Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 72 i Little White Lies

“I DID SO MANY BAD THINGS. I TRIED TO DO… I TRIED TO DO THE RIGHT THING, BUT I’M WEAK. I’M TOO FUCKING WEAK… PLEASE FORGIVE ME FATHER!” The Lieutenant, Bad Lieutenant (1992) We hold those deposed to protect to us to such impossible standards that we inevitably pounce upon their every human frailty. Harvey Keitel’s mucky lieutenant is often cited as one of the very worst screen lawmen, but even he, during one of his many base, cock-dangling interludes, tacitly understands that the obverse is also true: that our predisposition for all that is wicked and depraved cannot help but poison those sworn to sift through the villainy, inhumanity and chaos we leave in our wake. But what is a Bad Cop? Who is worse – Michael Douglas helping…

Released 6 DECEMBER 3 ANTICIPATION. The second film in a year from this mad scientist of Japanese animation. 3 ENJOYMENT. Too long, but a dazzling attempt to wrangle Ghibli themes into Yuasa’s wacky world. 3 IN RETROSPECT. Perhaps not a keeper, but Yuasa is still the most exciting anime director working today. Hot on the heels of his previous feature The Night is Short, Walk on Girl, Masaaki Yuasa returns with a much more mainstream offering, the family animated adventure Lu Over the Wall, which received the top prize at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, beating Japanese critical hits In This Corner of the World and A Silent Voice. After over a decade of Yuasa pursuing his own unique creative impulses, this film sees the director pulled into the tractor beam that targets…

Released 24 NOVEMBER In the late ’70s, Japanese film studio Nikkatsu quite literally hit pay dirt with their output of ‘Roman Porno’ movies – swiftly produced softcore B pictures which ran to about the 70 minute mark. The studio has decided that now is the time for more Roman Porno films, and so has commissioned a clutch of five – Akihiko Shiota’s Wet Women of the Wind is one of them, and a very good one at that. Eschewing dark sexual despair almost entirely, this disarmingly jolly roundelay plays like a drolly erotic farce, with the characters dispensing of their outwardly coy, intellectual personas in the search of more animalistic pleasures. A young woman named Shiori (Yuki Mamiya) emerges from the sea wearing a T-shirt which says, ‘You need tissues for…

Released 1 DECEMBER 3 ANTICIPATION. Heard good things, and like islands. 4 ENJOYMENT. Long day’s journey into skin-crawlingly tense night. 4 IN RETROSPECT. The plight of America’s dreaming paperless, in devastating diptych. This film opens with scenes of the morning pedestrian rush in downtown New York. It is a series of crowd shots, each with a different woman at its centre. By the time the camera has settled on Luciana (Ana Asensio, who is also debuting here as writer and director), we are not sure what connects her, beyond her sex, to all these other women. We are, however, already under the impression that hers is just one face in the crowd, with an experience shared by many and a story so timeworn that could equally be someone else’s. The film follows a day…

Released 17 NOVEMBER 3 ANTICIPATION. A promising scenario nabbed both a valuable Sundance prize and an utterly idiosyncratic leading lady. 3 ENJOYMENT. Plaza takes some audacious chances even as her film’s own riskiness pays fewer dividends. 2 IN RETROSPECT. An appealing cast gives its all to a highly-charged satire that stays as skin-deep as a selfie. The fuss was all about – and it feels good. Early on in Matt Spicer’s spiky Ingrid Goes West, golden-locked Instagram influencer Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen) posts a photo of Joan Didion’s ‘The White Album’. Her caption quotes the first line of Didion’s 1979 essay collection: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” Although the moment is a fleeting part of a larger montage that serves as a #nofilter introduction into Taylor’s carefully-curated world, this clever co-opting…

