Trailer Talk: Part IV

In an entry in this sporadic series I round up the trailers for some of this autumn’s most anticipated films.

Bad Times at the El Royale

Buffy the Vampire Slayer great Drew Goddard returns to the director’s chair, and he brings his Cabin in the Woods star Chris Hemsworth with him for what looks a lot like a glorious cameo as the villain. I fear the trailer may give away a bit too much regarding the nefarious folk that hang out at the El Royale and the bad times that go down there, but Goddard has an undeniable flair for comedy and has assembled a terrific cast of newcomers and established stars. There are echoes of The Cabin in the Woods in the notion that characters who think they’re doing their own thing are being watched and manipulated by a mysterious management. It’s also hard not to wonder if Hemsworth might be playing a Charles Manson type, given the setting, and that Manson seems to be in the air in Hollywood as the 50^th anniversary of the Helter Skelter massacre approaches. Let us see what mixture of comedy and gory bombastic deeds Goddard has produced.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web

Rooney Mara does not return. Claire Foy is now Lisbeth Salander. David Fincher also does not return. Fede Alvarez is now David Fincher (sic). And, stunningly, Stieg Larsson does not return. Fede Alvarez and others are now writing for him. So, 2 films in and this has turned into the James Bond juggernaut; where the creatives are easily replaceable and only the original author’s title or some riff on it survives the adaptation process. I had always wondered how they would solve the problem of the supervillain Niedermann that Larsson unwisely introduced into his later novels; a man part Hulk and part Wolverine inserted in a previously grimly realistic universe. Little did I suspect the solution would be throwing away those two novels… Alvarez and Foy are both great, but the firing of Mara and Fincher to make way for them leaves a sour taste that may be impossible to overcome; especially as the Salander as avenging angel motif is clumsily played up so astonishingly literally in this trailer.

Under the Silver Lake

And David Robert Mitchell is cutting his film, after a brutal reaction at Cannes. Nobody should ever do anything based on brutal reaction at Cannes. Nobody should do anything based on reaction at Cannes. The worst films get lauded and the best films get crucified in that unnatural atmosphere, and the world is the poorer for it when this forces changes. Let’s not forget people at Cannes booed The Neon Demon.

Top 10 Films of 2016

(10) Arrival

Time is not linear,

how we speak is how we think,

says hard sci-fi.

(9) Maggie’s Plan

A Miller screwball comedy,

Gerwig plays all,

save Slavoj Zizek.

(8) The Daughter

Ibsen but not Ibsen,

secrets and lies in Oz,

sins of the past bite.

(7) Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Majestical Taika Waititi,

makes smart sight gags,

and smarter lines.

(6) Look Who’s Back

Borat with Hitler,

painting in Bayreuth,

and a bit with a dog too.

(5) The Neon Demon

Refn the garish provocateur,

subverts Keanu,

bloodies glitter.

(4) Queen of Earth

Two women by the lake,

one loses her mind,

the other doesn’t mind.

(3) Deadpool

Take usual plot,

discuss usual plot in the plot,

a dead shot.

(2) The Nice Guys

Laurel and Hardy fight crime,

Laurel’s daughter the brains,

but not Waltons.

(1) High-Rise

Tower block descends into anarchy,

the residents…

kind of like it.

The Father

The Gate Theatre’s contribution to the Dublin Theatre Festival was the Irish premiere of Florian Zeller’s acclaimed play, in a spare translation by Christopher Hampton.

4/5

The Neon Demon

Nicolas Winding Refn returns with another artful garish provocation that elicited boos at Cannes. He must be doing something right.

Fresh-faced teenager Jesse (Elle Fanning) arrives in LA with dreams of modelling. She impresses agency head Roberta (Christina Hendricks), even though her photos do not; so much for would-be boyfriend/photographer Dean (Karl Glusman) hitching his wagon to her rising star. Roberta pushes her towards legendary photographer Jack MacArthur (Des Harrington) who is immediately wowed by her innocent looks and shoots her. His instant interest is shared by make-up artist Ruby (Jena Malone), who introduces Jesse to her sharp-tongued model friends Gigi (Bella Heathcote) and Sarah (Abbey Lee). But when Alessandro Nivola’s designer is also entranced, leading to successive humiliations for Gigi and Sarah in favour of Jesse, their claws come out. And Jesse, after a trippy catwalk experience, finds herself isolated when events in the worst motel in Pasadena take a sinister turn courtesy of creepy manager Hank (Keanu Reeves).

