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.

El castillo de la pureza / Castle of Purity (1972)

Director: Arturo Ripstein.
Starring: Claudio Brook, Rita Macedo, Diana Bracho, Arturo Beristáin, Gladys Bermejo, David Silva, María Rojo. Mexico. 1h 41m

After seeing the epic Dogtooth (2009) by the cult director Lanthimos, I was mystified by the circumstances, the basis of the story is a man raising his family in such isolation,  their offbeat lifestyle seems so extraordinary to the eye of any outsider, the whys were never really answered the film just happens. But after a little digging i discovered that the film isn’t a remake but has a similar storyline to El castillo de la pureza, an excellent Mexican drama where a man isolates his family to protect them from “the evils of human beings”. While I thoroughly enjoy Dogtooth everytime I see it, there’s something deeper in this retro classic as it digs under the skin of the abnormal situation.

Gabriel Lima (Brook) and his gorgeous wife Beatriz (Macedo) have invented a brilliant homemade rat poison, their children all have roles in helping them manufacture this brilliant powder. Each day they get up and get to work, always in silence when working, then their father gets dressed in formal clothes and goes out to sell the rat poison to local shops and businesses, meanwhile the children have to exercise, learn and for a while they play.
Things start to breakdown, slowly at first, but as the movie builds pace it becomes a waves of crushing emotions for the disciplined and sexually driven father and more jail time for the children. Leaving their poor mother looking on at the madness.

The Dyatlov Pass Incident /Devil’s Pass (2013)

Director: Renny Harlin
Starring. Holly Goss, Matt Stokoe, Luke Albright, Ryan Hawley, Gemma Atkinson. UK/Russia. 1h 40m.

Based loosely on real events this poorly conceived horror manages to derail all the original horrific accounts from the plot to invent a new less frightening one. The original story revolves around a small group of young experienced hikers who went missing, the mystery was sparked when their charred, radioactive and broken remains were found in the deep snow miles from their camp site. The theories of what happened ranger from a Yeti attack, government black ops, and the more common UFO scandals but really no one really knows the truth. But now we have another theory that seems a little different from the rest, but neglects to really pin point the events and instead conjures up some new ideas with another set of hikers making what seems to be all the same mistakes.

Last Night’s Movies 24.07.2017

 

Soooo.. it was a long night, I did get started early, straight in and onto Law(n) and Order, I’m slowly working through the Boxset, no idea why I find it so thrilling lately but I do…

So after that conundrum I got back to the movies..

 

I started watching this first movie at the weekend but it go so boring I stopped and I got back to it today… and it didn’t improve…

 

*Gray Lady (2017) A seasoned police officer loses his sister and wife to the same criminal mastermind while on a respite he carries on his investigations into their murders on the island of Nantucket, going back to his origins uncovers more than he bargained for. There are hints of a deep and tangled web of treachery but it’s so lame, there were no shockers or twists as everything is lovingly sign posted and predictable is theme to this flick. being distributed by Anchor Bay I was expecting something outstanding in some way but I didn’t know they started shoveling shit.. I must admit I was hoping for a ghost story, but it turned out to be a bit of a family feud started over a tragic misunderstanding .As the details unraveled instead of the film becoming more interesting I just lost the ability to give a shit. Actor turned Director John Shea hasn’t done anything since Southie (1998) despite his cameo in this film he should stick to acting. The funniest aspect of the film for me how everyone is a look alike to someone awesome, the lead detective and all round good guy Eric Dane looks like a poor relation to William Petersen and the rough and ready rouge of the island Chris Meyer looks incredibly like a chubby Karl Urban 2/10