Released 1 DECEMBER 4 ANTICIPATION. Haneke is one of the big dogs of Euro arthouse cinema. 4 ENJOYMENT. This is his usual thing but with a rather bizarre comic twist. 3 IN RETROSPECT. Dryly humourous and exceptionally sour. That title, if it really needs to be confirmed, is ironic. Michael Haneke is modern cinema’s tomb raider of abject gloom. His camera is minutely calibrated to capture (and amplify) human suffering, and also the humans who precipitate said suffering. And then, on top of that, you have what we might term “ambient suffering”, which is an entirely natural, non-man made form of suffering that comes part and parcel with the burden of human sentience. His intriguing and oblique new puzzle film presents this suffering in all its disparate forms, and focuses particularly on how it…

Released 3 NOVEMBER 4 ANTICIPATION. Where do you go after the full-on weirdness of The Lobster? Sign us up. 4 ENJOYMENT. Starts off ominously unsettling, before an out-of-nowhere twist leaves us totally adrift on a sea of anxiety. 4 IN RETROSPECT. You end up slightly awestruck at the imaginative confidence behind this film. Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest is as much about deer, sacred or otherwise, as his previous one was about lobsters. So, while The Lobster was decidedly light on crustacean action, sensitive souls will be relieved to know that no deer are actually harmed on-screen here. Greek viewers and classicists however, will probably register the title’s reference to Euripides’ ancient drama, ‘Iphigenia in Aulis’, where a sacred deer is indeed slain. But before you head to Wikipedia, be advised that knowing the whole story…

Released 24 NOVEMBER The idea for actor Mercedes Grower’s directorial debut Brakes is an endearing, ingenious one: tell the tales of London romances gone wrong, but first you see the break-up, then the initial meeting. Then, gather a cast of talented comic and dramatic actors to bring all these sorry folk to life through improvisation. This second step clearly went well, with Julian Barratt, Noel Fielding and Julia Davis heading up the packed roster of game actors. If anything, it went a little too well. There are nine couples to break and hook up on screen in 90 minutes. The film aims to capture a crosssection of London life, but is a subject from every borough really necessary? The key problem with this number of mini narratives is that break-ups don’t…

Released 10 NOVEMBER 2 ANTICIPATION. Comic origins and pre-watershed period kink? Nah. 3 ENJOYMENT. Sparks fly in first act foreplay but ardour cools. 3 IN RETROSPECT. Charismatic performances just about stave off postcoital malaise. In an origin story that’s been re-vamped and revised for several decades, Wonder Woman’s inception has ranged from clay moulding to the loins of the loud-thundering Zeus. Her realworld beginnings – born of psychology, polyamory and the polygraph machine – seem almost as farfetched, and provide the foundation of Angela Robinson’s handsomely staged Professor Marston and the Wonder Women. While the ingredients are all in place for a weird creation myth worthy of the character’s unusual history, the narrative becomes pedestrian and vanilla in comparison to the frames of early comics that often fill the screen. At one stage, the…

Released 26 DECEMBER 3 ANTICIPATION. Sorkin knows drama. Molly knew poker. Could be a winner. 3 ENJOYMENT. Cool story. Silly direction and bad acting, though. 2 IN RETROSPECT. A game that lacks aggression, and a goofiness that should be more enjoyable. In recent years, Jessica Chastain has shown a determination to portray strong women. Her choices to star in films such as A Most Violent Year, Miss Sloane and The Zookeeper’s Wife reflect this desire, and Aaron Sorkin’s Molly’s Game comes as a logical next step for this rightfully fiercely feminist actress. Sorkin has demonstrated his ability to turn highly ambitious and self-destructive real life (male) characters into compelling, pathetic yet admirable individuals in his screenwriting work. Finally turning to directing after writing major scripts for the likes of Mike Nichols, David Fincher and…