Refn got a kicking for Only God Forgives that would’ve broken many directors, but, very impressively, The Neon Demon is made with supreme confidence, and with absolutely no apologies – even signed NWR as a statement of artistic singularity. Whereas Only God Forgives gestured towards total abstraction there is a semblance of story here, but, even though he collaborated with playwrights Mary Laws & Polly Stenham on dialogue, it’s in the ha’penny place to the visuals. And the visuals work because Refn knows Cliff Martinez can provide a synthesiser score of wide range that can interpret images: in particular Jesse’s catwalk encounter with a blue pyramid, water, and a red pyramid, which tips its hat to 2001’s Jupiter sequence, and seems to imply that Jesse has communed with the Platonic Ideal of beauty and is thereafter a different and blessed person.

Martinez’s score is quite haunting and beautiful in its ethereal approximation of the timbres of marimba and celeste, but it also embraces great Vangelis Blade Runner washes of synth, as well as juddering techno, contrapuntal melodies, and, for a climactic syncopated cue, almost wah-wah guitar effects. Reeves plays terrifically against type, and his enjoyment is mirrored by Refn mischievously cutting from his introduction to a huge white space where one character initiates another. The Rover cinematographer Natasha Braier observes the scantily-clad models with Kubrickian detachment, complementing a startling scene where Jesse appears faced with sexual assault but is treated as an objet d’art, not human but a personification of beauty. Early on, regarding lipstick names, Jesse is asked “Are you sex or are you food?” Refn seems to imply Jesse as embodiment of beauty can be anything, except a person.

This is more accessible than Only God Forgives, but there will still be walkouts, because this is unapologetically an NWR film: which means mesmeric pacing, semi-abstracted visuals, a foregrounding of music, and outré violence.

4/5

IFI Open Day 2016

The IFI is holding its annual Open Day on Saturday July 2^nd with an expanded line-up of free movies running from 1pm to near 1am. As well as free movies, and the customary barbecue in the courtyard and special discount on annual IFI membership, there are a number of tours.

In addition to the previews, old favourites, and sheer oddities, there are chances to lift the curtain and see the wizard, with talks from the IFI Archive staff and tours of the Projection Booth. The ‘Ask an Archivist’ desk in the foyer will give visitors the opportunity to learn about different film stocks, and even view and handle film yourself. The Tiernan McBride library will host members of the Archive team charged with preserving Ireland’s cinematic heritage giving talks about some of the projects they’re currently working on. Projection tours can be booked in advance to go behind the little window of flickering light, and check out the busy working of the specialised department; handling anything from digital, to 16mm and 35mm, up to 70mm – the IFI being the only cinema in the country that can run 70mm reels. The tours at 14.00, 15.00, 16.30, and 17.00 have limited places, which can be booked at scorrigan@irishfilm.ie. Give yourself an unfair advantage in the ‘Fiver a Foot’ competition in which you can win Premiere Friend membership for a year by correctly guessing the length of film in a film can. And as always IFI Membership will be available at a discounted rate for the Open Day and there’s a BBQ on the terrace from 16.00 onwards.

But what are the free movies? Well, here is your guide to the 14 films being shown in Temple Bar.

Film 1

White Heat (13.00)

“Made it, Ma! Top of the world!!”, and all that… Gangster No 1 James Cagney is Cody Jarrett, a deranged mobster who’s unnervingly close to his mother. Directed by Raoul Walsh, who previously worked with Cagney on The Roaring Twenties, this is a B-movie classic. Walsh mashes up prison breaks, gangster power struggles, and film noir blurring of lines as an undercover agent befriends the unwitting Jarrett.

Amateur (13.30)

Indie auteur Hal Hartley’s 1994 effort follows ex-nun Isabelle, taking time out from her disreputable profession to help amnesiac Thomas piece together his forgotten life. Hartley wrote the role for Isabelle Huppert after she sent a letter begging for a part in his next film. His regular leading man Martin Donovan plays the nice guy whose head injury, we gradually realise, may have been a most happy accident.

