2020

GREED

Cert 15 Stars 4

Having made the brilliant TV series The Trip together as well as several films including the fantastic Manchester music comedy 24 Hour Party People, Steve Coogan re-teams with Brit director Michael Winterbottom in this scathing satirical comedy.

Never afraid of making himself look ridiculous in search of a laugh, Coogan sports outrageous white teeth and fake tan as a billionaire high-street fashion mogul Richard McCreadie.

Stephen Fry, Ben Stiller, Colin Firth, Keira Knightley, Louis Walsh and Keith Richards appear as themselves as McCreadie celebrates his 60th birthday at a lavish Roman emperor themed party on the Greek island of Mykonos.

THE CALL OF THE WILD

Cert PG Stars 4

Harrison Ford takes the lead from a canine co-star in this epic, expensive and determinedly old fashioned family outdoors adventure based on the 1903 novel by Jack London.

Every bit as monumentally craggy as the gorgeously photographed scenery, Ford plays a frontiersman who forms a bond with a dog named Buck, who was stolen from his home in California.

Buck may be a CGI creation but is as full of character, loyalty and bravery as any other big screen dog. Which is more than you say for the characters played by Dan Stevens and Karen Gillan.

DOGS DON’T WEAR PANTS

Cert 18 Stars 3

Love hurts in this provocative, explicit and eye-watering Finnish drama which goes so far beyond a bit of slap and tickle even ardent admirers of the Fifty Shades films may find themselves crossing their legs in sympathy.

Pekka Strang bares his soul – as well as the rest of himself – as a heart surgeon struggling to cope after the accidental drowning of his beloved wife.

He begins secretly spending his time in a sex dungeon with a dominatrix who calls him a dog and demands him to strip, hence the title, and as he finds solace in his own humiliation, the two lost souls begin to connect.

The appropriately named Mona also works as an osteopath, clearly a bit of a busman’s holiday for the broad minded professional.

This blackly comic chamber piece is definitely not for the timid or squeamish, it’s sensitive to its characters needs and everyone comes out with their dignity intact, though you can’t say the same for all their other bits.

EDGE OF EXTINCTION

Cert 18 Stars 2

Blood, mud, skulls and cannibal gangsters feature heavily in this violent and nasty low budget British dystopian sci-fi thriller, which sadly lacks the invention, scope or devious camp sensibility which made it’s spiritual grandfather Mad Max, such a full throttle success.

Set fifteen years in the future after an atomic war, a lone scavenger becomes the reluctant ally of other survivors to mount a desperate rescue mission.

A welcome absence of CGI sees the blood-spurting action use medieval weapons and a lot of fake blood, and though the relentlessly grim tone is almost provocative, it’s grounded in the gritty realism of its desolate locations.

An overgrown comprehensive school has ‘welcome to hell’ sprayed above the front door, but I’m not sure if the graffiti is pre-apocalypse or not.

Originally titled ‘The Brink’ and a labour of love for director Andrew Gilbert who’s not short of ambition and stages a tasty finale where the remnants of civilisation make a final stand against the forces of chaos, but it’s a slog to get there.

THE DALAI LAMA – SCIENTIST

Cert U Stars 4

Science and faith enjoy an unlikely love-in as this documentary about the Buddhist leader combines animation, interviews, and previously unseen archive footage, while revealing him to be a far-sighted and astute political operator on the world stage.

Exiled since 1959 when the Chinese army occupied his country the political and spiritual leader of Tibet took refuge in India, he cuts an attentive, polite, wily, charming and quite jolly figure.

A syrupy narration explains how his childhood interest in science has been the driving force for meetings with leading Nobel prize-winning scientists, and loose comparisons are drawn between buddhist beliefs and scientific such as quantum physics, cognitive science, and neuroscience.

I began watching with skepticism and ended in awe at the 85 year old, as his decades long strategy of Buddhist and Western scientific co-operation is now bearing fruit as he uses research projects to build bridges to the Chinese scientific community, a clear gateway to pressuring the Beijing authorities to re-examine their policies regarding Tibet.

PROXIMITY

Cert PG Stars 3

Old school aliens, conspiracy theorists and menacing government agents make for throwaway entertainment in this cheesy sci-fi which successfully summons the goofy spirit of 1980’s family adventure such as Flight of the Navigator.

Ryan Masson is badly dressed and convincingly socially inept as Isaac, a likeable yet lowly and nerdy Nasa scientist, obsessing over the future of possible Mars exploration.

While in the countryside recording a video diary, Isaac films a large meteorite crashing nearby, and waking up three days later he’s convinced he’s been the victim of an alien abduction and now possesses psychic powers but is accused of being a fraud by the media.