Released 15 DECEMBER 3 ANTICIPATION. Sounds like 2010’s The Peddler. 4 ENJOYMENT. A hilariously self-aware take on a frontline cottage industry. 4 IN RETROSPECT. The myth behind the man who is Afghanistan’s biggest film auteur. Towards the end of a long excursion to Bayram, a Baghlan Province village in north eastern Afghanistan, director Salim Shaheen takes his guest/documenter Sonia Kronlund on a detour to visit Ali’s Dragon, a rock formation said to be the body of a giant serpent slain by the sword of Imam Ali. When Kronlund asks him, “Do you think it’s a true story,” Shaheen responds hesitantly, “I couldn’t say,” insisting upon the power of storytelling and tradition. As the maker of more than 100 amateur feature films, this singular, strutting auteur is himself a central figure in Afghanistan’s creation myths,…

1972 Released 6 NOV Blu-ray Pop eats itself then projectile vomits into the gutter in Mike Hodges’ 1972 flop, Pulp, the British director’s salty, self-referential follow-up to iconic north/south hardman caper, Get Carter. Michael Caine plays Mickey King, a slick-johnny writer of crime fiction, turned out in a cream suit, purple-tinted shades and a swooping side parting so mighty you could pretty much slalom down it. In search of filthy lucre and perhaps a modicum of critical acceptance, he accepts the task of ghost writing the memoirs of a mysterious client who has transplanted from Hollywood to the wilds of Malta. Hodges has fun mixing spoken passages from King’s trashy tomes (sample title: ‘My Gun is Long’) with his own inner monologue, as the worlds of fact and fiction inevitably collide.…

2015 OUT NOW Blu-ray There was a time recently when you couldn’t read a movie review which didn’t employ the term “batshit” to connote a certain sense of highwire zaniness. If something on screen didn’t tightly confirm to the strictures of Hollywood convention, it’s probably batshit crazy. Through overuse, the term is now in decline, yet it feels necessary to break it out just one more time in honour of this mindfrazzling 2015 existential odyssey from Japan’s Sono Sion, as there is quite literally no other word that fits the bill. Tag opens on a picture of tranquil innocence, as a coach-load of shrieking schoolgirls head on a trip, with Mitsuko (Reina Triendl) sat quietly scribbling in her notebook. During a pillow fight, she drops her pen and kneels down…

1996 Released 4 DEC Blu-ray It took a seriously long time for Wes Anderson’s perky debut feature to wend its way to UK shores – those who fell in love with 1998’s Rushmore and 2000’s The Royal Tenenbaums had to make do with the NTCS VHS version that was available commercially. Which was sad, because Bottle Rocket is by no means the reckless early missive of a talent still finding his footing – it’s as close to a fully-formed feature as you can get. Before his move into whimsical, ornamental caper films, Bottle Rocket proved that Anderson could wear his heart right there on his sleeve, and there’s a simple, sentimental core to this episodic tale. It’s about ways in which we pacify friends to stop them from hurting themselves, or…

Think of the films of Martin McDonagh and the term ‘strong women’ probably doesn’t spring to mind. His third feature, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, could even be misconstrued as a box-ticking exercise, given that it arrives off the back of two decidedly male-centric movies, In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths, at a time when female narratives are in high demand. And yet complex, compelling heroines have been a fixture of McDonagh’s work from the very start – his debut play from 1996, ‘The Beauty Queen of Leenane’, centres on the destructive relationship between a depressive fortysomething and her manipulative elderly mother. McDonagh wrote Three Billboards eight years ago, and always had Frances McDormand in mind for the lead role. She was hesitant at first, however, if only because she thought…

Anew star has been added to cinema’s foulmouthed firmament. Frances McDormand, best known for her Academy Award-winning turn as Brainard, Minnesota’s “gee whiz”-ing police chief in Fargo, pulls no punches – linguistic or otherwise – in Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. On paper, Three Billboards could be mistaken for another prize-grubbing entry into the “dead kid” cannon (cf Sean Penn’s “Is that my Oscar in there?!” breakdown), but what sets the film apart from the usual prestige pablum is the masterful way McDormand wields McDonagh’s trademark fondness for profanity. A red band trailer might be an unorthodox PR move for an awards season release, but the film – and McDormand’s praiseworthy performance – are in fact apiece with a broader history of great actresses spewing noxious jargon. As…

