A recogniseable fantasy (Out this week - 01/04/11)

Given that I gave Bradley Cooper the benefit of the doubt last week I should really be as generous to Jake Gyllenhaal and select his film as movie of the week, especially as it's directed by genius Moon director, Duncan Jones. However I just couldn't resist a little French farce to celebrate April Fool's Day, so film of the week is Louise Michel.



Louise Michel

Delightful looking black comedy where a group of disgruntled employees, led by the indomitable eponymous heroine, take a hit out on their boss. Then it all starts to go wrong with surreal and unexpected results.

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Passenger Side

Canadian Indie following two brothers, one a failed writer the other a recovering junkie, on a road trip around their adoptive Los Angeles. Slow and sedate it looks like a fine attempt at getting under the skin of the central fraternal relationship.

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Source Code

By rights this superior time-travel thriller, like a mash-up of 12 Monkeys, Deja Vu and Groundhog Day, should be the film of the week. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Colter Stephens, a mixed up soldier trying to save the past, with Michelle Monaghan and Vera Farmiga supporting and directed by Duncan [Zowie B...] Jones this will probably do very well at the box office.

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Essential Killing

A virtually wordless acting tour de force from Vincent Gallo drives this Eastern European set prison break drama with Gallo playing the Islamist convert escaping waterboarding.

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Oranges and Sunshine

Based on the true cases of British children being lured away to Australia by an inefficient and corrupt social services in post-war England, many whilst their family were still alive. Emily Watson plays the social worker trying to uncover the conspiracy, David Wenham and Hugo Weaving among the cases she uncovers. Worthy and tear-jerking but probably not much more than that.

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Blooded

Interesting independent British movie, which takes the central conceit of The Most Dangerous Game with an extreme Animal Liberation hunting down a group of bloodsports enthusiasts. Intercut with alternative actors explaining what happened.

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Game

Our Bollywood release of the week revolves around a murder mystery with four very different suspects (drug-dealer, actor, journalist and politician) who may have killed a young woman and now face their lives falling apart until the real killer can be found.

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Killing Bono

Unfortunately the story of making this slightly inaccurate Neil McCormick biopic is more interesting than the film itself given that Bono himself suggested the title. Ben Barnes plays the lead singer of Dublin's second best band, Martin McCann does a spot-on impersonation of 70's era Bono and Pete Postlethwaite will always have this as his lasting legacy.

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Sucker Punch

Suddenly the same fans who were applauding Zack Snyder to direct the new Superman were disgusted at the thought after his latest creative nadir crashed and burned at the US box office. It's all to do with an innocent young woman fending off evil men by retreating into her subconscious - but feminism it ain't.

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Hatchet 2

I suspect if I said I didn't even know there'd been a Hatchet 1 I guess I'd be missing the point of this grisly American horror. Expect small axes to fall on all the sympathetic characters - if indeed there are any.

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Hop

We get the cinema we deserve really, or so you will if you watch this appalling looking kids comedy about the Easter Bunny (voiced by Russell Brand) and his attempts to avoid work whilst excreting jelly beans.

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Young Hearts Run Free

First feature from Andy Mark Simpson looking at the relationship between a art student in Northumbria and a girl from London against the backdrop of the Miners strikes. Probably would've felt like an old-story in 1974 (when it's set).

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