In 1994 Wes Craven reclaimed the original slasher nightmare and helmed the final instalment in the franchised vision of terror – Nightmare on Elm Street. The outcome of Craven’s combined writing and directing efforts in this film – Wes Craven’s New Nightmare – was a vivid horrorscape of the unimaginable and an exercise in intelligent, disturbing inventiveness. 17 years later and My Soul To Take has summoned the cinematic corpse-monger back to the business of blood – but it’s a far cry from the slick-witted slice ‘n dicer – and this time the result may be more bed-time story than Nightmare…
A devastatingly right-on documentary determined to plumb the depths of America’s capital punishment system, In the Land Of The Free follows the life and times of three men: Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox, and Robert King – collectively known as ‘The Angola Three’. Between them, they have spent over a century in solitary confinement for the murder of a prison guard; a murder that, in all likelihood, they never committed. It’s all sufficiently horrid, worthy stuff – but we have to ask, why is Samuel L involved?
Sweetgrass, Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s documentary feature, should be subtitled: The Death of the Cowboy. For that is essentially what we witness: the end of an era, a way of life, a centuries-old practice.
Things I Learned From Watching Life, Above All: if you don’t a) fall down a hole and die, b) nearly get stoned to death by your village or c) get forced into prostitution and then have your face cut up by a rapist, you will probably die of AIDS. OR all of the above will happen to everyone dear to you and you’ll be left alone in the world. Yay!
A quietly confident introduction and the fun of multi-task-actors makes you hope that Country Strong will do for Gwyneth Paltrow what Crazy Heart did for Jeff Bridges. Sadly though, it soon becomes clear that there’s just too many cliche moments piling up to glimpse a genuinely moving story, and trowling on the sentiment only serves to alienate whatever audience lasts until the end. (Except for country lovers, of course. They’ll probably just lap up the massive hats.)
Nakashima’s genre-busting revenge drama is an intense tale of the unremitting evil that lies within children’s hearts (and, possibly, the hearts of their teachers). It’s dark, intense, internationally lauded and would make probably make Gus Van Sant (a) feel jealous and (b) do a happy in his pants.
The Chaser is a dark yet charming Korean cop thriller with a detective-turned-pimp antihero who has discovered all his girls are going missing. The western remake is hitting the big screen in 2013, so for god’s sake see the original first!
A more-than-a-little-smug celebration of Dadaism, Rubber is nevertheless a wholly original, entertaining and technically outstanding exploration of the boundaries of storytelling. Following a serial killer tyre by the name of Robert and those who watch him work, it certainly makes you question the cinematic conventions we take for granted. But considering it does all that within the first five minutes, its feature-length running time is a little unnecessary.
Snipe London
Recent Comments