Also streaming
Mark Cousins’s expertise on film is renowned and in what could be considered his second filmic PhD, Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema, he speaks to and about female film-makers from everywhere. The first part went online last week, the second lands tomorrow (BFI), the third will land June 1, and they are an absolute must for film fans.
Another film-related documentary, Bruce Vigar’s 1917, The Real Story,
offers insights and historical footage, albeit with a slightly odd soundtrack. (iTunes & Amazon).
Volta.ie has articles that link through to movies, which can be an interesting filmy wormhole.
Drama comes in Scott Graham’s Run (May 25, BFI), which is essentially a film based around the values of a Bruce Springsteen song but set in small-town Scotland. Gritty, heartfelt and atmospheric, in Bruce terms it’s a cross between The River
and Born to Run.
No week would be complete without the release of some horror, though this week’s offerings are more on the humorous side: in Killer Instinct a psychopathic landlord has issues with his millennial tenant, while Ghost Killers v Bloody Mary is sort of like a Brazilian Scooby Doo for adults. Probably quite drunk adults.
Cinema releases you can catch streaming now include The Man who Killed Don Quixote, a project that took Terry Gilliam 25 years to complete but which, despite the presence of Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce in the leads, feels a bit dated and messy.
Fast and Furious: Hobbs and Shaw lands on Sky/Now TV for fans of the tongue-a-bit-in-cheek, turbo-macho enemies-turned-allies with car chases series. Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham scowl their way through that, while Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron scowl their way through the very different but no less actionbased Mad Max: Fury Road (Amazon Prime).
Completely different is Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life (all platforms May 25), based on the true story of Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian conscientious objector in 1939. Moving and thought-provoking, it forces you to think about principles and bravery in a family context. And from 1949, totally worth seeing is the classic The Third Man (BFI).