Welcome to the BRAG’s weekly rundown of what’s hot in the coming seven days of cinematic releases. The franchise firestorm ain’t quite over yet, but one’s hopes for solid April premieres should by now be realistically low.
This week’s offerings include a new animated feature, an unwanted franchise-based remake (WHODA THOUGHT?), your childhood dreams coming true, international intrigue, and an oportunity for some shameless self-promotion.
Soak up this quality content, my hungry chicks.
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A SILENT VOICE
Madman’s latest Australian release is the story of Shoya Ishida (Mayu Matsuoka), an elementary school kid who bullies deaf classmate Shoko Nishimiya (Saori Hayami) so relentlessly that she transfers schools.
Seeing his cruelty, his community ostracise him – as a high school student (voiced by Miyu Irino), Shoya is alone and near-suicidal… until he is reunited with Shoko, and sees a chance at redemption.
If last year’s Your Name is anything to go by, Madman’s eye for affecting and entertaining Japanese romance is sharp – if your heart needs warming, or you’re just keen to see an animated tale about sign language, A Silent Voice is hard to pass up.
tl;dr A simple gesture can say so much.
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CHIPS
RT: 19%
You may recall what a huge fan of John Michael McDonagh’s War On Everyone I was. Well, apparently the folks at Warner Bros. didn’t pick up on the sarcasm and decided to give Dax Shepard the money to remake it under the moniker of a wholesome ’70s cop show that didn’t deserve this treatment.
CHiPS aims to satisfy the legion of Trump supporters that remember the good ol’ days of TV before political correctness went mad – the irony, naturally, being that TV was more politically correct back then anyway, given the conservative values of the time and the family market the series was geared towards.
Simon Abrams, contributing to CHiPS‘ abysmal RT score, puts the appeal of the film best: “who needs empathy, human characters, good action, or witty banter when you can just leer at a woman from behind while she rewards an unworthy character with musky, manly, lady-objectifying sex?”
tl;dr When the real CHiPS fans get duped into seeing this juvenile trash.
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DANCE ACADEMY: THE MOVIE
Why, hello, film I couldn’t possibly care about! Another TV adaptation, Dance Academy offers the teen version of Black Swan, where pushing your injured body beyond your physical and mental limits works out totally great and then everything’s fine.
On the plus side, it is a diversely cast Australian film (yeah, half of its shot in New York but shut up) with an ACTUAL COLOUR PALETTE other than post-Animal Kingdom gray – thank you, Dance Academy, thank you.
So if you’re, I dunno, young and enthused, not broken by the world, maybe this is for you, I guess? It ain’t my jam, but I’ll defend to the death your right to enjoy innocently sub-par films.
tl;dr Kids, you can achieve your dreams! The only person standing in your way is you!
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EXTRAORDINARY MISSION
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF_2eM3ZR5Y
Damn, that’s one stylish trailer. This action thriller from Hong Kong pits a cop struggling through dark times after his mother’s passing, as he goes undercover to take down a major drug-trafficking ring from the inside.
The story is a natural fit for directors Alan Mak and Anthony Pun, the former of whom directed Infernal Affairs (the source material for Scorsese’s The Departed). No one gets police action intrigue quite like Mak.
My favourite thing thing about all this is the description in Rotten Tomatoes: “A very complicated story lies beneath.” Sounds like a promise, RT. Gimme dat intrigue.
tl;dr This is Mak on set every day.
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Online Bonus! THE EVIL WITHIN
Hoo boy. The Evil Within is one of the most talked about films of the year – a horror film based on the childhood nightmares of its creator, oil heir Andrew Getty, who self-financed the $4-6mil production budget beginning in 2002.
15 years on, the film is seeing the light of day, despite Getty himself dying suddenly in 2015 – producer Michael Luceri put the finishing touches on and released it at the end of February through Amazon and several other VOD services.
The story itself follows Dennis (Frederick Koehler), a young handicapped boy whose reflection begins to transform into a malevolent creature. It’s bizarre, unique, and laden with practical effects – and I’ll be tearing it apart on Nothing 2 Fear, my new podcast! Come have a listen.
tl;dr Picture The Shining by way of House Of The Dead as directed by the Rineharts. And that’s just behind the scenes!
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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…
Big surprise, Dave’s picking the anime film. Find me, call me a weeb if you must, but it’s clearly the best offering for the week. Otherwise, The Evil Within should be, if nothing else, a pretty incomparable experience.
Until next week!
