Alexander SkarsgÄrd

Lee

by
Lee smoking a cigarette

Before Lee we’d kind of already had a movie about Lee Miller. Kirsten Dunst’s character in Civil War, an old-school photojournalist, had been named Lee in honour of Lee Miller, so she said, and her character was clearly modelled on Miller’s. Now here’s the real thing, a representation at least, with Kate Winslet applying herself to the task of playing a woman whose life was so interesting that the movie can afford to pretty much toss away her first flush – life as a model and muse palling about with Man Ray, Picasso and the like in the 1920s. So, flapper not so much, snapper it is, this being Lee Miller the Sequel, … Read more

Infinity Pool

by
Alexander SkarsgÄrd as James

What happens when the constraints of civilisation are loosened? It’s the sort of question Michael Haneke asks in a series of films, Funny Games and Time of the Wolf most obviously. In Infinity Pool Brandon Cronenberg attacks the same subject, except from a typically Cronenbergian direction, but comes to more or less the same grim and bloody conclusion as Haneke. Prepare, in other words, for a lack of laughs. Prepare also for another spectacular Mia Goth performance, current queen of letting it all hang out when it comes to horror. But first let’s meet James (Alexander SkarsgĂ„rd) and wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman), a couple staying in a dangerous developing country where the wealthy … Read more

The Northman

by
Alexander SkarsgÄrd

Aryans assemble! Hollywood’s most Nordic get together for The Northman, Robert Eggers’ latest exploration of arcane mindsets, and the sort of film that’s probably on a loop at White Supremacist HQ. The men are tall, blond, hairy and sculpted, the women are fierce, brave and yield only to their liege-lord husband. There is dirt, there are runic inscriptions, there is lore and there are any number of other tokens of authenticity. It’s the hipster version of The Vikings, the one that starred Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis, made in the days when no one particularly minded a pair of New York Jews playing characters out of the Nordic sagas (though there were sniggerings … Read more

Godzilla vs. Kong

by
Godzilla fights King Kong

It’s Godzilla vs. Kong but in all honesty it could almost be any Godzilla movie. There’s just something so interchangeable about them all. Grasping for a differentiator you might seize on “cult indie director” as a search filter – but that could be this one (director: Adam Wingard) or 2014’s Godzilla (director: Gareth Edwards). Or how about “the one with Kyle Chandler and Millie Bobby Brown”? Well that could be either this one or 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters (they played the same characters). Or how about “the one with Michael Dougherty’s name on the writing credits?”. That could also be this one or Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, since they … Read more