Her story begins where the fairy tale ends. I suppose this movie was inspired by the well-known fairy tale “The Little Mermaid” by Christian-Andersen. Now, if you were an attentive reader, you’d noticed that this little sea-dweller was explicitly present throughout the whole story. If this film is a kind of homage to this fairytale, then it really falls short on that part. It’s more like the movie “Godzilla“. This legendary monster also appeared only a few minutes in the film. The same for the singing mermaid in “Mermaid’s song” (First titled “Charlotte’s song“). You can admire her for 5 minutes. That’s rather scanty for a film that lasts 88 minutes. But in that short period, you can see that the transformation of Charlotte (Katelyn Mager) to the dreaded mermaid is shown in a successful way. Nope, this isn’t horror. This film obviously isn’t a fairytale suitable for little children. However, it’s not such a frightening film as the film poster suggests. And categorizing it under the genre “horror” is also a bit exaggerated. You could call it a drama with some fantasy elements. The drama part deals with the demise of a flourishing cabaret theater somewhere in no man’s land in the United States. The deterioration of this establishment is caused by the death of Serena (Natasha Quirke, mother of Charlotte and also blessed with the mermaids gene) and the economic depression. And before he realizes it, George (Brendan Taylor), father of Charlotte and a spineless wimp, is having a financial hangover and is heading for a forced closure. I guess men went crazy when seeing such a show. Whether the bankruptcy of this bar is caused by the prevailing economic crisis only, I doubt anyway. The stage show isn’t exactly a crowd puller either. Maybe it was exciting enough for that period. In those days naked flesh of a female foot was enough to drive an average man crazy. I was surprised to see (during a stage performance) that the phenomenon of twerking was already invented in the 1930s. The fact that a lot of people showed up in the past, was mainly because of the enchanting singing of Serena. She was a mermaid who has exchanged her tail for a pair of slender legs and completely renounced to live on as such a sea miracle, so she can spend the rest of her life with the man who has completely and absolutely won her heart. Business has been slow? Turn it into something erotic. But to be honest, the whole thing about mermaids is subordinate to the rest. “Mermaid’s song” is rather a social drama about poverty and the local mafia trying to exploit misfortunes. That’s when Iwan Rheon appears on the scene. He plays Randall. A kind of Mafia type who has a lucrative proposal for George so the bar could be saved. The fact that George needs his daughters to act as ordinary prostitutes and his business is more like a brothel from then on, is the other side of the coin. And in this horrifying situation, Charlotte needs to grow up. An innocent looking girl who discovers that she has a special gift. Pros and cons. It’s strikingly clear that “Mermaid’s song” is a low-budget film (and the lion’s share of that budget went undoubtedly to Iwan Rheon). The sound is simply terribly bad. The balance between music, sounds, and speech was so bad that you couldn’t understand what people were saying sometimes. It was completely drowned out by the sound effects and music. Sorry to say, but that’s something typical for a low-budget film. Also, the acting wasn’t always enjoyable. It was rather clumsy and inexperienced. In retrospect, Katelyn Mager wasn’t so bad after all. But I was really pleased with the overall presentation of the film. The decor, the props, and clothing looked authentic. And the scarce moments with the mermaid showing up, weren’t so bad either. It’s a mermaid hype. So, all in all, it is nothing more than an average film. No, it’s not the kind of film that makes you very enthusiastic. And no, it isn’t so bad that it should be ignored at all time. If you ever come across it on one or another television channel, you should give it a chance. “Mermaid’s song” is definitely worth a look. The film itself dates from 2015, but only surfaced again last year via “Video On Demand” services. Weird. Does it seem as if they are trying to benefit from the success of “The shape of water“? My rating 4/10 Links: IMDB More reviews here

“Poor Things”     “Poor Things” in the fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), a young woman brought back to life from the brink of death by the brilliant and unorthodox daring scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Under Baxter’s protection, Bella is eager to learn. Hungry for the worldliness she's lacking, Bella runs off with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), a slick and debauched lawyer, on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, Bella grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.   At the beginning of the film, Bella is a prisoner in the house and wears very Victorian looking blouses, but never a complete outfit. Bella doesn’t have any shame or trauma, or even a backstory. She's not raised by a society that's putting these confines on women. Bella draws things from the men she meets, from the women she meets, from the environment she's in, from what she's eating. Her character has never been told that there’s anything wrong with enjoying sex or the freedom to do whatever she wants when she wants. She's like a sponge. From being trapped at home, she goes to Lisbon on a romantic voyage with her lover. On the ship, she's met with a constant desire to escape. Then Alexandria are her younger years, where she sees the world as a messed-up place. Paris is her exploration of sexuality, where she pushes herself as far as she can before she returns home. Bella’s representation of woman sexuality is more in line with today’s landscape rather than thirty years ago. She's able to explore sex without feelings of guilt, which makes her a modern heroine. It feels like an unlocking and acceptance of what it's to be a woman and to be brave and free. Socially, you're so wired to think, ‘do people like me? She's not thinking about that.   Alongside themes of sexuality and social constraints comes the exploration of the male character's need to control Bella. Dr. Godwin Baxter is a brilliant, traumatized scientist, and a lonely man who wants to push his science and his art as far as it can go without a care for society’s rules. Baxter has his own journey as well. He starts out trying to possess her in a way, to parent her in the only way he's learned through his father. But you see that he kind of matures through his interaction with her. And eventually he comes to understand that he needs to let go and let her experience the world, and he's really supportive. Baxter also comes from an experiment, and he’s quite literally scarred by what his father has done to him. When Baxter brings Bella back to life, she becomes more than just an experiment to him, their relationship is not easily defined. Baxter hasn’t loved before, but he accidentally loves Bella, cares for her deeply and sees something of himself in her. There's an intelligence, curiosity and aliveness in Bella that he maybe wishes he could explore in himself. They're father and daughter, scientist and experiment, and even soul mates in a way, though not in a romantic or exploitative way. It’s not a simple relationship to categorize. The dynamic is being worked out over the course of the film through Bella’s discoveries. At a certain point, Baxter realizes she has to go out into the world, but he’s selfish and needs to go to a higher love.   Their relationship reaches a crisis point when Bella decides to leave home with Duncan Wedderburn. Duncan embodies toxic masculinity. He’s controlling, insecure and has a deep alpha male mentality. When Bella decides to leave London with Duncan Wedderburn and travel to Lisbon, she leaves with the mind and outlook of a young girl. Lisbon is her first time out in the world, and she wants to consume and experience everything, revealing in all the possibilities it has to offer. The danger with Duncan is that he just come across as a cad. As a ladies man who has been with many women, when he unexpectedly falls in love with Bella, it ultimately destroys him. She’s the perfect woman for him if he would just let her be herself. She’s rebellious, she’s game, and she makes him feel something, but his need to control kills the relationship. Under every raging narcissist is a really broken, vulnerable person, and Bella just cracks him open.   A bittersweet catalyst in Baxter and Bella’s relation's hip is the introduction of his student, Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef). Max is a poor-disheveled student who's clearly in awe of his professor, who has offered him an opportunity he can’t refuse. He has a gentle and friendly energy, but we also see an edge of darkness that he wants to let go. Part of the draw for Max is that he has lived a very sheltered life, and Bella seems safe, and very pure for obvious reasons. He’s a character that grows and whose moral compass shifts as he encounters Baxter and Bella. There's a rawness about Bella which attracts Max, she really speaks to something that any person is probably trying to regain. She's a modern woman in this time, and she gets to retain that human curiosity that we all had at a young age. It really shows the multitude of what is thrown at women from a young age. Bella gets to experience that from a different vantage point and then pick it apart and demolish it.   Harry Astley (Jerrod Carmichael) is someone that Bella meets at a key point in her journey on the ship. So far, she thinks that people are good, which comes from a place of privilege. Harry broadens the scope of the world. He shows her poverty that she didn’t know existed in a way that's juxtaposed to the very wealthy as a spectator sport. Harry is a cynic, through his life and career, his viewpoint has narrowed, which is why the scenes with Bella work so well; the juxtaposition of her naivety to his prejudices. When he takes Bella to Alexandria, she's confronted for the first time by mankind’s inhumanity to poverty. When he takes her to Alexandria, her soul shatters and her entire life changes. It's her first trauma and leads to some very important decisions in her life. Bella’s eyes are opened to the monstrous part of society when Harry takes her to Alexandria, and she sees the impoverished slum dwellers. This is the only time we see Bella as a representative of her social class and as an upper-class woman. There are really souls in the world that are pure and nonjudgmental, and you oscillate between thinking that they’re naïve and also wishing that you could have that freedom.   