Hello, and welcome to this week’s film roundup! Today we have something for everyone (except, perhaps, kids…) – action, thrills, horror, brash irreverent comedy, quirky indie comedy, and romantic period drama.
The Crow
First up this week we have The Crow, a remake of the 1994 Brandon Lee cult classic, in which a musician gains superpowers to take revenge after he and his girlfriend are brutally murdered. This time round, Eric Draven is played by Bill Skarsgård, wearing makeup that is distractingly similar to his Pennywise makeup from the It films. Rounding out the cast is FKA twigs as his soulmate Shelly, and Danny Huston as the villain Vincent Roeg.
There is something about this that doesn’t feel quite right. The 1994 film is a lynchpin of the goth subculture, with its impressionistic set and desaturated lighting effortlessly making it moody and cool. The remake looks too polished, as if it’s tried so hard to show off its gothic tone and dark edge that it’s plastered over all the grunginess that made that tone work in the original. It’s like comparing the Soft Cell and Marilyn Manson versions of Tainted Love – one is subtly sinister in a way that is hard to put your finger on, the other is like someone trying to replicate that by screaming the words “I am being subtly sinister” in your face while beating you with a novelty inflatable effigy of Dracula. I can’t imagine this Crow inspiring many people to buy a load of black leather and eye makeup and try to remake it in a few decades in the same way the original clearly did.
All of that said, if you try to avoid the temptation to compare it with the original, this could be quite entertaining. Skarsgård is an excellent actor and this sort of role – a bit weird and very physical – suits his abilities well. Danny Huston always makes a good baddie. And you can’t go too far wrong with an action revenge flick – it’s a film in which a badass superpowered hero with clear motivation faces off against a gang of hissable villains. If that’s the sort of thing you fancy sitting down to on a Saturday night with a bucket of popcorn then you could do a lot worse than this.
- The Crow on IMDB
- The Crow on Rotten Tomatoes
Blink Twice
Fresh from his Cajun cameo in Deadpool & Wolverine, Channing Tatum plays a tech billionaire named Slater King who invites a couple of girls, Frida and Jess – played by Naomie Ackie and Alia Shawkat – to join him and his friends for a party on his private island. But as people start going missing or acquiring mysterious injuries, it gradually becomes clear that they’re not having the good time they feel compelled to say they’re having.
There have been a fair few films where a rich guy invites some poorer guests to a private island (or mansion, etc) and then messes with their heads while they’re too awestruck to realise. A couple of recent examples include the Menu and Glass Onion. It’s an entertaining if predictable thriller sub-genre, with a lot of potential to play with ideas of social class, elitism and imbalances of power. This doesn’t look like it’s going to be particularly different or subversive, but it does look like a very slickly made entry into the canon. It’s the directorial debut of Zoë Kravitz (daughter of Lenny, and best known as an actress from the likes of The Batman and Fantastic Beasts), and the reviews I’ve seen have all been full of praise for her. Channing Tatum looks like he’s having a lot of fun as a creepy tech bro, with the expression of a man who knows he holds all the cards while he waits for everyone else to realise they’re playing a game. And the supporting cast is strong too, including Christian Slater, Haley Joel Osmont and Adria Arjona.
- Blink Twice on IMDB
- Blink Twice on Rotten Tomatoes
Kneecap
A couple of young lads in post-Troubles Belfast form an Irish language hip hop group with a local music teacher and find themselves becoming unlikely figureheads of a movement to have Irish formally recognised in the North of Ireland. I was lucky to go to a preview of this at the Mockingbird the other week. I won’t go into loads of detail in the film roundup as I’ve written a full review which you can read here, but suffice it to say that this is a fantastically entertaining film – funny, creative, a lot cleverer than it pretends to be, and with a powerful message about the importance of preserving indigenous languages. As an independent film it’s probably not going to be in cinemas for long, so find it and watch it while you can.
- Kneecap on IMDB
- Kneecap on Rotten Tomatoes
Cuckoo
In Cuckoo – our second film named after a bird beginning with C this week – a young woman (Hunter Shafer) moves with her family to a strange resort run by Dan Stevens’ Herr Konig and haunted by a mysterious hooded woman, where everything quickly descends into violence and madness. The cast also includes Jessica Henwick and Marton Csokas.
