Thursday 16 February 2017

Prevenge by Alice Lowe



Directed, written by and starring Alice Lowe, Prevenge is a British comedy horror concerning a serial killer carrying out a string of murders while eight months pregnant. A fascinating exercise in contrasting the ghoulish with the mundane, it's anything but hard labour.

Lowe plays Ruth, a recent widow whose homicidal spree is carried out under orders from the unborn infant nestling in her womb. Contriving encounters with strangers seemingly at random, Ruth picks them off one-by-one with a carving knife, becoming increasingly skilled at her task as the voice emanating from within grows ever-more shrill and demanding. As the body count rises, the connection between Ruth's victims becomes clear and matters come to a grisly head.

Wednesday 15 February 2017

20th Century Women by Mike Mills


The pitfall of coming of age/teen films—and most films, really—is teaching the audience a lesson as though it's a lecture. Rather than ponder about the passage of time or how to navigate finding yourself, they blatantly point it out without exploring the complexities. Writer/Director Mike Mills (Beginners, 2011) doesn't tell you what to think; he tells you what to think about and offers you things to feel. I've found that is what separates good films from great ones, especially in the teen genre.

20th Century Women is a cine-memoir about Mike Mills' own youth and the women who shaped him—namely his mother, Dorothea (Annette Bening in a career best performance), a depression era raised woman who is equal parts kind and kick ass. Set in 1979, her fourteen-year-old son, Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann), skateboards around Santa Barbara's streets in the limbo after Nixon's corruption and on the cusp of the Reagan years. However, the film is really not about him; it's about the 3 influential women and the only man in his life at that time.