Play On! (14.00)

The Open Day proclaimeth Shakespeare Lives! In 1899 an upcoming production of King John filmed scenes to produce the first Shakespearean film, and arguably the film world’s first trailer; before there were even proper film features to trail. Early silent film-makers pillaged the Bard for prestige purposes, so here are 24 scenes of silent Shakespeare scenarios, including a 1924 Romeo & Juliet featuring John Gielgud’s screen debut.

 

Film 2

Sweet Smell of Success (15.30)

“The cat’s in the bag, and the bag is in the river.” Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman’s quotable and seedy screenplay finds malicious gossip columnist JJ Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) finally pushing fawning press man Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) to his moral breaking point. Despite James Wong Howe’s innovative cinematography and Elmer Bernstein’s downbeat jazz, its disastrous 1957 reception effectively forced director Alexander Mackendrick into academia.

Disco Pigs (15.45)

Kirsten Sheridan made her feature debut in 2001 with the first of only two Enda Walsh plays to make it to the big screen. Cillian Murphy originated the part of Pig in 1996 and reprises it alongside Elaine Cassidy as Runt. Inseparable friends with their own private language, much compared to Anthony Burgess’ nadsat, their innocence is threatened by Pig’s growing appetite for destruction and sexual pleasures.

El Clan (16.00)

White Elephant director Palbo Trapero returns with a thriller based on improbable true events. The Galtieri regime has been swept aside in 1980s Argentina, and spook Arquimedes Puccio (The Secret in their Eyes’ Guillermo Francella) develops a new line of work with the help of his son Alejandro (Peter Lanzani): kidnapping. This tale of a low-key but distinctly psychopathic crime family won the Silver Lion at Venice.

 

Film 3

King Kong (17.45)

Merian C Cooper’s beloved pulp classic from the pen of Edgar Wallace is showing on 35mm. Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) joins a film-making expedition to Skull Island in search of a mythical beast, and Skull Island does not disappoint. Peter Jackson uncharitably re-used some clunky dialogue in his remake, but the stop-motion special effects still thrill and it all builds to one of cinema’s most memorable finales.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (18.00)

Writer/director Taika Waititi (2014 Kiwi vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows) adapts Barry Crump’s novel. Surly teenager Ricky (Julian Dennison) is dispatched from the city to the depths of the countryside to live with foster father Hec (Sam Neill). When he runs away, pursued by Hec, the police misread the situation and begin a manhunt. Funny, touching, and, yes, Rhys Darby shows up.

The Virgin Spring (18.20)

Director Ingmar Bergman won his first Foreign Film Oscar for arguably the most uncharacteristic film he ever made, as this was loosely and bloodily reworked 12 years later as The Last House on the Left by Wes Craven. Ulla Isaksson based her script on a medieval source, examining Max von Sydow’s moral deterioration as he methodically violently attacks the men who raped and murdered his daughter.

 

Film 4

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (20.25)

The audience choice is regrettably Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s tale of the romantic friendship between Greg (Thomas Mann) and terminally ill Rachel (Olivia Cooke). Imagine The Fault in Our Stars meets Be Kind Rewind as directed by Wes Anderson; with cinephiles so infuriating it bears out Bret Easton Ellis’ fear of film-makers who make films based only on other films, not on lived reality.

The Neon Demon (20.40)

There may be walkouts… The inimitable Nicolas Winding Refn returns, sans Ryan Gosling, but, though there may be more dialogue than Only God Forgives, that doesn’t mean he’s changed his ways. Elle Fanning is a model arrived in LA’s fashion world whose fresh innocent beauty becomes the object of envy and desire for Bella Heathcote, Abbey Lee, and Jena Malone. Cue Cliff Martinez synths and weirdness.

Phantom of the Paradise (20.50)

Director Brian De Palma took elements from The Phantom of the Opera, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Faust, and combined them with an Oscar-nominated soundtrack for this 1974 oddity which is being reappraised. Winslow, a young musician is betrayed and has his life destroyed by unscrupulous producer Swan. When Phoenix, a beautiful new talent, arrives it spurs Winslow on to seek revenge on Swan.

Film 5

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (22.30)

Writer/director Stephan Elliot has never managed to equal the impact of his 1994 comedy-drama. Drag queens Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce journey across the Australian Outback in a bus called ‘Priscilla’ for a show at a desert resort. Weaving brings grieving transsexual Terence Stamp too as a kind deed, and so begins much bickering and some unexpected bonding with the locals.

