"Wasteman" - Review

Taylor (David Jonsson) is an inmate working in the prison kitchens, informed that he is eligible for early release due to the strain on the system. As he prepares for release, and keeps his head down, he is given a new cellmate in the form of Dee (Tom Blyth) - an impulsive, violent, arrogant man intent on becoming the new contraband master of the cells.

(Credit: Big Issue)
A remarkable, tense prison movie. It opens on a 70s wide shot of the bars Taylor peers out of, and some harrowing mobile phone footage of a beating, so we know exactly what we are in for. Jonsson, basically proving himself to be "cheat mode" for actors, continues his home run of diverse, interesting, fantastic performances with a nuanced, physical squirrelly Taylor. As always he is fantastic. The film is simultaneously a well-written boiling point movie (from writers Eoin Doran and Hunter Andrews), with impeccable use of mobile phone and surveillance footage to add a gritter, seedier look at the grit behind bars (but never grit for the sake of it: the opening is genuinely nasty and unpleasant but establishes the sky-high stakes of messing with the sneering Paul, a change of pace for Alex Hassell, and Gaz played by Corin Silva with a subtler unpredictability; whilst the anarchic nihilism of people "on the album tour of the wings" and showing off machetes is such specific absurdity that it must be from a real story); and also a damning look at the prison system: unerstaffing, crumbling infrastructure, rampant drug use and no time to care or stop anything due to the underpayment (I liked the little detail of a guard finishing his packet of crisps with resignation as an alarm goes off, cutting off his break) and understaffing. It's a grimy, gritty, lower budget fare, and the escalation is brilliant, handled impeccably by director Cal McMau and carried effortlessly by Jonsson.
For me, however, a true sign of talent was Tom Blyth: an actor who managed to go toe-to-toe, blow-for-blow, scene for scene with David Jonsson is not only worthy of respect and admiration, but paying atention to for the future. He makes Dee not simply terrifying, unpredictable and genuinely a force of menace on screen whom you know is lurking in the alleyways of less-privileged neighbourhoods without resorting to anything cartoony, but he and the other more feral bastards' moments of humanity imbue with with a darker, horrifying amplification of their menace: he genuinely looks out for Taylor when he finds out he has a son, you can see them actually maybe one day being friends, and he has tears in his eyes when he is asked what he did to be placed behind bars; is it a remorse, or a realisation that he has placed himself in a death spiral and is losing the humanity he sees in Taylor? Impeccable lightning rod performances from both he and Jonsson, the best of the year so far aside from maybe Rose Byrne.
A brutal, gruelling watch, and an audacious debut which I will not watch again for some time.

"Crime 101" - Review

A jewel thief is committing robberies along the 101 Highway in Los Angeles. Mike (Chris Hemsworth) doesn't use violence, is meticulous, and always hits high value targets. His story collides with the burnt out aging Lou (Mark Ruffalo), a detective unravelling and becoming obsessed with the robberies as his own life falls apart; and that of Sharon (Halle Berry): an insurance broker hitting a brick wall in her life. With another job on the horizon, and a new thief (Barry Keoghan) also on the loose, Mike's perfectly planned little world begins to come apart...

(Credit: Showcase Cinemas)
It's nothing you've not seen before, but the execution is astounding. Director Bart Layton (weirdly NOT adapting Don Westlake, as I thought from the trailer, as it feels very much like an adaptation of "Parker") throws "Thief" (a LOT of that movie), "The Driver", "Drive", "Heat" and any other number of cops and robbers movies into a blender and hits puree. The ingredients are familiar (Ruffalo's detective is a pile of cliches heaped into a suit, Nick Nolte unfortunately shows up to grumble-mumble his way through a scene, Barry Keoghan plays the psychotic young upstart who changes the game), with a brilliantly composed thief unable to make human connections and a cop on the edge whilst "one last job" brews and our thief meets a girl and yadda-yadda... But the result is actually fantastically well shot and put together: lots of parallel edits, Mike shot in boxes and lines to match his possible future in prison and his orderly life, little details to flesh out the characters and their worlds, touches and flourishes, great lighting and use of mood and atmosphere. Despite mentally ticking off a list of things I'd logged and registered, I felt my butthole puckered tight during the finale as it genuinely gripped me and threw a few curveballs in the last act. Keoghan steals the show with a fantastic brazen daylight robbery, a pink motorcycle jacket and a great chase; but Ruffalo and Berry really worked in the leads and elevated their characters, whilst Hemsworth suits this nicely. Jennifer Jason Leigh is utterly wasted in a thankless 2 scene role.
I enjoyed this more than I thought.

