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Menampilkan postingan dari Agustus, 2019

Review: Dragged Across Concrete

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Henry Johns (Tory Kittles) is fresh out of prison and looking for a way to make a little money. Old friend Biscuit (Michael Jai White) just might have the job for him, but it doesn’t take long for the pair to realise they’re getting in over their head - working with a couple of stone cold killers who never take their masks off tends to give that impression. Meanwhile, old-fashioned hard-nosed cops Brett Ridgeman (Mel Gibson) and Anthony Lurasetti (Vince Vaughn) have been caught on camera handing out some street justice and are facing suspension – something neither of them can afford. So now they're looking for a way to make a little money on the side too. This is not good news for anybody. Writer-director S. Craig Zahler ( Bone Tomahawk , Brawl in Cell Block 99 ) tells a sprawling (it’s over two and a half hours) crime saga where the sprawl is much of the point: just spending time with these dubious characters is much of the appeal of this film, though when the plot does kick in it...

Review: The Nightingale

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The tone of convict movies can usually be guessed by their location; the further from Sydney you get, the grimmer they are. And by the time you hit Van Diemen’s Land, you know you’re in serious trouble; if anyone ever makes a convict movie set further south than Hobart, they'll basically just be throwing buckets of blood at the camera from scene one. And so it proves with The Nightingale , a bracing rape-revenge tale that’s often hard to take even for seasoned genre fans. The year is 1825, and former convict Clare (Aisling Franciosi) is being regularly raped by Lieutenant Hawkins (Sam Claflin), leader of the local military garrison in the southern wilds of Van Diemen's Land. When her husband Aidan (Michael Sheasby) finally speaks out about the injustice of what's going on, the results are bad news all around. Hawkins, his 2IC sergeant Ruse (Damon Herriman) and a small group of men head north through the wilderness; Clare enlists the help of tracker Billy (Baykali Ganambarr)...

Out now: Shazam!

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Remember when superheroes were for kids? Eh, probably not: Tim Burton's Batman back in 1989 pretty much sunk that boat, and since then taking things way too seriously has been the hallmark of the grown-up superhero movie. How weird is it that we're getting a Joker movie that nobody under the age of 25 should see? Creepy murder clowns: they're not just for kids anymore. All of which is kind of strange, because the one thing superheroes really can do better than just about any other genre is speak to the youth. The phrase "adolescent power fantasies" used to be thrown around a lot in comic-book circles when comics were trying to get out from under the influence of superheroes; the difficult thing today is explaining exactly why it was seen as a bad thing when it leads to a movie like Shazam! . When orphan 13 year-old Billy Batson (Asher Angel) is given super-powers by a wizard (Djimon Hounsou) to defeat the running amok Seven Deadly Sins and their human puppet Dr S...

Review: Palm Beach

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There’s a certain kind of film that feels like it’ll vanish from our screens the second someone figures out how to make virtual reality really work. Gripping stories and dramatic characters probably aren’t ever going to go away, but movies where the whole point is that we get to spend time with nice people in fancy locations – often with a bunch of delicious food being served – are the kind of virtual getaway that technology can only improve on. You probably wouldn't want to live through a Jack Reacher novel on the Star Trek holodeck, but one of those movies where you take a slow drive through the south of France? Beam me up, Scottie. (yes, I know Scottie's Enterprise didn't have holodecks, they were introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation , give me a break) And so it proves to be with Palm Beach , a movie where a bunch of oldish folks go to a very nice looking beach town, stay at a very fancy mansion, take a bit of a stroll around the neighbourhood, soak up some rays...

Out now: Gloria Bell

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It’s been twelve years since she was divorced but Gloria Bell (Julianne Moore) hasn’t given up on finding love again. A regular at LA’s surprisingly thriving mature-age disco scene (where the hits of the 70s play all night long), she’s relentlessly optimistic when to the casual observer it looks like she doesn't have all that much to be optimistic about. Her day job is a dull office slog, while her nights are often spent listening to the ranting lunatic who lives upstairs – he’s the son of her landlord, so there’s only so many complaints she can make – and shooing his hairless cat out of her kitchen. Her children (Michael Cera and Caren Pistorius) are still on the scene but only just; they’re both already distant, and they’re moving towards big changes that will take them away from her. Then she meets divorced former marine and paintball park owner Arnold (John Turturro) and tentatively they begin a relationship. The only problem is his clingy family; will he be ...