From silly sharks to sublime film festivals
Getting the really silly stuff out of the way first, or going straight in on the big dumb fun — Deep Blue Sea 3( Cert 15, on demand) is first up in this week’s round-up as something that might give the brain a rest for an hour and a half. The killer sharks are back to torment a crew of young, hot and gullible marine biologists at an abandoned floating fishing outpost. Let the chomping commence.
Infinitely more intelligent without losing any of the fun is Knives Out
(Cert 12A, Amazon Prime Video) ,a classic whodunnit. The all-star line-up includes Jamie Lee Curtis, Christopher Plummer, Toni Collette, Chris Evans, Michael Shannon, and Daniel Craig.
Following his death in 2018, friends of maestro Johann Johannsson
(Prisoners, Sicario, Arrival) came together to finish the first ever feature film that he had directed himself. Last and First Men (No cert, BFI player) is the result, a woozy hybrid of science fiction and documentary filmed in enigmatic 16mm black and white.
Tilda Swinton narrates this meditative memorial to one of the greatest film composers of his generation.
Norway tries to wrestle Thor back from the moneyed mitts of Marvel with its own in-house superhero yarn. Well sort of. Mortal (UK cert 15, on demand) sees a young boy coming to terms with emerging superpowers. Trollhunter
director Andre Ovredal holds the reins.
A particularly modern brand of noirish intensity is to be found in
White Lie (No cert, Curzon Home Cinema). Kacey Rohl plays a US student who fakes a cancer diagnosis on social media in order to reap the rewards of a crowdfunding campaign. A taut psychological drama is on the cards. The same is true of Make Up( No cert, Curzon Home Cinema). Early reports are very promising about this feature debut from writerdirector Claire Oakley. Starring Molly Windsor, it tells of a teenage couple who take a romantic break at an English caravan park, only for a stray strand of someone else’s hair to cause a tsunami of jealousy and obsession.
Finally, a very special mention for the IFI, which, following cancellation in March, will be bringing its East
Asia Film Festival Ireland online via its IFI@Home platform this weekend. Worth investigating. See www.ifihome.ie/eaffi-2020 for the full programme.