Bella is fascinated by Martha Von Kurtzroc (Hanna Schygulla) when she meets her on the cruise ship. She’s an older woman who's dressed eccentrically for the time and is very independent, so Bella is inspired by her instantly. Martha is a Women’s Libber and emancipated. She’s wealthy and can afford to have certain thoughts and ideologies because she’s never been dependent on a man. In Paris, Bella reaches a pinnacle for her sexual and intellectual development. It all comes together there in a way, she truly decides on how to see the world and how she wants to live in it. Swiney (Kathryn Hunter) is outrageous and cruel. On the face of it, she’s the horrid Madame of the Brothel, but then she falls for Bella, and she wants to possess this extraordinary creature. With Swiney’s character, Bella ultimately understands that it’s not just men who try to control her. With the profession she works in and the assortment of characters that have come through her doors, Swiney assumes that she has seen every facet of womankind. When Bella shows up on her doorstep, it astonishes her. She’s amazed by this, kind of naïve genius.   After Bella returns home and starts to settle back and relax into this world — and the happiness of her existence, Alfred Blessington (Christopher Abbot) suddenly appears, and her whole backstory comes to surface. He’s a bit of a cunt, generally, but he still has a heart somewhere deep down, shrouded under a bunch of ice. He's very possessive in some ways, but he's been through war and has a lot of PTSD. While Alfie knows Bella from her former existence, he's, ultimately, seeing her for the first time. It's probably quite jarring for Alfred because he's catching her when she's become a fully formed adult again. To him, he probably actually believes this is her, and it's some farce, there's a lot of denial happening. His character admits that their relationship had not been an ordinary one. It feels like they probably had this sort of mischievous, very combative, but fiery relationship in the past.   “Poor Things” deals with the patriarchal tension through Bella’s eyes. Bella is not only the protagonist but also the foil for the male characters. It's her ability to remain true to her humanity and to use her experiences to discover a sense of purpose that makes her admirable. Her zest for life encapsulates the curiosity that humans possess and crave new life experiences. It's about the development and liberation of a woman who grows up in a very repressive male society. That’s a lot of the source of the comedy because her relationships with the male characters are very frank and quite exposing of the fear men have of women. The male characters are trying to control Bella in their own various ways, and she doesn’t even entertain it. She's just too autonomous. The film explores men’s views of women and the lens that they're put under, and how men believe women are there to serve them.   What would a woman be, if she were able to start from scratch? Alasdair Gray’s novel is immediately something very visually striking and complex, the themes, the humor, and the complexity of its characters and language. The book is packed with ideas about gender, identity, and even Scottish nationalism. You’re in this incredibly rich philosophical and political world, all while being hilarious. It's a story about a woman’s freedom in society. To imagine a world where your mind isn’t conditioned by growing up and being taught to be a certain way. But it's also a version of the Frankenstein story, inverting the classic story by making the monster’ a very perceptive, beautiful woman, and her love interests potential monsters. While the book is told from numerous points of view, the script gives Bella the central one. It’s Bella’s coming-of-age story, and it lives in a dystopian version of a Merchant Ivory film, with the idea of a grand tour. The script pulls on different mythologies and story tropes. The story is grotesque and visceral.   There's a different mentality around sex in Europe versus America. We can watch so much violence and pain inflicted on people in a mass way in America, but nudity and sexuality are shocking to us. With the liberation of social constraints, also comes the return to a child-like wonder of the world. It’s that draw to purity, to something that hasn’t been tarnished. A wish to possess something that maybe reminds us of whom we used to be and try and regain that innocence in ourselves. We're very cognizant of the sexual politics and how that relates to the present day. There are always those people in society that don’t have the look of the time. You could walk down the street now and see someone who looks like they’ve come straight from the 70s. We're exploring who those people might have been, and what if they thought differently? When reading about women in the Victorian times, she noticed it was often much more about what rules they should follow. Bella has no shackles on her, making her a wonderful character to watch and the perfect example of pushing back against what was expected in Victorian England.   “Poor Things” comes at a time that might offer some insight into the problems currently faced around the world. The times that we live in right now can feel particularly chaotic. Sometimes you want to look back in history and learn lessons from the past. This is a political film, and we've to recognize the feminist and socialist aspects. The endeavor of the novel and the film is to make the world a better place by not accepting the evils we've come to regard as normal.   Written by Gregory Mann

You people are out of your minds. The place you wanna go? It’s off-limits. This is really the most miserable film I’ve seen this year. Not only the story was totally stupid and completely absurd. Also, the acting was sometimes extremely bad. I’m sure there are local theater associations who could exceed this. Furthermore, there were certain elements in the story which didn’t make sense. And last but not least, the subject this movie was about, was absent almost the complete film. You have to be satisfied with just the head of the monster appearing above the water or an approaching shadow with accompanying dangerous growls. Except during the denouement. At that moment the monster, that makes this island a dangerous place, is to be seen in all its glory. And that’s also such a bad design. It would have been better if they left it in the shadows. As far as I’m concerned, they could have played it with a hand puppet. Probably it would have been the same. Horribly outdated CGI. No way. There are 6 “Lake Placid” movies? After watching this film I went looking for more information and came to the baffling conclusion this was already the 6th film about the famous lake. I’d never heard about this franchise before. And after watching this 6th movie, it’s better that way. I don’t feel the urge suddenly to view all other parts. And as far as I could read, the level of the predecessors was of the same caliber. You could say that for example, the “Sharknado” series is the stupidest film franchise of all time. But at least there was humor in it and it earned an unbeatable cult status. I’m sure that won’t happen with the “Lake Placid” franchise. I’m afraid it’ll get the same status as “Dinoshark” for instance. The status of “crap movie of the year“. Let’s call it quits. Wow, 100 grand. Ok, let’s go. In this film, it’s a group of environmental activists who are challenged by a former member. Their actions consist of entering a facility of a dubious company that violates environmental guidelines and animals or human rights. Once they’ve worked themselves inside, they unroll a gigantic pamphlet. In my opinion, a ridiculous statement. But that’s beside the point. And then, when they’ve decided to stop with these activities, they receive the challenge to explore an island where Lake Placid is located. It appears that it would be polluted with chemical or nuclear waste. But as soon as they’ve arrived at the site, they notice there’s no radiation and that an immense lab has been built. And even worse. It appears that a giant reptilian monster is stumbling around on this island. Go ahead croc. Tear them apart. And yes, it’s literally stumbling. Because our friend the crocodile isn’t really swift-footed. Not difficult if you are a whopper of 15 meters. The fact that the monster swims rapidly under water is quite evident since he has such large feet. But on land, the thing is ponderous and slow. And yet this creature succeeds in squeezing itself through corridors, stairs, doors, and shutters one way or another. And the unfortunate gang who ended up there can run as fast as they can. This bad boy always shows up back again. To be honest, there were only two persons I hoped would survive. And those were the ex-marine Pennie (Alisha Bailey) and the journalist Alice (Sai Bennett). The rest were just annoying characters who actually deserved to be torn apart. Plain simple. It’s a bad movie. Is there nothing positive to say about this film? Yes, there is. The film poster looks great and was actually the trigger that made me watch this film. I’m even convinced that most energy has been put into the design of this poster. But in general, “Lake Placid: Legacy” is simply a bad movie. Inadequate acting, a ridiculous storyline and a monster that barely comes into the picture. And when it does, it looks terrible. In short, I hope they aren’t planning to make another sequel. In any case, I will avoid it, if that’s the case. My rating 1/10 Links: IMDB More reviews here