"No Other Choice" - Review

Man-su (Lee Byung-hun, always excellent) is the manager of a paper plant, with a beautiful life, two excellent dogs, a loving wife named Lee Mi-ra (Son Ye-jin), a teenage stepson and a gifted cellist daughter. But when he is given the axe at the plant in a takeover, he struggles to make ends meet and witnesses his life slip away. But Man-su is a provider, and will not be edged out of this industry, and he has an idea: an excellent, if taboo, idea...

(Credit: Neon)
I adored this.
After the resounding misfire/"Tell Me Something" knockoff "Decision to Leave": Park Chan-wook, the master of mischievous mayhem, has come back swinging with a pinpoint-accurate, razor sharp satire on capitalism, the job market and societal expectations of masculinity and the class system of providers. It's tricksy, slippery, immaculately crafted and shot (it feels like a timepiece in the filmmaking mastery on display: with exquisitely framed shots of windows and nature, impeccable editing and split shots with things like fire and phone calls, and a beautiful mirroring at both ends. I was particularly fond of an early shot of the van with "It's What's Inside") and featuring fantastic performances across the board. Byung-hun is always brilliant, here shedding his traditional badass ("A Bittersweet Life" rules) style to wonderful effect: an extremely funny, yet dark and twisted little performance of a man justifying and reflecting and self-actualising all in one go, and Son Ye-jin is magnificent in equal measure: I thought she'd be more of a "Lady Macbeth" type role from the trailer (and Park Chan-wook's prior sense of humour and mischief) but no! She was unusual and enigmatic and had a lot to do, refreshingly so for a woman in a movie.
The film is stunningly well told, and has the funniest murder I have ever seen captured on film, well in recent memory at least. Wonderful stuff and what cinema should be: a singular vision told collaboratively.

"The Housemaid" - No, Not that One

Determined to confuse a blogger with the wild, horny 2010 film of the same name: broke drifter Millie Calloway (Sydney Sweeney) takes a much-needed job at the home of wealthy Nina (Amanda Seyfried), to care for her home, husband Andrew (Brandon Skelnar) and daughter Cece (Indiana Elle). But amongst the chattering, spiteful harpy wives and ideallic middle class veneers, something is wrong...

(Credit: Everyman Cinemas. Check out their cinemas: they're great. I saw "Kid Detective" there and honestly cinema is downhill from that)
Paul Feig continues his trend from the excellent hysterical parody "A Simple Favour" in adapting serpentine Stepford thrillers to the big screen. Based on the runaway obsession novel by Frieda McFadden (obligatory: I have not read it)

This aims for a slightly more serious tone than "Favour" and indeed goes for it, but still remains playful and fun. The cast all get a chance to be hysterical, crazy and campy, and Michele Morrone from the meme-movie "365 Days" appears as a groundskeeper in a cute nod to this sort of thing, and it basically throws back to the "erotic thrillers" of the 90s like "Jade", "Disclosure" and "Fatal Attraction", but adds the twist of being watchable and knowing rather than rinsibly embarrassing (except "Showgirls" - that movie is magical): there are enough saucy shots and titillation to keep it knowing and nudging and rather cheky and tantaising rather than vulgar or crass, and the twists are suitably gasp-inducing rather than making one wince (well, not in that way... there is an effective part with some pliers...); yet the entire affair dances on just the right side of a knife edge. The entire thing is just the right amount of playful, funny, fun and delightful: the cast have fun with it, but not too much. If it were 10% more serious or 10% funnier it would have lost me. Its "Gone Girl"-esque second half (Oh, "Woman on the Train" and "Woman in the Window" are two more there! Only one of those was good) is strong; "A Simple Favour" goes completely goo-goo-bananas off-the-reservation, queerer and crazier and is better for it in my eyes, but this is a far more rock solid, accessible entry to the genre.
Also, between this and drop: don't go to a restaurant with Brandon Skelnar. Even if he's a nice dude, it's going to end horribly.

"Dead of Winter" - Review

Recently widowed Barb (a rather game Emma Thompson) heads to a frozen lake in the Canadian wildnerness to scatter her husband's ashes. She comes across a crime in progress, as a woman in a purple coat (Judy Greer) and a man in a camouflage coat (Marc Menchaca) have stashed a bound woman (Laurel Marsden, no relation to James) in their cabin. Unwilling to let surely bad things happen to this girl, but with no special skills outside of tenacity and age, Barb does battle with the pair.

(Photo credit: thefutureoftheforce.com Fucking websites not using fucking JPGs, bastard piece of shit internet, fuck it)
A fairly solid thriller, all things considered. It's not going to set the world on fire (hah!) and doesn't exactly reinvent he wheel - but it doesn't have to. It's a tight enough fare (through it loses steam in the cellar in act 3), with lovely scenescapes, good use of flashbacks, and a focus on the nitty-gritty survival elements like soaking clothes in a sink to screw with people, and how actually bloody difficult would be to sew up one's own wounds. I like that the protagonists are ordinary people (Barb has twinges in her back, people slip over and drop things in fight scenes, for example), there's no "secret military background" or crowbarred tangent: it feels natural and fun and a touch of class. It's a nice, simple movie and a quirky change of pace for Thompson, who's really good in this.

