Film Shapes

Brazilian writer/director Kleber Mendonça Filho delivers one of the films of the year with this political thriller that hoovered up awards at Cannes. It stars Wagner Moura as Armando, an ex-academic who lands in Recife during Carnival time in 1977. Once there, he's welcomed into a kind of apartment block commune, filled with other 'refugees' from some tyranny or other. The opening of the film teases the situation, slowly unpicking the threads as we cruise through the northern Brazilian setting. It's extremely confident of keeping details held back, no need to rush the exposition. We're introduced to quite a few characters, on both sides of humanity - helpful matriarchs, corrupt cops, selfless in-laws, scuzzy hitmen, crusading journos, and one Jewish German Holocaust survivor. Yep, there's a lot going on here. Around the end of the first act, we flash-forward to the present to find a couple of researchers going through old cassette tapes of interviews between Arm...

The latest from Iranian director Jafar Panahi is a simple, yet brilliant story of a chance encounter with a bastard from the past that oscillates between revenge and forgiveness. We start on an almost uncomfortably close mid-shot of a man and a woman driving at night. They run over a stray dog and the mother explains to her daughter that it was just an accident, setting the stage for other events that may or may not have been accidental. Panahi fills the frame with his protagonists, faces, mostly in states of distress, to the extent that when the screen opens up to show a man digging a makeshift grave in a long shot with vast, lumpy hills in the distance, it's a massive relief of tension. This man is Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), who thinks he has stumbled upon Eghbal, (A.K.A. Peg Leg or the Gimp) (Ebrahim Azizi), an Iranian intelligence agent who tortured him years ago. Doubt forces Vahid to enlist other victims to help identify Peg Leg, before any retribution is taken. The film is rid...

Wake Up Dead Man (without a comma to be seen) is the third Benoit Blanc mystery, written and directed by Rian Johnson. Daniel Craig stars again as the Foghorn Leghorn-twanging detective but he's a touch overshadowed here by the 'supporting' cast, namely Josh O'Connor as young priest, Jud (Judas anyone?) Duplenticy, Josh Brolin as Monsignor Wicks and Glenn Close as church dogsbody Martha. Though it seems O'Connor is the new big thing, especially in indie films, I find him about as engaging as the weekly supermarket trip. In saying that, he's a pretty good foil for the rest of the characters, who have charisma by the bucketload. Blanc only appears around the start of act two, after all the set-up has been dealt with, in a very similar fashion to the previous films, Knives Out and Glass Onion . We gather that somebody has been killed on Good Friday, and the format for this exposition is a letter that Blanc asks Jud to write to him. This works well enough, (Keigo ...

This opening screening of the Perth Festival's Lotterywest Film season is a cinephile's delight. It documents the production of Jean-Luc Godard's seminal feature debut, À Bout de Souffle (or Breathless ). The title refers to the New Wave of French film from the beginning of the 1960s, which railed against the tired, old ways of film-making. Nouvelle Vague actually looks like it was shot on film, it's riddled with scratch marks, there's are many big black dots indicating the end of the reel, and of course, it's in black and white. The director, Richard Linklater, is obviously a huge fan of  Breathless . This is a lovingly made, breezy film, that isn't terribly hard-hitting or deep, but is a fine background to one of the classics. The casting is excellent, specifically the Jeans; Godard, Seberg and Belmondo, played by Guillaume Marbeck, Zoey Deutch and Aubry Dullin respectively. They all look the part and turn in performances just the right side of parody....

Another curious film from the master of the askew, Yorgos Lanthimos. This comes on the heels of his previous film, Kinds of Kindness and I feel that it takes its theme from one of the three stories in that triptych, even though it's based on a 2003 Korean film called Save the Green Planet! Bugonia opens with shots of bees pollinating flowers, accompanied by a voice over from Jesse Plemons, praising the insect. The importance of the bees runs throughout the film. We soon understand that Plemons' character Teddy, isn't quite all there, illustrated by his contention that the Andromedans live among us and are preparing earth for destabilisation or destruction. Teddy lives with his autistic cousin Don, played by neurodivergent newcomer, Aidan Delbis. In his awkward innocence, and maybe purity, he's the moral centre of the film. Teddy, as mastermind of the ambitious plot, identifies high ranking executive Michelle (Emma Stone) as an alien and so the cousins kidnap her and ...

