Author: Joel Fisher

Sometimes Always Never: Review – Alan (Bill Nighy) and Peter (Sam Reily) are father and son, looking for Peter’s long-lost brother, Michael who stormed out one day after a game of Scrabble and never returned. After getting a tip off on a body, they go to the police station to identify the body and hope that it isn’t Michael.

However, Alan is convinced that he’s playing Scrabble online with his long-lost son, he just has to try and find a way to prove it. Along the way they meet a couple; Arthur (Tim McInnerney) and Margaret (Jenny Agutter) who have a similar connection and are looking for someone they lost a long time ago.

Sometimes Always Never is the directorial debut of Carl Hunter, taking the story from Frank Cottrell Boyce’s original short story and who also wrote the screenplay. Set somewhere in Liverpool, all the cast who are usually known for their middle-class English accents manage to take their voices a bit further north and thankfully they all do suitably well without feeling like they’ve been overegged or exaggerated.

In fact, a cameo later on in the film (no spoilers) shows exactly how a true Liverpudlian should speak which also contrasts the more muted and carefully spoken members of the rest of the cast. Always Sometimes Never also plays a lot like a game of Scrabble, gently paced and giving its audience time to think and wonder what the film’s next move will be.

Although billed in the mystery genre, Sometimes Always Never often says something when it’s not using any words at all. There’s also a particularly dry sense of humour running throughout the film which may not impress those looking for a laugh out loud comedy, but for those who can catch it, the script is far wittier and the dialogue sounds more natural than most films that try too hard to make its audience laugh.

Sometimes Always Never is not just about Scrabble, it’s not just about family and loss and grief, but it’s about letting go which most of the characters need to do whether they realise it or not.

A very British comedy that may be most appreciated by the British and maybe even more so further up north, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

A man (Thomas Cocquerel) wakes up in serious pain with no memory of how he got there after only what he can presume to be an accident. After realising something is wrong, he attempts to make his escape and out of what he assumes must be a hospital.

That’s where he meets his caretaker, (Angus Macfayden), a jovial man with a dark streak of menace who only wants to look after his patients. The male patient also meets a female patient (Camille Stopps) who has seemingly been there for longer than him and has a wary respect for their caretaker and knows exactly what he’s capable of doing, nonetheless the male patient wants to do his very best to escape.

Alive is a grim horror movie along the lines of the Saw franchise, with a similar setting that gives its audience very little to go on as the script drip feeds them what they need to know only as and when they need to know it. Isolated in what could only be an abandoned hospital, Alive has its cast claustrophobically close for the majority of the movie and Macfayden plays his sinister doctor to the point where being in his presence must have been very unnerving.

Cocquerel and Stopps also play their parts well, the unwilling victims who know nothing about themselves or each other have a good chemistry and the audience may want to root for their escape as the good doctor’s cruel treatments get more and more barbaric.

Mostly played as a generic horror movie, Alive does manage to turn some of the horror tropes on their heads and there are a couple of twists along the way. Although admittedly these twists do come with a certain suspension of disbelief.

However, by the time the movie ends the audience will have to decide for themselves whether the twists were worth all the drama, whether they made any sense or whether the movie’s twists were as well thought out as they appear.

A movie that will definitely please horror fans and one that will make you think about the ending long after it has finished.

Norman (Jordan Waller) is a butcher with Polish heritage living in the UK. He owns his own business and spends most of the working day preparing the meat just like his mother taught him. Annabelle (Kathryn Wilder) is a part time actress who seems to have found fame as the face of a stool softening product, it’s not her ideal acting role, but she keeps trying to find better work until she makes her big break.

Norman and Annabelle are twins and despite their differences, they have to get together for their mother’s funeral. However, after a slip of the tongue by a relative, Norman and Annabelle find out that they’re adopted and their mother lives in a place called Two Heads Creek – in Australia.

Two Heads Creek is a British/Australian horror comedy written by Jordan Waller and directed by Australian Jesse O’ Brian. As Norman and Annabelle venture to the other side of the world they’re unsure what to expect. Norman is ever hopeful with a rose-tinted view of his real mother, while Annabelle just wants to be anywhere where she’s not recognised.

Norman is also the quintessentially polite Englishman, whereas Annabelle’s point of view is a little less politically correct. Together they eventually find Two Heads Creek and it’s not exactly the idyllic Australian holiday destination they were expecting.

