A Grand Quiet

Sundays are for whiling away the hours in your nearest public park.

Well, that and extracting all possible content from the internet, like a techbro’s $600 juicer from proprietary juice bags.

James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is as good as the original, it just took a shape that I liked a hell of a lot more.

Well, audiences know who they are now, and they want more. That’s what Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 delivers. It’s not the Marvel show now, it’s theirs, for all the good and the ill that means. >>more>>

Mohamad Diab’s Clash is a technically accomplished, visually beautiful, politically striking version of a plot we’ve all seen before.

So, the inside of the van then both a microcosm of the political tensions that grip Egypt as a whole, and also a mobile danger vehicle, travelling between the sites of protest, bearing witness to the methods of police and protesters, the occupants trying to shield themselves from the dangers that threaten to breach the iron walls. >>more>>

Lasse Hallström’s A Dog’s Purpose is wilfully misleading about the number of cute doggos it contains.

Like, it’s supposed to be about this dog being reincarnated in order to figure out what their life’s purpose is. There’s a whole bunch of posters with extreme close ups of loads of different cute dogs, and the majority of them aren’t even in the goddamn move. Like the pug, and the pomeranian, nope, they aren’t nowhere to be seen. >>more>>

Terry George’s The Promise can be aptly described by that old Roger Ebert quote about the execution of a tragic shock attack on a unengaging love triangle.

Even Christian Bale and Oscar Isaac, two exceptionally talented performers come off stiff and uncharismatic and, despite much of the personal drama stemming for their love triangle with Charlotte Le Bon, their chemistry was so flaccid that even the sex scenes failed to be in any way erotic. >>more>>

Michael O’Shea’s The Transfiguration was always doomed by its release date.

Maybe it just came out at the wrong time in the UK. Watching The Transfiguration a couple of weeks after watching Raw was never gonna do it many favours. Two films playing around with horror movie tropes, the cannibal, the vampire, as a way to explore contemporary politics. This one is looking at the abandonment of lower class, black majority populations by a society that still, consciously or not, remains empowered by their subjugation. >>more>>

Coming up in the next week we have reviews of Katell Quillévéré’s amazing Heal the Living, alongside Baran Odar’s Sleepless and Michael Apted’s Unlocked. I’ll fill in the rest of the schedule when I have the chance.

Thanks for reading, and for want of sounding like a youtuber around three years ago; please if you enjoy my work, like, share and subscribe.

-E

The Mountain Goats Goths is coming out real soon now. Let’s all remember the beauty of Full Force Galesburg.