"All Of Us Strangers"     One night in his near-empty tower block in contemporary London, Adam (Andrew Scott) has a chance encounter with a mysterious neighbor Harry (Paul Mescal), which punctures the rhythm of his everyday life. As a relationship develops between them, Adam is preoccupied with memories of the past and finds himself drawn back to the suburban town where he grew up, and the childhood home where his parents appear to be living, just as they were on the day they died, 30 years before.   There’s a textured, indelible sense of pathos that runs through "All Of Us Strangers", and the vast majority of the film’s complexities sits firmly on the shoulders of the protagonist Adam. Adam is a forty-something gay screenwriter living in a new build apartment block in London. He’s an orphan. He’s single, lonely. He carries around the burden of grief from a traumatic episode in his youth that saw both parents killed in a car crash. A cliché, he claims. Adam is a very solitary figure. He’s described by his mother as a very gentle and compassionate person. But that’s a kind of privilege, in a way. Adam is yearning to see his parents again, aching to be known by them. Perhaps finding them again will bring comfort and closure after the terrible loss. But it’s no easy task, nostalgia can often hide a different truth, and his parents were a product of the time they lived. Adam must also confront his fragile sense of self, battered by growing up gay in the 80s and 90s. Two traumas perhaps, closely entwined, stopping him from finding peace. Harry lives in the same apartment block as Adam, and after propositioning his neighbor one drunken evening, the two eventually become romantically involved. Their intensely passionate and transformative love affair has a transcendent power for them both.   He feels like a little boy, like somebody who should be a lot happier than he is, and the world tells him that he should be, but he’s not. He hides behind being sex positive and sex forward, and being fun, and he has a somewhat casual but problematic relationship with drugs and alcohol, he’s trapped. We recognize him in little bits of outself and friends and young men in the world. Much of the film’s emotional punch comes from the tender, heart-wrenching, and healing bond between Adam and his parents, when he returns to his childhood home and spends time with them. His deceased parents, who are alive, and the same age they were when they died. It’s a unique and endearing sense of absurdity, yet one that almost instantly feels weird. Mum (Claire Foy) has a complicated role, she's less accepting of who Adam is, of who he’s become. You can imagine that the father (Jamie Bell) would be the one to be uncomfortable with the idea that his son is gay. It adds this layer of complexity to Mum’s character. Adam coming out to his parents, finally, is one of the key narrative forces within this tale, and is handled with an adept, delicate touch that makes for some of the film’s most moving sequences, down to the subtlety of the writing. The characters have to maintain a sort of element of mystery.   "All Of Us Strangers" is hauntingly poignant and hypnotic story of loss and love and everything in between, is inspired by the novel 'Strangers' by Japanese author Taichi Yamada. First penned in 1987 and translated into English in 2003. What if you met your parents again long after they were gone, only now they’re the same age as you? The romantic parallel journey of "All Of Us Strangers" takes place in a more familiar, contemporary London. Scenes there range from the towering, modern apartment block where both Adam and Harry live, to the nightclub, which hosts an impactful and beautifully rendered portion of the film, shot on location at the iconic queer London institution: the Vauxhall Tavern. The isolation of the former set where Adam lives adds not only to the themes of loneliness that are prevalent, but to an otherworldly feeling which plays up to the supernatural element of the story. It’s a key part of the story as it really symbolizes the character’s isolation, and feeling very disconnected from the world, so we all have a real vision in mind. It seems an emotional way to explore the nature of family. The film wants to explore the complexities of both familial and romantic love, but also the distinct experience of a specific generation of gay people growing up in the 80s.   Though "All Of Us Strangers" is set in a singular time frame and era, the sequences when Adam returns to his childhood home to see his parents take place in a 1980s version of our world, as though stepping into a dream, a hazy, nostalgia-induced memory. It’s kind of hallowed turf, in a way. Move away from the traditional ghost story of the novel and find something more psychological, almost metaphysical. It's very surreal, and it makes us think a lot about what our children are going to say about our homes in forty years. It almost feels apocalyptic. It mirrors the isolation of the world to a certain extent; you’ve got these corporate towers, and these cities that are rapidly eroding, and you feel like little ants in this massive tower.   If you’re not inclined to go out and mix with the world, you can very easily find a place that isolates you. That’s what the tower represents, it feels cold and soulless. And in the face of all that, these two characters still manage to find a connection which we think is really uplifting. The off-realism feeling, the ever-so-slightly otherworldly atmosphere, is something that's also informed by Francis Bacon exhibition in London and the paintings were really strong, timeless, and there’s something about floating in time and space, about a lot of those images which ties in really well with this script. It's also grounded by the way in which it tackles the human experience. Its many layers and textures carry a profound, emotional undercurrent.   The film feels quite like a dream, then like the moment just before you fall asleep or the moment you wake from a dream, not quite sure what’s real. A more liminal space. Rather than play up to the supernatural elements, the film wants to focus on the notion of memory and how it works. Memories define us; they define what we become, our character, both for good and bad. We dug deep into our memories of growing up. It's a painful but cathartic experiment. In many ways, the film is about how you integrate emotional pain into your life. That pain will never vanish, it will always find a hiding place, but that doesn’t mean you can’t move forward. We're just living in the moment. We are not considering that this has a finite time on it. We’re not considerate of the rules on what it means to be dead.   We don’t think we’re ever really discussing the logistics of what that means, necessarily, and that’s what we love about it. That’s something not just gay people experience, everybody wants to feel connected to their family. What would you want to tell your parents about your life if you could revisit them, or what would you tell them right now? We live in a world that feels impersonal, or cold. It’s harder and harder to find the connections that we see Adam and Harry have in the film. All of us have been children, and most will lose our parents. Many of us will be parents ourselves and have kids who will grow into adults in the blink of an eye. Many of us will find and lose and hopefully find love again, even if it doesn’t last an eternity.   Written by Gregory Mann

(Glasgow Film Festival: Film At Home; Fri 26 Feb to Mon 01 Mar) https://glasgowfilm.org/glasgow-film-festival/shows/my-wonderful-wanda-ctbc "My Wonderful Wanda" Wanda (Agnieszka Grochowska) nurses Josef (André Jung), 'The Patriarch' of the wealthy 'Wegmeister-Gloor' family. When an unexpected complication arises, family secrets come to light and arrangements are made to try and appease everyone in this biting family drama. "My Wonderful Wanda" is an ensemble film, it’s about parents and children and what members of a family can do to each other. It’s not only Wanda who wants to be treated with respect and dignity; each member of the family longs for that as well. Wanda is the protagonist, she’s the catalyst for the developments and changes in the other characters, but these are just as interesting: a prosperous family gets themselves a cheap carer for the head of their family, but everyone in the family avails of her assistance to their own ends. Telling this story in all it's consequences allows for varying perspectives and surprising plot twists. In the end, Wanda has indeed helped the family, but to a much greater extent than they've imagined. And her relationship with her own family in Poland has also benefited from these events. The film portrays Wanda as a victim. Wanda is being exploited, of course. But she also goes along with it even to the extent that she secretly sleeps with her patient for money. So she can’t view herself as a victim. Wanda is exploiting the family, too. And what’s more, she gets along well with Josef. It’s simply a deal that brings her added value. Her conscious trading of 'sex for money' paradoxically lends Wanda power. Portraying her as a victim would’ve been too easy and also would’ve made it impossible to show her contradictory and strong aspects. Wanda thus turns the tables on the exploitation/subservience, above/below issues. The house has to display the family’s prosperity without seeming ostentatious or off-putting. Content-wise the film sees the location as an island, a metaphor, the story could take place anywhere where people are wealthy and able to isolate themselves. Family, you can’t live with them, you can’t live without them. Family is a motif we return to again and again. What's it about this strange microcosm, this genetically random family unit in which you feel secure or maybe even restrained? Family is a very broad narrative field, and everyone can feel their way into it somehow because everyone has family. 'The Wegmeister-Gloors' are put to the test, cracks appear, and unpleasant facts come to light. All it's members are forced to be honest with each other. This is liberating, at times funny, yet also very painful on occasion. The family almost falls apart; but for this is nonetheless a film about getting closer. "My Wonderful Wanda" thematizes the current issue of care migration. The outpatient care market is booming in 'Switzerland'. Agencies apply phrases like 'cheap, caring, warm-hearted, and there for you round the clock' when brokering staff from 'Eastern Europe' to care for the elderly in their residences rather than in a home. Increasingly often, over-qualified women from 'Poland' and 'Hungary' are commuting monthly between their own families and 'Swiss' households. The film is interested in what happens when a complete stranger gains deep insight into a family’s structure, and the inevitable intimacy that ensues. The model is often referred to as a winwin situation; relatives in need of care don’t have to be placed in a home, the family saves money, and the carers earn much more here than in their homelands. But this view is too one-sided. We’re ignoring the fact that these women have private lives, their own families, a daily routine they've to give up, and that money nonetheless remains scarce back home. So the benefits are very one-sided. What has to happen for these parties to meet on equal footing and for these exchanges to become fair? But there's also room for funny or absurd moments. There's room for imagination and suggestions. So not a classic social drama, but rather a 'comédie très humaine'. And the narrative tone is dry and sober to avoid moralizing.