The cast of Two Heads Creek are all very good in their roles, in particular Norman and Annabelle who have chemistry and the script helps to give the audience the idea that they may really be related. However, the movie does take quite a while to get going and in the meantime the audience is greeted by the Two Heads Creek locals and the Australian stereotypes come thick and fast.

For horror fans, they may have to wait a while, but like the Antipodean clichés, the blood and gore comes thick and fast for those who have the patience to wait and it may all be worth it in the end.

However, for those who are interested in plot and characters, the reasoning behind the horror takes a little while to sink in, but when it does and the villains are revealed for their evil motives, the audience may realise all too late that the plot is rather thin.

Michelle (Alex Essoe) is newly married and having concerns over having a baby with her husband, Robert (Kris Siddiqi). Then one day she meets Linda (Precious Chong) who is one of those very friendly, but slightly overbearing people everyone meets and can’t find it in your heart to reject.

As Michelle and Linda get talking, Michelle does her very best to try and let Linda know that she’s busy, but before she knows it Michelle is back at Linda’s place and having cocktails. Even though in the back of her mind Michelle knows that there’s something not quite right about Linda.

Homewrecker is a horror comedy directed by Zach Gayne and written with its stars, Alex Essoe and Precious Chong. As the story goes along it seems that Michelle was right about her instincts and things escalate rapidly as Linda becomes frustrated with the differences between them. Particularly because Michelle and Linda are from different generations. However, as more is revealed Michelle starts to realise that they have far more in common than she realised.

Smartly written and well played by its two female leads, Homewrecker is the kind of horror comedy that speaks to a current audience, but also pokes fun at both generations as Linda has a hard time letting go of her heyday in the early Nineties. Chong plays Linda with a little hint of there being something not quite right behind the eyes and keeps it up throughout as Michelle fights for survival.

The connection between Essoe and Chong is strong as well, so right from when they first meet to when they seemingly bond over a board game, the audience fully believes in their relationship, however twisted it may be.

The levels of physical violence between the pair never holds back, especially when Michelle has to fend off Linda’s sledgehammer with anything that she can get her hands on.

There’s even an impromptu Lisa Loeb karaoke performance which only heightens Linda’s madness and may be one of the funniest moments in the film. Homewrecker is a laugh out loud horror comedy that gives an audience everything they may want from the genre.

Gatsby (Timothēe Chalamet) is a rich, pseudo intellectual actor who’s spending the weekend with his girlfriend, Ashleigh (Elle Fanning). Ashleigh is an opportunistic journalist who gets the chance to interview one of her idols, director Roaland Pollard (Liev Schrieber).

Whilst Gatsby is out filming a scene with his co-star, Chan (Selena Gomez) Ashleigh is invited to watch Pollard’s latest masterpiece and so starts the troubles in Gatsby and Ashleigh’s relationship.

A Rainy Day in New York is Woody Allen’s latest movie, postponed from 2017’s release due to allegations about his misconduct. So, fans of Allen’s work have been tentatively waiting to see if the wait was worth it, while the rest of the world (including the movie’s cast) have sensibly distanced themselves from Allen and his work. Frankly, even for those fans still hanging on Allen’s every word, it wasn’t worth the wait.

There are several problems with A Rainy Day in New York and not just because of the allegations now surrounding Woody Allen. The problem seems to be that the once renowned director has run out of ideas. A Rainy Day in New York riffs off of Allen’s more successful work in his heyday and what’s left is a pale imitation.

Add to that the incredibly dated characters and scenarios that they find themselves in, and it all feels like a filmmaker desperately trying to remind an audience why they loved him in the first place. Only for the fans that are still left to wonder where it was that he lost his touch.

If any members of the audience can separate the artist from the movie and try to enjoy the film, it’s clear that Allen cannot. Having been known to write characters that are closely based on his public persona, Gatsby is just another Allen clone and despite Chalamet’s talent as an actor, the audience won’t be able to stop feeling like this is the filmmaker talking through his characters rather than creating someone they can connect with.

Unfortunately, there’s not even a single well written female character in the cast. From Ashleigh, the flighty journalist willing to do anything debasing to get a story, to the sex workers that appear more than once. There’s even the cheating wife thrown in for good measure. Although this cannot take away from the talent of Elle Fanning, Rebecca Hall, Selena Gomez and Cherry Jones as they have so little to work with.

For those wishing to watch something that takes their minds off how troubling the world is these days, A Rainy Day in New York is only going to make your blood boil over.