TL;DR This Week In Cinema: The Mid-August Grab Bag

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HIGH-RISE

RT: 62%

Yes, that’s Tom Hiddleston in the buff – objectify away, it’s for a good cause. As expected, Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump‘s take on J.G. Ballard‘s dystopian novel has picked up mixed reviews, but its nihilist playground is magnetic.

READ our full review of High-Rise here

This is peak Hiddleston typecast – attractive but distant, academic yet virile, and eminently classy. Like his co-habitants in the high-rise, he’s enjoying the good life with open eyes, conscious of the coming storm but indifferent to the fallout.

Two tips for prospective viewers: first, check out Portishead‘s inspired soundtrack contribution. Second, if you’re a dog fan, prepare yourself – it seems that Wheatley and Jump are not.

tl;dr Just your average skyscraper teething problems.

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TICKLED

RT: 94%

From the pre-release hype to the bizarre and ongoing aftermath (*link contains spoilers*), Tickled is something of a phenomenon. Championed by Stephen Fry, the little doco that could has made its way out of the New Zealand funny pages and into the blinding sunlight.

READ our full review of Tickled here

As columnist Dylan Reeve and filmmaker David Farrier dig deep into the sport of competitive endurance tickling, they uncover a web of corruption and deception that threatens the livelihood (and lives) of both its subjects and the filmmakers themselves. The whole film is an act of courage in itself, and one near impossible to tear your eyes away from.

Audiences may feel like they’re being tickled, as what starts amusingly becomes more frightening and bewildering the longer it goes on.

tl;dr If only they’d brought Stephen in to lambast the subject.

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KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS

“If you must blink, do it now. Pay careful attention to everything you see, no matter how unusual it may seem. If you look away, even for an instant, then our hero will surely perish.” So begins Laika‘s latest stop-motion/CG fusion, and you will not want to miss a single frame.

READ our full review of Kubo And The Two Strings here

Young Kubo (Art Parkinson, aka Rickon Stark from Game Of Thrones) is our destined hero here, in what seems at first like traditional fare. Director Travis Smith, however, shows the same flair for plucking heartstrings that Kubo does playing the samisen. A deeply poignant story of loss and mortality is core to the story. Let me just say that guitars weren’t the only thing gently weeping at my screening. Stick around for the credits to get an insight into how the magic is made.

This a family film in the same sense as Toy Story 3. But what it has over the latter is rad-as-hell sword fights, magic, and the best boss monsters this side of Legend Of Zelda. Charlize Theron, Matthew McConaughey, Ralph Fiennes and Rooney Mara co-star, with a special appearance from George Takei to ensure there’s at least one Asian actor in this Japanese story.

tl;dr Kubo’s best chance of survival is learning to zig-zag.

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INDIGNATION

RT: 80%

While we’re on the topic of young men battling with death, why not throw sex in for good measure? Screenwriter James Schamus (The Ice Storm, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) takes the director’s chair to oversee this Phillip Roth adaptation. If the critics are to be believed, he’s the first to ‘get it right‘. He also co-founded Focus Features – I like this guy.

As the Korean War rages on, the overachieving Marcus (Logan Lerman) pulls away from his working-class parents and escapes into college, where his Jewish heritage and burgeoning sexuality are tested by a puritannical Dean (Tracy Letts) and a captivating female student (Sarah Gadon).

This “smart, melancholic drama” gives its protagonist two advantages – Logan doesn’t have to deal with David Ayer’s shit anymore, and Marcus doesn’t have to go through this.

tl;dr Meanwhile, in Korea, boys were being made into men.

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WAR DOGS

Jonah Hill and Miles Teller take to the sands on a quest to profit from suffering, blazing up along the way like it’s 4:20 all the time. Yet another major studio release celebrating despicable real-world figures, getting a laugh out of their utter c*ntishness. Wait for it – it’s directed by Todd Phillips (The Hangover trilogy). BET THIS WILL BE FUN.

That the omnipresent Hill would be cast is predictable; that Teller continues to be roped into this tripe is a damn shame. Consider this – the dogs in question were originally meant to be Jesse Eisenberg and Shia LaBeouf, who were presumably recast on the basis of twitching and Dothraki hair respectively.

If you’re not yet bored with watching people who earn more than you partake in fake parties, this is the film to see. Also, let’s never hang out.

tl;dr At least there’s no Jared Leto.

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FREE STATE OF JONES

RT: 42%

It’s a civil war within a civil war! At the height of America’s bipartisanship, as North and South battled over whether or not to continue endorsing slavery, Newton Knight (Matthew McConaughey) broke away from his Confederate comrades to form a resistance movement inside their territory.

Take 12 Years A Slave and add the white saviour narrative, basically. While the true story of the Jones County’s insurgency (led by black and white Americans) is inspirational, it has hardly left much of an impression on the critics, who point (once again) to a lacklustre script.

If your child wants to be a script assessor, please do everything you can to support them. We need these people so damn badly.

tl;dr Yo dawg, I heard you like civil wars.

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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…