Isaac finds a sympathetic ear in Sara, a fellow abductee, and Highdee Kuan makes an attractive foil for Masson’s out-of-his-depth geek, but the pair’s search for answers attracts unwanted attention.

They’re soon on the run in a world of mysterious operatives in dark sun-glasses, sleek black cars, white interrogation rooms, laser guns and android henchmen.

The film makes a virtue of these overly familiar elements, plus it’s a joy to see flying saucers in their traditional shape as giant, beautiful, metallic spinning frisbees, and we’re not kept waiting long to meet the aliens, who are in the classic 1950’s mould; tall, thin and angular with large eyes.

Although set in the here and now, the last time I saw anybody using Isaac’s shoulder carried VCR, it was Michael J. Fox in the classic caper, Back To The Future. It’s one of the cute references which demonstrate the film’s love of the movies of the period and along with the synth pop songs on the soundtrack, add to the general 1980’s vibe.

A passion project for writer director Eric Demeusy who’s previously been a special effect guru on TV”s Stranger Things and Game of Thrones, and as he impressively stretches his slim budget and story across an ambitious canvas, he adds sparkle to his lightweight fun.

ENEMY LINES

Cert 15 Stars 3

Opening titles of real war footage set a chilly and sombre tone to this respectful and effective Second World War action adventure is a by-the-numbers boys’ own adventure lifted by its great locations and a hard working cast.

John Hannah keeps a stiff upper lip as the British Army liaison officer back in Blighty as English actor Ed Westwick stars as a square-jawed US Major leading a team of British commandos to extract an important scientist from the hands of the Germans in Nazi-occupied Poland of 1943.

Of course plans go awry, radios don’t work, they can’t identify which locals are collaborators, and the Russian army who are much more used to fighting in the bleak snow covered landscape, are also the same target.

There’s plenty of courage and sacrifice among the many shoot-outs, and the fierce and the excitingly staged three-way battle of foreign troops on Polish soil to determine ownership of Polish resources, can be read as a scathing view of the war.

THE WRETCHED

Cert 15 Stars 2

This US slasher horror aspires to be a dark fairy tale for a modern age, but is mostly a familiar mix of teenage fear, skinny dipping, blood letting and jump scares.

John-Paul Howard plays the terrifyingly ordinary teen Ben who has moved in with his dad for the summer only to discover the mother of the young family next door has started to behave strangely, and mysterious symbols are appearing scratched onto windows and tree trunks.

Co-director’s Brett and Drew Pierce apparently claim their script is inspired by their parents’ divorce and a love for Roald Dahl’s The Witches, but I’m not convinced the author would approve of the way his kids story reinvented with a deathly lack of imagination as a standard tale of a teenager fighting local bullies and supernatural forces.

It begins with a flashback to a Rubik’s Cube, and the scratchily written caption which tells us this was 35 years ago is probably the most shocking moment on show.

IN SEARCH OF GREATNESS

Cert PG Stars 3

Sports fans who believe modern games are too regimented and unaccommodating of maverick talent will enjoy this inspirational and thought-provoking documentary from director Gabe Polsky, who previously made the little seen but brilliant Russian ice-skating doc, Red Army.

With loads of great footage and interviews with Serena Williams, Pele and Michael Jordan, it holds up legends such as boxer Rocky Graziano, and Brazilian footballer Garincha, as examples of great sportsmen who had to improvise new styles in order to overcome physical attributes which could have seen them rejected at the beginning of their careers.

Celebrating the behaviour of pioneering mavericks and diverse figures such as high jumper Dick Fosbury and err, musician David Bowie, the film argues though performance data is necessary in attainment, it can’t measure an individual’s competitive nature and creativity which are fundamental to achieving greatness.

Scathing of any educational system which demands conformity, the film claims unstructured play for the young is crucial for development, which means I’m totally ace-ing this homeschooling lark.

INFINITE FOOTBALL

Cert PG Stars 3

Football and philosophy collide in this poignant documentary as a quirky take on the beautiful game morphs into a sad portrait of desperate middle age and a glimpse behind the former Iron Curtain into the Kafka-esque running of the Romanian state apparatus.

Director Corneliu Porumboiu visits his hometown of Vaslui, Romania, to interview the guileless, earnest and evangelical Laurentiu Ginghina, who boldly claims to have invented a new less violent and more creative sport by changing the rules of football.

However a professional football coach shrugs and says the innovations are merely a variation on longstanding training techniques.

There’s an air of Billy Liar and Walter Mitty about the nondescript Ginghina, who explains at length how a series of thwarted opportunities has resulted in his being trapped in the grinding life of a government bureaucrat.

And the newfound freedom he declares players gain from his improvements involve the imposition of complex and restrictive rules, a contradiction our daydreaming would-be sporting pioneer seems oblivious to.