Focus on Film & Television Reviews and writings about these subjects. As well as Pop Culture at times. With a bit of an edge and some color
Written & Directed By: Ben Young
Cinematography By: Michael McDermot
Editor: Merlin Cornish
Cast: Emma Booth, Ashleigh Cummings, Stephen Curry, Susie Porter, Harrison Gilbertstone, Damian De Montemas
Vicki Maloney is randomly abducted from a suburban street by a disturbed couple. As she observes the dynamic between her captors she quickly realises she must drive a wedge between them if she is to survive.
Directed By: Fede Alvarez
Written By: Fede Alvarez, Steven Knight & Jay Basu
Based On The Novel By: David Lagercrantz
Based On Characters Created & Introduced on the Millenium Trilogy By: Stieg Larsson
Cinematography: Pedro Luque Briozzo
Editor: Tatiana S. Riegel
Cast: Claire Foy, Lakeith Stansfield, Sylvia Hoeks, Sverrir Gudnason, Stephen Merchant, Cameron Britton
Young computer hacker Lisbeth Salander and journalist Mikael Blomkvist find themselves caught in a web of spies, cybercriminals and corrupt government officials.
Story By & Directed By: Rossano Brazzi
Written By: Rossano Brazzi, Diana Crispo, Renato Polselli & Piero Regnoli
Cinematography: Luciano Trasatti
Editor: Amedeo Giomini
Cast: Adrienne LaRussa, Rossano Brazzi, Nino Castelnuovo, Paola Pitagora, Alberto De Mendoza, Idelma Carlo
Mario consigns his girlfriend Licia to a whorehouse for an evening in order to get the photographic goods to blackmail her father with. To get her out of the way, Licia is then consigned to a mental hospital by her father.
Written & Directed By: Drew Goddard
Cinematography By: Seamus McGarvey
Editor: Lisa Lassek
Cast: Jon Hamm, Dakota Johnson, Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Chris Hemsworth, Nick Offerman, Jim O’Heir, Lewis Pullman, Xavier Dolan, Shea Whigham
Circa 1969, several strangers, most with a secret to bury, meet by chance at Lake Tahoe’s El Royale, a rundown hotel with a dark past. Over the course of one night, everyone will show their true colors – before everything goes to hell.
Written & Directed By: Brian Taylor
Cinematography By: Daniel Pearl
Editor: Rose Corr & Fernando Villena
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Selma Blair, Anne Winters, Zackary Arthur, Lance Henriksen, Joseph D. Reitman, Robert Cunningham, Olivia Crocicchia
There’s definitely something terrible going on in the peaceful suburban community, as, one after the other, otherwise loving and caring parents mysteriously turn into ravenous carriers of an unfathomable pandemic that targets their offspring. Suddenly, every son and daughter–not only in the neighbourhood but also in the entire regionhave to run for their lives, as the rage-filled murderous intent is simply as unstoppable as it is inexplicable. Of course, Brent and Kendall’s teenage children are no exception, and before long, the simmering but usual familial tensions will take a completely different meaning. Kids, stop hiding. Mum and Dad love you so much.
Written & Directed By: John Michael McDonagh
Cinematography By: Bobby Bukowski
Editor: Chris Gill
Cast: Alexander Skarsgard, Michael Pena, Theo James, Malcom Barrett, Tessa Thompson, Caleb Landry Jones, Paul Resier, Stephanie Sigman , Keith Jardine, David Wilmot
Two corrupt cops set out to blackmail and frame every criminal unfortunate enough to cross their path. Events, however, are complicated by the arrival of someone who appears to be even more dangerous than they are.
Written & Directed By: Gaspar Noe
Cinematography: Benoit Debie
Editor: Denis Bedlow & Gaspar Noe
Cast: Sofia Boutella, Sarah Belala, Romain Guillermic, Souhelia Yacoub
In the mid 90’s 20 French dancers gather in a remote, empty school building to rehearse on a wintry night. The all-night celebration morphs into a hallucinatory nightmare when they learn their sangria is laced with LSD. Quickly, the atmosphere becomes charged and a strange madness will seize them the whole night. If it seems obvious to them that they have been drugged, they neither know by who nor why. And it’s soon impossible for them to resist to their neuroses and psychoses, numbed by the hypnotic and the increasing electric rhythm of the music. While some feel in paradise, most of them plunge into hell.
Directed By: Robert Vornkahl
Written By: Andrew Beguin
Cinematography: Brian C. Harnick
Editor: Mike Api & Robert Vornkahl
Cast: Tequan Richmond, Jenna Boyd, Christina Scherer, Ashlie Atkinson, Richard Riehle, Seth Kirschner
David is fleeing from a murder, a pair of deadly con-men, and is inadvertently toting a bag full of crystal meth and cash with him. On the run, he ends up in a small, frozen, nowhere town in the heart of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Directed By: Denis Villeneuve
Written By: Javier Gullon
Based On The Book By: Jose Saramago
Cinematography By: Nicolas Buldoc
Editor: Matthew Hannam
Cast: Jake Gylenhaal, Sarah Gondon, Melanie Laurent, Isabella Rossellini, Joshua Pearce
A man seeks out his exact look-alike after spotting him in a movie.
Directed By: Tyler Shields
Written By: Adam Prince
Story By: Johnny Silver, Alejandro Seri & Stephen Scarlata
Cinematography By: Gregory Middleton
Editor: Naomi Geraghty
Cast: Abigail Breslin, Wes Bentley, Alexander Ludwig, Logan Huffman, Cameron Bright, Reece Thompson, Emma Paetz, Francesca Eastwood
Loner Veronica is new to school, shy and vulnerable, the perfect target for a group of teenage boys who lure girls into the woods to hunt and kill them for sport. Little do they know, Veronica is an assassin-in-training, and she’s chosen killing these boys as her final test. The term, “Final Girl”, comes out of a trend in early slasher films where the sole survivor or the last to die was often a female.
Cut To The Chase 