Released 17 NOVEMBER 4 ANTICIPATION. The Safdie brothers are America’s most exciting independent filmmakers. 4 ENJOYMENT. If you haven’t already guessed, that title is ironic. 5 IN RETROSPECT. An intoxicating downer odyssey to the inner depths of NY crime. There’s a scene in Benny and Josh Safdie’s 2014 feature, Heaven Knows What, where junkie protagonist Harley (Arielle Holmes) is shown watching one of the Hellraiser sequels on TV while high. It’s a fleeting moment of escapism from the real-world horrorshow she is living, a brief intermission in an otherwise unrelentingly bleak study of addiction. Respite is even less forthcoming in the Safdies’ electrifying, similarly downbeat follow-up, Good Time. In it, Robert Pattinson plays a petty crook who scrambles to post bail for his learning disabled brother (Benny Safdie) following a comically sloppy bank job.…

Released 8 DECEMBER This is the story of an emotionally stunted 30-something who can only conceptualise the world around him through cultural iconography, which might make it sound like it’s a serious work about a film critic. Instead, it’s an off-kilter, open-hearted comedy. For decades, James (Kyle Mooney, also co-writer) has lived with his supposed parents (Mark Hamill, Jane Adams) in a secluded bunker. He was kidnapped from hospital as a baby and raised with no connection to the outside world. His every waking thought is consumed by educational sci-fi series Brigsby Bear Adventures. Unbeknown to James, all 700 plus episodes of the show, and some merchandise, were produced by his captors, who used it to instil certain values into the lad, such as how curiosity is an unnatural emotion and…

Released 17 NOVEMBER 4 ANTICIPATION. Director Dee Rees made big waves with her 2011 feature debut Pariah. 4 ENJOYMENT. The filmmaking here is a thing of consummate beauty. 4 IN RETROSPECT. A slow and brutal burn, but worth it for the devastating finale. The expansive scope of Dee Rees’ third feature, Mudbound, is a spectacle to behold and cherish. It offers burning proof that cinema can be employed to capture the grand sweep of history and the slow, grinding tectonic plates of “progress” without the aid of swelling budgets, intricate special effects and armies of extras. This pulverisingly sad historical saga is ripped from the pages of Hillary Jordan’s 2008 novel which centres on a plantation in the Mississippi Delta througout the 1940s, dividing its objective eye almost 50/50 between the upwardly mobile white…

Released 3 NOVEMBER 4 ANTICIPATION. Trier’s first two features give him a lifetime pass to our interest. 3 ENJOYMENT. Intriguing and well-made, but also trying and inhuman. 3 IN RETROSPECT. Way too cool for school. Tthere is an energy that powers the first two features by Norwegian director Joachim Trier – 2006’s Reprise and 2011’s Oslo, August 31st. By comparison, his fourth feature, a return to Norwegian language filmmaking after 2015’s American experiment Louder Than Bombs, may appear as bafflingly sedate. Thelma unfolds in the cold, slow force field of its cold, slow antiheroine. As, like the frozen lake located beside her family home, something disturbing lies beneath the surface of this film. Trier relies on this intriguing absence to sustain attention over the best part of two hours. To bludgeon our senses into…

The vaunted writer/director of such monolithically bleak films as Amour, The White Ribbon and Funny Games explains how, in his new one, he combined the digital world with an abiding interest in suicide. LWLies: You started writing a film called Flashmob which you abandoned – did any of that film evolve into what became Happy End? Haneke: There is one thread in the film that does come from Flashmob, and that is about the girl who poisons her own mother. It’s based on a story I read a couple of years ago in the newspaper – a girl who did just that, tried to poison her mother over a long period of time and published it, wrote about it on the internet. It’s something that I wanted to put into…

