Atomic Blonde By David Leitch

Reviewed By Linda Marric

With an action filled narrative and a truly impressive cast lists to boot, Atomic Blonde had all the ingredients needed to be one of the best blockbusters of the summer, rivalling even some of the most robust franchises. However, things didn't quite go to plan for this stylish, yet completely forgettable production. Staring Charlize Theron and directed by stunt actor turned director David Leitch, the film is a ballsy female-centric action flick which takes no prisoners when it comes to violent fight scenes, shoot-outs and car pursuits. However where things don't quite add up, is in its inability to keep audiences interested long enough in its unnecessarily far-fetched storyline about Soviet spies and double agents. In short,  for a film which purports to have an action female as lead, this really should have been way more exciting than this.

Why Haven't You Seen...? Wake Wood (2011)

What's it all about?
Patrick and Louise (Aiden Gillen and Eva Birthistle) who recently lost their daughter Alice (Ella Connolly) in a dog attack move to the village of Wakewood. There they discover that their landlord Arthur (Timothy Spall) can perform a ritual that will bring people who died less than a year ago back for three days, giving them time to say goodbye to Alice. When the ritual is performed though, something may not be quite right.

Why haven't you seen it?
Hammer Horror is a legend of British cinema, but the attempt to bring it back to life, beginning in 2008 with Beyond The Rave, produced more misses than it did hits. Outside of The Woman In Black and Let Me In, most of the new Hammer productions flew under the radar, and there hasn't been a film from the studio since 2014's The Quiet Ones. 

Why should you see it?
You might be forgiven for thinking that in relaunching a legendary studio, the goal would be to make films that would mine any nostalgia for the original Hammer films. Wake Wood probably wouldn't have felt out of place in the studio's heyday, but it's not an attempt to recapture old glories. 

The film actually hews closer to The Wicker Man than any of the best known Hammer films.  It's set in an apparently isolated and insular community, in which an ancient ritual is performed with the town's most prominent man performing the key part of that ritual. That said, this isn't some empty homage, Wake Wood creates a spooky atmosphere of its own, along with a surprising emotional weight. The way the ritual is established, with a 'visiting' girl who comes into Louise's pharmacy, balances this particularly well. Suggesting what's going on without initially coming out and dropping a load of exposition on us.

Like many of the best horror films, Wake Wood grounds its characters motivations in reality. It is easy to understand how the agony of the sudden loss of a child could drive a person to embrace any possibility, however remote, for any time, however brief, to see that child again and be able to hold them and say a proper goodbye. Aiden Gillen and Eva Birthistle give simple unshowy performances. You believe them as a couple, you believe in their trauma and the different ways they process it, and this makes the film's supernatural side easier to swallow. 

The film builds slowly, with Ella Connolly, Gillen and Birthistle gradually establishing, through some unsettling moments that there is something not quite right about Alice. The first, and one of the most effective, of these is when they note that their daughter's eyes are now brown, like those of the man whose corpse they used to resurrect her for this brief time. This sense builds through Alice's behaviour and that of the townspeople, who also sense that something is amiss, setting us progressively more on edge scene by scene. 

While it does some good solid atmosphere building, this doesn't mean that Wake Wood shies from the more visceral scares. The ritual itself is wince-inducingly nasty at times, Alice's amputated skeletal finger being placed in a corpse's mouth being one of the less nasty images. The third act also gets impressively gory, in a way the old Hammer productions didn't often get away with. It's worth noting that animal lovers may find themselves turning away from some of the scenes here, not only is Patrick a vet, which we see in pretty graphic detail, but there are some other nasty moments involving animals.

However, it's not the film's gore but its emotional corre that sets it apart. The film is defined by loss and a parent's reaction to that loss, it's about sadness giving way to desperation for the tiniest amount of hope, and that truly resonates in the film's ending. It's a great sequence; brutal in implication, devastatingly sad but also the only route to fresh hope for a better future. It's a perfect note to end the film on, closing both memorably and by encapsulating the feeling of the film as a whole.

How can you see it?
There are various DVD and Blu Ray releases available (though apparently no UK Blu) and the film has just been made available via UK Netflix.

Land Of Mine By Martin Zandvliet

Reviewed By Linda Marric

Set during the immediate aftermath of WWII, some might be tempted to describe Martin Zandvliet's Land of Mine as a war movie. In reality, this beautifully crafted and wonderfully acted Danish production is one of the most powerful indictment against warfare yet, and goes a long way into nailing its pacifist colours to the mast. Zandvliet who writes as well as direct, manages to tell in 90 minutes what most war movies seem unable to convey at best of times. It is a film about the struggle to come to terms with loss, hardship and makes a strong case against conflicts which send young innocent men to their death.

Maudie By Aisling Walsh

Reviewed By Linda Marric

Chartering the life of folk artist Maude Lewis and the romance which blossomed in later life between her and taciturn fish peddler Everett, Aisling Walsh’s Maudie is moving without ever being schmaltzy and gripping without having to resort to a superfluous narrative arc. Staring Sally Hawkins as the Nova Scotia artist known for her infantile drawings of cats, flowers and colourful landscapes, the film is not only likely to move its audiences to tears, but also manages to tell a beautifully nuanced story without ever sugar-coating some of the more unsavoury element of relationship between the two protagonists.

Why Haven't You Seen...? The Opening Of Misty Beethoven (1976)

What's it all about?
It's Pygmalion with blowjobs. Dr Seymour Love (Jamie Gillis) is writing a book about sex and finds his subject in Misty Beethoven (Constance Money), a prostitute he initially deems “the nadir of passion” and “a sexual civil servant”. Love decides that, with the help of his friend Geraldine, (Jacqueline Beudant) he will make Misty the next Goldenrod girl.

Why haven't you seen it?
Because you don't tend to spend 85 minutes watching a feature film on Pornhub. This just isn't the way adult films are consumed (or made) anymore.

The Big Sick By Michael Showalter

                                

Reviewed By Linda Marric 


Directed by Michael Showalter (Wet Hot American Summer) and written by real life couple Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani (Silicon Valley, Portlandia), the highly anticipated The Big Sick  finally makes its way to a cinema near you this week. Staring Nanjiani himself, the film centres around real life events in the life the Pakistani born comedian during his courtship with his now wife Emily (played in the film by Zoe Kazan). After all the praise heaped on it at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, one would have been forgiven to approach the hype with a certain amount of trepidation. But fear not, because this gem of a romantic comedy is everything you might have heard and hoped it would be. It is edgy without being kookie and touching without ever resorting to schmaltz.

Dunkirk by Christopher Nolan

Posted by Andy Zachariason

"You can practically see it." 

"What?" 

"Home." 

This line spoken from Kenneth Branagh's Commander Bolton in Christopher Nolan's new avant-garde war epic, Dunkirk, would fit perfectly in the dream levels of Inception, or the metaphysical maze of Interstellar, or the streets of Gotham in The Dark Knight trilogy, or the magical labyrinth of The Prestige, or in the fading memories of Memento. Nolan's films, for all of their spectacle, rigorous mazes, and epic vistas, are anchored by a profound yearning to return home. In Dunkirk, it's 400,000 men stuck on a beach in France with the enemy surrounding them. German soldiers loom behind the city, their planes drop bombs on trapped soldiers, and their submarines lurk beneath waiting to sink Britain's destroyer ships. Home is just 26 miles away but paradoxically there's no way of getting there. Hope fades as they wait for a miracle.