Before he heads to a Galaxy far far away Adam Driver has a small matter of an indie Psychological Thriller Hungry Hearts where he'll explore a different 'dark side'. The film is set for a limited release next month IFC Films have released the official trailer reveals a father love to protect his child from his wife's paranoia.
Hungry Hearts tales the story of New York City newlyweds Jude (Adam Driver) and Mina (I Am Love's Alba Rohrwacher) have a seemingly perfect relationship. But things take an unsettling turn with the birth of their son. Convinced that the baby must be kept free of all contaminants, Mina develops fanatical obsessions with veganism, cleanliness, and purity that may kill the child unless Jude can stop her. With stunning performances from Driver and Rohrwacher, this intense psychological drama suggests that sometimes a parent’s love can be the scariest thing of all.
Since it's world premiere at Toronto Film Festival last year the film has been getting some good reviews that good luck followed it to London too. Whilst some are promoting this as a romantic drama however it's more a thriller with dark and sinister undertones, them been the mental health of Rohrwacher's character. It's good to see a film underline the awareness of first time mums and how sometimes under the joy of been a mother for first times we forget the question "how are you mum?".
Hungry Hearts gets an US 5th June limited/VOD release, co-starring Jake Weber, Roberta Maxwell, and David Aaron Baker.
Genre:
Thriller Screened:
Dead By Dawn 2015 Rating:15 Director:
Nini Bull Robsahm Cast:
Pia Tjelta, Christian Rubeck Amnesia, the second directing credit from Norwegian filmmaker Nini Bull Robsahm, is a slow but often jolting consideration of domestic abuse. A couple travel to their beautiful remote island getaway for a week of writing and romance. Both are authors, but Kathrine (Pia Tjelta) is perfecting her first novel in the hope she can become as successful as her domineering partner, Thomas (Christian Rubeck). After a fight leaves Thomas with serious memory loss, Katherine jumps on the opportunity to live with the man she really loves.
It’s a great idea for a horror film, but Robsahm seems ultra-cautious of letting her film become just that. Placid colouring and wide shots take a dark seedy story and try to pull its trousers up. If this had been grimier, it could have been a Nordic exploitation film, instead, its an emotionally troubling but visually dull attempt at reconciling with the aggressive male superego. Even with a run time of 80 minutes, Amnesia feels tired and somewhat irritating by its finale: a lack of drive in any real direction keeps the film from ever really impressing or- worse- finishing comfortably. But then that is, perhaps, the point: dreamy fatigued visuals project the purgatory of Kathrine’s constant struggle, whilst the lack of catharsis seems oddly fitting in a film plagued by disastrous moments of aggression.
Though brutally realistic and unrelenting in its studied portrait of abuse, Amnesia seems content to show us high-tension confrontations, but skimps on much of the between-space. Considering the film covers a week, and it’s a pretty interesting week, Amnesia can be identified by its long stretches of nothing before its few staunch moments of anguish. Though, Rubeck makes a terrifying psychopath, an amalgam of nightmarish men; controlling, cold, fierce, and, arguably worst, entitled. His performance consistently punches out from the drabness to keep the film on course.
Sadly, Amnesia is rarely gripping and infuriatingly anti-cathartic. It is however, a sincere look at what people really are and what we would like them to be.
Genre:
Thriller Screened:
2015 Glasgow Film Festival
Film 4 Frightfest Glasgow Rating: 18 Director:
April Mullen Cast:
Katharine Isabelle, Christopher Lloyd, Tim Doiron, Michael Ironside
A young woman (Katharine Isabelle) wakes up in a diner with no idea who or where she is and after finding a gun in her backpack, she staggers from hint to hint in order to track down and kill the man who killed her lover. It’s a great idea and it looks fresh too, but April Mullen’s 88 is a complicated feature.
Unlike Stuart Simpson’s garage femsploitation trip Monstro!, 88 doesn’t give itself fully to silly ideas and pulpy lineage. Mullen appears wary of what outright camp can do to audience involvement in a solid story, but isn’t sure how far to push it. The story starts off pretty perfectly, nuanced and intriguing, Isabelle props the film up on her startlingly honest performance before switching to badass and hooking us in for a good time. Only, as the film starts to bend over backwards to accommodate its convoluted path, it becomes increasingly confusing.
