Meanwhile, I has been to the cinemas. These are reviews of them.
Side Effects
For all the respect he gets from film aficionados and art-house fans, I’m kind of indifferent to Stephen Soderbergh as a director. So, I tend to rate him on a case-by-case basis, usually depending on the topic. Let’s put it this way: of all the films of his that I’ve seen, the ones I’ve been the most impressed by are the Ocean’s 11 films. Still, I thought I’d give this a try, and I’m glad I did.
The premise: Emily is suffering from depression attempts suicide, and a psychiatrist, Dr Banks, prescribes a number of drugs, including a new experimental drug. It seems to do the trick – until she murders her husband whilst sleepwalking. That’s when the film shifts from a movie about depression and drugs into a psychological murder mystery as Banks tries to absolve himself of guilt by finding out what happened.
It’s the kind of thing Hitchcock used to do so well, but Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z Burns really make it work, keeping you guessing even when clues are revealed, and aided by good performances from Rooney Mara and Jude Law. Credit also for touching on the prevalence of prescription drugs and Big Pharma without resorting to obvious conspiracy theories. The ending is maybe a little too tidy, but otherwise it’s one of the better films so far this year.
OblivionPost-apocalyptic sci-fi film that takes place 60 years after Earth is decimated by an alien invasion. With the “scavs” defeated but the Earth uninhabitable, humanity is preparing to evacuate to Titan, and two humans – Jack and Victoria –are tasked with guarding the fusion reactors gathering the fuel humans will need for the trip. Needless to say, things start to go wrong, and soon it becomes one of those Everything You Know Is A Lie films as Jack starts finding things out he’s not supposed to know.
Storywise, it’s okay – hardly groundbreaking, but writer/director Joseph Kosinski does a pretty good job of keeping you guessing just where all this is going. And credit for coming up with an explanation that covers a lot of bases in terms of tropes that might otherwise make no sense (a big one for me being: if Earth was decimated by the war, how did they develop and maintain all that strikingly advanced technology?).
That said, it starts off pretty flat, although it does kick into gear once Morgan Freeman shows up (as many films often do). Still, it says a lot that the unfolding situation is more interesting than any single character in the film (or anything they say), and even Tom Cruise seems to be phoning it in at times. All up, better than I expected, but not as good as it could have been.
Seven Psychopaths
Black comedy from British writer/director Martin McDonagh about an alcoholic screenwriter looking for inspiration for a screenplay called
Seven Psychopaths, and gets some unwanted help from his loose-cannon friend Billy, who works for a dog kidnapping racket – and unwittingly kidnaps the dog of a psycho mob boss. Hilarity and ultraviolence ensue.
Really, when yr doing a comedy about psychopaths and the ensemble cast includes Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken, Woody Harrelson, Tom Waits and Harry Dean Stanton, it’s hard to go wrong. And McDonagh makes the most of it, even if it falls a little short as a send-up of Hollywood psycho genre clichés.
Inevitably, some people have compared it to
Pulp Fiction, though in terms of ultra-violence and comedy it’s closer to
Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead. And really, it’s neither of those films, but it is very well written and quite funny, with great performances from everyone. [
SPOILER: For those worried about the fate of the dogs in a violent film involving dognapping, you may rest easy.]
Weer all krazee now,
This is dF
