To start with, some film rented on the usual services:
What’s Love Got To Do With It
Zoe (Lily James) has found a successful career as a documentary film-maker but the seriousness of her topics has made it hard to find funding. When her close friend Kaz (Shazad Latif) announces that he is choosing to have an arranged marriage, she sees his journey as inspiration for a new film. This is a demonstration on how to get a pretty slight rom com right. The key is having two likable leads that you want to end up together. Whilst the plot is totally predictable, there are enough chuckles as it ambles along. It is also interesting to see the positive aspects of an arranged marriage shown, as well as the more obvious pitfalls.
Rating: 7 out of 10
Joyland
Haider (Ali Junejo) is the youngest son in a traditional Pakistani family and is married to Mumtaz (Rasti Farooq). He secretly gets a job as a dancer in a burlesque show and falls in love with Biba, a transgender dancer (Alina Khan). This is brave filmmaking from director Saim Sadiq, who also wrote the screenplay with Maggie Briggs. The film has caused a lot of controversy in Pakistan, though it has received plaudits elsewhere.
The depiction of a man conflicted about his sexuality, who loves his wife but is in love with Biba feels all to real. The performances are excellent all round, especially from Farooq and Khan. There are a couple of turns in the story late on that I found unlikely and unnecessary respectively, but those do not detract much from this terrific movie.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10
1976
Carmen (Aline Küppenheim) is a 50 year old housewife from a middle class family in Santiago, Chile. In the winter of 1976, three years after Augusto Pinochet seized power through a coup and established a military dictatorship, Carmen travels to her summer house to oversee renovation work. Whilst there, local priest Father Sánchez (Hugo Medina) asks for her help in caring for Elías (Nicolás Sepúlveda), a young man who is part of the resistance against the dictator.
This is a slow burn of a film and all the better for it. For the majority of the first half, Carmen goes about her usual business, but then she gets drawn into Elias’ world. She acts as a go between, between Elias and his compatriots but fears she is being followed. It is not clear if that is true or she is being paranoid and all the while the tension slowly builds. Küppenheim is excellent, Manuela Martelli’s direction builds a lot of suspense and her script, with Alejandra Moffat brings the horror of the time into focus without resorting to histrionics.
Rating: 9 out of 10
Knock At The Cabin
M. Night Shyamalan has his fans but I never understood the hype around the predictable and boring Sixth Sense and it is only Unbreakable from 2000 that I think has merit. Still, I dutifully rented his latest, Knock at the Cabin. Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge) are on holiday at their remote cabin in rural Pennsylvania with their seven year old daughter (Kristen Cui). Four armed strangers turn up and take the family hostage. They tell them that in avoid to avert the apocalypse they have to choose a member of their family to sacrifice. Initially Eric and Andrew do not believe the intruders – Leonard (Dave Bautista), Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), Adriane (Abby Quinn) and Redmond (Rupert Grint) – so they need to be persuaded.
This is meant to be suspenseful, but that would only be the case if you knew nothing of the premise when it would work as a decent home invasion thriller for the first act. Once the intruders explain what is going on, the film becomes very slow and quite boring. For those expecting a twist, there is not one as the only two options are that they are telling the truth or not.
Rating: 4 out of 10
Close
Lukas Dhont directs and co-writes, with Angelo Tijssens, this story of an intense friendship between two thirteen-year old boys Leo (Eden Dambrine) and Remi (Gustav de Waele). This has been universally praised and the recipient of an Oscar nomination for international film, but I found it pretty disappointing. The story felt over melodramatic and engineered to tug at your heart strings as the characters try to deal with a traumatic event. Émilie Dequenne is outstanding though as Remi’s mother.
Rating: 6 out of 10
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
More than a decade after the original Puss in Boots film, this sequel finds the titular cat concerned that he has used up eight of his nine lives. Therefore, he launches an epic journey to restore them by finding the mythical Last Wish. Antonio Banderas’ cat was my favourite character in the Shrek movies but it really feels like this is one appearance too many. There are a few chuckles still when he starts behaving like a normal cat, and some decent voice work from Florence Pugh and Kevin McCann. But the story is frankly a bit boring, despite it being overstuffed with characters, and some of the animation in the action sequences is shoddy.
Rating: 5 out of 10
For those of you subscribing to Sky Movies, you can catch these:
To Catch a Killer
When a mass shooting is carried out in Baltimore, the FBI’s chief investigator, Geoffrey Lammark (Ben Mendelsohn) sees something in the talented but troubled police officer, Eleanor Falco (Shailene Woodley) so recruits her to help profile and track down the killer before they strike again. You cannot claim that there is anything terribly new in this film about a hunt for a serial killer. However, it is stylishly shot with a decent script and enough red herrings to keep it interesting. Both leads are impressive and the ending provides a real surprise.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Murder at Blackthorne Manor
Hayley (Christie Leverette) enjoys creating murder mystery parties at renowned Blackthorne Manor. But when the manor’s owner is found dead, Hayley must sort through a house full of suspects to identify the murderer, whilst keeping the latest game going. This is an excellent set up for a classic whodunnit but the film does not live up to its premise. The cast of suspects are not well enough developed and too much of the action takes place in darkness.
Rating: 5 out of 10
Paradise Highway
Juliette Binoche stars as a truck driver blackmailed into carrying illegal cargo in order to save her brother. That normally involves drugs but when she is expected to traffic a young girl, Leila (Hala Finley), things go awry. Director Anna Gutto captures the trucker lifestyle well, with the endless highways and late night dive bars. Binoche may be an unusual casting but she is pretty believable and Finley excellent. But the story (also by Gutto) lacks focus, meandering far too much in the second half.
Rating: 6 out of 10
Linoleum
Cameron Edwin (Jim Gaffigan) lives a dull life in a small Ohio town with his wife and daughter. Cameron always wanted to be an astronaut and when part of a rocket falls from orbit and crashes into his backyard, he decides to rebuild it and to fulfil his dream. The story takes an awfully long time to get going and Cameron is difficult to warm to so I struggled to stay interested in the story.
Rating: 4.5 out of 10