This week, another great independent
sci-fi film. This one really surprised with its script. A Young Adult (YA) book
to film adaptation that I did like, a comic book film conversion that I shouldn’t
have liked, but I did, and a crowd-funded film that I wished I wasn’t there to
watch.
(My movie Pick of the week)
The Infinite Man ✪✪✪✪½
Opens in Australia: 18th
September 2014
USA: Various film festivals UK:
Festivals
Other Countries: Release Information
Perth: Luna Palace Cinemas
This is probably the strangest
film I’ve seen all year. Quirky. Yep, real quirky. So odd and
Wrong! Boy was I glad that I stayed because after
about thirty minutes when Dean, the main character of only three characters, travels back
in time and starts getting tangled up in the time line, it gets good, really
good. The kind of good that has you thinking about it days later. In fact, a
week later, I love it even more now than when I saw it.
It’s clever, and did I mention
quirky? You should see it. Really, please go see it, and don’t make up your
mind while watching until it starts playing out. Did I mention that it’s
quirky?
The film’s Facebook Page for
news on where it’s showing is https://www.facebook.com/TheInfiniteMan/timeline. Try and catch it. There’s never been anything quite like it.
STUDIO
BLURB
A man's
attempts to construct the ultimate romantic weekend backfire when his quest for
perfection traps his lover in an infinite loop.
The Maze Runner ✪✪✪✪
Opens in Australia: 18th
September 2014
USA: 19th September 2014 UK: 10th October 2014
Other Countries: Release Information
OUR THOUGHTS
This one didn’t thrill me to
see. The trailer was meh, and I think
for those of us over seventeen, we’ve just about had our fill of young people killing and being killed in films adapted from bestselling books.
So find me pleasantly surprised
by this thrilling little number. It’s a tad cliché, but then again I’ve read a lot
of books and seen a lot of films, so you do get used to plot weaving and the
beats that films and books need to meet. Did you know there’s a formula they
teach in screenwriting school? Yep, there are beats to hit at certain points in
a film (and many miss them).
The Maze Runner, though, is
well done, and even though I kept thinking this is a modern day Lord of the Flies (so I can’t call it
original), it feels fresh. It’s also
part of a trilogy, I presume, because the books are a trilogy. So another one to
look forward to. I’m going to read the book. I can’t wait for the film. It
ended on too much of a cliffhanger.
STUDIO
BLURB
When
Thomas wakes up trapped in a massive maze with a group of other boys, he has no
memory of the outside world other than strange dreams about a mysterious
organization known as W.C.K.D. Only by piecing together fragments of his past
with clues he discovers in the maze can Thomas hope to uncover his true purpose
and a way to escape. Based upon the best-selling novel by James Dashner. (c)
Fox
Sin City: A Dame
To Die For ✪✪✪½
Opens in Australia: 18th
September 2014
USA: 22nd August 2014
UK: 25th
August 2014
Other Countries: Release Information
OUR THOUGHTS
Nine years after the original Sin City that spawned a new film noir
style, co-directors
Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller reunite again to bring Miller's Sin City graphic novels back to the
screen.
Don’t
worry if, like me, you didn’t see the first Sin
City, you will still enjoy the story and the stunning, unique, visual
style, now in 3D. The effect of creating a film with the look of the graphic
novel, sometimes the exact scene frame of the comic, is truly an experience to
savor on the big screen.
Two of the film's four segments
are based on the six issue Sin City
comic: A Dame To Kill For and the
single run Just Another Saturday Night. Each
story is told as a separate storyline with each intersecting and then glancing
off each other in their own showcase.
Dwight (Josh Brolin) is so in
love with Ava (Eva Green) that he will ‘kill for the dame’ even though he knows
she is not worthy of his trust, having betrayed him before. She claims that her
husband will soon kill her. Joseph Gordon Levitt plays Johnny, a gambling
hustler, who falls foul of Senator Roark (Powers Boothe) when he wins at the
table. Nancy Calahan (Jessica Alba) is emotionally struggling with the suicide
of John Hartigan (Bruce Willis), and though revenge is what she seeks, she
can’t seem to find the courage to act. In each, as in the comics, Marv (Mickey Rourke) becomes involved, and when you have Marv with
you that means there will be blood.
Sin City is filled with a dark menagerie
of characters played to perfection by names such as Rozaria Dawson, Jeremy
Piven, Ray Liotta, Christopher Lloyd, Stacy Keach, and even Lady GaGa.
It’s hyper-violent and a crazy, wild ride, with a claustrophobic
atmosphere conveying the feeling that these characters are trapped in this
terrible, dangerous world from which there is no escape, giving them only small triumphs
over greater evils. As the poster says, “There is no justice without sin.”
Especially when this sinning is so good to watch.
STUDIO
BLURB
Co-directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller reunite to bring Miller's
visually stunning "Sin City" graphic novels back to the screen in SIN
CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR. Weaving together two of Miller's classic stories with
new tales, the town's most hard boiled citizens cross paths with some of its
more notorious inhabitants. SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR is the follow up to
Rodriguez and Miller's 2005 groundbreaking film, FRANK MILLER'S SIN CITY. (c)
Dimension Films
Wish I Was
Here ✪½
Opens in Australia: 18th
September 2014
USA: 25th July 2014 UK:
19th September 2014
Other Countries: Release Information
Perth: Luna Palace Cinemas
I’d like to rename this film from the filmgoer’s
perspective. The actors might be wishing they were here, but I think most audiences will be wishing they were anywhere
but here in a cinema watching this.
My best description of this crowd-funded
film, written, produced and starred in by Zach Braff, is to say that it was
clumsy and un-engaging. The character Braff plays is an unsuccessful actor. Now
he can add unsuccessful scriptwriter and producer to his credits. Don’t go.
He’s already crowd-funded enough money from innocent people. Don’t give him any
more. He might make another film.
And how bad is the poster? What a shocker.
STUDIO
BLURB
Director Zach Braff's follow-up to his indie
breakout hit "Garden State" tells the story of a thirty-something man
who finds himself at major crossroads, which forces him to examine his life,
his career, and his family. (c) Focus
If you’ve enjoyed these reviews, please
share with your friends and followers on social media and I will be very
grateful. I love new readers who love film.
No comments:
Post a Comment