Isabelle grabs our attention and wrestles it into a firm headlock, her slinky femme fatale pissing a path through supermarkets, shooting her way through bowling alleys, and generally giving us more bang for our buck than we could ever have asked for. Christopher Lloyd seems somewhat out of place as possessive pimp Cyrus, never going for hammy, instead meeting Isabelle halfway for oddly touching character drama. 88 scribe Tim Doiron pops up as sidekick Ty but his zany dialogue and irritating performance are a surplus woe, adding unrequired childishness to an already silly film. Michael Ironside appears up for a fantastic wee turn as a sympathetic cop and one can’t help but feel his storyline, and potential further involvement, could have been more interesting than the chosen path.
88 has frankly mad use of flashback that won’t be for everyone, but at its heart there’s a fun tale of revenge and memory loss fronted by an impressive scream queen. There’s something being held back in the punch, something that could have made things a little more solid, but Mullen’s road movie is still a blast.
Genre:
Drama, Mystery, Thriller Screened:
Glagow Film Festival Rating: 15 Director:
Dave Boyle Cast:
Ayako Fujitani, Pepe Serna, Kazuki Kitamura,
One night, after hitting an unidentified Japanese man with his car, Sherriff Del Moral (Pepe Serna) stumbles on a mysterious case that leads him to San Francisco. There, author Aki Akahori (Ayako Fujitani) has fled Tokyo and after enjoying a brief fling with a mysterious stranger, is thrust into the very same case. Dave Boyle’s Man from Reno keeps threatening to be a dark (at least consistently serious) film pulling on film noir inspirations and pulp paperback detective stories, but it never quite gets there.
The humour is off, sometimes far too dry, others far too silly, considering the story, but then, there’s another issue. The story, in attempts to achieve the kind of ludicrous twisting narrative of the noir thriller, loses itself too many times. It delves in deeper and deeper but doesn’t manage to drag us with any great zeal. Though, one of the most interesting things about Man from Reno is its array of zany multinational characters who, though sometimes jarring, are often enjoyable. Unfortunately its array of strange characters are left in a pile somewhere out of sight, its story hopelessly convoluted and confused by too many characters and not enough intrigue. There is some success in Kazuki Kitamura’s portrayal of a handsome stranger and Serna’s wily old cop, but even when those two characters eventually meet, it’s unfortunately underwhelming.
The humour along with the mix of genre templates is surprisingly uninvolving. The darker streaks work best when married with a significant amount of mystery, but the humour inevitably sinks the boat. Del Moral’s investigation really pulls you in, but is thrown overboard by a middling and distracted story of author melodrama. This is a mixed pot that’s trying far too hard to achieve a type of story usually marked by shameless nonchalance.
Moments of gorgeous noir cinematography are few and far between in the glorified melodrama of Man from Reno. Viewers will be split by which side of the plot they enjoy more, but as a whole this isnt quite there.
Genre:
Thriller Distributor:
Studio Canal Rating: 12 Director:
Morten Tyldum Cast:
Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Mark Strong, Matthew Goode Release: 9th March 2015 Buy:The Imitation Game [Blu-ray] The Imitation Game, as everyone probably knows at this point, is about Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) who was one of the radical figures in the creation of what we now know as the computer. He was also homosexual, and was convicted by the police as a result. Due to being forced to undertake chemical castration, he later committed suicide. The film was an early front runner for the Academy Awards and ended up being triumphant in the adapted screenplay category.
In The Imitation Game, Benedict Cumberbatch has never been better; he perfectly captures a driven man who has ideas too large for his time. He also manages to capture the paranoia Turing suffers after the war, specifically in the scenes where he is interrogated, which eventually leads to his downfall. Keira Knightley plays Joan Clarke who was one of the code breakers but had to operate in secret because of the sexism of the time. The rest of the cast is full of solid British actors like Mark Strong and Matthew Goode.
The production design is top notch by Maria Djurkovic who also did Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (which also shared some of the same cast). Both have an attention to period detail that is sorely lacking in many films. Oscar Faura shot it and he has been doing beautiful work for a long with films like The Orphanage and The Machinist and this no exception. Finally the director Morten Tyldum solidly puts it all together, even if at times it seems as though it’s begging for an Academy Award.
The film works on many levels; it’s firstly a nail-biting thriller that is gripping from the moment it starts to it’s sad climax, but it also works as a solid war film that shows the behind the scenes of what really won the war. Not only that, but it also works as a depiction of a time when being yourself could lead to prison, or in the case of Turing, even worse. The film is actually surprisingly funny throughout which is surprising given the subject matter, but Turing's interactions with high officials and his team of code breakers are laugh out loud funny as times. The Imitation Game is one of the better British films to be released in 2014, in a year where there were a surprising amount of British films up for the major awards in the US.
