Film Shapes

A stupidly hot Saturday morning was a great time for the Luna Leederville preview screening of Francois Ozon's new film, By the Grace of God . This is a drama set in Lyon, based on real-life, current events surrounding the crimes of a paedophile priest, Bernard Preynat. The catholic church of Lyon and its high-ranking officials, including Cardinal Barbarin, were found to have known about his actions for some time and not acted upon this knowledge. The film starts with one of the victims, a now 40-something family man, Alexandre, discovering that the priest who abused him was returning to work with kids in the Lyon area. This sets off a chain of emails and calls to the diocese, culminating in a weird, arranged meeting between Preynat, Alexandre and a church psychologist. The frustrating formality of the church culture in these scenes forces Alexandre's hand and he ultimately feels he needs to involve the law, rather than relying on the church to gets things done. Here's...

This latest Terminator film is nominally number 6 in the series, though it appears to be doing a retcon of numbers 3, 4 and 5. And fair enough, as they were, for the most part, shit. Dark Fate picks up 25 years after T2 and is the first film since that one to star Linda Hamilton. She gets top billing here too, but I think the star turn is Mackenzie Davis as augmented arse-kicker, Grace. She plays the Kyle Reese character, sent back to protect a Sarah Connor saviour from being terminated by the machines of Legion ( Dark Fate's  version of Skynet). That saviour is Dani Ramos, played by little-known Colombian actress, Natalia Reyes. The interplay between the three female leads is well handled, with mistrust and confusion dominating. At one point, Dani asks why the machines are after her and is told by Sarah that they aren't afraid of her, they're afraid of her womb. I read this as a swipe at OWAMs (Old, white, American men) and their attempts to control abortion, in p...