Tag: US

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Animation Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Zero Impunity

Directors – Nicolas Blies, Stéphane Hueber-Blies – 2019 – France, Luxembourg – 95m

*****

From the Annecy 2020 Online Animation Festival

Framed by live action sequences of serial expert, journalist and activist talking heads projected on the sides of urban buildings or rural landmarks, this skilfully uses minimal 2D animation to tell the stories of victims of sexual violence in contemporary war zones. It’s intended as part of a wider, ongoing media project designed to bring accountability to the perpetrators of such acts who at the present time face zero impunity.

Stories include, from Syria, the 11 year old daughter of an alleged terrorist who was imprisoned for 45 days towards the end of which she was unexpectedly injected with hormones before being raped by (at least) one man before passing out.

A Ukranian woman is held captive in a house and coerced into sleeping with her captor. In bed, she feels something cold and metal in her crotch. It’s a bullet. Much is made of her captor’s pistol. He puts it on a table in front of her, knowing she won’t take it because, if she were to shot him, where would she go?

The US doesn’t come off well. Dick Cheney and the Bush administration know the difference between right and wrong but facilitated sexual humiliation techniques on male prisoners held in prisons such as Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay at home.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Black And Blue

Director – Director – Deon Taylor – 2019 – US – Cert. 15 – 108m

*****

Now available to view online : scroll down for details.

Right at the start of this, Naomie Harris is walking along a New Orleans street when she’s stopped and harassed by two cops. For no reason. Well, there is a reason: she’s black and the cops are white. Except that, as she points out, she herself is a cop too. She’s blue. So reluctantly they have to let her go.

Rookie cop Alicia West (Harris) joined the police at the same time as officers are being required to wear body cams and thinks these a good idea. However she underestimates the levels of violence between police and members of the public. Covering a night shift for her cop partner, she is shocked to see grizzled veteran Deacon Brown (James Moses Black) use what she thinks is excessive force on a man outside a nightclub. It turns out, however, that the man had a gun and wouldn’t have hesitated to use it on her.

I review Black And Blue for DMovies.org.

Watch on Amazon, Amazon 4K UHD, Netflix or Starz.

Categories
Animation Movies Shorts

Popeye The Sailor
Meets
Sindbad The Sailor

Director – Dave Fleischer – 1936 – US – 16m – colour – Oscar nominated

*****

Currently streaming on MUBI.

A rare, two reeler, colour outing for the Fleischer brothers’ Popeye, this removes him from his usual urban environment to an island populated with fabulous monsters – the opening features snakes, lions, a dragon and a vulture before we meet self-proclaimed “The Most Remarkable Fellow”, credited in the cast as Sindbad The Sailor although anyone familiar with other Flesicher Popeye cartoons will recognise him as regular villain Bluto. Sindbad sings a song asking the rhetorical question who this extraordinary fellow is, culminating in Popeye’s voice unexpectedly singing “Popeye The Sailor Man”, from which springs the film’s subsequent dramatic conflict. Talking about a shackled two headed giant Sindbad also references King Kong, released three years earlier and an obvious influence on the remote island with caves and incredible beasts seen here.

(MUBI’s source print print is missing a little bit of the opening credits, so you might want to hit pause on the single credits page detailing the cast before it vanishes after a few seconds. Otherwise, the print is in pretty decent condition.)

When Sindbad sends a giant bird to scuttle Popeye’s ship and kidnap the woman (Olive Oyl), the bird’s take off is animated less like a bird and more like a nineteen thirties aircraft that struggles to leave the ground.… Read the rest

Categories
Art Features Live Action Movies

Snowpiercer
(Seolgungnyeolcha,
설국열차)

Director – Bong Joon Ho – 2013 – South Korea – Cert. 15 – 126m

South Korean director Bong Joon Ho’s Snowpiercer (2013), which never had a theatrical release in the UK during its original, international run, finally appears in the UK on home video. Described as “High Rise on a train” by Mark Kermode, it’s an uncompromising dystopian vision, and we can safely attribute its appearance on Blu-ray to a double whammy – Bong’s Oscar-winning box-office hit Parasite, and the broadcast this month of the long-delayed Snowpiercer TV series.

An ecological catastrophe has turned the Earth into a frozen wasteland. The only people still alive are those on a train annually circling the globe. Some are there because they’re rich, others because they were lucky enough to get on board. The rich live in luxury at the front while the poor are kept in squalor at the back. Two members of the lower orders lead a revolt, travelling the length of the train to eventually confront the train’s wealthy industrialist creator. Like the more complex Parasite, it pits ordinary people against wealthy elites.

I review Snowpiercer for All The Anime.

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Cam

Director – Daniel Goldhaber – 2018 – US – Cert. 15 – 94m

***1/2

An erotic webcam performer discovers to her horror that her online presence has been hacked by an unknown rival, in a film conceived by a real-life cam artist– from the 62nd BFI London Film Festival and on Netflix from Friday, November 16th 2018

Alice (Madeline Brewer) is in charge of her destiny, or so it seems. From a secret and self-contained, fluffy pink studio set up in her apartment, she promotes herself as her online persona Lola who hosts her own live online erotic shows where enthusiastic fans can encourage her to do specific things by sending her virtual currency. Her goal is to become number one on the site which hosts her and many thousands of other hopefuls, but she seems to have got stuck somewhere around the rank of 60th. What’s a camgirl to do in order to boost her ratings?

