Rambles about the wonderful world of wrestling.
Mike Flanagan is quietly making a name for himself. Hush got a bit of internet buzz when it was released on Netflix in 2016, and while Before I Wake didn’t pick up anywhere near the same momentum, there were hints of his growing talent. It was enough to convince Netflix to put faith in him and fund his passion project, Stephen King’s Gerald’s Game – a book he used to take to meetings just in case he could convince someone to let him make it.
Noel Clarke has something that a lot of actors would kill for. It doesn’t matter who is playing, or in what genre, you want to like him. That likability is not the sole reason he’s been able to succeed as a writer, director and performer, but it’s certainly helped. Sadly, it’s not enough to save The Anomaly from what it is, a bit of a stinker.
Kicking off in the immediate aftermath of [•REC], [•REC]² sees us return to the block of flats with a zombie problem. This time we’re looking through the cameras of a SWAT team who have been tasked with accompanying Dr Owen (Jonathan Mellor) as he attempts to clear up this mess. Unfortunately for them, they haven’t been told the whole story and when they enter the building, shit quickly begins to go down.
Where do you start with mother!? Darren Aronofsky’s latest is as much a mystery as a film, and its advertising campaign has aimed to create confusion rather than clarity. The director wants you to go in with as little information as possible and discover this twisted journey for yourself.
A film where Casey Affleck spends 90% of the running time dressed like a last-minute Halloween costume and in which a camera sits and focuses on Rooney Mara for nine minutes as she devours a pie could have gone, well, any number of ways to be honest but most of them would be bad. However, if you can stomach the long lingering shots and the Terrence Malick feel to this dreamy reflection on grief, then there is something here. I’m not quite sure what, but it’s there.
If you were judging solely by the marketing, then you’d be forgiving for believing that It Comes At Night was a pretty straight forward horror film. The type with plenty of jump scares for groups of teenagers to scream at in delight. Sadly, for them, we can only imagine a few of those groups have gone home unhappy.
How funny you find The Little Hours comes down to how funny you find the concept of a nun saying fuck. If that makes you giggle just thinking about it, then you are on to a winner. If you are going to need a bit more then you might struggle.
Romeo and Juliet but instead of Montagues and Capulets we’ve got emos and Christians. Instead of fair Verona, we have a clique filled school in Australia. Oh, and it’s a musical. That’s the elevator pitch for Emo The Musical, adapted by writer and director Neil Triffett from his short of the same name, and the end results are even more ridiculous than it sounds.
Freak Show takes a well-worn plot and decides to give it a bit of a twisting. Billy Bloom (Alex Lawther) is forced to leave the big city and his beloved Muv (his flamboyant mother played by Bette Midler) behind when he moves in with his dad who he hasn’t seen for seven years. Now living in the Red States, he suddenly finds that being gay with a penchant for drag isn’t the best way to fit in and in fact attracts violence. Billy ain’t no wilting flower, however, and he strikes back by letting his freak flag fly and running for homecoming queen.
The Edinburgh Film Festival has kicked off and with it the chance to catch a whole bunch of films you wouldn’t have seen otherwise. First up was Story Of A Girl, the debut feature from Kyra Sedgewick which will air on Lifetime after its festival run. With a cast which includes Sedgewick’s husband, Kevin Bacon, it follows Deanna (Ryann Shane) who three years after a sex tape of her and her big brother’s best friend was leaked on the internet, is still dealing with the consequences.
Ramblings About Wrestling 