Released 24 NOVEMBER 3 ANTICIPATION. Can Cate Blanchett breathe life into an extended criticism and theory lecture? 4 ENJOYMENT. Occasionally obscure, but bold and abrasive. Never fails to command attention. 4 IN RETROSPECT. This unashamedly conceptual piece has endless implications to consider and re-consider. This multi-screen art installation, now condensed into a single 90-minute feature, is an utterly singular experience. Julian Rosefeldt’s Manifesto sees Cate Blanchett star as 13 different characters who deliver 13 different monologues, each one derived from artistic manifestos throughout history. Structured as a series of intercut vignettes, the film dwells on the question of what constitutes art, and the extent to which it can ever be separated from other aspects of modern life. With Manifesto, then, writer/director Rosefeldt is dealing with big ideas and abstract concepts, but he does so…

Released 8 DECEMBER Documentaries so often tell the stories of what has passed, but a new film by artist and activist Ai Weiwei puts the camera into a very active issue. Spanning 23 countries, with over 200 crew members, he observes the mass migration of refugees currently happening across Europe and the often hostile reaction to their arrival by various destination countries. Talking to people affected in a variety of ways and propelled by hope alone, this is a justifiably harrowing look behind the headlines. Yet Ai doesn’t weep and wail. There’s no overt provocation here. Instead, the artist paints portraits. Walking through the borders (sometimes infuriating patrol guards), he meets the people affected and sees them for who they are. Not the faceless, huddled masses of TV reports and charity…

Released 1 DECEMBER Three years after his directorial debut Nightcrawler, acclaimed screenwriter Dan Gilroy offers another riff on the weakness at the rotten core of human nature, albeit this time in a far more classical register. In a straightforwardly awards-baiting role, Denzel Washington plays Roman Israel, a defence attorney whose righteousness and profound dedication to altruistic work makes him stand out from his peers. That is, until he discovers inconsistencies in the papers of the boss he looked up to for most of his career. When he meets rich, elegant and amiable attorney George (Colin Farrell), Israel is already re-evaluating his high moral standards. Looking for direction in a world where the distinction between good and evil now seems blurred, Israel is soon seduced by George’s laid-back attitude and charm. It…

Released 10 JULY 4 ANTICIPATION. What will the industrious maestro behind Tangerine do next? 5 ENJOYMENT. He’ll deliver a shot of pure, delirious, humanist movie energy, that’s what. 5 IN RETROSPECT. Don’t believe the hype, as this is probably even better than the hype suggests. For the hair-raising opening scene of Sean Baker’s astonishing neo-realist fable, The Florida Project, three overstimulated toddlers – Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) Scooty (Christopher Rivera) and Dicky (Aiden Malik) – dash with arms flailing from The Magic Kingdom to Future Land. Though they are nestled deep in Disney country, their situation is far from enchanted, as these locations are in fact opportunist motel blocks named in order to lure holidaying saps into their grimy net. Hard cut to Kool and the Gang’s ‘Celebration’ for the opening credits, and we’re all…

Released 10 NOVEMBER 4 ANTICIPATION. A talented filmmaker adapting an acclaimed play with a firstrate cast. 4 ENJOYMENT. An elegant, absorbing and stimulating experience. 4 IN RETROSPECT. It will stay with you this one. In the opening scene of Marjorie Prime, an elderly woman and a younger man sit across from each other in a plush living room and have a long conversation. If something feels a little off about the way they are interacting, we soon learn why. Marjorie (Lois Smith) is 85 years old and in the early stages of dementia, and the man she’s conversing with isn’t a man at all. He’s a sophisticated hologram, or a “Prime”, programmed to look and sound exactly like her late husband Walter (Jon Hamm), and to recall memories that Marjorie and her family have…