Clearly, spicing the sex up with a little violence is a winner, so when one of her admirers encourages her to use a knife, while others egg her on and other still try to talk her out of it, Lola cuts her throat online.… Read the rest

Categories
Live Action Movies Trailers

The Endless

Directors – Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead – 2017

Never go back. Watch a kaleidoscopic marvel, the extraordinary, online trailer for the latest film by (and featuring) independent filmmakers Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead – in cinemas and digital HD on Friday, June 29th 2018

Quote: “I was told… that they were all going to kill themselves… and THAT’S why we left the cult.” The opening words on the soundtrack of the new trailer for The Endless. Directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (Resolution/2012, Spring/2014) play two brothers named Justin and Aaron. Tension between them. A thunderclap and a flashing image of a man putting a gun to his head. Light, eerie music. Sun-soaked rocks in a daylight American desert. A yearning. “They were our family. I want to go back.” A car journeying across Western desert country, then the image flipped so the sky is beneath and the land above, with no car… and superimposed over this, logos from half a dozen major film festivals. The brothers’ car passing a beatifically smiling man standing beside a sign that reads: ‘Camp Arcadia’. A videotape features strange circular images in a landscape. A man in a group of people round a table asks, “what video?”… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

The Endless

Directors – Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead – 2017 – US – Cert. 15 – 111m

*****

Second time lucky? Two brothers who escaped from a strange desert cult decide to go back for a second look, which may prove to be their undoing – in cinemas & digital HD on Friday, June 29th and on Blu-ray & DVD from Monday, 2nd July

The third film from independent US directors Benson & Moorhead following Resolution (2012) and Spring (2014) sees them cast themselves as characters with their own first names. Here, Justin and Aaron are brothers whose lives seem to have lost direction since they escaped to L.A. from an isolated cult out in the desert some years ago. Specifically, Justin pulled the pair out of there when he became convinced that the cult members were about to enact a mass suicide. However, Aaron is not convinced that Justin’s suspicions were correct.

These tensions surface with the arrival through the post of an old videotape from the cult which suggests its members are still very much alive. Aaron has fond memories of great cooking and a family of sorts so wants to go back and visit; Justin hesitantly agrees provided they stay one night only and then leave.… Read the rest

Categories
Documentary Features Live Action Movies Music

Bill Frisell:
A Portrait

Director – Emma Franz – 2017 – US – 118m

*****

Jazz guitarist Bill Frisell is a unique talent, a shy man and an extraordinary individual about whom fellow musician turned director Franz has made a remarkable film – now on DVD, BD and VoD

This extraordinary character study of one of the most significant jazz guitarists of modern times is remarkable not only for the portrait it paints of Frisell himself but also for the noteworthy list of names it interviews in passing. The newcomer with little knowledge of who’s who in jazz could take a notebook and and acquaint themselves with a remarkable number of incredible musicians of one sort or another, from the late drummer Paul Motian through more familiar, popular stars like singer Paul Simon and guitarist Bonnie Raitt to big band orchestra leader and composer Michael Gibbs. Indeed, the latter’s 2009 concert at London’s Barbican Centre featuring Frisell bookends the film allowing Franz to close on ‘Throughout’, the first of Frisell’s self-composed tunes the guitarist ever recorded. And that’s just one reason why you should watch Bill Frisell: A Portrait.

Australian independent director Franz worked for a while as a musician herself, which means that her director’s eyes and ears are attuned to what musicians do in composition and performance as well as how their minds work.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Alien
Covenant

Director – Ridley Scott – 2017 – US – 15 – 122m

*** 1/2

The latest Alien franchise entry is an effective horror sci-fi, teeming with shocks, scares and twists, but it lacks the mythological depth of Prometheus and the twisted sexual connotations of Alien – in cinemas on 12th May 2017

This is Ridley Scott’s third Alien movie as director. His second Alien (1979) prequel or first Prometheus (2012) sequel – take your pick – is more like the former than the latter. On the one hand, its sci-fi ideas are more coherent and in line with other Alien franchise outings; on the other, unlike Prometheus it doesn’t periodically throw out lots of new ideas mining some of Alien‘s unexplained elements. Yet it does refer back to Prometheus.

A civilisation of charred or petrified bodies amidst otherworldly, ancient classical architecture suggests Scott is revisiting the Roman world of Gladiator (2000) or toying in his head with a film about Vesuvius erupting onto Pompeii. Again, take your pick. [Read more]

Alien: Covenant was out in UK cinemas on 12th May 2107, when this piece was originally written for DMovies.org.

Trailer:

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Detour

Director – Christopher Smith – 2016 – UK – Cert. 15 – 97m

****1/2

Should I stay or should I go? Smart thriller wherein a man’s life is literally split in two as he chooses between an ill-advised road trip to Vegas or staying at home with his hated stepfather – now on DVD and VoD

Opening with a lengthy, single locked off camera shot title sequence of a woman pole dancing, this then switches to law student Harper (Tye Sheridan – Ready Player One, Steven Spielberg, 2018) visiting his comatose mother in hospital. He’s convinced his stepfather is cheating on her using out of town business trips as a cover. Hitting a bar to drown his sorrows, he overhears a conversation in which Johnny Ray (Emory Cohen – Brooklyn, John Crowley, 2015) explains how his girlfriend Cherry shot a man who cut her face. Johnny Ray berates Harper for eavesdropping and drags him to the pole dancing joint where Cherry works and whisky gets Harper talking.

Brief echoes of Strangers On A Train (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951) are played up in the film’s trailer (at the bottom of this review) as Johnny Ray offers to take care of his stepdad at a price.… Read the rest