Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time

Natasa Stork as Martá

A hell of title and a hell of a film, Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time is the remarkable second feature by writer/director Lili Horvát, who’s otherwise oddjobbed about the film biz in Hungary for some time – a casting director here, an actor there (you might have seen her in Kornél Mundruczó’s 2014 movie White God, a bizarre amalgam of the Disney kids movie with the post-apocalyptic wasteland drama). With an influence of Claire Denis, Horvát conjures, also in “how is she doing that?” fashion, a complete dramatic universe set in a world of feeling and gesture, where facts as such are not as important as the emotions triggered … Read more

Fear Street: Part One – 1994

Pre-credits death scene

A homage to slasher films of yore, of the Friday 13th/Halloween/I Know What You Did Last Summer (70s, 80s and 90s respectively) sort, Fear Street: Part One – 1994 is the first of a trilogy based on the books by RL Stine, directed by Leigh Janiak and retaining some cast members across all three. Divulging which cast members stay the course would be entirely spoilerish but it isn’t too hard to guess. In traditional slasher style there is a gruesome death before the opening credits, in a shopping mall (natch), where we also learn that the unlucky town of Shadyside has suffered at the hands of weird slasher killers before. Not only is this … Read more

Black Widow

Black Widow and Yelena on a bike

“Three’s a trend,” as the saying goes, and with the success of Black Widow, after Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman, it looks like the jinx on female superhero movies (Supergirl, Elektra, Catwoman) can finally be declared broken. It was about time that Black Widow got her own standalone movie in any case, the character having been a bit neglected by the Marvel Cinematic Universe in one Avengers film after another, to the point where it was looking like there was a sexism/patriarchy thing going on. Smartly heading that sort of criticism off at the pass, that’s the plot too, pretty much, with Black Widow swinging into action to neutralise a drug that turns … Read more

Jumbo

Jeanne riding on Jumbo

The opening shot of the skewed romantic drama Jumbo is of a naked Noémie Merlant putting on her clothes in her bedroom. She’s an attractive young woman with a fine body, as the camera makes clear. An edit later and we’re with Jeanne (Merlant) as she bowls out the door and heads off to work. There’s a noticeable difference in her that goes beyond the clothes. Her indoor, naked, persona was bright and bubbly; outdoors Jeanne is mousy, lacking in self-confidence, withdrawn and nowhere near as attractive. But all this is about to change, when Jeanne falls in love with a ride called Jumbo at her local amusement park. A carousel, to be … Read more

No Sudden Move

Don Cheadle and Benicio Del Toro at a phone box

On the principle that second-rate Soderbergh is better than no Soderbergh at all, a warm hello to No Sudden Move, a pastiche 1950s crime drama with a Maguffin that insists it’s more than a Maguffin. Don Cheadle, Kieran Culkin and Benicio Del Toro play three prickly guys hired to “babysit” a family (ie hold them hostage) while one of them takes Dad Matt (David Harbour) off to pick up something from a safe. That “something” becomes increasingly important as the story progresses, eventually bathing everything in a Chinatown-style glow as it becomes apparent that behind these no-marks is a vast scheme based on corporate corruption of a sort that makes day-to-day Mob activity … Read more

First Date

Kelsey and Mike

First Date is an appropriate title for a movie made by a team of newbies, most of whom are on their first time out in features. It’s a mad, gonzo comedy thriller, a redneck farce full of swagger and attitude and made in a familiar American style you could call guns ’n poses. Its writer/directors are Manuel Crosby (this is his debut feature) and Darren Knapp (his second, so a veteran) and its two stars – Tyson Brown and Shelby Duclos – are also new kids on the block. You can’t tell. This feels like a seasoned cast and crew who know what they’re doing. You could call it the “bad night out” … Read more

Till Death

Emma shackled to her husband's corpse

Till Death isn’t much of a film for irony but the title, recalling the “till death us do part” line from the wedding vows, is rich in it. Megan Fox plays the straying wife whose husband decides to take an exquisite form of revenge, one which winds up with her shackled to a dead corpse in a remote holiday home that’s been cleaned of every utensil, tool or scrap of anything that might serve as a key. There’s no parting here. And that’s the setup – Emma (Fox) in her ivory silk underwear and covered in blood and bits of the dead man’s brain, with no working phone line, her mobile phone dunked … Read more

The Filmmaker’s House

Mikel has a bath, with face mask

The Filmmaker’s House is a remarkable documentary that might not be a documentary at all. It looks like one – there’s a handheld camera and it’s full of “ordinary people doing ordinary things” in the words of Marc Isaacs, the filmmaker who has up till now specialised in very intimate documentaries about subjects most directors wouldn’t go near. His film film, 2001’s Lift, was shot entirely in a lift/elevator, and his technique was very similar to what we see here – turn camera on a person, ask them if they mind being filmed, start asking questions. The results are often almost unbearable, though almost always gripping. In his last full-length documentary, 2012’s The … Read more

Good on Paper

Dennis and Andrea

With Good on Paper, a film about a comedian, written by and starring a comedian who’s done a handful of specials for Netflix, Iliza Shlesinger appears to be walking in Amy Schumer’s shoes. She’s about the same age, blonde, Jewish and deploys a scalpel wit in comedy that veers between self-deprecation and attack. The “yeh, what of it?” style. She’s also likeable, which isn’t the main difference between successful and unsuccessful comedians – that’s good material – but it helps. Like a lot of comedians moving into new territory, Shlesinger goes down the Jerry Seinfeld route, of a fictional story with cutaways to Shlesinger doing her stand-up routine, which acts as a commentary on … Read more

An Unquiet Grave

Ava and Jamie

An Unquiet Grave is a remarkably simple but remarkably effective horror film. Two people, one camera, a handful of sets, kicking off with a scene at a graveside where grieving husband Jamie (Jacob Ware) meets Ava (Christine Nyland), the twin sister of his dead wife, Julia, and together they set off to resurrect the dead woman. What Ava doesn’t know is that the procedure is going to cost her a lot more than it’s going to cost him, which raises all sorts of questions about male privilege on the way. None of those questions are raised in the English folk song on which the film is based. The Unquiet Grave goes back to … Read more