Film Shapes

This film, screening at the Nordic Film Festival , is a slightly slapstick telling of the attempted coup in Finland in 1930, where ex-President Kaarlo Ståhlberg and his wife were kidnapped and driven across the country by the right wing fascist Lapua Movement. It's tied together by a best on ground performance from the Finnish Glenn McGrath, Jussi Vatanen (it's astonishing how much this guy looks like Pidge - scroll to the bottom and decide yourself). He plays Eero Kuussaari, a colonel desperate for respect and promotion. This frustration and feeling of inferiority drives him to drunkenly order a young crew of right-wing activists to kidnap Stahlberg (Pertti Sveholm) from his country home. They don't bargain on Mrs. Stahlberg (Riitta Havukainen) insisting on joining them.  Director Samuli Valkama has made a clever little historical comedy drama with current reverberations, considering Finland's place as a potential bulwark to Russia in Europe. The events of this film ta...

So that's Rev for another year. I made it to eight films and it was far from a stellar collection, but I think I made the wrong choice to start with - Bulk , when I could have waited an hour and watched Rosebush Pruning , which looked better in hindsight. Anyhoo, live and learn, I guess. Here are the films I saw in viewing order: Bulk    ★ Boy, this was hard to get through. More pleased with itself than it had any right to be. Sam Riley and Alexandra Maria Lara are together again (after the vastly superior Control ) with Noah Taylor wafting around too. Writer/director Ben Wheatley has had a roller-coaster of a career so far, but this must be one of the nadirs. There are elements of Team America: World Police , Eraserhead and model work reminiscent of Ray Harryhausen, but the overripe dialogue, annoying performances, and sheer boredom all serve to give this a whiff of a pretentious student film (past experience verified). Avoid. Penny Lane is Dead    ★ ★ ★ There is ...

This preview for the Nordic Film Festival is a proper drama for grown-ups, directed and co-written by Maria Sødahl, that poses some curly questions. It's about a middle class Danish couple on holiday with their young daughters in the Canary Islands. Interestingly, the Danish title is Paradis , which carries a bit more irony than its English title. Mikkel (Esben Smed) and Louise (Danica Curcic) are a typically 'normal' couple from northern Europe, enjoying their island holiday when they run down a bloke while driving at night. He turns out to be Ahmed (Aziz Çapkurt), a refugee from Afghanistan, and his leg is pretty munted. Trying to do the right thing, they take him to hospital and leave him with some cash, and crucially, their resort room and phone numbers. This minor act of kindness, and no little guilt, sets in motion a slow building series of events that fucks with the couple's holiday, and relationship in a wider sense. The resurfacing of Ahmed is clearly signpost...

This new superhero flick from the DCU is an incel's nightmare. Following on from James Gunn's Superman of last year, Craig Gillespie takes the director's reins for this spin-off, Supergirl . Quick deviation - partway through, there's a clever aside about how Kara gets the 'girl' label, while her cousin Kal-El can use 'man'. Starting as it means to go on. Before we actually see the lead, we open with the motivating event of a family slaughter by the face-studded Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts), sending young Ruthye (Eve Ridley) off on a revenge quest, which eventually drags in Kara Kor-El (Milly Alcock). Kara is on a week-long birthday bender, making sure to stay in red sun systems so that her powers don't work and the booze does. This is significant for the showstopping transformation yet to come on an interplanetary bus. Look, the film itself is fine, nothing new in the storyline structure (Andrew from The Curb notes that 'the ...

This English/Polish co-production is not to be confused with Good Boy , a dog-based horror film, even though in most regions the definite article is removed - it seems only Australia and the UK have it as The Good Boy . To muddy the waters more, in some areas, including the US, Brazil and the Netherlands, it's called Heel , something you might say to a dog. Anyway, I'll call it THE Good Boy because that's how it's being sold here. It's directed by a Polish guy called Jan Komasa, who's done some features in Poland, and written by first time writer Bartek Bartosik, alongside slightly more established Naqqash Khalid. They've concocted a genre pic that flirts with horror, winks at black comedy and straight up propositions psychological dependency drama. At the beginning of the film, young scally Tommy (Anson Boon) is a hateable twat, acting 'the big I am' on a night out, drug-fucked and aggro with everyone, until he sets off on his own for more action. ...

Screening at the  Spanish and Latin American Film Festival , Alejandro Amenabar's first film since 2019 is a mildly controversial take on the 5-year captivity of legendary Spanish author, Miguel de Cervantes. We begin the film as Cervantes is led into a dusty courtyard in Algiers, along with many other kidnappees. Before he can be sold as a slave, or sliced up for insubordination, he presents a letter from the Spanish court, signalling that perhaps it's better he be kept as a hostage for ransom.  The film takes a bit of time to get rolling from here but when it does it settles into a clever mix of melodrama and weighty ideas. Cervantes, with his weak left arm acting like an acting crutch, slowly becomes the cheerleader of the prisoners, writing his stories in the air, only stopping when he temporarily runs light on material. The story takes a hurdle when the Bey, a high-ranking provincial governor (Alessandro Borghi) overhears the stories told in the courtyard and summons Cerv...

The title of the film refers to a series of paintings started by Julian Sklar in the 90s but left unfinished for reasons made clear later. Sklar, as played by Ian McKellen, is eccentric and irascible, and seems to be a blend of famous British painters, Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud. As Sklar is getting on in years, his grown children hatch a plan to have the paintings 'completed' for sale, with, or preferably without, their father's knowledge. For this undertaking they must enlist renowned art restorer (and dab hand forger), Lori Butler, an old acquaintance from art college. The premise is fine, but unfortunately, as created by Steven Soderbergh (director) and Ed Solomon (writer), it doesn't have any legs. Paradoxically, the best bits are probably also part of the reason it falters. McKellen is superb as the lovelorn painter, artistically blocked and emotionally bitter. His pithy, acerbic dialogue is great and he gives the performance full welly, but the actual storyli...