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  • Adidas Edition: Bits & Pieces

    Adidas Edition: Bits & Pieces

    Adidas Edition: Bits & Pieces – Enter the whimsical world of James Whitman (Lucas Jade Zumann), a 16-year-old boy obsessed with poet Walt Whitman, who’s reeling from the disappearance of his beloved sister Jorie (Lily Donoghue ­– Dirty John, Black Christmas) and struggling with anxiety and depression. But his dysfunctional parents:  abusive father (Jason Isaacs) and careworn mother (Lisa Edelstein­­)  refuse to confront the issues so there’s no one else to turn to except Dr Bird (voiced by Tom Wilkinson ­– The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Full Monty) a talking pigeon-cum-therapist.

    Two retired women, Nina and Madeleine, have been secretly in love for decades. Everybody, including Madeleine’s family, thinks they are simply neighbours, sharing the top floor of their building. They come and go between their two apartments, enjoying the affection and pleasures of daily life together, until an unforeseen event turns their relationship upside down and leads Madeleine’s daughter to gradually unravel the truth about them.

    In a field dominated by men, five pioneering camera women went to the frontlines of wars, revolutions and disasters to find the truth.  As colorful as accomplished, they made their mark by capturing some of the most iconic images from Tiananmen Square to the Arab Spring uprising, but the world doesn’t know it was these brave women behind the camera.  In the midst of unfolding chaos, the pictures they took both shocked and informed the world.

    Horror returns to the big screen on May 17th with THE UNHOLY, starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Katie Aselton, William Sadler, Cricket Brown, with Diogo Morgado and Cary Elwes. 

    Lionsgate are delighted to announce the EST and DVD, Blu-Ray, 4K and Steelbook Release for CHAOS WALKING, based on the best-selling novel The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness and starring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPcoGu162Fk

    Tom Hardy returns to the big screen as the lethal protector Venom, one of MARVEL’s greatest and most complex characters. Directed by Andy Serkis, the film also stars Michelle Williams, Naomie Harris and Woody Harrelson, in the role of the villain Cletus Kasady/Carnage.

    Vin Diesel’s Dom Toretto is leading a quiet life off the grid with Letty and his son, little Brian, but they know that danger always lurks just over their peaceful horizon. This time, that threat will force Dom to confront the sins of his past if he’s going to save those he loves most. His crew joins together to stop a world-shattering plot led by the most skilled assassin and high-performance driver they’ve ever encountered: a man who also happens to be Dom’s forsaken brother, Jakob (John Cena, the upcoming The Suicide Squad).

    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.

    Apple TV+ today unveiled the trailer for the highly anticipated limited series “Lisey’s Story,” based on the best-selling novel, and adapted and written by author Stephen King. Starring Academy Award-winner Julianne Moore and Academy Award-nominee Clive Owen, the eight-episode Apple Original series will premiere globally on Friday, June 4, 2021, with the first two episodes, followed by new episodes every Friday.

    Join award-winning performer and musician P!NK as she embarks on her record-breaking 2019 “Beautiful Trauma” world tour and welcomes audiences to join her chosen family while trying to balance being a mom, a wife, a boss and a performer. Mixing footage from the road, behind-the-scenes interviews and personal material, director Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman) gives audiences a glimpse behind the curtain of the circus that she calls life. 

    THE FATHER stars Anthony Hopkins who plays the eponymous role of a mischievous and highly independent man who, as he ages, refuses all assistance from his daughter Anne (Olivia Colman). Yet, such help has become essential following Anne’s decision to move to Paris with her partner. As Anne’s father tries to make sense of his changing circumstances, he begins to doubt his loved ones, his own mind and even the fabric of his reality.

    How can one rock band be successful, underrated, hugely influential, and criminally overlooked all at the same time? Take a musical odyssey through five weird and wonderful decades with brothers Ron and Russell Mael, celebrating the inspiring legacy of Sparks: your favourite band’s favourite band.

