Film Shapes

This latest Resident Evil is a slight zombie viscera flick that doesn't really say much but is a bit of fun anyway. Director Zach Cregger impressed with Weapons , and folk have good things to say about his film before that, Barbarian , too (I'm yet to watch). His latest is a reboot, retool, reimagining, however you'd like to put it, of the film series spawned from the game in 2002, that eventually mutated to six entries, all gamely starring Milla Jovovich. Now before this new iteration, I'd only seen that first one, but quite possibly one or two more (like the creatures in the film, I'm guessing they all meld together). My gaming credentials are even more paltry - I seem to remember playing a version once years ago, but it could have been any zombie shooting game. So drawing a long bow, I'm going to say this one aims more for the shits and giggles than the others, borrowing from Cregger's previous life as a comedy actor/writer/director. Austin Abrams plays ...

Here's another serving from the Italian Film Festival , this one set mostly in the fictional town of Bellesammama in Southern Sardinia, the beautiful Spiaggia di Tuerredda standing in for the beach paradise. The recognisable story goes that a rich company wants to buy up the land on the beach to build a resort, promising to create jobs and bring untold wealth to the struggling area. Everyone is confident things will be done and dusted in no time until the real estate company runs up against an immovable object, old farmer Efisio (Giuseppe Loi). Offered ever increasing sums of Lira, then as time goes on, Euros, he rejects all. This is his home, he doesn't need anything else.  The townsfolk cajole Efisio and chivvy his daughter Francesca (Virginia Raffaele), hoping they'll see reason. The head of the Milanese real estate firm, Giacomo (Diego Abatantuono), sends a foreman, Mariano (Aldo Baglio) to sort things out, and even enlists the local mayor and police. No dice. Althoug...

This solid, if not super original, slice of high school life in gritty Euro-environs looks to be a change of tack for director Umberto Riccioni Carteni. Much of his back catalogue appears to be on the frothy end of the spectrum, and oddly, Classmates is listed as a 'Drama, Comedy' in the festival programme. It's not all that heavy but it's a stretch to call it a comedy. It starts with English teacher, credited as Professoressa (Anna Ferzetti) arriving at her new school in a rough-ish area of north-east Rome called Rebibbia. The final year students of this class are generally downheartened nihilists, all carrying problems related to poverty, drugs or family. A more difficult start might have been expected for the Prof but most of her students respond well to her, due to a policy of treating them like humans, not the garbage they (and other teachers) believe they are.  A familiar trope of students shouting at each other, insulting and threatening, soon shows itself to be...

While there have been loads of Looney Tunes feature films, this is the fourth to mix live action with the animated favourites. There are two  Space Jam films, but if you can remember 2003's Looney Tunes: Back in Action , you're doing better than me. This new hybrid, directed by Dave Green, stars Will Forte and John Cena as opposing lawyers in a case brought against Acme by Wile E. Coyote.  Oddly, this film is actually based on an article for the New Yorker magazine, written by Ian Frazier, about the downtrodden desert dog and his annoyance with Acme Corporation and their faulty products. I realise that some younger crew will have no idea of the content of the Looney Tunes Road Runner cartoons, so to sum it up: "Road Runner, the Coyote's after you. Road Runner, if he catches you, you're through." Yep, it's a classic, constant chase, and as this film posits, maybe the chase is the point. Logically, and in nature, the coyote would probably eat the bird, if i...

Well, well, well. This thing has done some business. It's currently SIXTH in all time worldwide receipts, with Titanic in its sights. But, of course, it's problematic to rely on public opinion as a judge of quality. Or maybe that's just me. Because I found this new Spider-Man film to be just slightly above average. They are quite a few positives to take from it. Tom Holland has a winning presence, the omnipotent Zendaya is his equal (they have some nice moments together), and the cameos are fun - Mark Ruffalo's Hulk, Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova, and John Bernthal's Punisher big screen debut. Aside from the performances, the city of New York is almost another character, and it's portrayed lovingly here. The jumpy, swingy scenes feel more realistic than previous films, and there's a dark edge to the story as well, to do with change and maturity. The first grown-up Spider-Man? On that note, I read his situation as a late arrival at puberty. Bear with me...

Christopher Nolan is one of the few active directors who can entice punters to the cinema (along with Denis Villeneuve), and they've come out in droves for his latest, a retelling of Homer's The Odyssey . Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, the king of Ithaca who is co-opted to join his overlord, Agamemnon, in his attack on Troy. After near 10 years of siege, culminating in the Trojan Horse event, the silly bastard then decides to take the scenic route home, and gets plumb lost.  What follows is a technically brilliant rendering of mythical nonsense made to feel real. Odysseus's mini-fleet of three ships and maybe 100 (?) men run into several hardships, notably the Cyclops; a small army of huge men called the Laestrygonians; the sorceress, Circe; and some salacious sea nymphs. These set pieces are fantastic, especially the Cyclops (played by TARS voice from Interstellar , Bill Irwin), and Circe's cottage, where she has a way with greedy menfolk. Samantha Morton is almost best...

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 ...