Such was the success of South Korean director Na Hong-jin’s debut, “The Chaser,” that Hollywood took notice and Fox International signed on to bankroll his next project. Despite the cash injection, Na doesn’t deviate too far from what made “The Chaser” such a hit with his follow-up picture, “The Yellow Sea.”
Filial duo Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have forged a steady career regaling the struggles of the Belgian underclass. They are proponents of the plucky underdog, whether that be the desperate eponymous teenager striving for a better life in Rosetta (1999) or immigrant couple Sokol and Lorna in The Silence of Lorna (2008). Their stories are always small in scale and the hopes and dreams of humanity lie at the centre of their narratives. The sorry backdrop of industrial Wallonia often makes an appearance to emphasise the despair and degradation surrounding their players. The Kid with a Bike is no different, focussing as it does on 12-year old Cyril (Thomas Doret), a young boy abandoned by his father at a local care home and apparently all alone in the world.
Arriving hot on the heels of the critically maligned Project X comes writer Michael Bacall’s interpretation of the ’80s teen-cop caper, “21 Jump Street” — the show that thrust Johnny Depp into the limelight. One might be forgiven for letting out an audible groan in the expectation of more equally crass fare. But this is a completely different beast; and it’s a bloody funny one at that.
Five years ago in a review of 28 Weeks Later I extolled the virtues of Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, describing it as “genre busting” and praising it for reviving and redefining the horror genre, even going so far as to call it “ a wakeup call” to the industry. Well, if Boyle’s intelligent and sophisticated zombie romp did indeed succeed in doing that, then Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s The Cabin in the Woods can only be described as a landmark, watershed moment in film history, because this is such an innovative, brave, inspired and original entry into the horror oeuvre that nothing will ever be the same again.
Last week’s dire double-header of This Means War and Project X had critics sharpening their literary knives in preparation for this week’s headliner John Carter. Certain to prove as divisive as a very hot knife through incredibly soft butter, this Mars (ahem, I meant Barsoom) set sci-fi epic, takes top billing in what is once again a week of questionable quality. Elsewhere, Sean Bean kidney punches hookers and murders terrorists, a hirsute John Cusack tracks a serial killer, R Patz shags his way around Paris and Michael Winterbottom transports Thomas Hardy to Rajasthan.
The 7/7 London terrorist attacks saw the term cleanskin enter the lexicon, with the expression being used to describe a terrorist previously unknown to the security forces. These were seemingly normal members of society who had been radicalised to the point that they were willing and able to carry out such atrocities. Writer and director Hadi Hajaig’s third feature examines the nature of the journey of one such cleanskin, Ash (an impressive and terse Abhin Geleya), the head of a cell planning a series of attacks in London in the week before a general election, alongside the tale of secret service agent Ewan (a fulminating Sean Bean) who is tasked with stopping the terrorists at all costs.
Johnny Kevorkian’s debut feature is an eerie cross-genre thriller-horror that is sadly let down by its muddled final act. The puzzling denouement is a genuine shame, as for the first hour, Kevorkian delivers a gritty and intelligent study of the themes of loss and isolation. Matthew (a hugely impressive Harry Treadaway) returns home having been in psychiatric care following the disappearance of his younger brother Tom, and frictions soon arise between him and his father Jake (Greg Wise) as old wounds resurface and the blame game begins. As Matthew digs up the past after hearing Tom’s ghostly voice on a video tape of a police appeal, his world soon begins to unravel.
Michael Winterbottom has certainly enjoyed an eclectic directorial career. And while his subjects have been as diverse as the Bosnian War in “Welcome to Sarajevo,” the Manchester music scene in “24 Hour Party People” and the plight of Gitmo inmates in “The Road to Guantanamo,” his work has always paid particular attention to the human aspect of the story. Family relationships form the crux of his latest picture, “Genova,” as he delivers an intimate portrait of the dynamics of a family dealing with loss, youthful rebellion, guilt and cultural change.
The post awards season malaise continues unabated this week with the release of two contenders for Worst Film of 2012. The ludicrously monikered McG scores a hatrick of stinkers with This Means War, which follows Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle and Terminator Salvation into an unenviable pantheon of awfulness. Vying for the turkey of the week prize is Project X, a film that will make you hate teenagers. Elsewhere, Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston once again team up,15 years after starring together in The Object of My Affection, in Wanderlust, Putin’s dirty politics are exposed in Khodorkovsky and Austrian film Michael portrays a discomfiting tale of paedophilia.
The death of Nancy Spungen – the drug addict, part-time prostitute girlfriend of Sex Pistol’s bassist Sid Vicious – will always be a much debated footnote in the history of punk. The assumption (and indeed the conclusion of a much-maligned investigation by the N.Y.P.D.) was that she was murdered by a heroin-addled Sid, who predictably had no recollection of how Spungen ended up stabbed to death in their dilapidated hotel room bathroom. Sid’s untimely death a mere four months later meant a trial never happened and the police closed the case believing Spungen’s murderer to have met his own sort of justice. Predictably, speculation over what really happened in room 100 of the Hotel Chelsea on the night of Oct. 11, 1978 has been rife ever since: Did Sid really murder his girlfriend – was he even physically capable of such an act – or was it the result of a bungled robbery? It is this uncertainty that Sid Vicious biographer Alan G. Parker attempts to unravel with this frustrating examination of the events leading up to Spungen’s murder.
crash/burn 