Rylance below par as a golfing Forrest Gump
mally titled X is essentially a slasher-killer film, fully deserving of its real-life 18 certificate and stomach-churning enough to put an awful lot of people off. Quite possibly you among them.
But for those who like this sort of blood-soaked thing – and there definitely are those who do, including real grown-ups – what you need to know is that Ti West’s taboo-trampling addition to the genre is really, really good… albeit in a way so nasty that I was regularly flinching in my seat.
From the moment the film opens, with a Texas police sheriff arriving on a remote farm that has clearly become a scene of mass murder, we know things are not going to end happily. And then we skip back 24 hours and watch a group of good-looking young wannabes piling into a mini-van to make a porn film and know that it’s just a matter of waiting… With a cast led by Mia Goth, it’s funny, bold and clever. But nasty too, of course.
Paris, 13th District is the latest film from acclaimed French director, Jacques Audiard, best known for A Prophet and Rust And Bone. Shot mainly in beautiful black and white and featuring a startling amount of sex, it chronicles the interconnected lives of three young people battling the unpredictabilities of life and love in Paris’s 13th arrondissement. Like French films always have been and, one quietly hopes, always will be too.
The Nan Movie was also released this week, with Catherine Tate reprising her TV role as the foul-mouthed comedy gran, but alas there were no screenings for critics. I wonder why?