    This evening, Netflix hosted a global livestream event on the Netflix YouTube channel, where fans tuned in for an interactive experience that unlocked the first 15 Minutes of Zack Snyder’s eagerly-anticipated Netflix Film, Army of The Dead.

  • Danny. Legend. God – Review

    Danny. Legend. God – Review

    “Danny. Legend. God” is a UK-Bulgarian production and the first film of Yavor Petkov, available on May 3 on platforms including Amazon Prime. The film won 2 awards, one for “best feature film” at the Cardiff International Film Festival and one for “Best Cinematographer” for Rumen Vasilev at the Golden Rose Bulgarian Feature Film.

    This film is a mockumentary (type of film showing depicting fictional events but presented as a documentary) in which we find an English film crew composed of Susan (played by Kate Nichols), Jaime (played by James Ryan Babson) the soundman and a cameraman. This team follows Danny (played by Dimo Alexiev), a Bulgarian businessman with a totally uncontrolled and unhealthy behavior. We will follow him in his professional and personal relationships, but the film crew will quickly face Danny’s deviances.

    The film presents Danny as having a behavior close to madness and psychopathy, not regretting any of his acts and having an almost divine self-esteem.

    Dimo Alexiev’s performance is very impressive, he interprets perfectly the role that was given to him, but this is not enough to give a real interest to the film, which suffers from a cruel lack of rhythm that makes the film very complicated to digest. Greatly inspired by Man Bites Dog (1992), with Benoît Poelvoorde, the mockumentary format is still very complicated to handle, which can quickly drift towards heaviness, lose its realistic side and thus lose its primary interest.

    Everything is done here to make Danny’s character seem as detestable as possible without really doing half measures. As the film progresses, Danny’s behavior becomes more and more oppressive, he takes total control of what is filmed. Susan decides to leave the shoot, leaving Jaime and the cameraman in the grip of the furious and uncontrollable Danny.

    Beyond his inappropriate and sometimes childish behavior, the film tries to draw the portrait of a Bulgarian elite, who bathes in corruption and for whom money allows them to reach the rank of god. This elite no longer respects the laws or any form of rule, and seems to think that their life is more valuable than others’.

    This film will certainly please the fans of Mockumentary but will surely have difficulty convincing the rest of the spectators, because of its slowness, and its lack of subtlety.

  • The Woman In The Window: The BRWC Review

    The Woman In The Window: The BRWC Review

    The Woman in the Window Synopsis: Agoraphobic Dr. Anna Fox (Amy Adams) witnesses something she shouldn’t while keeping tabs on the Russell family, the seemingly picture-perfect clan that lives across the way. This discovery drives Anna down a path of shocking revelations, as her mental state leads her to question her preconceived notions. Anthony Mackie, Wyatt Russell, Gary Oldman, Brian Tyree Henry, Julianne Moore, and Jennifer Jason Leigh comprise the star-studded ensemble. Based on a novel of the same name.

    COVID has caused an unprecedented backlog waiting to be discovered by content-hungry audiences. Some are seeing the light of day in their intended theatrical platform (Fast 9 and A Quiet Place 2), while others are adopting a myriad of innovative streaming rollouts (Black Widow and Cruella will premier in theaters and Disney+ simultaneously).

    Then there are titles like the star-studded thriller The Woman in the Window. Clothed from the fabric of a potential blockbuster hit, this previous summer release was sold off to Netflix alongside a wave of other offshoot products (Paramount has sold off a majority of their recent catalog to streamers). Ironically enough, The Woman in the Window’s shockingly inept final product feels tailor-made for a disposable streaming release.

    How can things go so wrong for a film with so much talent involved (the source material’s controversial past, poor test screenings, and a last-ditch reshoot effort is a good place to start)? While I have no affiliation to A.J. Finn’s original novel, this adaptation renders the material into a woefully overworked and downright insensitive detour into the serious subject matter. Tracy Letts (yes, that Tracy Letts) screenplay whirls around mental health degradation, substance abuse, and childhood trauma only to create a bloated concoction of ideas.

