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  • Jodie Edition: Bits & Pieces

    Jodie Edition: Bits & Pieces

    Jodie Edition: Bits & Pieces – Award-winning filmmaker Michel Franco (Chronic, After Lucia) presents a shocking and provocative depiction of class warfare in contemporary Mexico. Winner of the 2020 Venice Film Festival Grand Jury Prize and recently long-listed for a BAFTA in the Best Film Not in English Language category, this is a gripping dystopian drama that dares us not to look away.

    The world of The Witcher expands in this anime origin story: Before Geralt, there was his mentor Vesemir — a swashbuckling young witcher who escaped a life of poverty to slay monsters for coin. But when a strange new monster begins terrorizing a politically-fraught kingdom, Vesemir finds himself on a frightening adventure that forces him to confront the demons of his past.

    The Man Who Sold His Skin has received worldwide critical acclaim including a Best International Film nomination at this year’s Academy Awards – the first Tunisian film ever to be nominated – an Orizzonti Award for Best Actor for Yahya Mahayni and a Edipo Re for Inclusion Award both at the Venice International Film Festival.

    From director Jason Reitman and producer Ivan Reitman, comes the next chapter in the original Ghostbusters universe. In Ghostbusters: Afterlife, when a single mum and her two kids arrive in a small town, they begin to discover their connection to the original ghostbusters and the secret legacy their grandfather left behind. The film is written by Gil Kenan & Jason Reitman.

    THE COURIER is a true-life spy thriller, the story of an unassuming British businessman Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch) recruited into one of the greatest international conflicts in history. At the behest of the UK’s MI6 and a CIA operative (Rachel Brosnahan), he forms a covert, dangerous partnership with Soviet officer Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze) in an effort to provide crucial intelligence needed to prevent a nuclear confrontation and defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis.

    HANDSOME follows two brothers, Nick & Alex, as they embark on a worldwide journey to discover what life is like for other siblings living with Down’s Syndrome. From Cornwall to New York, to Vietnam and Mumbai, they encounter families from different cultural backgrounds who each have their own outlook on living with disabilities. Along the way, with joy, laughter, and the day-to-day challenges they face, they learn more about their own relationship and the special bond they have with one another.

  • Broken Diamonds: Review

    Broken Diamonds: Review

    Broken Diamonds: Review. By Alif Majeed.

    I was excited when I started Broken Diamonds as sibling rivalry, when done right makes for good cinematic fodder. Plus, Ben Platt and Lola Kirke are always a pleasure to watch on screen. I was curious to see how they would work together as siblings. I’m pleased to say they work beautifully as a team. Even though it’s for a movie that mostly follows the indie siblings template on predictable lines.

    Ben Platt plays Sylvester, an aspiring writer who works as a part-time waiter. At the beginning of the movie, he plans to move to Paris, no doubt inspired by the roaring ’20s. He then gets a dreaded call that throws a wedge in his plan just as he is leaving. His father dying and his sister Cindy (Lola Kirke, who has schizophrenia, coming under his care, proves too much for him. All this is made pretty clear in the trailer.

    What I found interesting is when the focus is on Scott and how he reacts to his sister. When he visits his sister in an early scene, he gets stunned when she sees her sit in a corner while a small fire is slowly threatening to burn down the house. When he asked her if she didn’t know the fire was real or not, the look on his face was enough to get the sense of dread you could think about dealing with that situation that he has no control over.

    There are a lot of Platt’s usual ticks that show up over here, but he was marvelous as Scott, and you do see his pain at having to deal with the situation. It might not be a game-changing performance, but it is still an affecting and moving one. 

    With mental illness movies, the show-stealing role is mainly with the actor portraying the mental illness. Lola Kirke here gets Dustin Hoffman’s Rain Man role, minus the genius part, and the thing is, sometimes her role almost feels like a parody of that performance. It is no fault of her as she tries and mostly makes her role work. But the shadow of Rain Man and the sibling dynamics is so strong in this movie that it is hard to shake it off. 

    Though she gets smothered under the weight of parody, I found a lot to like about her performance. You get a sense of her pain in a couple of scenes, but she mostly comes off as an eccentric pixie version of Dustin Hoffman. Maybe that was the problem, that it was not supposed to be a performance you are supposed to like but feel moved. 

    Even the trailer makes it come off as a quirky indie comedy, which is not the case. It’s weird when the trailer often tries to make it look like it follows all the genre conventions, right down to the uplifting music signifying the bond developing among the two broken misfits. Or so it goes.

    I did however love that fact that the movie implies it is not just the patient who needs counseling. Often the people around them also might need help to deal with their situation and not overwhelm them when coupled with their problems. It was a wonderful touch that needs to be portrayed and discussed more often. It would have been a much more interesting movie if it focused a lot more on that.

    In the end, Broken Diamonds gets afflicted with the curse of the spoiler trailer. It moves pretty much how it is shown in the trailer. Whatever is not shown might not be that hard to figure out. It may not be a game-changer or add anything new to the mental illness movie canon. But you should still watch it for its two very likable stars, Lola Kirke and Ben Platt, whose sibling chemistry makes them a pleasant couple who almost elevates the movie out of the cliched cloth its trailer was cut from.

  • Peter Rabbit 2 Burrows In At Number 1

    Peter Rabbit 2 Burrows In At Number 1

    Peter Rabbit 2 hops straight to Number 1 on the Official Film Chart, while the loveable rabbit occupies a further two places in this week’s Top 20.

    The animated adventure comedy film – featuring the voice of James Corden as the title character –  claims the top spot based on digital sales only, ahead of its release on DVD and Blu-ray on August 2. Meanwhile, a boxset of Peter Rabbit 1 & 2 enters at Number 2, while the first 2018 film appears as a standalone release at Number 17.

