Of his directorial debut Ill Manors, rapper and wannabe auteur Ben Drew aka Plan B said he was making a “British Godfather”. Well, despite an evident interest in interweaving narratives, Drew’s picture bears little relation to Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece. Sweeping epic this most certainly isn’t.
Revisiting the Alien universe was always going to be a risk for Ridley Scott. Alien was the film that cemented his reputation as a visionary auteur and is rightly regarded as a classic, a sublime example of atmospheric horror. Three sequels of varying quality established a sprawling world, one that Scott had long hinted that he was interested in exploring further, his interest particularly piqued by the mysterious Space Jockey, whose fleeting glimpse in his original work posed questions that have never been answered. Whilst Prometheus puts that quandary to bed, its ambitions and scale are far loftier than merely acting as a prequel to the series, which proves to be a refreshing yet frustrating approach.
There can be few premises quite as exquisite as the one mooted by Iron Sky. 1945 and with the Third Reich on the verge of collapse, the last vestiges of the Nazi party flee earth to establish a base on the dark side of the moon, waiting patiently for the perfect moment to return to Earth and restore Nationalsozialismus. That would be enough to whet most appetites, but the story behind the six year long production adds an extra dimension to this already stellar promise.
Artfully sadistic and elegantly hypnotic, Gareth Evans’s “The Raid” is a master class in brutally stylistic and simplistic storytelling. Ostensibly a traditional cops-vs.-bad-guys frenetic beat-’em-up, Evans executes his tale with such flair and guile that this is far superior fare to comparable genre pictures. Evans’s appreciation of and fascination with the Indonesian martial art Pencak Silat ensures that every punch and kick hits the mark, subjecting his audience to a relentless assault on the senses.
Retreating into dark shadows and having a private but very audible sob was my reaction to watching the trailer for Tim Burton’s latest catastrophe. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter have shown Burton unrivalled loyalty in recent years (one senses they’re in on some sort of terribly unfunny joke) as he slowly undoes any of the good will that his early work may have garnered with clangers following swiftly on from stinkers. The fact that Dark Shadows shows little sign of breaking that run means that save for Corpse Bride, Burton hasn’t made a good film since Mars Attacks in 1996 and even that was iffy at times.
Guerrilla indie filmmaking meets slacker road movie, “Wah Do Dem” is a well crafted black comedy that benefits from its raw, improvisational feel. Conceived when young filmmaking duo, Ben Chace and Sam Fleischner decided to turn a cruise Chace had won in a raffle into a film project, “Wah Do Dem” follows the hapless Max (a well observed Sean Bones) as he embarks on a cruise from New York to Jamaica and subsequently stumbles from one misfortune to the next. It’s a touching and sometimes farcical tale that touches on cultural isolation, loneliness and how desperate situations can sometimes be a blessing in disguise.
Lawrence, the erstwhile singer songwriter of 80’s post-punk band Felt and latterly front man of the ludicrously monikered Go Kart Mozart is the eponymous subject of Paul Kelly’s Lawrence of Belgravia.
In a perverse sort of sense, documentarians play a very similar role to that of an investigative journalist. They sense a story, pursue it endlessly, albeit with the permission of their subject and eventually bring that unreported story to the masses. It’s an important vocation imbued with passion and dedication; and yet while the aim of the documentarian is invariably didactic, his or her work is more often than not rip-roaringly entertaining.
UK film fans Assemble! Despite sporting the worst film title in recent memory, Avengers Assemble hits our screens this weekend and will do phenomenal business. Genre geeks will fuel the numbers given that both 3D and 2D versions are on offer, but Joss Whedon also lends the pic crossover appeal that will draw filmgoers regardless of whether they’ve seen Thor, Iron Man et al. Whedon’s pic pits our heroic troupe against intergalactic mischief-maker Loki who is seemingly intent on taking over the world (now where have I heard that one before?) and as expected explosive havoc reigns. Yet pithy bickering and a razor-sharp script ensure that this is superior to much of what has come before.
Bradley Rust Gray’s latest collaboration with wife So Yong Kim is an intimate and quirky, albeit incredibly lightweight, portrayal of a developing relationship that lends credence to the adage that sometimes what’s left unsaid is more important than what actually is.
crash/burn 