A Week In Film #341: On hols!

Nothing this week…

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A Week In Film #340: New treat

Oblivion
Downbeat post-apocalypse SF business, with Tom Cruise as one of a small number of caretakers left on Earth to maintain vital fusion generators necessary for humanity’s off-planet survival following a devastating invasion by extraterrestrial invaders known as ‘Scavengers’. Joseph Kosinski handles the mood and the effects well, and there are good performances from Andrea Riseborough, Melissa Leo and Olga Kurylenko, but the plot falls apart somewhat by the third reel, diminishing what has been built up up to that point, which is a shame.

A Week In Film #339: Fresh deck

Red Corner
Subtlety-of-a-sledgehammer stuff from Jon Avnet (Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistlestop Cafe, but also 88 Minutes and Righteous Kill), directing Richard Gere as a smug, self-satisfied television executive trying to put together a deal in China. Of course, it all goes tits up, and he finds himself accused of Very Serious Crimes…

Give Up Tomorrow
Intriguing documentary about what seems to be a miscarriage of justice in the Philippines, where a number of boys were convicted of a double murder.

The Sitter
It’s no Adventures In Babysitting. It’s not even a Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead. I guess it’s a sign we’ve reached optimum Jonah Hill, and after that it’s all raising the temperature of the fuel rods dangerously high. Sam Rockwell is quit amazing in it.

Raw Deal
One of those quintessentially eighties movies, and somehow I’d never seen it. Schwarzenegger is a former FBI agent and now small town sheriff who is secretly recruited to join the Mafia to destroy it from within. That’s, er, about it. Directed by John Irvin, who seven short years previously had delivered seven impeccable episodes of the Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy adaptation.

A Week In Film #338: Packing ‘em in

Eye For An Eye
So-so revenge potboiler directed by John Schlesinger, with Sally Field the mother of a young woman raped and murdered by psycho Kiefer Sutherland, who escapes justice on a technicality.

Runaway
It’s a low-budget rip-off of Blade Runner, with Tom Selleck as a rogue robot hunter, and Gene Simmons from Kiss as the bad guy.

The Thin Red Line
Terrifying hill assault.

Flammen & Citronen AKA Flame And Citron
Doing the dirty work for a Danish resistance group takes its toll on two of its best operators.Flame And Citron

Isle Of Dogs
More misogynistic, flabby, pointless gangster bollocks.

The Vanishing (1993)
Hollywood remake of Dutch thriller; here Jeff Bridges in the man whose girlfriend simply disappeared during a stop at a gas station.

Seraphim Falls
Post-Civil War, an ex-Union officer (Pierce Brosnan) is being hunted by bounty hunters led by former Confederate Liam Neeson. Compelling period chase movie by David Von Ancken, with Michael Wincott, Ed Lauter and Tom Noonan rounding off the cast.

Event Horizon
Underrated SF disaster-in-space film from Paul WS Anderson directing a sttong cast that includes Larence Fishbone, Sam Neill, Joely Richardson, Jason Isaacs, Kathleen Quinlan, Richard T Jones, Jack Noseworthy and Sean Pertwee.