So without me really noticing, this franchise has reached NINE films (if you include the two Alien vs Predator crossovers). The last three have been directed (or co-directed) by Dan Trachtenberg, who's also helmed an episode each of the TV shows  Black Mirror and The Boys . I've got to say, carry on lad, because this is probably the best Predator film I've seen (let me revisit the Arnie one before I remove that 'probably'). This film starts as a revenge quest that soon morphs into a discourse on dysfunctional families and finding your groove in life. All wrapped up in a gnarly, bloody sci-fi romp. I say blood, in actual fact, none of it is human blood, all characters being either alien or synthetic humanoid. That in itself is one of the film's credits -  none of the protagonists are human, and the nominal lead is usually a villain. Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is from the Yautja race, the original 'ugly mother-fucker' Predator. The preamble n...

This is Edgar Wright's ninth feature, just a smidge over 20 years since his reputation-making second film, Shaun of the Dead . The older folk reading this might remember the Arnie original from 1987, directed by Starsky himself, Paul Michael Glaser. I vaguely recall that film being silly and comically violent, one of a slew of Schwarzenegger pulp films of the era. This remake aims for similar stylings, but with a more po-faced, less ludicrous feel. The premise goes that Ben Richards (Glen Powell) needs money to ensure his child gets the proper medicine for her unnamed illness. He's lost his job due to 'insubordination', but really he's just a top bloke looking out for his co-workers.  After promising his wife Sheila (Jayme Lawson) that he won't try out for the near-suicidal game show The Running Man, he applies for other shows on the sinister Network, and gets selected anyway. Of course, or no movie. The scenes in this part of the film are probably the most succ...

Before this film, Paul Thomas Anderson had at least one certifiable classic on his CV in There Will Be Blood . Now, make that two. In saying this, most of his films range from good to brilliant. This is his second adaptation of a Thomas Pynchon novel (after the uneven but interesting Inherent Vice ) and it looks at the lives of modern American revolutionaries, notably members of French 75. The group are apparently named after a WWI weapon, and then a cocktail, both of which have something of a kick.  Leonardo DiCaprio plays Bob, The Rocket Man, who makes the ordnance for the group and is in a relationship with fellow revolutionary, Perfidia (Teyana Taylor). A combination of a run-in with Sean Penn's Colonel Steven Lockjaw, and a rash killing of a security guard triggers more interest in the group, and so a roundup begins. Perfidia is caught, then forced to name names before doing a runner. But not before she has a daughter with Bob, whom he is left to raise on the run. After this f...

This Italian Film Festival offering is a post-mafia story from writer/director pair, Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza. Ex-school principal and local politician, Catello (Toni Servillo) is released from prison in the early 2000s, only to be co-opted by the Italian Secret Service to help apprehend the last Cosa Nostra boss still at large, Matteo Messina Denaro (Elio Germano). Catello is the perfect patsy. He was a good friend of Denaro's father, Don Gaetano, who made Catello the Godfather to young Matteo. I should mention this is based loosely on the life of Denaro, though it's at pains to acknowledge that much of this story is fabricated (a title card reads "Loosely inspired by real events, though the film's characters are the fruits of the authors' imagination.") In this chunk of Denaro's life on the run, Catello is tasked with writing letters to the fugitive, via a bespoke butcher-based post office. Initially, Denaro is moved by Catello's prose a...

