Welcome to the BRAG’s weekly rundown of what’s hot in the coming seven days of cinematic releases. Ridley Scott is making his first of two major cinematic entries this year, alongside two portraits of lost artists, a marquee Hollywood comedy, and a gritty Korean thriller.
Needless to say, the sci-fi blockbuster is smartly timed, given that there’s little to compete with it at the box office this weekend. It’s also the only real horror movie available, and as the host of Nothing 2 Fear, I guess I gotta give it a bump.
Read on!
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Alien: Covenant
RT: 79%
In 2012, I had my heart broken. It wasn’t the first time, but the betrayal was a profound one, and it stung. I was led on by the year’s most exciting trailer, only to have my chest burst by the shoddily assembled, completely illogical, high-budget catastrophe that was Prometheus.
Fortunately, Alien helmsman Ridley Scott has ditched the prequel’s biggest problem (look at the fucker’s credits he is a destroyer of worlds), and is aiming squarely for genre thrills. Alien: Covenant eschews all pretense of being anything other than a branded exercise, saving face from Prometheus’ abyssal plot holes and lore rewriting by bailing on them and chucking a whole mess o’ folks into harm’s way. Good ol’ fashioned fun.
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Critical response is mixed, but all agree this is as tense and visceral as the old Alien films. Good, really, because I got none of that from the trailer. If anything, it seemed the producers were keen to blow their load as early as possible by revealing old mate Xenomorph before the edit had even been finalised. My suggestion is to approach with reverse-Prometheus expectations: assume only the very worst.
tl;dr
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I Am Heath Ledger
This documentary could be said to be inevitable. With only 23 credits to his name at the time of his passing, actor Heath Ledger had become a cultural magnet, drawing people in with his wholly committed performances in groundbreaking pictures. And then he was gone, as quickly as he came, succumbing to an accidental overdose in the same year his iconic Joker performance hit cinema screens.
Given the events of last year, public grieving for deceased artists has become somewhat more acceptable in a rapidly changing cultural landscape. The fans, given their attachment, often want to know more. And we will likely see more films of this nature for figures like George Michael, Prince, Leonard Cohen, Robin Williams, Carrie Fisher and David Bowie; Whitney Houston’s film is already out.
The critics feel it doesn’t add much to the narrative we don’t know, but the trailer’s collection of home video content is warm, letting you in to the performer’s world. Don’t expect answers. It is, if nothing else, a humble portrayal, and one that Ledger may very well have considered fondly. Vale, Clown Prince Of Crime. We wish we knew how to quit you.
tl;dr
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Whiteley
It’s the week for reminiscing, it seems. While you’re mourning the loss of Ledger, why not also shed a tear for Brett Whiteley, one of Australia’s most celebrated artists? Though he was of a different generation, he shared with Ledger an array of intimidating artistic peers, the constant attention of the public eye… and a premature death due to substance abuse.
The approach to filmmaking is what really captivates about Whiteley, according to The Conversation. Instead of focusing on stock footage and lived events, director James Bogle emphasises the work that survived the artist – paintings, sculptures and graphics that are lingered on, as one would linger before them in a gallery setting.
Beyond the art is Whiteley’s exciting context, caught in the midst of (and contributing to) Andy Warhol‘s bohemian culture-shift, which brought on chemical pleasures that would be his downfall. As historical document and thrilling artwork, Whiteley paints a vivid, moving picture.
tl;dr Whatever guys, painting is not that hard.
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Snatched
Thesis: 75%+ of American adult-oriented cinematic comedies suck. Furthermore, 100% of the trailers for American adult-oriented cinematic comedies post-The Hangover suck. Think about it – the Ghostbusters trailer blew, the Bridesmaids trailer blew, and you’d be hard-pressed to show me one trailer from the last decade that would actually make me want to see a Hollywood comedy. That means Snatched may not suck as much as this formulaic, yawnfest trailer does.
Then there’s Amy Schumer – making headway for (ostensibly) feminist humour by being raunchier and more rowdy than the boys, she’s also become fairly predictable (when she’s not out thieving material from other comics). Her latest film, helmed by Warm Bodies director Jonathan Levine, pairs her with the legendary Goldie Hawn for a vacation gone south, where mother and daughter are kidnapped by a cartel.
Pros: Joan Cusack and Wanda Sykes! Cons: more sequences of girls-gone-wild-style partying because that’s all anyone makes movies about now, more tired gags about Amy Schumer’s vagina, and Goldie Hawn doing parkour. Ok, that last one’s a pro.
tl;dr If you saw more than one Hangover movie, congratulations, you murdered comedy forever.
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The Mayor
Picture a South Korean House Of Cards and you might have something close to The Mayor, the new thriller from director In-Je Park. Oh, and replace the southern drawl of Kevin Spacey with the intimidating scowl of Oldboy himself, Min-sik Choi.
Jong-gu Byeon, the incumbent mayor of Seoul, is seeking a historical third term, and this is the one that will prime his shot for the presidency. So he’s pulling out all the stops this time, and not just for ad campaigns. Everything is on the table – bribery, extortion, subterfuge and murder.
As the trailer reveals, Jong-Gu’s team end up at odds with the presidential hopeful, so we can only hope for a better ending than dear old America received.
tl;dr Someone get Lee Byung-Hun up in here.
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And now for THE VERDICT – maybe you only get to see one of these flicks on the big screen, and you don’t wanna waste that night out. So, drum roll please…
The Mayor gets my outsider bump this week, as Min-sik Choi can carry a film solo, and the premise is intriguing. Having said that… and man, am I hesitant to put this out there…
Until next week!