    The loaded gun of topics feels extremely trivialized, forming a series of sensationalized plot beats that never address genuine struggles with their intended gravitas. Admittedly, it’s unfair to throw Letts under the bus completely, as who knows how many confused post-production moves led to this reduced final product. Director Joe Wright has achieved moments of brilliance during his career (Atonement and Hanna), but the poised visualizer drives this production without a clear map of intent. His final product feels choppy and undefined, lacking any meaningful momentum as wild plot turns are recklessly thrown the audience’s way.

    Wright also shamelessly leans into the Hitchcock pastiche, a decision that elicits a few aesthetically pleasing frames of unease. Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel’s work excels when playing off the setting’s claustrophobia and warped reality, particularly in his framing of habitual TV programs or perspective zooms from Anna’s window viewpoint. That being said, the visual slickness largely doesn’t strike its intended effect under Wright’s tutelage. Every elaborate shot and screeching score note only work to make things less humanistic, eventually overworking the material to the point of sleezy theatrics.

    Readers may be shocked that the star-studded cast hasn’t received a mention, but that’s largely due to the film’s lack of attention towards their immense skills. Amy Adams’ enduring talents easily rank as the film’s strongest asset, with the actress’ revealing performance cobbling a semblance of empathy together for Anna’s tortured persona. Outside of Adams, everyone else is standing around looking for something to do. Award-caliber talents like Brian Tyree Henry, Gary Oldman, Julianne Moore, and Anthony Mackie serve as minor cogs in a bombastic narrative (Mackie appears almost exclusively throw phone calls), while upcoming actor Fred Hechinger is horribly miscast as Anna’s autistic neighbor (when will Hollywood learn their lesson).

    Aside from a shockingly asinine twist ending, The Woman in the Window strikes few memorable impressions from its plethora of poorly conceived decisions. I hate seeing so many talented people involved in an abysmal effort, but hopefully, this stands as a cautionary tale for what Hollywood shouldn’t prioritize in their crowd-pleasing thrillers.

    The Woman in the Window debuts on Netflix on May 14th.

  • Apples: Review

    Apples: Review

    We do not yet fully understand how memory works.  Why do certain moments in our lives stick in our memory while others do not, why do we unintentionally fabricate memories, why do we forget certain film plots and endings?  Memory has been explored in films like Memento and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, to name just a couple.  Memory and film go together.  Director Christos Nikou’s debut film Apples examines the human condition by way of two of its most basic components—memory and identity.   

    The film opens with a repetitive thudding sound.  We realize it is our protagonist (Aris Servetalis) banging his head against a wall.  A few scenes later he rides a bus.  At the end of the bus route the bus driver asks him if he knows where he wants to go.  He has no idea.  He seems to have lost all memory of who he is.  No identification is found on him and he ends up in a hospital ward specialized in cases of amnesia.  In a very Kafkaesque scene, he is assigned a bureaucratic identity—patient 14842.  14842 knows that without a proper name/identity he cannot obtain a passport or even be hired for a job.  No friends or family claim him. 

    Apparently, 14842 is one of a growing number of cases in a sudden outbreak of amnesia in Greece.  Hospital officials decide 14842 is a perfect candidate for an identity reintegration program by which amnesiacs follow orders from a pre-recorded training program that sets them on a path toward beginning a new life.  The tapes command 14842 to ride a bike, have a one-night stand, and even to join a protest—the type of “memorable” life experiences that forge one’s identity.  14842, curiously enough, faithfully follows the tape’s orders.  We are left wondering if he really lost his memory or if there is something else going on with him.  