Released 8 DECEMBER 3 ANTICIPATION. A return to the Shogun-era for Japan’s most prolific auteur. 3 ENJOYMENT. Miike relishes in the absurdity of endless violence. 4 IN RETROSPECT. This slice-and-dice epic has soul. Rivers of blood quite literally flow through Blade of the Immortal, Takashi Miike’s pristinely wacko adaption of Hiroaki Samura’s manga about a cursed samurai with a katana blade to grind. Never one to shy away from a good slaughter, the prolific Japanese auteur dials up the violence even by his high standards, orchestrating not one but two massive battles of attrition that a pit lone wolf swordsman against absurdly large numbers of disposable enemy combatants. Challenging the time period’s conservative formality and tradition are dangerous characters decked out in wild costumes and accessories. These fringe personas give the film its singular…

1987 Released 20 NOV Blu-ray This vital 1987 film delivers a trenchant appraisal of how America dealt with soldiers who returned from Vietnam as men out of time and out of mind. It is a broken-hearted lament to the platoons of patriots who weren’t able to neatly slot back in to society, and instead were forced to compete in an horrific race to the bottom. It asks: what good is a country that can’t do well by those willing to risk their lives for its upkeep? The film also contains numerous sequences of hobos literally melting into puddles of colourful slurry. The original poster for Jim Muro’s Street Trash contains an image of a man screaming in agony as he’s being turned into neon slurry while sat on a toilet bowl.…

1988 OUT NOW Blu-ray If you have yet to experience Steve De Jarnatt’s 1988 film Miracle Mile, it’s best to do so knowing as little about it as possible. It begins as the most charming romantic comedy you could possibly imagine, as a nervous courtship takes place in the aisles and alleyways of a natural history museum in LA, between Anthony Edwards’s jazz trombonist Harry and Mare Winningham’s odd-jobbing Julie. A time and place is set for date, but an electrical snafu means that Harry sleeps through his alarm. He rushes to the spot, the diner at which she works, but it’s too late. And then, while pondering his next move, a payphone rings, and he decides to pick it up. And then… Even though the direction of the story…

Released 1 DECEMBER 4 ANTICIPATION. Franco. Wiseau. Let’s get weird. 4 ENJOYMENT. Funny, heartfelt, and utterly bizarre. 3 IN RETROSPECT. Maybe not a cult classic in the making, but Franco’s done his homework. Any self-respecting film fan has at least heard of Tommy Wiseau’s The Room. Frequently referred to as one of the worst films ever made, the self-funded romance/drama/ accidental comedy has achieved cult status since its 2003 release, and its director/writer/producer/ star has become the patron saint of Hollyweird. Who better to tell Wiseau’s story than director/ writer/producer/artist/Columbia professor/actor James Franco? If you’re familiar with The Room, the plot and the story behind it are self-explanatory (relatively speaking) but for those who aren’t… In 1998, Greg Sestero met Tommy Wiseau at a San Francisco acting class, and the two struck up an…

Released 24 NOVEMBER Few images are more immediately satisfying than the one at the start of Brett Morgen’s archive-led bio-doc: a picture-postcard scene that sees beloved primatologist Jane Goodall sitting atop an arching tree, surveying the luscious green expanse in front of her. She is queen of her domain, and friend to all apes. This is one of many captivating scenes in a magnificent-looking doc which finds new life in a well-covered subject. Its visual narrative is assembled from 140 plus hours of newly available, almost incomprehensibly luscious 16mm archive recorded by Goodall’s jungle confidant, ex-husband and famed nature photographer Hugo van Lawick. Cut rhythmically over Goodall’s expository narration and Philip Glass’ sonorous score, the footage alone – an intoxicating wash of vibrant, hyper-saturated colours and immaculate compositions – is enough…

