When their local radio station is taken over by a big
corporation, the DJs think their biggest problem is whether or not they’ll keep
their jobs. Then DJ Pat Farrell (Colm Meaney) decides he’d rather go out
fighting, grabs a shotgun and barricades himself in the booth. It’s up to his
coworker, Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan) to talk him out of killing hostages in
the name of free radio. A bit thin on plot, this film from director Declan
Lowney, best known for his work on long-running British TV shows like Father
Ted and Little Britain, works for one simple reason – Coogan. He’s been playing
the character of Alan Partridge for almost two decades now, but he approaches
this big screen adaptation without any sort of cynicism, making it as fresh and
funny as when he first appeared as Partridge on The Day Today in 1994. He also
plays it broad enough so people who have never heard of Alan Partridge – or
even Steve Coogan – can join in the fun.
Directed by Tetsurō Araki (Death Note, High School of the Dead) this visually stunning and emotionally draining series focuses on the struggle humanity has to survive after its 100 years of peace is destroyed when the ‘impregnable’ stone walls they live hidden behind are shattered by giant humanoid monsters called Titans. What starts out as familiar feeling story of young people banding together to face a common enemy – like you can find in just about every generic giant robot anime – quickly becomes something else, something much more meaningful, as the story moves away from the heroics of the battles to focus on the toll each battle takes on the individual humans involved. There is plenty of back-story added to the tale, but none of it feels like filler or fluff: They all have an emotional resonance that haunts each episode of the series. Sure, you could watch it just for the cool – and bloody – fights, but there’s so much more going on that you’ll want to watch it again and again.
You have to give director Riccardo Paoletti credit: The guy knows how to put creepy up on the big screen. Just about every frame of his movie practically drips with tension and malevolence. Unfortunately, he’s not as strong at telling the tale behind all the emotions he is creating. The film tells the story of a young girl named Jenny (Daisy Keeping) who spends her vacation from boarding school visiting her estranged dad in a small Italian village. Her efforts to get to know him there go practically unnoticed – her dad’s too busy with some sort of work to pay her much attention – so Jenny explores the surrounding countryside, discovering a strange old hospital/orphanage filled with some extremely strange kids. It’s a nice set-up for a horror flick, but it quickly unravels as we discover the secret behind her dad’s behavior, the kids at the hospital and whatever it is that lives under the lake. The end result will confuse and disappoint you, but you will still have nightmares about the creepy trip the movie takes you on to get there.
A guy
wakes up one morning with a vicious hangover and absolutely no idea how he got
to bed, what he did the night before or who the guy next to him is, how he got
there or who shot the guy point blank in the face. In other words, it’s the
start of a very bad day for Jos Vreeswijk (Raymond Thiry), and it will only get
increasingly worse as he travels around the seedier streets of Amsterdam trying
to piece together what the heck happened. And, in the guiding hands of director
Arne Toonen, it’s a trip you won’t want to miss. On the surface, Black Out, has
all the markings of a classic noir thriller, only it’s shot in bright colors
and is filled with zany (but always
believable) characters. Oh yeah…and it’s laugh-out-loud funny, especially if
you like your comedy served up very black.
There’s an inherent sweetness to watching the women
in this documentary from director Brian Lilla (Patagonia Rising) learn their
dance routines, and it has nothing to do with the quality of their
performances. Rather, the sweetness comes from the stories they share with the
camera when they aren’t dancing, stories about love, loss and life and how
dancing has influenced every aspect of who they are and, perhaps more
importantly, who they are becoming. The film stumbles a bit when it includes
the stories of dance studio owner Caleb Young and choreographer Joe Mounts, not
because their stories aren’t interesting on their own, but they just don’t
stack up against what the ladies have to say. Seeing their final performance at
the end of the film is a true celebration.
The
zombie film genre has become so watered down lately that you have to sift
through a lot of junk to find anything even remotely interesting. Finding a
film like this one from director Mike Masters makes the search worthwhile. Set
in a post-apocalyptic future, the film tells the story of a low budget film
crew who decide to make the third film in their zombie trilogy using actual
zombies. While there is a fair amount of splatter, most of which is well done,
the real joy of the movie is watching the living cast and crew deal with the
uncooperative zombies who, like temperamental undead divas, don’t always do
what they’re told. The added bonus is that instead of storming off to their
trailers when they aren’t happy, they simply chomp on whoever pisses them off.
In terms of an alibi, it’s almost foolproof. When
the corrupt politicians want somebody killed in this Filipino crime thriller
from director Erik Matti (The Arrival) they simply give a couple of convicts a
day pass from their high security prison to do the dirty work for them. The
simple beauty of the arrangement gets knocked for a loop when one of the
political organizations best hit men, Mario 'Tatang' Maghari (Joel Torre),
actually makes parole and becomes a liability. The cat-and-mouse game played by
Benitez, his employers and his protégé Daniel Benitez (Gerald Anderson) gives
the movie an edge that most crime thrillers don’t seem to care about these
days, but even if there wasn’t any actual plot to be engaged by, Matti’s flair
for action sequences would make the film worth watching. The fact that its as
smart as it is exciting is a real bonus.
