by
Julien Faddoul
Aladdin
A live-action retelling of the 1992 Disney film of the same name.
When will these Disney remakes end? The lachrymose that they induce is becoming too much to bear. I have nothing new to add that wasn’t already covered here or here. Whenever I walk past the ticket usher and into the cinema to experience another one of these, I often think of something Elliott Smith once wrote: “Two tickets torn in half and a lot of nothing to do. Do you miss me, miss misery, like you say you do”?
d – Guy Ritchie
w – John August, Guy Ritchie
ph – Alan Stewart
pd – Gemma Jackson
m – Alan Menken
m – Howard Ashman, Tim Rice, Benj Pasek, Justin Paul
ed – James Herbert
cos – Michael Wilkinson
p – Jonathan Eirich, Dan Lin
Cast: Mena Massoud, Naomi Scott, Will Smith, Marwan Kenzari, Navid Negahban, Nasim Pedrad, Billy Magnussen, Alan Tudyk, Frank Welker, Numan Acar, Robby Haynes, Nina Wadia
The Hustle
Two female scam artists, one low rent and the other high class, compete to swindle a naïve tech prodigy out of his fortune.
The third incarnation of this comedic premise, after Bedtime Story (1964) and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988). The jokes are limp and the gender swap adds little, as the beats are almost exactly the same as the 1988 film.
d – Chris Addison
w – Stanley Shapiro, Paul Henning, Dale Launer, Jac Schaeffer
ph – Michael Coulter
ad – Ashley Lamont
m – Anne Dudley
ed – Anthony Boys
cos – Emma Fryer
p – Roger Birnbaum, Rebel Wilson
Cast: Rebel Wilson, Anne Hathaway, Alex Sharp, Ingrid Oliver, Emma Davies, Dean Norris, Timothy Simons, Deepak Anand, Meena Rayann, Raffaello Degruttola, Deano Bugatti
Tolkien
The formative years of the orphaned author J.R.R. Tolkien as he finds friendship, love and artistic inspiration among a group of fellow outcasts at school.
Another biopic that seems to be formed with all the passion and urgency of Wikipedia. The tacky staging and uninspired performances make the grinding inevitability even more tumescent.
d – Dome Karukoski
w – David Gleeson, Stephen Beresford
ph – Lasse Frank Johannessen
pd – Grant Montgomery
m – Thomas Newman
ed – Harri Ylönen
cos – Colleen Kelsall
p – Peter Chernin, Kris Thykier, Jenno Topping
Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Lily Collins, Genevieve O'Reilly, Colm Meaney, Tom Glynn-Carney, Craig Roberts, Anthony Boyle, Patrick Gibson, Laura Donnelly, Derek Jacobi, Pam Ferris, Owen Teale
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum **
Super-assassin John Wick is on the run after killing a member of the international assassin's guild, and with a $14 million price tag on his head - he is the target of hit men and women everywhere.
The mythology of this film series, however fun, has gotten more and more goofy with each succeeding entry. The Zen-constipated performances don’t help (with a particularly atrocious one from Asia Kate Dillon.) At the same time, the fight sequences just keep getting more graceful. The action here is staged with such balletic aplomb and with such a masterful eye for audience perspicacity – including beautiful handling of lighting, scenic design and even animal choreography – that the series remains unrivalled within the jurisdiction of current action cinema.
d – Chad Stahelski
w – Derek Kolstad, Shay Hatten, Chris Collins, Marc Abrams (Based on the Characters Created by Derek Kolstad)
ph – Dan Laustsen
pd – Kevin Kavanaugh
m – Tyler Bates, Joel J. Richard
ed – Evan Schiff
cos – Luca Mosca
p – Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Halle Berry, Ian McShane, Asia Kate Dillon, Laurence Fishburne, Anjelica Huston, Saïd Taghmaoui, Mark Dacascos, Lance Reddick, Jerome Flynn, Jason Mantzoukas, Boban Marjanović, Robin Lord Taylor, Cecep Arif Rahman, Yayan Ruhian, Susan Blommaert, Randall Duk Kim, Margaret Daly
Under the Silver Lake *
A Los Angeles loser finds a mysterious woman swimming in his apartment's pool one night. The next morning, she disappears. He sets off across LA to find her, and along the way he uncovers conspiracy after conspiracy.
Fairly abrasive in its resolute unpleasantness, Mitchell’s encapsulation of the kind of morons that have polluted so much of counter culture (particularly online) is meticulously assembled and often funny. But the indulgence in interludes that underline the everyday strangeness of modern society, à la David Lynch or Jacques Rivette, becomes grating super fast. In the end, once the mystery is revealed, the film falls into the category of annoying ambiguous teases that consume much of indie cinema these days.
wd – David Robert Mitchell
ph – Mike Gioulakis
pd – Michael Perry
m – Disasterpiece
ed – Julio Perez
cos – Caroline Eselin
p – Chris Bender, Michael De Luca, Adele Romanski, Jake Weiner
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Riley Keough, Topher Grace, Jimmi Simpson, Riki Lindhome, Zosia Mamet, Callie Hernandez, Patrick Fischler, Don McManus, Summer Bishil, Luke Baines, Grace Van Patten, Jeremy Bobb
All is True *
A look at the final days in the life of playwright William Shakespeare.
Another one of Branagh’s anachronistic dives into little known factoids of his favourite period with his favourite participants; mostly dull.
d – Kenneth Branagh
w – Ben Elton
ph – Zac Nicholson
pd – James Merifield
m – Patrick Doyle
ed – Úna Ní Dhonghaíle
cos – Michael O’Connor
p – Kenneth Branagh, Ted Gagliano, Tamar Thomas
Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Kathryn Wilder, Jack Colgrave Hirst, Matt Jessup, Lydia Wilson
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