I had a bit of time to spare while the car was getting a service so I decided to visit the Greater Union Morley cinemas one last time (it closed a few days after I saw this). I think this was the first cinema I went to when I came back from Japan in 2016 and sadly, it hadn't had a touch up since then, possibly not for a long time before either. Fingers crossed for a brand spanking new cinema complex one day.  Anyway, the film I saw was The Long Walk , and it's a bit of an oddity. It's based on a Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman) book from 1979. King seems to have a thing for these dystopian 'last one standing' stories (see also The Running Man , an Arnie adaptation was made in 1987, and Edgar Wright has a new version up his sleeve, opening soon). Director Francis Lawrence returns to the theme of his Hunger Games films, riffing on Battle Royale , but also, many of these types of films where characters get picked off one by one, from Alien to Monty Python an...

Darren Aronofsky seems to have been more prolific but this is just his 9th feature since his debut, Pi , in 1998, which is, coincidentally, when this new film is set. And it's a film that wears its love for New York City on its sleeve. There are shots of the Twin Towers, streets full of rubbish, dingy apartments, and even a brief pass by of the iconic Kim's Video store (now immortalised in a documentary of the same name). Austin Butler stars as Hank, a former wunderkind baseball player whose careless driving ruined his pro sports future, but also crucially took the life of a friend, a passenger in the car. Some wag on Letterboxd said this film was a great advert for seatbelts, it's a recurring Public Service Announcement. Hank is getting by in NY, thinking of getting serious with his girlfriend, Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz), and generally wallowing in his lost opportunities.  Events turn when neighbour Russ (Matt Smith), an obnoxious punk geezer, pops back to Laaaahhnd'n for a ...

This is the second film I've seen in a row where two blokes wrote the film and also starred in it ( see previous review ). This time round the two blokes are Michael Angelo Covino (also directing) and Kyle Marvin. The coup was signing Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona to play the wives, Julie and Ashley. On the face of it, it's hard to believe that these women would be with these two spuds, but the script allows for a suspension of disbelief. Marvin plays Carey, just over a year into marriage with Ashley (Arjona). On the way to a waterfront weekend with Paul and Julie (Covino and Johnson), Ashley explains that she wants a divorce. The trigger may have had something to do with them being part of a road accident death, a darkly amusing opening scene. Carey leaves the car in a panic and eventually finds his way to the beach house. Distraught, he decides to wallow with his friends until a discretion threatens to blow apart the relationship. To be clear, Julie and Paul's open rela...

Tim Key adds value to every film or TV show he appears in but here he has found his perfect role. Of course, it helps if you write the thing yourself (with help from co-star, Tom Basden). Key plays Charles, a slightly buffoonish, slightly clever 'lord of the manor' type who has invited Basden's Herb to his lightly-populated island to play a gig. Herb was part of a reasonably successful folk duo in years past but is now solo, and experimenting with genres (As another character queries, "Is 'commercial' a genre?"). Charles has the means to pay handsomely for this intimate concert but Herb isn't aware just how intimate it promises to be. Nor is he aware that Charles has also invited the other half of McGwyer/Mortimer, Nell, to the island, in order to reunite after nearly 10 years. Nell is played by Carey Mulligan, another casting triumph. She's always great but is really natural and confident here, with a fine singing voice (also heard in Inside Llewy...

This uncalled for remake of 1988's The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! is not a patch on the original, nor the TV show, Police Squad! that spawned them both. Director Akiva Schaffer has plenty of pedigree with stupid comedy, having directed oodles of Saturday Night Live episodes, as well as films like Hot Rod and The Watch . I haven't seen these films but I'm not about to now. The new Naked Gun has a fairly rapid rate of jokes - many successful - in the first 30 minutes or so, but once the film had to start servicing the plot, the laughs dried up. Throughout the film, the sight gags didn't work as well as the straight-faced wordplay, à la the 'awfully big mustache' classic from The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear . This might be due to the casting. Liam Neeson is fun and tries hard, but he doesn't get anywhere near Leslie Nielsen, though I thought Pamela Anderson was an improvement on Priscilla Presley (I guess being an actual actor helps). Ab...