chaperone Archives - Jeremy C. Processing

Director – Anita Rocha de Silveira – 2021 – Brazil – Cert. 15 – 127m

***

Pro-purity, fundamentalist, Christian church girl band singer indoors by day; slut-shaming, Evangelical, vigilante group member outdoors by night… a woman is haunted by a facially disfigured figure from the past – out in UK cinemas also available on PVOD and ESVOD on Friday, July 14th, and to rent on BFI Player from Friday, July 21st

Night. An exotic dancer, bent over backwards so both hands and feet touch the floor. Writhing.

A young woman, watching this on her smartphone on the bus at night. She reaches her stop, gets off and starts walking. A gang of white masked, female vigilantes on the prowl, suddenly, behind her. She walks faster, they catch her, surround her, slut-shame her, call her a homewrecker, threaten her into “serving the Lord”. Afterwards, the female vigilantes walk off in a line across the road. On the wall, posters depicting a fist and a snake.

To better herself, another young woman Clarissa (Bruna G.) is taken our of an ordinary school and sent by her aunt to an up-market, fundamentalist, evangelical Christian church school where she’s quite nervous about fitting in: but Clarissa needn’t worry – she’s soon befriended by Mariana aka Mari (Mariana Oliveira) who takes the newcomer under her wing.… Read the rest

Licorice Pizza

Director – Paul Thomas Anderson – 2021 – US – Cert. 15 – 133m

****

Boy meets girl in San Fernando Valley, 1973, a bizarre, meandering tale constantly firing off in new directions – out in cinemas on Saturday, January 1st

Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) is walking along an outdoor school corridor when he sees Alona Kane (Alona Haim), contriving to run into her. She’s much older than him (she’s actually there helping out with individual pupil photos) and pours scorn on his attempts to ask her out for a date. But he’s persistent and possessed of a way with words, talking her into turning up at the restaurant should she feel like it, which she duly does.

When he proclaims himself an actor with some films and TV series to his credit, she assumes he’s joking around, but, no, it’s true. Needing a chaperone for a new your gig he’d otherwise be unable to attend, he gives her the job. He also has his own PR company whose clients include a Japanese restaurant, has a good head for business, and is constantly chasing the latest coming trend as a means to make a fast buck.

To attempt more of a synopsis is difficult because the whole thing feels like scenes from a much longer script where lot of other scenes have been either edited out in the cutting room or possibly not even shot in the first place.… Read the rest