(Release Info London schedule: Saturday 27 April 11.00 am - Canterbury | Knutsford | Richmond | Ripon | Soho Sunday 28 April 11.00 am - Colchester | Mayfair | Oxford | Sheffield | Victoria | Wimbledon) "Vox Lux" "Vox Lux" follows the rise of Celeste (Natalie Portman) from the ashes of a major national tragedy to pop superstardom. The film spans 18 years and traces important cultural moments through her eyes, starting in 1999 and concluding in 2017. Beginning in 1999 with a violent mass tragedy, a teenaged Celeste (Raffey Cassidy) is rushed to the hospital, barely surviving a harrowing encounter. With her loyal sister Eleanor (Stacy Martin) by her side, she recovers. After singing at a memorial service, Celeste transforms into a burgeoning pop star with the help of her songwriter sister. The duo puts their grief to song, composing a memorable ballad sung by Celeste that becomes an anthem to an ailing nation. Her parents hire a scrupulous manager (Jude Law) to take her under his wing. Under his tutelage, her career skyrockets to superstardom, with all the vice that comes along. Celeste's meteoric rise to fame and concurrent loss of innocence dovetails with a shattering terrorist attack on the nation, elevating the young powerhouse to a new kind of celebrity; American icon, secular deity, global superstar. As the film enters it's second phase set in 2017, Celeste has grown into her early 30s. She's mounting a comeback after a scandalous incident that derailed her career. Though praised by legions of fans, her private life has been plagued by scandals and addiction, a strained relationship with her sister, and a teenage daughter of her own that she neglected to raise. As the launch of her grand opus looms, she must confront another act of violence. Touring in support of her sixth album, a compendium of sci-fi anthems entitled 'Vox Lux', the indomitable, foul-mouthed pop savior must overcome her personal and familial struggles to navigate motherhood, madness and monolithic fame in 'The Age Of Terror'. The film incisives a character study with a mature sense of style all his own. It's protagonist is a pop star called Celeste and it chronicles key events and cultural patterns that have so far defined the early '21st century' via her gaze. Celeste becomes a symbol of 'The Cult Of Celebrity' and 'The Media Machine' in all it's guts, grit and glory. Her music is a great luxury. But there's a difference in the sort of eco-system that comes, that grows around a pop star. Or if they had been present, in the case of a memoir, has her memory of past experiences not betrayed her? The character feels attacked. So, she lashes out at absolutely everybody. In the scene with her and 'The Journalist' (Christopher Abbott) both have extremely valid perspectives and points of view and she’s mostly in the wrong, in fact. In that moment, the most important thing is not when she says to the journalist, 'You’ve got nothing to be proud of. I don’t share that sentiment remotely'. The most important thing is when she goes, 'You’re right, you’re right', and that’s the reason that moment appears in the film, because she’s consoling herself by basking in a lie, to try to comfort herself. The character of course has a few of those moments where she’s a bit 'Trumpy’ and that’s one of them. And also, this character is suffering with 'PDST'. She’s not really designed to be a monster at all. She’s as much a victim of the era as she's a leader of the era. The film is very much about the fact that 'The 20th Century' was marked by the turn of the banality of people and 'The 21st century' will be defined by the pageantry of people. The film’s themes and the character are intrinsically linked, and so, she’s not a monster. It's about the questions around the psychology of what violence does to individuals and to mass psychology, to group psychology; certainly because of being from a place where people have encountered it for so long. But, unfortunately, it’s been a phenomenon now that, in 'The United States', we experience regularly with the school shootings, which are a type of civil war that we've in 'The US', and of terror in 'The US'. And the psychological impact of what that means for every kid going to school every day, of every parent dropping their kid off every day, and how small acts of violence can create wide-spread psychological torment. There’s a great moment in the film where she says, 'Let’s make it we'. So, her trauma becomes a collective trauma. "Vox Lux" is based on Robert Musil’s book 'The Man Without Qualities', which is about a character whose sort of on the periphery of major events, during the fall of 'The Astro-Hungarian Empire'. There’s an omniscient narrator (William Dafoe) that’s sort of sardonic and the film applies this Robert Musil-style and tone to something contemporary. The film is the continuation of "The Childhood Af A Leader", but on the other side of the century; an historical melodrama set in America between 1999 and 2017. The film connects the life of the protagonist to some major historic events. 1999 was 'Columbine', then we see 'The Twin Towers' in 2001. But this film definitely represents a more corporate brand of fascism. But yeah, we've to see them as being linked in a way for structural reasons and the fact that they're both fables that are sort of defining moments of an era. One in the early part of 'The 20th Century' and this one in the early part of 'The 21st century'. "Vox Lux" demonstrates a more transparent contract with the reader than the traditional historical biography because one is able to access the past without questioning the author about how they could provide such a detailed account of an event without having been present for the event themselves. Featuring original songs by Sia, "Vox Lux" is an origin story about the forces that shape us, as individuals, nations, and gods. The film guides into fearless places in the name of art, finding beauty in the ugliness of the world and daring us to pay attention. It’s a piece of art that's really more of a portrait, and more of a reflection of our society; the intersection of pop culture and violence, and the spectacle that we equate between the two. It's a statement or send an important message to 'The US' about their gun control policies. It makes people feel things that they recognise and that they can see some of things that we’re facing in our society right now. "Vox Lux" chronicles moments that defined 'The 20th century', the last twenty years. We’re all been through a lot. But the truth is, it’s quite a difficult film to speak about because it isn't an attempt to create.anything which is too didactic. It's something that's supposed to be a sort of fable or a poetic rumination of what we’ve all been through for the last twenty years. We live in an age of anxiety. We feel like we’re having more sleepless nights than ever. The film is sort of born of that. It's designed to be where we could all come together and think about it together collectively.

