Category Archives: art house

Possessor (2020)

Director: Brandon Cronenberg
Starring: Andrea Riseborough, Christopher Abbott, Sean Bean, Jenniger Jason leigh .Canada. 1h 43m

the junior Cronenberg stirkes again with yet another brilliant, mind bending, reality busting concept, this time he’s matures his process and developed a highly stylish assasination bureau where agents enter the minds of a close associate of their victim via an implant, allowing the prefect kill to be commited, once the job is done, the agent gets their host to commit suicide and they are “pulled” out of the persons mind and back into their own body, it’s advanced, but so simple and intraceable.

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We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021)

Director: Jane Schoenbrun
Starring: Anna Cobb; Michael J Rogers .USA. 1h 26m

In reasponse to a slew of online challenges, either real or unreal, our children have been exposed to the horrors of Slenderman and Momo, and challenged to chuck ice water over themselves to spread awareness or apparently the comitt suicide in the blue whale challnge or wishing for death in Randomnautica, and this is only the tip of the iceberg of this cyber phenomenan. We’ve already seen what an entity from the web can do to a young woman in Daniel Goldhaber’s Cam (2017), but this is something of a step in the “weird” direction..

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Get Out (2017)

Director: Jordan Peele
Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, LaKeith Stanfield, Bradley Whitford, Lil Rel Howery, Caleb landry Jones, Stephen Root .USA. 1h 44m

The title comes from a history of black audiences shouting “Get Out” to any black cast members in horror movies, it’s a trope that has been played to death more recently as we being to embark on the serious questions of race and stereotypes, and it’s during this brave new wave that Jordan Peele has unleashed some amazingly creepy and mind bending stories centering around the black community.

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Amethyst (2016)

Director: Jared Masters
Starring: Grace Klich, Valerie Miller, Derrick Biedenback, Olivia Yohai, Vincent Joel, Jared Masters .USA. 1h 1m

This full on silent dance tells a story, and apparently that story is true… Jared Masters comes hot off the heels of his thriller Ballet of Blood and changes tones from blood red to whimsical Amethyst as he follows a young girl on the trip of a lifetime.

Totally silent and fully trippy psychedelic effects, this movie does manage to hold the attention through the sheer strangeness of its narrative, the cast, instead of blabbing with their mouths manage to communicate through contemporary dance and drama, which is actually more impressive than it sounds.

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The Great and Terrible Day of the Lord (2020)

Director: ​Jared Jay Mason, ​Clark Runciman
Starring: Jordan Ashley Grier, Swayde McCoy. USA. 2h 1m

A couple on a romantic getaway in an idyllic cabin in the mountains agree to smoke a little dope and be totally honest with each other, but when Micharl (McCoy) beings to confess that he’s God possessing a human body, does his new lover Gabby (Grier) believe him, or is Michael a manipulative psychopath or is he really channelling a divine being, if so.. why?

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Hounds of Love (2016)

Director: Ben Young Starring: Emma Booth, Ashleigh Cummings, Strephen Curry, Susie Porter. Australia. 1h 48m

This brutal film hits like a punch in the gut, it’s a slow drama but it gains power each step of the way. Youngs has a mixed bag of movies behind him and went onto to the sci fi thriller Extinction which was a side step in an odd direction, he needs to get back to the hard hitting drama as it’s something i’d does best.

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Hvítur, hvítur dagur / A White White Day (2019)

Director: Hlynur Pálmason
Starring: Ingvar Sigurdsson, Ida Mekkin Hlynsdottir, Sara Dogg Asgeirsdottir. Iceland. 1h 49m

It doesn’t take long to get a good grasp of the top talent in Iceland, not only does a majority of the movies released there really hit a nerve and the industry continues to release one banger after the next, but with such a tiny population you’re going to see a lot of repeat offenders and not surprisingly a lot of the more popular faces have buckets of incredible talent and some of those come together in this study of grief.

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Dark Knight (2016)

Director: Tim Sutton
Starring: Robet Jumper, Anna Rose Hopkins, Rosie Rodriguez, Karina Macias .USA. 1h 25m

Dark Night is an incredibly slow movie. Not necessarily a film in slow motion or involving lengthy still shots, but one which whimsically dances around the mundane sequences in the lives of it’s subjects instead of explaining exactly why they are important. The (unwanted) insight into the lives of a group of people who are all present on the night of a screening of an infamous Batman film that would go so terribly wrong when a deranged individual opened fire with bullets and tear gas. Many people will be more than aware of the case, one of the biggest one man shooting events in living memory. Tim Sutton has managed to bypass the hype and politics by somehow going back in time outlining the normaily before the shooting, trying to pay homage to the victims and show how fragile life is in a moody thought provoking arty drama, frequently highlighted with Robert Jumpers haunting stare.

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Norfolk (2015)

Director: Martin Radich Starring: Denis Menochet, Barry Keoghan, Goda Letkaustie. UK. 1h 23m

Sometimes cinema can be drab and unkind, which is the unnerving feeling you’ll end up with after watching Martin Radich’s Surreal coming of age art house drama.

The downtrodden ,depressing atmosphere permeates from the screen, as a father attempts to protect and train his son. While living off the grid in a remote rural location the two have strained relationship, mulling around their isolated home, their only connection is watching tv together. Unbeknowst to the son, a job from the past has caught up with his father and now their lives are in danger and one more murder must be commited, just one more contract or one more act of revenge.

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Bait (2019)

Director: Mark Jenkin
Starring: Edward Rowe, Giels King, Chloe Endean, Simon Shepherd .UK. 1h 29m

You’ve probably heard about this being the best film of the decade, of 2019, the most arresting modern movie ever made, a total game changer and a host of other praises, along with a list of wins and nominations in various film festivals but what’s all the craic about? Simply put it’s a movie about the gentrification of a seaside town filmed by a vintage hand-cranked Bolex camera using 16mm monochromatic hand processed film. This labor of love is a total game changer in the aesthetic of this blistering movie. Continue reading Bait (2019)