"The Surfer" - Review

A man (Nicolas Fucking Cage) moves back to his childhood home in Australia, hoping to buy it and relive his surfing days on a picturesque beach with his son (Finn Little) and ride the waves. Unfortunately a possessive hyper-masculine local big shot named Scally (Julian McMahon) and his insular tribe of toxic lunatics aim to drive away any non-locals from the spot, and a war of wills and ever-spiralling madness escalate as macho meets morality and our surfer loses himself in the outback.

A 70s inspired psychological mind bender (right from the font of the bright yellow font of the opening credits) very much taking a few leaves from the blood and fluid spattered book of "Wake in Fright" as Nicolas Cage is put through the wringer and brought to his lowest depths. It's impeccably made, with sweltering scorching heat and wide angle fish eye lenses as reality distorts, and it morphs into a beast discussing masculinity and the feral, primal urges of onsters which society simply lets happen, and how it gives way to cult like behaviour. It's not for me (and indeed, "Wake in Fright" is the sort of movie I watch once and say "yup, not for me as great as it is!") but has a lot to love. If you're here for the Nic Cage madness/memes, it's relatively restrained in that regard (outside of him force-feeding a man a rat) and instead focuses on a damn good performance from him. The "Straw Dogs"-esque catharsis is never quite there, and it's never as bleak as something like that, but the film works tightly. It could lose the "missing identity, gaslighting into believing you're that other guy" plotline and could honestly have been tighter without it, but works with it regardless.

"Drop" - Review

Violet (Mehann Fahy) is recovering from a traumatic incident in her past and works as a single mother and therapist. She finally manages to snag a hot date with sexy photographer Henry (Brandon Skelnar), and heads to meet him at a fancy high-tower restaurant. But though the pair of them manage to hit it off, Violet starts receiving anonymous messages and images on her phone and before she can attempt to parse who they are from, they start to show pictures of her house, and demand that she murder Henry... Now she must keep the date going, keep it secret from Henry, and figure out who is sending these messages to her...

A fine effort from Mr Landon, as usual! I'm a long-standing defender and advocate of the man's works, and he's been on a tear: from writing the fanatastic "Heart Eyes" and directing a tight, fun little thriller as this, he's been on a tear this year. One heck of a one-two punch. It embraces the inherent silliness, and leans upon the dated memes angle for it all, and stays on course to be a fun little mystery, and a "how shall this character escape the situation?" kind of movie. Fahy (the first thing I have seen her in) is excellent, and Reed Diamond shows up for a little bit, hell yes! Skelnar is lovely too, and has, most essential for this kind of movie, smooth and fluid chemistry with Fahy in this. Everybody who shows up is good: the movie does that thing I really appreciate and respect where it has hired good, solid, experienced and unknown actors to really sell the piece rather than rely on big names and make money disappear, instead saving its budget for some creative little asides and camera angles to show off how far Landon (definitely up for Sweeties this year) has come as a filmmaker. I rather enjoyed it and the mystery's reveal works. Violett Beane is delightful in this as Violet's sister, and everything seems to come together nicely enough and tightly enough that I wasn't picking holes in it, enjoying it so much as I was, which is what it's out to do. Another cracker to the Landon canon, though "Heart Eyes" remains the one to beat this year.

"September 5" - Review

Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro) starts his first day as the control room head at a broadcast studio. The Olympics are happening here in West Germany, the year is 1972, and Mason and his colleagues are in for a long, history making night...

A tense retelling of the Black September attack on the Olympics, told entirely through the news room and its staff. It's a clever way of telling the story, rather unique in its execution, and a boiling pot of dread. It manages to juggle the topics of journalistic responsibility, the legacy of the 2nd World War (one character is increasingly concerned with how her homeland is handling this incident so soon after a blot on history) and sensationalism, all while building a tense bottle movie, with neat and clever little touches where characters have to constantly be improvising and adapting on the fly, inventing things and coming up with solutions. It's ever escalating, believable, and never falls into that standard "period piece" trap of putting characters in thick moustaches and bell bottoms to convey that we're in the 70s; instead using accutely observed period details like "what is a terrorist?" and how the machines and technology work, which also help to keep the pacing rapid fire and buttery smooth. It whizzes by as a film, and I particularly enjoyed the things it had to say and the questions its characters asked ("Are we helping the terrorists by showing this?" "Whose story does this become?", "Is now really the time to be arguing with networks over whose jurisdiction this covers?", "Are we really helping or are we being ghoulish and unpleasant?"); it has earned its reputation and does an excellent job.
Oh, and the actual shots of the situation are done as a horror film, impeccable work, and Corey Johnson is in this!