"Ferrari"     It's the summer of 1957. Behind the spectacle of Formula 1, ex-racer Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) is in crisis. Bankruptcy threatens the factory he and his wife, Laura (Penelope Cruz), built from nothing ten years earlier. Their volatile marriage has been battered by the loss of their son, Dino, a year earlier. Ferrari struggles to acknowledge his son Piero (Giuseppe Festinese) with Lina Lardi (Shai lens Woodley). Meanwhile, his drivers’ passion to win pushes them to the edge as they launch into the treacherous 1,000-mile race across Italy, the Mille Miglia.   Passion, ambition, power, the characteristics of Enzo Ferrari racecars came from within the man himself. From the beginning, they began to dominate the competition and fire imaginations worldwide. Born in Modena, Italy, the former racecar driver and team manager formed his own company in 1947. Built with almost no funding, Ferrari’s first car in its sixth race won the Rome Grand Prix. By 1957 the world’s greatest racers were vying for seats in Ferrari’s. Enzo and his wife, Laura, re-invested heavily in the racing division. As a result, by 1957 insolvency was stalking the factory. Meanwhile the tragic death of their only son, Dino, to mluscular dystrophy in 1956 has further shaken their rocky marriage. Dino was their center and future; now gone. Both grieve differently over the devastating loss. Meanwhile, Piero Lardi, Enzo’s son born in 1945 from his liaison with Linda Lardi, now seeks the acknowledgment of his father. Together they constitute a second family of which Laura is unaware until it’s revealed. As crises and revelations converge, Ferrari wagers all on winning one race, the supremely dangerous 1,000-mile race across open roads called the Mille Miglia.   We all know it’s our deadly passion, our terrible joy. But if you get into one of Ferrari cars, and no one is forcing you to take that seat, you get in to win. Enzo Ferrari is one of the most famous, yet inscrutable and complex men of the 20th century. “Ferrari” moves behind the inscrutable image of the iconic Enzo Ferrari. Based on Brock Yates 1991 book 'Enzo Ferrari: The Man, The Car, The Races, The Machine', the film is a character study. There's no equilibrium in his life, and that’s the whole point of Enzo Ferrari, because that’s more like the way life actually is. Ferrari was precise and logical; rational in everything to do with his factory and race team. In the rest of his life he was impulsive, defensive, libidinous, chaotic. The story is not a typical biopic. It seizes on the four months of Enzo Ferrari’s life, in 1957, when all the conflicts and fortunes, the drama of his and Laura and Lina’s lives come into focus. All the hurdles he faced in the mid-1950s, when motorsports was becoming a glamorous, international phenomenon. There's further duality in Ferrari’s life; his wife, Laura, was a woman hardened by struggle, grief, petrified love, and from being a woman involved in a business dominated by men.   An early deal with Ferrari meant that Laura is a 50/50 partner in the Ferrari factory, which became even more complicated when the couple’s personal life became messy and cold, and Laura’s savvy business instincts emerged as one of the few avenues of control she had. The power Laura had over the Ferrari company would anger Enzo, and yet, when his engineering staff once threatened to quit if Laura continued to make production visits at the factory, Enzo fired all of them, the world’s greatest automotive engineers, on the spot, immediately, out of solidarity with Laura. Still, Laura is invested in Enzo’s success and the Ferrari team’s wins on the track. Meanwhile, Enzo met, Lina Lardi, whom he had met in a factory his native Modena, Italy, during World War II, anchored his life. When their son Piero was born in 1945, Lina raised him in Castelvetro. She was a post-war Italian single mother focused on what was right for her child despite his being born out of wedlock at a moment in history, and in a country, that didn’t accept divorce. It's about providing a safe space for her son to feel like he belonged in a world that, during that time, especially in Catholic Italy, told anyone under those circumstances that they didn’t belong.   If Enzo Ferrari’s life was bifurcated into chaos and control, his life with Lina Lardi was a cause for one while embodying a desire for the other. When their affair began during the Second World War, Lardi had been working at a coachbuilding factory in Modena, and as Prime Minister Benito Mussolini’s fascist policies and World War II ravaged Italy, Ferrari and Lardi’s relationship grew. In the disarray of post-war Italy and the hardships that followed, Lardi raised their son, Piero. Lina is a woman at the crossroads of two lives that existed outside of her own, and she was a bit helpless in that situation; all Lina could do was show support and love for her son and the man that she loved. In Lina’s most forthright moment in the film, she confronts Enzo on his hesitancy to acknowledge Piero with his last name (due to Laura’s legal maneuvers and Italian cultural considerations, Piero was not able to be acknowledged as a member of the Ferrari family until after Laura’s death in 1978). The complexities and emotions involved were tumultuous, but Lina’s view is that what matters most is what’s best for Piero, and that has loved by Enzo as his son.   The difficulty of having two families, and two homes, one filled with grief over the loss of a son who hadn’t lived past the age of 24, the other focused on making a 12-year-old boy’s life free from pain and want, crashes into Enzo Ferrari’s pursuit of engineering perfection. He sees all too clearly the risk of losing all he’s built, either to companies like Fiat and Ford who were looking to buy him out, or through personal issues that threatened to overtake his life’s work. In 1957, Ferrari was going broke; the company’s passenger car sales had dwindled as competitors began breaking his cars speed records, making it harder to secure funding. All of that fueled Ferrari’s competitive nature even more. Ferrari would take a huge gamble with the fortunes of his company by entering the 1957 Mille Miglia, the famous 1,000-mile, open-road endurance race through Italy that had begun in 1927. Thirty years after its inaugural race, it was about to collide with a form of blind ambition Ferrari isn’t ready to be accountable for. His aim, going into this dangerous race, is to put together a multigenerational, flashy driving team that would attract financing to keep the Ferrari factory in business, and which would allow Ferrari to maintain control. But the cost would be high.   Moving to the racetrack, chief among the team of drivers surrounding Enzo Ferrari would be Alfonso de Portago (Gabriel Leone), whose horrific crash in the final stretch of Italy’s Mille Miglia, which killed de Portago and nine spectators, would for decades overshadow the legacy of the race and be part of the reason it ended in 1957. Eugenio Castellotti (Marino Franchitti) dies while attempting to reclaim Ferrari’s speed record from Maserati. Sound is also crucial in the de Portago crash sequence. At the moment of impact, the sound almost disappears, leaving a dull, closed-ear vibe to the sounds that follow. The concept is to have the impact noises as the car is plowing into the pole and through the crowd diminish over time. Piero began working with his father in the late 1960s and collaborated with the company’s Formula One teams, as well as in the concept and production process, and other aspects of production. When Enzo Ferrari died in 1988, Piero inherited his father’s stake in the company. Piero served as president of the Ferrari company until 2015.   There's the world of Enzo’s more intimate, domestic life, at home with Laura or in the countryside with Lina, and then there's the world of racing. The former would be a more classically composed aesthetic, while the latter would be filled with visceral, dynamic energy often through handheld camerawork. Italian Renaissance painting is so informed by architecture and the natural light that Italian architecture of that period lends to a space. It’s all this single-source, directional lighting from the windows. As for the color palette, the yellows, oranges, pale greens and terracotta/ochre hues of Northern Italy set the template. The concept is to slash through that palette with the bright, primary red of the cars, signifying aggression and energy in the face of the more austere aesthetic elsewhere in the film. The cars are kinetic, they’re full of agitation. The film wants to show the experience of what it's to drive one of those cars and to be in a tense race, trying to master the forces. It's, by design, a counterpoint to the formality of the dramatic, dialogue-filled scenes. There are incredibly powerful human moments, then we’re roaring around Italy with drivers flirting with death. In so many places around the world, it’s still a very similar situation, working from the shadows and not being acknowledged for what they do, not being valued. It’s as if youve mild chronic pain, only it’s emotional, but it's important for us to see that represented in many ways, but especially physically. Life is asymmetrical. Life is messy. Life is filled with chaos.   Written by Gregory Mann

