"Wild Horse Nine" - Confessions of a Dangerous Minder

CIA operative Lee Chesterfield (the impeccable Sam Rockwell) accompanies his elderly mentor and colleague Chris Carlisle (John Malkovich)to Easter Island for a trip. However, the pair have just finished a mission in Chile, and Chris, dying and starting to succumb to dementia, is becoming a liability. Their boss MJ (Steve Buscemi) is pressuring Lee to kill Chris...

(Credit: Searchlight Pictures)
Amiable enough with the now well-worn McDonagh dialogue (characters philosophising as they circle the drain of morality and mortality), to the extent that it feels more like one of his plays than one of his films, but Malkovich and Rockwell are excellent, as always. When it's allowed to breathe and the actors are allowed to act, they're good: Rockwell is a remarkably good straight man, Malkovich has a phenomenal little speech in a bar about the impending darkness and whirlwind of evil he has wrought, and the pair bounce well off of each other. Tom Waits, of all folks, has the best scene, with an unspoken melancholy and years of sadness and regret etched and branded into his very soul, wonderful casting. Yet it overstays its welcome somewhat, and feels a tad self indulgent. Still, it has some solid anti-Imperialist themes (fuck the CIA and America's legacy in world affairs) and when it's funny it's pretty funny, the heroin joke has a wonderful payoff (even if the payoff is repeated twice to diminishing effect), so it'll make for a fun enough afternoon fare.

"Wicker" - Your Time Will Come

An unnamed quaint little village is home to a solitary Fisherwoman (Olivia Fucking Colman), demeaned and ostracized by the tradition abiding villagers who mock her for being unmarried and unwed. Sticking middle fingers to their traditions and sensibilities, she turns to the Basket Weaver (Peter Dinklage) at the edge of town and asks that he make her a husband...

(IMDB)
Sweet, whimsical and droll, with some still barbed and pointed jabs at gender roles and "traditions" (the collar stuff is a funny little touch), it's Colman always doing a wonderful job, and a gentle performance from Skarsgard to balance her to boot. There are wonderfully supporting turns from a prickly Elizabeth Debicki and a tragic Marli Siu, and a delicious cameo from Richard E Grant. Peter Dinklage is used well and speaks in deliciously Sally Potter/"Cyrano" dialect, and it is all woven together nicely in a tale of spitting in the face of tradition and living one's own path, and basic love and respect in relationships.
A fun time.

"Primetime" - I'm Catching a Predator, Bella

Dateline NBC is running a special segment entitled "To Catch a Predator", hosted by Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson), a segment wherein potential sex offenders are lured in by an online decoy and confronted by its host and the police. Hansen, however, wants more: he is determined to top the ratings and hit the primetime, and thus his show needs to be bigger, bolder, better, louder and more bombastic. He's not just making television, he's a righteous divine avenger changing the world...

(Variety)
A horror movie in all but name, mirrors and dark lighting aplenty as it drenches its reptillian protagonist in the blended worlds of showbusiness and predators, our protagonist himself (an oily and excellent Pattinson) a shark in this cesspool. The shots of Jared the Subway Guy got a dark chuckle out of me, as did the contextualisation of the time period with the discussions of the Iraq War: more fuel for the broiling quagmire of madnes and panopticons of our media-obsessive witch hunt age. In an age of media circuses moving online, and the ever-present spectres of "content" farming for heinous things, this absolute moral minefield is engrossing and gripping stuff. Merritt Weaver is excellent as the vicious producer, Skyler Gisondo steals the show (as he always does, love that guy) as the young "Decoy Dan" actor thrown straight in the deep end to the wolves, and the casting on the whole is absolutely bonkers: Bokeem "Mike Milligan" Woodbine as a Sheriff, Phoebe Bridgers (for some reason) as another decoy, Alex Winters (yay!) in a chilling final act, Jonathan Lipnicki is old enough to go full frontal (I feel old...) and a producer from the era further blurs the lines by playing himself. It's a slithery, slimy, skin crawling good time.

"Wildwood" - Non-Stop Motion

Prue McKeel (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) lives in Portland, Oregon, with her parents (Jake Johnson and Maya Erskine) and infant brother Mac (Arthur Knight), a pleasant enough life. One day out exploring, and bumping into her nerdy friend Curtis (Jacob Tremblay), she witnesses a murder of crows swoop down and seize Mac, spiriting him away to the deepest, darkest Impassable Wilderness. Prue and Curtis rush in to locate and rescue him, discovering a magical realm currently in turmoil under its Dowager Governess (Carey Mulligan), soon the pair are swept up in machinations beyond this world and theirs...