    A 4k Blu-ray re-release of Quentin Tarantino-written True Romance sends the 1993 US romantic crime into the chart at Number 4, and last week’s Number 1 Mortal Kombat (2021) drops to Number 5. Elsewhere, Godzilla Vs Kong (6), The Croods (7), Zack Snyder’s Justice League (8), Promising Young Woman (9) and Tom & Jerry: The Move (10) all hold firm inside the Top 10. 

    Further down, sci-fi film War Of The Worlds 2021 makes its debut at Number 15, and comedy horror Werewolves Within – a film adaptation of the popular video game – is new at Number 19.

    This week’s Official Film Chart online show features a sneak peek at supernatural horror The Unholy, which is available to Download & Keep from August 2nd. Now, as well as OfficialCharts.com, the Official Film Chart can also be found on FindAnyFilm.com – the ultimate site for Film and TV fans to discover all the legal ways to buy the entertainment they want on disc and digital formats.

    The Official Film Chart Top 10 – 21st July 2021

    LWPosTitleLabel
    NEW1PETER RABBIT 2SONY PICTURES HE
    NEW2PETER RABBIT – 1 & 2SONY PICTURES HE
    33SPACE JAMWARNER HOME VIDEO
    NEW4TRUE ROMANCEARROW FILMS
    15MORTAL KOMBAT (2021)WARNER HOME VIDEO
    26GODZILLA VS KONGWARNER HOME VIDEO
    47THE CROODSDREAMWORKS ANIMATION
    58ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUEWARNER HOME VIDEO
    79PROMISING YOUNG WOMANUNIVERSAL PICTURES
    810TOM & JERRY – THE MOVIE (2021)WARNER HOME VIDEO

    © Official Charts Company 2021

    VIEW THE FULL TOP 40 – https://www.officialcharts.com/charts/film-chart/

  • The Five Rules Of Success: Review

    The Five Rules Of Success: Review

    Fresh out of prison, a man called X (Santiago Segura) is looking to put his life right. He’s introduced to his parole officer, Emma (Isadora Goreshter) and is told in no uncertain terms that if he does anything to break the terms of his parole that he will go back to jail, after all parole is a privilege.

    Knowing how hard it will be to get a job, X still tries and does find a job at a restaurant where his boss, Avakian (Jon Sklaroff) knows all too well the kind of power he will have over X and hires him thinking that his new employee will be easy to keep in line considering the alternative. However, over time X meets an old friend, Danny (Jonathon Howard) and after a persuasive conversation, Danny tells X about a job that may be of interest to him, but it will lead him back to his former life.

    The Five Rules of Success is a dark and tense character study about a man with the world at his feet who feels like he has nowhere to go. Writer/director Orson Oblowitz may have a couple of films under his belt already, but his particularly unique style shines in his latest as it shows how his visual eye can be transferred to something more real compared to his past work.

    Segura also gives a great performance as a man who has hope for his future, only for his hopes to be dashed away and realising that to survive, he has to change.

    A difficult watch, but one that is visually stunning and tense, The Five Rules of Success may offer up a positive future, but its script and situations that X finds himself in are something that may resonate with an audience. Particularly if those members of the audience have found themselves between a rock and a hard place.

    There may have been a temptation here to glamourise the violence or the allure of the criminal lifestyle, but thankfully that’s never shown in the subdued account of X’s life after release, only ever shown on his face as he loses faith in humanity.

    A film that may not leave the audience thinking that they have been entertained, but The Five Rules of Success reminds us that life has a way of disregarding even our best intentions.

  • Night Of The Kings: Clip

    Night Of The Kings: Clip

    Altitude are thrilled to share a new clip from NIGHT OF THE KINGS, the acclaimed film from director Philippe Lacôte (RUN), which is out in UK and Irish cinemas and on digital now.  The film received its World Premiere at the Venice International Film Festival in September 2020 as part of the Horizons section and went on to feature at the Toronto International Film Festival and New York Film Festival that same year. It was Ivory Coast’s official submission for the 2021 Academy Awards.

    Spectacular, thrilling and absolutely unique, NIGHT OF THE KINGS is both an exhilarating tale of survival in one of the world’s most unforgiving environments and a beautiful ode to the power of storytelling.

    When a young man (first-timer Koné Bakary) is sent to an infamous prison, located in the middle of the Ivorian forest and ruled by its inmates, he is chosen by the boss ‘Blackbeard’ (Steve Tientcheu, BAFTA and Academy-Award nominated LES MISÉRABLES) to take part in a storytelling ritual just as a violent battle for control bubbles to the surface. After discovering the grim fate that awaits him at the end of the night, Roman begins to narrate the mystical life of a legendary outlaw to make his story last until dawn and give himself any chance of survival.

    NIGHT OF THE KINGS is written and directed by Philippe Lacôte, produced by Delphine Jaquet, Yanick Létourneau, Ernest Konan and Yoro Mbaye.

    Writer and Director Philippe Lacôte grew up in Ivory Coast’s largest city Abidjan near a movie theatre – the “Magic”. His work as a director has taken on several forms, before focusing in 2002 on the recent history of his country with CHRONICLES OF WAR IN THE IVORY COAST, a film on the edge between a documentary and a diary. It was followed by the feature film RUN, the story of a wandering madman, starring Abdoul Karim Konaté (who also stars in NIGHT OF THE KINGS) and Isaach De Bankole. RUN was selected for Cannes Un Certain Regard 2014 and was also Ivory Coast’s official Oscar submission that year.

    NIGHT OF THE KINGS is a Banshee Films (France) production in coproduction with Wassakara Productions (Ivory Coast), Peripheria (Canada) and Yennenga Production (Sénégal).