Those who hear the three bells toll, accept his invitation. When you hear the first, you must close your eyes, keeping words unspoken. If one wants to hear, you must listen closely, for they are soft and distant. I was really curious about this movie. Not that I expected anything spectacular. But the photos with this cult figure, which popped up on the internet, were rather intriguing. Not really scary but mysterious. A faceless figure with disproportionate limbs who appears in the background while observing children playing. A kind of Pied Piper of Hamelin who lures innocent children and makes them disappear. The fact this creation is the result of an internet competition is widely known. I was only curious if this figure would convince in a horror film. Well, it’s not really innovative. You’ll see the same clichés again. And the same stupidities and bad decisions are made by those who are about to become a victim. And the same tricks out of “Horror for dummies” are applied. It’s not so bad. And yet, I didn’t think it was bad. “Slender man” certainly isn’t such a big fiasco as you might think. It isn’t as disastrous as the comments you can read here and there on the internet. It won’t go down in history as one of the most frightening or bloody horrors of all time. And the obscure and dark images creates an appropriate atmosphere but also ensure that you can’t see a damn thing most of the time. But I felt that constant threat and the fear among the four teenage girls. And no, I won’t have panic attacks immediately when hearing the sound of crackling wood. But these sound effects did create a creepy mood. This is a hip demon. Normally I am such a person who whines about the fact that too little background information is given in a film. You are kept in the dark (appropriate for this movies) in terms of the origin and arising of the particular creepy phenomenon. With “Slender Man“, however, I didn’t think this was necessary. It made Slender Man even more mysterious. Summoning malicious demons also isn’t exactly something new. Only recently you could see in “Pyewacket” how a frustrated teenage girl evoked something similar with the help of an occult ritual. And a long time ago, a group of young adults played a tape in “The Evil Dead” which caused Kandarian spirits to ruin everything. In “Slender Man” the cause of all the misery is a video on YouTube. Maybe that fits with today’s time, but perhaps this bothered me the most. They tried to make it too hip. Especially when afterwards this ancient legend also knows about mobile phone technology. They say it might be dangerous. Oh hell, what the heck. Maybe that’s the problem with this movie. They focused more on the continuation of the internet hype and tried to make a modern horror out of it. They lost sight of the concept of a well-thought-out horror. Maybe it fits perfectly with the life the four teenage girls Wren (Joey King), Hallie (Julia Goldani Telles), Chloe (Jaz Sinclair) and Katie (Annalize Basso) lead. A group of carefree teenagers who gained a certain popularity status at school (as seen in so many other Highschool films) and show an everyday affinity with current modern technology. They have more affection for their smartphone than for their fellow students. Yes, they display a kind of arrogance. To such an extent that they simply ignore the warnings for watching the video. Until one of them suddenly disappears and they realize that they might be stalked by this lugubrious figure. Javier Botet. I love this creepy looking actor. Want to know my conclusion in the end? The whole legend created around this Slender Man was much more interesting than the film itself. All in all, it wasn’t original and I didn’t see anything baffling new in this film. But I still found certain scenes successful. Such as the one in the library with the use of a sort of psychedelic footage. And throughout the film, there are more of those hallucinatory passages. Also, I didn’t think the acting was that awful. Ok, sometimes the four girls acted rather childish during meaningless conversations. And yes, some of their decisions were downright stupid. But that suited these young girls. And finally, I also thought the appearance of the mysterious Slender Man was reasonably successful. He blended perfectly with the background so you had this feeling that he could appear at any time. It’s Javier Botet again who has put his peculiar physique at the service to play this nasty character. Just like he did in “Mama“, “Don’t knock twice” and “Mara“. No, “Slender Man” wasn’t disastrous, but seasoned horror fanatics will look at it in a rather condescending way. Beginners, on the other hand, might be afraid this faceless figure will show up. After all, they’ve seen a large part of the illustrious video. Not? My rating 6/10 Links: IMDB More reviews here

We have no idea what it was that bit you. It had fingers, Andy! Fuck! If there’s one genre with so many releases that you get tired of it, it’s certainly the zombie genre. I’m sure this kind of movies is made on a daily basis. Movies in which infected undead stumble around, searching for victims, to have a portion of juicy brains. Most movies aren’t very innovative and all known clichés are being used. But occasionally you come across something completely different where they want to give a new direction to the zombie genre. Just like in “Maggie” it’s about a father who wants to protect his daughter. Only, little Rosie (Finlay and Nova Sjoberg) isn’t aware of any threat. It starts off idyllic. The story is set in the Australian bushes (the last Australian zombie flick I have seen was “Wyrmwood“. Also highly recommended). Andy (Martin “The Hobbit” Freeman), his wife Kay (Susie Porter) and their baby-daughter Rosie are quietly riding a dilapidated boat across a river. It seems idyllic and has a high “The African Queen” mood. There’s no indication of a post-apocalyptic situation with humanity again being the victim of a viral outbreak. Until they come across the wreck of a boat. The same stupid decisions over and over again. The only thing that bothered me in this film are the stupid, illogical decisions that were made. It’s understandable that this family can’t go on forever without providing themselves with new food and provisions. Trust me. I would also go and check if there wasn’t anything useful to find on board this boat. But knowing that every moment you can be attacked by a hungry zombie, I would certainly not do this unarmed and without informing the other person. I suppose they are of the same intellectual level because Kay makes the same primal mistake. With all the consequences. Hit the tree instead of the zombie, please. The next stupid fragment announces itself when the family is on the run in an abandoned off-road vehicle. In normal circumstances, you as a driver will try to avoid inattentive crossing pedestrians. You’ll probably perform some neck-breaking maneuvers that are a risk to your own life. But when knowing that the mainland is populated by soulless creatures whose only goal is to take a big bite from any uninfected after they have towed them to a local zombie barbecue, you would rather put the pedal to the metal. But no. Not Andy. He’s so good-hearted that he prefers to crash the all-terrain vehicle against an Australian boab instead of hitting such a creature. But as I said before, these are the only drawbacks in this, for the rest, fascinating and especially emotionally poignant zombie story. Problems in Australia? Ask the Aboriginals for help. The film itself isn’t unnervingly exciting. It shows the self-sacrificing agony Andy undergoes so he can take his daughter to a safe place. Far from the mutated fellowmen and half-wits who do totally crazy things in this chaotic world. Like putting an Aboriginal in a cage after which the target practice can start with zombies, which are lured by fresh meat. Incidentally, it’s the Aboriginals who know how to maintain themselves in this new world. With primitive-looking rituals they succeed in liquidating zombies and plant-based ointment provides protection. It’s also a young Aboriginal girl (Simone Landers) who helps Andy with his trip through the bush and who provides a safe haven. An emotionally touching zombie-flick. Who would have thought that? Frankly, I thought this film was original in many ways. Not only the zombie concept was elaborated in a different way. The transformation is totally different than in a typical zombie movie. Here it’s not only blood and ripped off flesh, but it’s a blubbery, slimy substance that manifests itself during the 48-hour transformation. Also, the phenomenon of zombies with their head in the ground (ostrich-like behavior) was surprising. Was it to shut themselves off from the outside world? Or is it part of the transformation process? No idea. But it was fascinating enough. And finally, the most impressive thing for me personally was the atmosphere that this film radiated. I never thought I would ever watch a zombie movie and get emotionally touched by it. You really have to be a zombie if you don’t want to be moved by this movie. And finally, praise for the admirable acting performance of Martin Freeman. A whole movie he played a leading role and not for a moment I had the feeling he was playing a hobbit. That’s what I call an achievement. My rating 7/10 Links: IMDB More reviews here