(Credit: IMDB)
Holy shit.
It is going to be difficult to properly review this without resorting to gushing and hyperbolic ramblings as I have in the past; because this movie is best described as an inverse "Cats": the longer you look, the more goodness and wonder there are to see.
Each frame turns and burns with artistic splendour, a blossoming explosion of agonising creative force: every time you think you have gotten complacent in the effective effort and incredible gleam of stop-motion bleeding from every frame, a tornado of crows will erupt, or a series of suspended cages will give way to multi-person slapstick, or the big centerpiece will grip your soul and force you to pay attention. It's impossible to look away, and the spell captures you from the first pitch-black frames, unafraid to take you on this journey on its own terms.
It's an old school fairy tale (cheerful talking rats, a cruel villainous witch raising an army of coyotes, bandit kings, gruff postmen taking you down roads which should not be, Owl Kings and armies of crows) told remarkably straight, and it's all the better for it. In between rats voiced by Akwafina, Coyote Generals played by Tom Waits (bringing the soul as he always does, what a fucking weird, off kilter choice for a movie), Owl Kings played by Richard E Grant, great eagles (in one of the film's highlights, played by Angela Bassett), bandit kings (Mahershalah Ali) and old postmen (Len Cariou - it's refreshing that we don't have any gimmick casting, it's just fantastic actors in fntastic parts suited for them) and the quest to rescue a baby: it never speaks down or falls into juvenile "children's movie" territory. The stakes are high the quest is real, and this movie gets dark.
I love this.
All that animation could be and should be, but all too often is not.
Even if you don't support it for the arts, which you absolutely should, on a thrilling level it is worth the price of admission for the battle sequence alone.
A dark fairy tale about grief, which fucking rules, it catches your heart in your throat, takes you by the hand and hurls you into a twisted labyrinth of mayhem and wonder and weirdness and sparkles with the magic of the world around us. It's amazing.

"Clayface" - How Mean is My Valley?

Handsome rising star Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) has it all: a blossoming movie career, a wealthy escape from his poor downtown upbringing, a lovable best friend Cory (Joshua James) and critical acclaim pouring in! But an encounter with Mia Torrez (Joana Ribeiro) brings him into the orbit of mob boss and shitbag Markos Szabo (David Dencik), and he's subsequently mauled. Desperate, broke, and at rock bottom, he turns to a scientist (Naomi Ackie) and her experimental, untested medical procedure to restory his face and reclaim his identity...

(Bloody Disgusting. Source, not description)
A refreshingly fun take on superhero/supervillain and comic book shenanigans in general. It takes a little while to get going as it lays the groundwork and sets up things, but keeps interest in the interim with some excellent unflinching gore and a wonderful performance from Tom Rhys Harries (Wales represent! Also he's on a tear this year), very dead behind the eyes and with a superficial glossy charm shielding an emptiness and darkness beneath, and rattles along nicely enough. Then it becomes a blend of Hammer Horror, psychological breakdown and old school body horror slasher movie drenched in a shroud of paranoia. Once it hits the ground and takes off, it's very fun stuff: great gory kills, a fun B-movie sensibility, good chemistry between Harries and Naomi Ackie (common good work from Ackie, yet again), and a psychological breakdown which included my favourite scene: Rob Brydon of all fucking people subverting his lovable Welsh Port Talbot accent to chilling effect. Eddie Marsan is excellent and slimy, and the cast are uniformly good.
The final act in a nightclub is when the movie soars and has fun.
Meet it on its gory, bloody merits and it's a great time! (I always appreciate a "Videodrome" murder)

"Forgotten Island" - Filipino Man's Sky

Jo (H.E.R) is a free spirited artist of chaos, and best friends with Raissa (Liza Soberano), a brilliant, focused science gremlin; together they are raised on stories of the mystical land of Nakali. Years later, with Raissa about to leave for CalTech, Jo has one final night with her friend before life seems to separate them forever, they find an amulet on the beach which transports them to the mystical world of Nikali...

(Credit: IGN)
Marketed as a kids' adventure, the movie is actually more akin to "The Hangover" done through Filipino mythology and a culture completely alien to me, as our two leads wake up on the island with no memory of the night before and must retrace their steps with the aid of a lovable, incredibly energetic dog man (Dave Franco, absolutely relishing the part and practically stealing the show), giving way to an absolute barrage of jokes, sight gags and truly spellbindin animation, just some top tier craft on display. It's madcap, rapid fire, and the sort of experimental fare Dreamworks used to make. It bounces and bounds all over the place in an endearing, amusing adventure of creative jokes and bombastic, eccentric humour for about 45 minutes after a genuinely touching introduction; falters a little towards the end when juggling its plot and betrayal, but I was swept up enough in its "Mitchells VS the Machines" energy and bonkers goodwill that it didn't bother me. It's a fantastic film you can honestly just witness for the animation hand grenade of skill on the screen, but stick around for a funny ride.

"It's My Time" - Every Side, Everywhere, All One Colour

Wu Youwei (Liu Haoran) was once a dynamo and wizard with the Rubik's cube, but now has fallen on hard times and owes debts. He takes a job teaching Rubik's cubes to stave off dementia in a nursing home, where he finds a protege in the prickly, grouchy 70 year old stroke survivor and former maths teacher Zhao (Michelle Yeoh)...

(Credit: IMDB)
A crowd pleaser sports movie, about a lady doing Rubik's cubes despite her age. It does the job well enough and is directed with enough flair and colour to surpass the usual predicable elements, it's nothing you've not seen before but tastes well all the same. I liked the guest turn from Jiang Qiming as "Dr K" the dickish arrogant player on a game show, and the cast as a whole are good: Yeoh is, as always, wonderful, especially when she gets to shit-talk a ten year old and make him cry. The third act melancholy can be seen coming a mile off, and is a tad manipulative, but I was swept up enough to still let it work on me, and the dynamic between Wu and Zhao is fun enough.