It is time for a round up of the year for new films seen on streaming services other than Netflix, this month.
Starting with Amazon Prime:
Founders Day
In the days leading up to a hotly contested mayoral election, a small town is rocked by a series of murders. This is a fairly straightforward slasher. It takes a while to click into gear, but there are some decent moments of suspense once the kills start, and the political element gives it something different. The identity of the person behind the murders is pretty obvious though.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10
Over on Sky, Sky Movies subscribers can see:
Absolution
As a pre-Christmas treat, Sky are premiering Liam Neeson’s latest action flick. He plays an aging gangster who tries to atone for his past mistakes in order to reconcile with his daughter. I have labelled it as action but apart from a couple of violent scenes, it is more of a character piece. Neeson is excellent as a man who is still as hard as nails, but it also becoming increasingly vulnerable and director Hans Petter Moland and cinematographer Philip Remy Øgaard nicely evoke the gritty, seedy side of Boston. Only a couple of dream sequences do not work.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Sweethearts
College friends Ben (Nico Hiraga) and Jamie (Kiernan Shipka) are both in long distance relationships with their high school sweethearts. Ben’s girlfriend Claire is controlling, and Jamie is bored of her boyfriend. They agree to both dump their partners on the night before Thanksgiving. Hiraga is a pleasing screen presence but he can do nothing with this poor, juvenile, script.
Rating: 3.5 out of 10
The American Society of Magical Negroes
Aron Mbondo (Justice Smith), is a struggling bi-racial artist in Los Angeles. He is instinctively subservient to white people. Roger (David Alan Grier) notices his tendency for deference and takes him to the headquarters for The American Society of Magical Negroes, a centuries-old secret society that provides ‘client services’ to white people. The unusual premise is not as fully explored as it could have been, with a tirade by Aron about being a black man in America towards the end feeling a bit shoehorned in. It is largely, in fact, a love triangle that works because of genuine chemistry between Smith and Ann-Li Bogan as Lizzie, a young woman who Aron falls for but cannot date because of the society’s rules.
Rating: 6 out of 10
If you have the Sci Fi channel, you can “treat” yourself to the latest low budget disaster picture from Asylum Studios, Planetquake. Shifting tectonic plates beneath the Mariana Trench are causing a series of earthquakes. It is up to a group of seismologists to save the day. I can watch most disaster movies but the terrible dialogue and poor effects make Planetquake a slog.
Rating: 4 out of 10
On the iPlayer:
Whilst still showing in selected cinemas, the BBC have aired the documentary From Roger Moore, With Love. It was made with the collaboration of the Moore’s estate and family, with access to personal letters, photographs and star studded home movie footage, as well as interviews with his three children. I am not sure that there are any great revelations in his personal or work life, but it is lovely to see clips from vintage talk shows and how warmly his friends talk of him. I would have liked to have seen more about his film work outside of Bond, but it is a breezy watch.
The big Christmas Day release is the return of two national treasures in Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. Wallace’s latest invention is a smart gnome, and predictably, it develops things do not go to plan when their old nemesis, Feathers McGraw, gets involved. This is an utter delight, the usual mixture of a smart script, brilliant incidental details, nods to old films and crazy action shows that there is life in the pair yet.
Ratings out of 10:
From Roger Moore, With Love: 7
Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl: 8.5
The following can be bought or rented on the usual services:
Magpie
Daisy Ridley has been one of the stars of the year and this is her 4th film in the last 12 months. She plays Anette, a mum to two children, one baby, and the other, a child actor called Tilly (Hiba Ahmed). The kids are sweet but her husband Ben (Shazad Latif) is a manipulative narcissist. Ridley is icily brilliant and Latif impressively skin crawling and those performances are better than the film as a whole, that, for a thriller, is a bit sluggish. I enjoyed the final twist though.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10
Hoard
Seven year old Maria (Lily Beau Leach) lives with her mother Cyn (Hayley Squires) who loves her daughter but has serious mental health issues. Every night they go searching through bins for shiny rubbish. After Cyn has an accident, her daughter is taken into care. Eleven years later, Maria, now played by Saura Lightfoot-Leon is still living with her foster mum, Michelle (Samantha Spiro). She forms a bond with Michael (Joseph Quinn), another of Michelle’s ex-foster kids. I have already seen Hoard appear on some best of the year lists but I found it easier to admire than like. The performances are solid and Luna Cameron directs with verve. But, the story becomes aimless and I found Maria to be increasingly tiresome, though I felt that Cameron wanted us to admire how she embraces the squalor she chooses to live in.
Rating: 5 out of 10
Sing Sing
Divine G (Colman Domingo), is imprisoned at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, one of the world’s most infamous maximum security prisons, for a crime he didn’t commit, He finds purpose by acting in a small theatre group alongside other incarcerated men. In Greg Kwedar’s drama, that co-wrote with Clint Bentley, Domigo stars with Paul Raci, as the director of the group, as well as many real life formerly imprisoned men who were themselves in the programme during their prison spell, including Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin and Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez. I should have liked Sing Sing more than I did. Domingo, Raci and Maclin are all excellent and it is a passionate and compassionate film. However, I found the rehearsal scenes went on too long and found it strangely uninvolving.
Rating: 6 out of 10
The Goldman Case
Cedric Kahn’s movie portrays the trial of Pierre Goldman (Arieh Worthalter), a left-wing revolutionary who was accused of murder in the 1970s. Almost the entire film is set in the court room, and, despite seeing a few French court room dramas recently, I still find the free for all system a little disconcerting. However, this detailed recreation is never dull and Worthalter is magnetic
Rating: 7 out of 10