(Release info London schedule; April 20th, 2018, Empire Cinemas, Leicester Square) "Every Day" Based on David Levithan’s 'New York Times' bestseller, "Every Day" tells the story of Rhiannon (Angourie Rice), a 16-year old girl who falls in love with a mysterious soul named 'A' (Justice Smith) who inhabits a different body every day. Feeling an unmatched connection, Rhiannon and 'A' work each day to find each other, not knowing what or who the next day will bring. The more the two fall in love, the more the realities of loving someone who's a different person every 24 hours takes a toll, leaving Rhiannon and 'A' to face the hardest decision either has ever had to make. Rhiannon is a good 16-year old, she helps out at home, doesn’t cause trouble, and does well at school. However, her family has been struggling, her father Nick (Jake Robards) had a nervous breakdown and stopped working leaving her mother Lindsey (Maria Bello) the pressure of being the sole breadwinner. While her sister Jolene (Debby Ryan) is the wild child who acts out, Rhiannon just wants to help keep her family together. At school things are little better, Rhiannon’s boyfriend Justin (Justin Smith) is the popular athlete, however, he’s also self-centered and takes Rhiannon for granted. That's, until one day when Justin shows up at school acting differently. Suddenly, he’s attentive and curious and sweet. Taken aback and enamoured, Rhiannon suggests they play hooky and steal away to Baltimore. The two take off in Justin’s car, listen to music and sing along, share stories they’ve never shared before, and play at the beach. Rhiannon is surprised to see a softer side of Justin, one that’s playful and unselfconscious. It's a day like they’ve never had before: perfect. Yet the next morning at school, Justin seems back to normal and he barely remembers what they talked about or the day they spent together. Rhiannon is perturbed, but tries to shake it off. By that weekend, though, it’s clear that the Justin who Rhiannon played hooky with isn’t coming back. She tries to recapture that day by playing the song they sang along to at a party, but Justin seems uninterested. It does get the attention of a boy Rhiannon doesn’t know named Nathan (Lucas Zumann), however, who starts dancing wildly and putting on a show to make Rhiannon laugh. Rhiannon joins him on the dance floor and something suddenly seems familiar, but she doesn’t know what. Justin shows up and chases Nathan away and Rhiannon is left with a lingering feeling of 'déjà vu'. A few days later she's contacted by Nathan who says he wants to meet and talk. They arrange a date at a bookstore, but when Rhiannon shows up Nathan isn’t there. Instead, she meets Megan (Katie Douglas), who says she's there on Nathan’s behalf. Yet when Rhiannon and Megan begin to talk, Megan explains that she in fact is someone named 'A'. That weekend at the party 'A' was Nathan, and the day at the beach 'A' was Justin, because 'A' is a bodiless spirit who wakes up inhabiting a different person every day, for just twenty-four hours. Always someone 'A’s' age, always someone close to the last, never the same person twice. Rhiannon is naturally disbelieving at first, until 'A' manages to make contact with her a few more times over the next few days and eventually proves they are telling the truth. What follows is an extraordinary love story that transcends external appearances and physical limitations. A love story about loving someone truly and completely for who they're in their heart and soul, regardless of what's on the outside. The Rhiannon who we meet at the beginning of the film is living a fairly conventional life, albeit being the rock of her destabilized family. A nice girl, a good friend, a solid student, Rhiannon is dating the popular boy at school, though she doesn’t feel very connected to him or much appreciated. She’s playing all the parts she feels she should play at the expense of her own self-discovery. Especially when we’re young we tend to be defined by our relationships. In the beginning of the story, Rhiannon is Nick’s daughter, Jolene’s sister, Justin’s girlfriend. As a result of her father’s breakdown, the whole family is in stasis. Their family has been fractured and they haven’t figured out how to move past it. These things are standing in the way of her freedom to grow. And what we see in the movie is that her interactions with 'A' broaden her perspective and give her space to find herself. She and everyone around her are all seeing each other not for who they're, but for who they think they should be, which is pretty common. Another important part of Rhiannon’s journey is learning to see and accept those around her, and she then shares that perspective with her family. In the beginning of the film we’re introduced to Rhiannon’s boyfriend Justin. Justin is the popular athlete at school and he takes Rhiannon for granted. He's kind of oblivious to other people’s feelings though. He thinks a lot about himself and his own needs and when he doesn’t get those needs met, he gets frustrated and easily irritated. But one day Justin wakes up, promptly examines his hands, takes his bearings and heads off to school. On this day Justin is not himself, he has been inhabited by 'A'. Rhiannon can tell something’s off with Justin, yet soon suggests they play hooky and head off for adventure. What follows is 'A" and Rhiannon’s first date, driving and listening to music, hanging at the beach, and talking and sharing more than Justin and Rhiannon ever have. 'A' falls for Rhiannon that afternoon and, without knowing it, Rhiannon falls for 'A', too. The next day at school, Justin doesn’t seem to really remember this day that was so special to Rhiannon. We've this character 'A' who's an entity who inhabits a different body every day for 24 hours and so in the film is portrayed by fifteen different actors. Several of the actors who play 'A' in the story play a character in Rhiannon’s life as well, so each actor has to both differentiate between when they're their main character versus when they're inhabited by 'A', as well as supporting a single, clear character for 'A'. It’s quite complex. In motion pictures, you've twenty-four still frames in a second and when they’re run together your brain compensates and creates the fluid motion connecting the frames. There's an intermittent motion effect happening in this movie in which the film asks the audience to bridge the gaps and perceive 'A' as a fluid and consistent character. That maturity and depth coming from the eyes becomes a big part of the throughline for 'A' and makes the character feel whole. Jolene’s pretty sassy and sarcastic. But her relationship to Rhiannon is really important to both of them. They’re cut from opposite cloth and they've responded to the family situation really differently, Rhiannon by trying to hold everyone together, Jolene by going a bit off the rails. She’s tough and aggressive but she has good intentions. And she's one of the few people in Rhiannon’s world who's pushing her to demand more for herself. In 2012, young adult author David Levithan published a book that pushed him to new creative heights. It resonated so deeply with his readers that it spent months on 'The New York Times' bestseller list and spawned online chat groups, fan art and writing. That book was 'Every Day'. Ask any teenager or parent of a teenager if they’ve heard of 'Every Day', and not only will they know it, they’ll most likely have read it and passed it on to a friend. The story of a teenage entity named only 'A', who wakes up every day in a different body. "Every Day" deals with the challenges faced when 'A' falls head over heels in love with Rhiannon, a girl unlike anyone they’ve ever met. Can you've a relationship with a soul who inhabits a different body every day, sometimes boy, sometimes girl, sometimes the school quarterback, sometimes the outcast? Who are you removed of your body, your race, your clothes, your family? The story is the actualization of the old adage that we should love someone for who they're on the inside, all the more powerful because it's set during the teenage years when we customarily try on and experiment with myriad external identities in an effort to figure out we're. Levithan’s book explores all these themes, but fundamentally it’s a story about true love, growing up, and the lengths we’ll go for those we care about. This is about not being defined by your body, or externally imposed ideas of who you're, but by who you really are. What does it really mean to love the inner person devoid of the external? The book is a juggernaut, clearly resonating with young people the world over, and taking Levithan on tours to visit high school and college students across North America. There’s a freedom in what 'A' is that’s really interesting to explore, and that’s creates a lot of great side conversations about gender and race and the binaries that society is built on, but that we can choose to step out of if we want. The book challenges gender presumptions