Every week, we take a look at what’s hitting cinemas and streaming and separate the wheat from the chaff.
It’s been a bit of a quiet week on both the theatrical and streaming front, so I dug a little deeper this Weekend Watch List to recommend some old school bangers to fill your off hours. Next week is likely to be similar. Lord knows James Gunn’s Superman is eating up a lot of cultural real estate. It’s the only movie playing at my local fleapit from Thursday, which strikes me as supremely confident. In the mean time, let’s see here…
In Cinemas
The Shrouds
Chilly Canadian connoisseur of cerebral horror David Cronenberg has another troubling think piece for us. Vincent Cassel is Karsh, a widower dealing with his grief rather poorly. He runs a company called GraveTech, which allows the bereaved to view a live, interactive, 3D image of their deceased loved one’s rotting corpse. He’s also having an affair with his late wife’s twin sister (Diane Kruger). It gets weirder from there. Call it a meditation on mortality, I guess.
Jurassic World Rebirth
A back-to-basics reboot of the old dino-franchise that sics various scaly beasts on Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and friends. You know exactly what to expect. And if you don’t, there’s a full review here to clue you in. Still, if you dig dinosaurs – and I do – it’s worth a cinema trip.
Ellis Park
Still out on limited release is this excellent doco by Justin Kurzel (Snowtown). Step into the world of Warren Ellis: multidisciplinary musician, raconteur, Bad Seed, and animal activist. Using Ellis’ tireless campaigning for the titular animal sanctuary in Sumatra as a spine, Kurzel takes us into the enigmatic violinist’s world, offering a rare and intimate look.
Streaming
Smoke (Apple TV+)
Created by crime novelist Dennis Lehane – he worked on The Wire, so he knows a thing or two. This nine episode mini sees Taron Egerton and Jurnee Smollett as a troubled arson investigator and a troubled cop, respectively, tasked with tracking down a couple of serial firebugs. If you want a cracking police procedural drenched in that misty Pacific North West atmosphere, look no further.
Coriolanus (SBS on Demand)
Truth be told there’s not much new worth singing about around the streaming traps this week. Netflix whiffed it with The Old Guard 2 (mid) and The Sandman Season 2 (Google “Neil Gaiman allegations”) and there’s little else to talk aabout. But I did just see Bell Shakespeare’s excellent new production of Coriolanus, and SBS did just add Ralph Fiennes’ film version, so why not?
Fiennes, who also directs, is the Roman military commander of the title. Big, bearded Gerry Butler is his frenemy, the barbarian Aufidius. It’s all about power, politics, and pride, and it all looks like a civil war in the Balkans, because nobody does trad Shakespeare any more. But it is very good, mind you.
The Night of the Hunter (Amazon Prime Video)
Similarly, this 1955 banger just hit Amazon, and good lord is it worth your attention. The only film directed by actor Charles Laughton, The Night of the Hunter sees Robert Mitchum’s murderous preacher set his sights on the fortune hidden by his old cell mate. The only thing in the way? Widow Shelley Winters and her two kids. Boy, are they in for it. A silvery, impressionistic nightmare and one of the best movies ever made. If nothing else, you’ll understand a lot more Simpsons jokes. Certainly a safer bet than Heads of State, too.
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