The trailer doesn’t give too much away, so it’s hard to say too much more about this one, but it looks like a lot of fun. Dan Stevens is always excellent and is on good creepy form here, and Hunter Schafer looks like she’s taken to the horror genre well. I love her calling out Stevens’ “You are here because your family belongs here” as a “f***ing weird way to put it!” I am looking forward to this, and it’s definitely going to be worth tracking down for horror fans.
- Cuckoo on IMDB
- Cuckoo on Rotten Tomatoes
Between The Temples
In Between The Temples, Ben (Jason Schwartzman), a Jewish cantor suffering from depression and a crisis of faith, runs across his old music teacher (Carol Kane) and agrees to be her adult Bat Mitzvah teacher. In doing so, she helps him to rediscover his identity, sense of purpose, and singing voice.
As you can probably guess from the casting of Jason Schwartzman, this looks like a sweet and charming indie comedy. I haven’t heard much about it, but the tone reminds me a lot of last year’s Oscar-nominated Christmas hit The Holdovers (which is very much a good sign). Schwartzman and Kane are both well-cast, with strong comedy pedigree and coming from Jewish backgrounds that will have given them plenty of experience to draw from. The plot revolves heavily around the Jewish faith and some of the details may be a little lost on any audience members who aren’t familiar with Jewish rituals and customs, but I would imagine the adult Bat Mitzvah classes will provide an opportunity to explain everything.
This should be a lot of fun but with plenty of depth and heart to it.
- Between The Temples on IMDB
- Between The Temples on Rotten Tomatoes
Widow Clicquot
Based on the opening scenes in the trailer of Widow Clicquot, you would think that this is a bodice-ripping period romance movie torn from the pages of a trashy paperback. Tom Sturridge’s François Clicquot breathily recites romantic platitudes to Haley Bennett’s Barbe-Nicole as they get married and cosy up to each other in scenic vineyards and candle-lit bedrooms. But when the wedding shots are abruptly replaced with a funeral procession, it quickly becomes apparent that this is a much more interesting story. Barbe-Nicole – now the titular Widow Clicquot – inherits her late husband’s vineyards and defies the patriarchal customs and laws of the time, as well as Napoleon’s naval blockades, to build a world-renowned champagne business.
Clicquot sounds like the perfect subject for a biography – she’s a hugely successful and influential figure from history who’s nevertheless not that well known to general audiences, and her story is compelling and resonant. The film looks beautifully shot, with lots of lovely bucolic French vistas and chateaus. It’s racked up some solid scores on Rotten Tomatoes (mid-80s among both audiences and critics at time of writing). This feels like the sort of film that could get an Oscar nomination or two, and is definitely worth catching if you’re a fan of period drama.
- Widow Clicquot on IMDB
- Widow Clicquot on Rotten Tomatoes
If you only see one film this week…
There are a lot of contenders this week, but as the only one I can personally vouch for my recommendation is the brilliantly funny and raucous Kneecap.
Still in cinemas and worth a watch
- Alien: Romulus
- Deadpool & Wolverine
- Twisters
Trailer of the week
It takes a long, loonngggg time to make a good quality feature length stop motion animation, which is why the prospect of a new film from Laika, the studio behind such masterpieces as Coraline and Kubo & The Two Strings, is always something to get excited about. Laika’s movies push the art form to its limits, rendering epic storms and fantasy worlds in exquisitely detailed plasticine, and they often carry a darkly mature tone despite being ostensibly for kids. The teaser trailer for their next film, Wildwood, has just been released and looks like it’s going to continue in that vein. It’s very short, with a lot of its runtime dedicated to clips of past Laika hits, but my god does it set the mood. Everything from the rasping voiceover to the shadowy denizens of the forest is perfectly pitched to send a shiver down your spine. And if that’s not enough to pique your interest, the cast list for this is pretty spectacular – including Mahershala Ali, Angela Bassett, Jemaine Clement, Tom Waits, Richard E Grant, Carey Mulligan, Jake Johnson, Charlie Day, Maya Erskine, Tantoo Cardinal, Awkwafina, Jacob Tremblay and Amandla Stenberg.
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