Released 15 DECEMBER It’s enervating to chart the progress of Chinese director Jia Zhang-ke. He has moved away from stark, politically corrosive inquiries into economic displacement and the shifting sands of the Chinese landscape, to channel similar themes into more, shall we say, broadly approachable packages. Mountains May Depart is an impressive triptych feature which combines a florid family melodrama with themes of tradition, technology, pride and rampant globalisation. The film opens in gala fashion, as Jia muse Zhao Tao – delivering an astonishing performance – dances to the Pet Shop Boys’ version of ‘Go West’ in the year 1999. Initially set in the mining town of Fengyang, the film carefully sets up a fractious love triangle between shop clerk Tao, a wheeler-dealer who wants to take her away from the…

Watching Mudbound is like watching the past and present blur into one. Set in post-World War Two-era Mississippi, it scans like an old-fashioned family epic with clear literary origins (Hillary Jordan’s 2008 novel). Yet the tense dynamic between a neighbouring black and white family and the huge emotional moments afforded to each character could – unfortunately – be ripped from any time. Writer/director Dee Rees spoke about crafting a multi-perspective film out of history and how she prepares with actors. LWLies: How would you describe the feeling you get when you chance upon a source of inspiration that you know has potential to be a film? Rees: The feeling is what can you bring out of it or what story it tells. In Mudbound I saw my grandmother’s story. She…

Released 17 NOVEMBER 3 ANTICIPATION. One singular Hollywood star takes on another. 2 ENJOYMENT. Film stars might not die in Liverpool, but they sure spend a long time dying there. 2 IN RETROSPECT. Well, it’s no In a Lonely Place, or The Big Heat, or Human Desire or... “She was a big name in black-and-white films, not doing too well in colour,” we’re told near the start of Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool. “Always played the tart.” Of course, there was a lot more to Gloria Grahame than that, but film biopics have an unfortunate habit of flattening out the complexities and inconsistencies of a person’s life to fit a familiar, simplistic template. In the 1940s and ’50s, Gloria Grahame was involved in some of the greatest films of the studio era, winning…

Released 8 DECEMBER 3 ANTICIPATION. Dramatising fresh tragedy is a waltz through a minefield, and Green’s recent output has been spotty. 4 ENJOYMENT. Well-observed, and almost entirely free of the usual biopic BS — almost. 4 IN RETROSPECT. Green is back, baby, he’s back! Mama always said life is like a David Gordon Green movie: you never know what you’re gonna get. The one-time heir apparent of the American indie cinema crown has safely emerged from his stoned sojourn in the woods of weed comedy, and yet not fully intact. His Prince Avalanche and Joe flashed enough glints of his patience and bone-deep humanism to confirm that at least they were still present in his brain, then along came the shoddy, unfocused Manglehorn and Our Brand Is Crisis to cast doubt on his competence…

Released 24 NOVEMBER 4 ANTICIPATION. Emma Stone rebounding from an Academy Award win. Yep, we’ll take a look-see. 3 ENJOYMENT. A fascinating story, rendered in broad, middlebrow strokes. 3 IN RETROSPECT. This still might be the greatest tennis movie ever made. This is a film about trolling. It could be, pending deeper research by vast armies of social historians, a film about the first and most high profile example of trolling, or to use non-digital terminology, an altercation that’s not quite provocation and not quite harassment. Bobby Riggs was a jocular grandslam tennis champion during the 1940s who, by the 1960s, had become a beloved mainstay on the senior circuit. Life after relative sports stardom didn’t quite happen for him, but the thrill of the court remained. It’s hard to tell from Jonathan Dayton…

Released 17 NOVEMBER Capitalist greed is manifest in all its glory at the Las Vegas Hunting Convention. It’s a gathering that lives up to the horror of its name as fanatics choose from a ‘menu’ of wildlife and book their kill. The stark contrast between the stats (‘since 1970 the world has lost over 60 per cent of its wild animals’) and the ruthless greed of trophy hunters creates a furious tension necessary for this documentary to take effect. Trophy captures the South African savannah as a sublime killing ground in this powerful exposé. Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz collaborate as both director and cinematographer, and their film reveals the brutality of the hunting industry, where people can selectively kill wild animals for sport, in exchange for financial contributions to conservation.…

