Also streaming
Just weeks after Ema, Pablo Larrain’s reggaeton carnival, I’m No Longer Here (Netflix) looks to mine a similar sense of street-dancing Latino verve. A hirsute teen with a passion for cumbia dancing has a run-in with the Mexican cartels and has to take refuge in the States. That, however, might be the start of his troubles. Fernando Frias directs.
Lin Shaye continues her quest to appear in every horror film ever made. The Final Wish (on demand), a particularly gruesome fright-fest from the people that brought us the Final Destination franchise, sees her playing a scary mother in thrall to some cursed artefact belonging to her late husband. Michael Welch is the son on the receiving end of the demonic carry-on.
If you’re worried you’ve grown too accustomed to confined spaces, French submarine thriller The Wolf ’s Call (Sky Cinema/Now TV) should remedy that. The trailer is thick with pressurised arguments and red-lit sweat beads, suggesting writerdirector Antonin Baudry has packed the tropes beloved of the genre.
Roger Doyle is the subject of a documentary portrait that follows the celebrated Malahide composer as he prepares to stage an ambitious electronic opera. The Curious Works of Roger Doyle (Volta.ie) succeeds in getting inside the head-space of one of the country’s most consistent but understated musical visionaries, a man often referred to as the Godfather of Irish electronica.
A strong recommendation accompanies Leave No Trace
(Netflix). Debra Granik’s beguiling and superbly judged drama tells of an Iraq vet father (a reliably intense Ben Foster) and his daughter living off-grid and in seclusion in the forests of Oregon. They encounter an allchanging complication from which there is no way back. One of the finest indie releases of 2018.
After years of seeming to award everything except the very best film-making, the Academy redeemed itself this year by burying South Korean film Parasite (Curzon, on demand) in Oscars (Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, and International Feature Film). Bong Joon-ho’s tantalising comic noir was not only ingeniously plotted, it was a much-needed reminder to awards season that the West was never the sole preserve of excellent cinema.