The Blu-ray release includes 3 features including 2 on the true history of the story, and finally the more standard making of.
When it comes to horror flicks these day the psychological thriller-horrors are the ones that seem to deliver the everlasting memories.The Babadook is one certain film another is a film that arrived on the festival circuit in 2013 Enter The Dangerous Mind (then called Snap) has a new trailer check it out
EDM for short made its name at SXSW back in 2013 and those fortunate to see it then have stated it's left a impact on them , be it the nastiness of the film or the great use of the film's soundtrack as an extra level of tension. These are attributes tick the boxes for horror fans, it's not The Babadook but it does sound it uses some of the same checklist to deliver us all the scares.
Enter The Dangerous Mind tells the tale of a troubled musician/composer Jim (Jake Hoffman) whose past has been nothing but trouble and is struggling with his grip on reality. When he thinks he has a shot of happiness when he meets Wenday (Nikki Reed) those long buried memories decide to surface forcing him on a deep violent abyss when crushes become obsession.
No word on a UK release, if anything this could sneek onto a direct to DVD release later this year possibly next, but for U.S its 6th February limited theatrical release as well as a VOD release. The film also stars Scott Bakula, Thomas Dekker, Gina Rodriguez and Jason Priestly.
Synopsis
Enter the mind of Jim (Jake Hoffman) – a socially awkward EDM musician with a traumatic past, a tenuous grip on reality, and voices in his head. When he meets Wendy (Nikki Reed), he thinks he might finally have a shot at happiness. But as long-buried memories begin to stir, and his crush turns into obsession, Jim finds himself looking into a violent abyss… and he won’t be going alone. Pulsating with raw energy and an intense electronic soundtrack, Enter the Dangerous Mind is a pitch-black psychological thriller that doesn’t let off the gas for a second as it twists to its shocking conclusion.
Genre:
Comedy-thriller Distributor:
Network Release Date:
19th January 2015 Rating: U Director:
Alfred Hitchcock Cast: Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas, Dame May Whitty Buy: Blu-ray The Lady Vanishes Genre:
Thriller Distributor:
Network Release Date:
19th January 2015 Rating: U Director:
Alfred Hitchcock Cast: Nova Pilbeam, Derrick De Marney Buy: Blu-ray - Young and Innocent
Network are releasing 2 of Hitchcock’s early British films on Blu-ray this week: The Lady Vanishes and Young & Innocent. Both of the films show that Hitchcock’s style and technique was fully formed years before he left to go to Hollywood to make his masterpieces like Vertigo, The Wrong Man, Psycho and Rear Window.
The Lady Vanishes is the more well known of the two and is often considered the high water of his British films, with only The 39 Steps topping it. It was also his penultimate film in Britain before he left for the glitzy heights of Hollywood; his last was Jamaica Inn, which is considered one of his very worst. A young woman is travelling by train and meets an elderly lady, but she soon mysteriously disappears. The rest of the train passengers deny the existence of the old lady, but a young musicologist helps the woman, and together they search the train for clues and for the whereabouts of the mysterious woman.
The film is equally as much a film by Hitchcock as it is a film written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder who seemed like the perfect match for Hitchcock’s perverse sense of humour. However, they never worked together again, except for some re-writes on Jamaica Inn. The film is one of Hitch’s most overtly comedic (of course, all of his films have his trademark humour) and the script is just one great line after another, giving it an almost screwball comedy feel at times. It’s also full of concise shots and storytelling, which is expected from the Master of Suspense.
Young & Innocent is the more overtly Hitchcockian film of the two in the classical sense. It’s about a man who is believed to be guilty of the murder of a young woman; it’s the classic wrong man scenario, which many of Hitchcock’s best films follow. This one is not one of his best but it has many virtues.
It’s a very quick paced film. At only 83 minutes or so, it’s a perfect example of Hitchcock's theory of a film’s length, “The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.” The same can be said for The Lady Vanishes as well, however sadly in some of his later films in the 60s he didn’t follow his own rule. Young & Innocent is a solid populist thriller that shows a master filmmaker early on, yet clearly his focus and cinematic technique are already there, and much of his themes are on full show. Even his first film has a scene of characteristic Hitchcockian voyeurism.
Both discs boast hi-def transfers and look as good as they can due to their age. Both films include introductions by Charles Barr and image based extras. Young & Innocent however has the upper hand in the features department, featuring a 25 minutes documentary on Hitchcock’s British career.