Michael Green has adapted everything from comic books to the Bible.His recent credits include co-writing Logan, Alien: Covenant and Blade Runner 2049. But we wanted to know about the journey of adapting Agatha Christie’s classic ‘Murder on the Orient Express’. Green calls himself a ‘tolerated convert’ to the ‘English civic religion’ that is the work of Christie. Originally not the biggest scholar or Christie fan, in adapting ‘Murder on the Orient Express’, he has gained an interest in and appreciation of her work. LWLies: Agatha Christie famously travelled on the Orient Express before writing this book – did you undertake such a journey yourself? Green: When given the good fortune to adapt ‘Murder on the Orient Express’, I had a lot of romantic ideas about going on the actual Orient…

Released 24 NOVEMBER 3 ANTICIPATION. It’s been a while since Clooney the filmmaker struck gold. 4 ENJOYMENT. Dual narratives – where fact meets fiction in race-hate America – work a treat. 3 IN RETROSPECT. A timely, relevant refresh on classic-era Coens. Inspired by events in Levittown, Pennsylvania in 1959 – when a well-to-do African-American family were violently harassed by white supremacists shortly after moving to the all-white suburb – George Clooney’s latest directorial outing could hardly feel more prescient. Updating a 1980s Coen brothers screenplay which crackles with trademark tropes and flourishes, Clooney revises the Blood Simpleera material with bite and sizzle. Although shooting wrapped a year ago, the film chimes with America’s current POTUS–sanctioned race war. Clooney’s instinct for storytelling now means that Suburbicon take on a whole new layer of meaning. Matt…

1973 OUT NOW Blu-ray If you decide to watch a movie by the late French filmmaker Jean Rollin, it’s highly likely you’ll be treated to a taste of his trademark: the sexy vampire. All Jean-Luc Godard needed to make a movie was a girl and a gun, but for Rollin, it’s a girl and a graveyard. And if there happens to be a gothic castle in the neighbourhood, then why not? He struck kinky horror gold in 1968 with The Rape of the Vampire, and after punching out a few variations on this effective formula, Rollin took things in a slightly different direction for his masterpiece, 1973’s The Iron Rose. A young, nameless couple meet at a provincial wedding reception and decide to break away for some no-strings canoodling. Eventually,…

1969 Released 20 NOV Blu-ray Every frame is a painting in Sergei Parajanov’s gorgeous 1969 cinepoem, The Colour of Pomegranates, which triumphantly makes its way on to Blu-ray care of a newly-minted restoration. This remarkable feature packs so much into its curt runtime that watching it is like descending into a narcotic reverie, where details flummox and enthral in equal measure. It loosely comprises of scenes from the life of the 16th century poet troubadour Sayat-Nova, but there’s little in the way of narrative or dramatic sweep. Instead, the director serves up decorous tableaux, each one more intricate and wild than the last, to offer a impressionistic version of the life of this tortured artist. Though it’s fun to try and unpick the meanings of the surreal symbols on show, it’s…

1974 Released 20 NOV Blu-ray The chance to take another magical journey to 7 bis, rue du Nadir-aux- Pommes is upon us once more as Jacques Rivette’s semi-improvised spectacular takes a giant leap on to Blu-ray. It’s true, there’s very little actual boating in Celine and Julie Go Boating (a couple of minutes at about two-and-a-half hours in?), but this off-the-wall defiance against primitive rationale is what fuels this hallucinatory masterwork. To put it simply, this is a film which attempts to encapsulate the giddy thrill of watching films. And it doesn’t achieve this by, say, filming characters watching films and smiling. It instead views cinema as a psychic portal to another time and another place – a projection of ideas born of two minds meeting. And the more you decide…