explains, is turning over a huge amount of money a day and is only guarded by a couple of hicks, so it would be a pushover. And all Shelby needs to do is drive the car, something both men know he’s really good at, especially as Trey can provide the car to Shelby’s specification.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

The Dive

Director – Maximilian Erlenwein – 2022 – Germany – Cert. 15 – 91m

***1/2

Two women go diving near a remote stretch of coastline and find themselves in trouble – out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 25th following its UK Premiere at Frightfest on Thursday, August 24th

Opening with an image of light shining through the waves on the surface of the sea – reminiscent of nothing quite so much as light similarly shining through the title lettering at the start of sci-fi horror shocker The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982) – this promises something dark, foreboding and threatening from the get go. The talkative Drew (Sophie Lowe) plans diving trips for herself and her more taciturn sister May (Louisa Krause).

On this occasion, the pair head toward a remote stretch of coastline in a rental car listening to the radio playing Only You by The Platters, a song which clearly means a lot to both of them judging by the enthusiastic way they sing along. (It would be nice to think that the radio station plays other tunes as well, but this is all we hear, presumably because the production could only afford the movie rights to the one song.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

127 Hours

Director – Danny Boyle – 2010 – US – Cert. 15 – 93m

UK release date 07/01/2011, cert. 15, 93 mins

The trailer for this gives a pretty good impression of about its first third. Experienced, youthful and single outdoor explorer Aron Ralston (James Franco) mountain bikes through the Utah landscape, meets a couple of girls and shows them an incredible underground lake, continues on his merry solo way until, rock climbing, he slips down a crevasse where a falling boulder pinions his wrist…trapping him for the eponymous and subsequent 127 hours / the rest of the film.

Where Buried (Rodrigo Cortés, 2010) relentlessly encased its leading man in a coffin from opening to closing frame, 127 Hours not only starts off in wide open landscapes but also punctuates its narrative with memory flashbacks, dreams and visions. Thus, when you see Aron freeing himself, you’re not initially sure whether he’s actually doing so or merely imagining it in his head. Such devices provide space to deal with the transcendent in a way that Buried never really did.

If Buried is a horror movie (will he survive being buried alive? can he escape?), 127 Hours starts off as outdoor adventure then veers into the question of: if you knew for certain you were going to die, what would you want to do with the ever decreasing amount of time you had left?… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Theater Camp

Directors – Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman – 2023 – US – Cert. 12a – 92m

****

The teachers and students at a theatre camp rehearse their annual Summer show, their unscrupulous, with the camp’s founder unconscious in hospital, while the nearby, upmarket, rival camp attempts to close them down and possess their land – faux documentary comedy is out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 25th

@searchlightuk #TheaterCampMovie

As the spelling on its title might indicate, there’s something very American about the concept of a theater camp, a variant of Summer camp for wannabe child actors and theatre people; to the best of my knowledge (and I’m not an actor or a theatre person) there isn’t really a UK equivalent. That said, even those without a strong interest in theatre are likely to have a good time with this winsome comedy. Not only has this been put together with a great deal of love and heart by actors who went through the theater camp experience as kids and have it in their DNA, it’s also very cleverly scripted in outline and makes great use of improvisation in the performances of the part-adult, part-child cast.

Theatre camp (I refuse to use the American spelling from here on) Adirond ACTS, four hours from New York, suffers a heavy blow when its beloved founder Joan Rubinsky (Amy Sedaris) suffers a heart attack whilst watching the performance of one of her students on stage, goes into a coma and is hospitalised, leaving the day to day running of the camp to social media business guru son Troy (Jimmy Tatro), who is completely clueless when it comes to theatre and fails to connect with the young students from the get go.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

The Innocent
(L’innocent)

Director – Louis Garrel – 2022 – France – Cert. 15 – 99m

***1/2

A trusting woman marries a soon-to-be-released convict in prison only for her suspicious son to start following him after the man’s release and soon find himself out of his depth – out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 25th

Warning: plot spoilers.

Sylvie LeFranc (Anouk Grinberg) has fallen big time for Michel Ferrand (Roschdy Zem) and is about to marry him. Her son Abel (Louis Garrel) is less than happy about this, since Michel is the latest convict serving a prison sentence for whom his mother has fallen. He grudgingly attends their prison wedding. Shortly after, Michel is released and the couple embark on their new life together, with Michel promising to go straight and Sylvie, who likes to think the best of people, taking him at his word. She has always dreamed of opening a flower shop, and he gives her the funds to make it happen. They hire premises and start doing it up, getting Abel to help.

Although he can see that the romance is genuine – at least on his mother’s side – Abel understandably doesn’t trust his mum’s judgement and doesn’t trust Michel at all.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

The Descent

Director – Neil Marshall – 2005 – UK – Cert. 18 – 99m

*****

A group of female friends go on a caving expedition…which then goes horribly wrong – review originally published in What’s On In London, 2005

Here’s something different: a caving movie. Tough to pull off in terms of production logistics, since you’re dealing with confined spaces, often very small and lacking any light source whatever. Although the (fictional) cave system in question is accessed via the Appalachian mountains, this is a British film made mostly in the studio, where the cave sets were constructed or, in the case of larger spaces, faked by a variety of FX trickery. Amazingly, you never see the join and it all feels incredibly real.

Genre is psychological horror, at least to start with, as a group of female friends go on a caving expedition…which then goes horribly wrong. Mood is set up Dead Calm style via a traumatic car accident in the first few minutes. After that, the tension never lets up. There follows argument, panic, gory injury and more than a few surprises. Defying expectations, the proceedings stubbornly refuse to settle into cliché, keeping you on the edge of your seat right up to an ending which will sit in your mind days afterwards as a subject for discussion.… Read the rest