At The Flix with @Timmy666
Welcome to this week’s At The Flix, Brum Faves weekly slot taking a peek at what’s hitting the big screen over the week ahead across Brum.
Life (15)
Anton Corbijn never lacks ambition as a director. In his latest feature, a Life Magazine photographer receives the assignment to photograph rising Hollywood star James Dean. The film is an opportunity for great actors Dane DeHaan and Robert Pattinson to shine, and an opportunity to try to get to the heart of Dean’s tragedy and understand what made him who he is. Combining a low-key directorial style from Corbijn, I’m most fascinated to see how he (as a former photographer) captures the moments of a photographer on film and that resonant metaphor – what changes when the shutter snaps.
Solace (15)
Portuguese director Afonso Poyart’s first English language film had been in the making for many years, including as a script that was allegedly meant as a sequel to Se7en. Now two years sitting in the can, the film is released and follows a FBI agent and a psychic doctor on the combat to stop a serial killer. The film plays as a sort of crime thriller combined a few supernatural traits. The film has an all-star cast including Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Anthony (what accent is that?) Hopkins in a good guy role, and clearly there could be much for to be and. Sounds a little clichéd though, doesn’t it?
Miss You Already (12A)
In a rare film that breaks the Bechtdel test, Drew Barrymore and Toni Collette start as childhood friends Jess and Milly who are inseparable and do everything – that’s until Milly is hit with the news that Milly has breast cancer and needs Jess’s support. The news puts pressure on their friendship. The trailer hasn’t wholly convinced me that this film won’t be a bit cheesy and pandering, but Barrymore and Collette should make a likeable duo, but the audience still has to make the emotional investment for such a film to work. Who knows, it might actually be moderately touching?
How To Change The World (15)
Showing for a week at the mac from Fri 25 Sep until Thu 1 Oct, Jerry Rothwell’s acclaimed documentary, follows the brave beginnings of Greenpeace, when in 1971 a small group of activists set sail from Vancouver, Canada in an old fishing boat. They were bound for Nixon’s atomic bomb tests sites off the west coast of Alaska. The film binds together dramatic archive footage to tell the story of Robert Hunter and the creation of Greenpeace.
Closed Curtain (15)
Showing at the mac from Mon 28 – Wed 30 Sep, Jafar Panahi’s ambitious partly factual tale, semi-nonfiction tale follows a screenwriter and his dog in hiding after the regime declares dogs “impure” and bans them from walking in public (an actual law). The man retreats, shaven headed to his three-story seaside villa (Panahi’s beach house), setting in to write in relative peace with his beloved pet. Unexpectedly, a young man and woman appear, he takes them in, and Panahi gets the opportunity to carry out his melancholic fantasies. A powerful film about melancholy, creativity and expression.
That’s enough from me this week! If you have any quibbles regarding any of the above, please drop me a tweet @timmy666. I wish you a fantastic week at the cinema!