    To Nikou’s credit, Apples manages the difficult trick of balancing between serious meditation and absurdist deadpan.  This balance is made possible by Aris Servetalis’s wonderful performance.  If the direction, the deadpan humor, delivery of dialogue, and overall look of the film seems very much like a Yorgos Lanthimos film, then you are not off.  Nikou served as Lanthimos’s assistant director on Dogtooth.  If there is any fault to be found in Apples, it lays precisely in Lanthimos’s influence.  If one did not know who directed Apples, one’s first assumption would be Lanthimos.  One wishes that Nikou would have given us a bit more of his own vision.  Thankfully, the Lanthimos style is one that is endlessly watchable.    

    Apples scores high marks in different categories—drama, comedy, arthouse.  Apples may not be allegorical and should be taken at face value; however, it works best when one plays with its allegorical possibilities.  Is Nikou making a statement about how ideology works and how we unthinkingly obey it so as to find a grounding in our identity?  Is he making a statement about societies not remembering trauma in a substantive way?  Is he making a statement about contemporary Greece and its short historical memory, a statement about our contemporary societies and their lack of long-term historical awareness?  We do not know; but that is fine. 

    This uncertainty makes Apples all that much more of a good watch.  A very real-life possibility hovers over all of us at the present moment.  Will we remember this pandemic experience—all the trauma felt by many, the inequalities it exposed in their starkest form, and the political failings it exposed—once we fully conquer Covid.  Apples sets you on a path toward asking these questions.              

  • MediCinema: Mental Health Boosted By Cinema

    MediCinema: Mental Health Boosted By Cinema

    With cinemas about to re-open, research* undertaken by the charity MediCinema shows that a visit to one of its in-hospital cinemas has a significant positive effect on the mental health of those going to see a film.   The effect of the shared experience of film improves feeling of wellbeing, reduces isolation, and gives people a sense of normality:

    93% said a visit to the MediCinema reduced isolation

    92% said a visit to the MediCinema reduced anxiety and stress

    92% said a visit to the MediCinema improves wellbeing

    96% gives people in hospital a sense of normality

    82% said a visit to the MediCinema helped them connect with others

    MediCinema is a charity which improves the wellbeing and quality of life of NHS patients and their families through the power of the shared cinema experience and the magic of film. It builds and runs cinemas in hospitals equipped with space for beds, wheelchairs, and medical equipment.  Its services help to improve emotional, mental, and physical health, reducing feelings of isolation, anxiety, and stress, and increasing patient resilience.

    While people across the country are looking forward to being able to visit their local cinemas after such a long time, the charity MediCinema continues to reopen and run its cinemas for hospital patients.   While its cinemas were suspended in March 2020 just before public cinemas, some have been running socially-distanced screenings again from August 2020 and throughout this last lockdown – the only cinemas to be operating throughout.

    At the Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) in Newcastle, the MediCinema continued to run screenings throughout the serious Winter wave of COVID-19 and the third lockdown.

    Helga Charters, Associate Director of Children and Young People at the hospital said:

    “Having the MediCinema open for screenings at the RVI has been a really important part of care and therapeutic wellbeing for our patients.  I can see the immediate beneficial effect it has on our patients’ mental health having had the opportunity to leave the ward, immerse themselves in a film, meet other people and be stimulated by something other than the hospital environment. 

    “During COVID it has been even more important in light of strict visitor restrictions and the increased anxiety and isolation this can have.  I’ve seen the smiles and lift in moods visiting the MediCinema has had on patients and that stays with them when they go back to the wards.”

    Kat Mason, MediCinema Chief Executive said: “Over this past year we have all felt the isolating effects of staying at home and not seeing friends and family.  We are all raring to get back to the cinema and to share a movie on the big screen with our loved ones, and this is no different whether you are in hospital or reconnecting as lockdown relaxes. Many patients who visit our cinemas to watch a film are clear about its effect on their mental health and wellbeing, having to spend so much time isolated on the wards, especially over the past year. The power of cinema – sharing a film in the company of others – is very real.”

    *This research was carried out from Summer 2017-Winter 2019, across five MediCinema sites with 1229 people