in a way that's as entertaining as it's unexpected and, perhaps most important, that's relatable to teens who may not think they need sensitivity training when it comes to sexual orientation and the nature of true love. His name is 'A'. Every day he wakes up in a different body. Always someone his age, never too far from the last person, never the same person twice. He has no control over any of it. He doesn't know why it happens, or how. He knows what makes each person different and what makes everyone the same. He has seen the same color blue look fifty different ways with fifty different pairs of eyes. Every day of his life, he wakes up and just try to live that day, for that person. Make no mark, leave no trace. In the film, we've 15 actors playing 'A' and the film unites those characters in one coherent arc. By making Rhiannon the protagonist and following her journey as she meets 'A' and learns about who 'A' is, the audience gets grounded in her experience, and projects into her relationship with 'A', which gives us an entry point into the more fantastical and magical idea in the story. To fill out Rhiannon’s world, the film gives her a family backstory that didn’t exist in the novel. Rhiannon’s father is recovering from a nervous breakdown and not working, her mother is the sole breadwinner, her sister Jolene is a bit of a wild child, and Rhiannon is the rock trying to hold everything together. When we meet Rhiannon she has a real desire for normalcy but she's also somewhat stuck and unable to fully discover herself because her focus is on supporting her family. This is the foundation from which she takes off on this incredible journey. A great love story is timeless and remains one of the most satisfying cinematic genres. On the one hand the book very simple, the embodiment of loving someone for who they really are, while also being very complex in how it addresses a lot of issues in the lives of young people today. The results something really extraordinary about manifesting that in a character who literally has to walk in someone else’s shoes every single day. The profoundness of that and the magic of that just grabs people and inspires awe. Beyond exploring the most universal themes of true love, identity and coming of age, "Every Day" also reflects very contemporary ideas about acceptance and the freedom to be whoever you're, a particularly resonant idea for young people right now who increasingly reject categorization. It's such a commonplace and simple piece of advice, that you should appreciate someone for what's on the inside, and not judge them by external appearances. Yet it's also true that what seems simplest on the surface can often end up being the hardest thing. In the end, the question of who we're at the core, without body, gender, any external identifiers that all, is not so simple to answer. Equally, at first look "Every Day" is a charming, funny, and smart coming-of-age story about the ups and downs of true love and growing up. But dig a little deeper and there’s more. This movie is a love story, but there's so much more, it's a coming-of-age story, it's a story about family love, it's a story about loving someone so much that you choose to do the difficult thing, and it’s a magical story. It's a total swoon. This story will have resonance at this amazing time we're in where a generation seems to be turning away from black and white definitions around identity, which is such an exciting thing.

Wow. You’ve given each other the perfect male fantasy. Sex without emotional attachment. Fascinating. That’s the best description for this film. “Jonathan” is not an easy movie and it excels in monotony. But give this not so action-packed, one location situated film a chance and maybe you’ll discover how unparalleled and brilliant this film is. The starting point is actually dead simple. Those who already experienced the concept of living together, know that this only has a chance of success if appropriate agreements are made and complied with. This is to ensure that nobody makes the other’s life unnecessarily miserable. which could lead to a breakup. In the case of Jonathan (Ansel “Baby Driver” Elgort), it’s a bit more complicated. Because the person he lives with is his twin brother John who shares the same body. Aha, this is something like “Split“? No, not entirely. It’s less intense and it shows in a realistic way what a split personality is. So no frightening personality changes or “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ” behavior. Excellent performance. First of all, I would like to praise the excellent acting of Ansel Elgort. Even though I realize this isn’t so obvious, it seems to be a piece of cake for Elgort to play the two totally different personalities. Jonathan is the more disciplined twin brother. A perfect hairstyle and decent clothing show he’s the one who follows the rules. This means he manages his allocated time of the week optimally. He works at a distinguished architectural firm where he does his job perfectly. The cooking and household tasks are done neatly. And he reports conscientiously what he did all day with the aid of the camcorder before he crawls into his bed at an exact time to make room for the other twin brother John. No girlfriends. John is the indifferent one. A relaxed-looking pack rat who doesn’t want to live strictly according to the imposed rules. A night owl who enjoys the nightlife where he can meet other people and seduce feminine beauties. He’s someone whose video messages never sound too businesslike and who exudes an enormous “Je mon fou” mood. John is the rebellious personality who enjoys life. Until Jonathan gets suspicious (there’s this constant feeling of fatigue) and hires a private detective (a brief cameo by Matt “Walking out” Bomer), after which he finds out that John isn’t really keeping his end of the bargain. He conceals certain developments and breaks the main rule: no girlfriends. Having sex isn’t the problem, but having an emotional bond is out of the question. It’s all about inner struggle. “Jonathan” shows the interaction between two good friends. Jealousy and protecting his own territory causes complications and leads to a struggle between two people. In Jonathan’s case, it’s about an inner struggle. Something everyone has experienced once already. Only such a quarrel isn’t so obvious for Jonathan cause physical contact is impossible. What they get, is a war of words with the use of the camera. Or just simply, the absence of any sign of life, such that one of the personalities stays behind helplessly. The only moral support Jonathan has is Dr. Mina Nariman (Patricia “October Gale” Clarkson). She took Jonathan in when he was young and introduced structure in his life. She discovered what was wrong (Single body, multi-consciousness) and separated their lives with the help of a kind of timer. Interesting, fascinating and captivating. “Jonathan” is an interesting and fascinating indie-SF. Probably it’s a bit boring for some because it mostly takes place at one and the same location. And a large part of the film consists of video recordings of the two persons. But to be honest, it was captivating and I was curious how this unique conflict would end. There was, however, one particular thing I broke my head about. If the surgery which Dr. Nariman performed when Jonathan was 9 years old, went off seemingly hassle-free, why not apply this to all personalities? Wouldn’t this be the solution to avoid this unique and complicated situation? Or was Jonathan simply the umpteenth guinea pig? But besides this remark, I thought it was a top film. Definitely recommended for film lovers who love a clever psychological thriller with SF elements in it. My rating 8/10 Links: IMDB More reviews here

PADDY CONSIDINE’S JOURNEYMAN – BRAND NEW TRAILER RELEASED IN THE UK ON 16TH FEBRUARY 2018 Paddy Considine’s second feature JOURNEYMAN will be released by STUDIOCANAL on 16th February 2018. Considine not only wrote and directed the film but also stars alongside Jodie Whittaker (Upcoming Doctor Who), Anthony Welsh (My Brother The Devil), Tony Pitts (War Horse) and Paul Popplewell (’71). Many of the supporting cast make their acting debuts and take on roles that closely mirror their actual professions with appearances from boxers, boxing commentators, nurses and occupational therapists. Journeyman was developed and shot in close collaboration with the boxing community and medical profession. The film is produced by Diarmid Scrimshaw (who also worked with Considine on Dog Altogether and Tyrannosaur) and is financed by Film4, the BFI, Screen Yorkshire, and the Wellcome Trust. Journeyman tells the story of middleweight boxing champion Matty Burton (Paddy Considine). After winning a punishing title defense on points, Matty collapses at home. The journey towards regaining his speech, movement and memory will be the toughest fight he’ll ever face, and the prize could not be greater, for his relationship with his wife Emma (Jodie Whittaker) and baby daughter Mia are on the line… Journeyman is a powerful and beautiful story about loss and, ultimately, triumph. It's about our identity, and how in life we sometimes have to dig deep into our soul to discover who we really are.