Repo Man (22.45)

Scottish writer/director Alex Cox provided the archetypal cult classic in 1984 with his quotable and offbeat feature debut. Emilio Estevez’s bored punk Otto works with Harry Dean Stanton’s equally jaded Bud repossessing cars. But when one car has a $20,000 bounty added life suddenly gets interesting for Otto and Bud in the way that only feuding punks, scientists, aliens, government agents, and a televangelist can make it.

So, those are the films, but that’s only the beginning… For the second year in a row there are five sets of films instead of the traditional four. Trying to do four films was an endurance marathon at the best of times, but to get into five films is surely beyond anyone, and yet undoubtedly somebody will try… But they’ll have to sort out their strategy with someone else, and now for two reasons. Strategy was always important because you can, obviously, only watch one of the three films running at any given time, but also the film you choose from each set determines what films are open to you later on. Choose Play On! from the first set of films, and you make it damn near impossible to see Sweet Smell of Success from the second set of films.

And if you’re confident you can make a quick-change from The Virgin Spring to The Neon Demon just remember that you’ll have to leave one screen and join a queue for another, that nothing in Dublin has ever started on time, and that one speaker will always get carried away with their enthusiasm when lengthily introducing a film. If you’re confident you can carve a sensible cinematic path through the day, remember that some films will be unexpectedly in demand and some films will unexpectedly languish, and it is impossible to predict which category your picks will fall into. If finally, shaken by my scepticism, you retreat to a Hindenburg line that you’re confident you can guess which films will be on which screens, remember that audience choice winners Good Vibrations and Short Term 12 did not make it to Screen 1, but Submarine did. And if you will not be moved from your foolhardy confidence, remember that you may need plans B thru D cognisant of run-times and queuing.

And then there’s the second and new reason that you need to sort your strategy with a partner if you want to get into multiple films. Tickets used to be allocated, to a maximum of 4 per person, on a first come first served basis 11am on Saturday which always led to a queue forming from 9.30am onwards and snaking around on to Dame Street. Those days are over, and everyone will miss the buzz of the Open Day morning. This year for a number of reasons the ticketing system is undergoing a dramatic shake-up. Queues will now form inside the IFI itself, at a desk for each specific movie, an hour before the movie is screened – with a limit of 2 tickets per person. Obviously this makes life hard for the multiple movie devotees, because they’d have to not be watching a movie in order to queue to get a ticket to watch the next movie. The best I can think of is some sort of demented Game Theory equilibrium whereby people trade off movies they don’t mind missing to queue for someone else, in order to get tickets for something they do want in return. (If that even works outside of my fevered economics imagination) Apart from melting the minds of delusional economists who think they can outwit it, the new ticketing system should ensure that all tickets distributed will be used, with fatigue ceasing to be an issue for the early morning diehards stranded in town for the day. It will also make Open Day a bit less about crowd control and a bit more interactive, allowing the IFI to enagage with first-time visitors and regular patrons about what the IFI does in terms of festivals and programming and what the Irish Film Archive is all about.

2016: Fears

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

January 29^th sees the release of a small (a mere $50 million dollar) personal movie by an auteur, truly un film de Michel Bay. Six military contractors (including The Office’s John Krasinski, 24’s James Badge Dale, and The Unit’s Max Martini) make a desperate last stand when a US consulate in Libya is attacked on the anniversary of 9/11. Chuck Hogan (The Town, The Strain), of all people, writes for Bay to direct; with the resulting Bayhem being memorably characterised by The Intercept as Night of the Living Dead meets The Green Berets.

Zoolander 2

February 12^th sees the release of the sequel nobody was particularly asking for… It’s been 14 since Zoolander. An eternity in cinematic comedy as the Frat Pack glory days have long since yielded to the School of Apatow; itself fading of late. Seinfeld has refused reunions noting that the concept of his show becomes depressing with aged characters, but Stiller apparently has no such qualms about airhead models Derek (Ben Stiller) and Hansel (Owen Wilson) being on the catwalk. Benedict Cumberbatch, Kristen Wiig and Penelope Cruz bring new energy, but an air of desperation/cynicism hangs over this project.

 

Gods of Egypt

February 26^th sees Bek (Brenton Thwaites) forced to align with Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) when the god of darkness Set (Gerard Butler) assumes control of Egypt in a truly stupid blockbuster. But not as stupid as the reception it can look forward to after Deadline’s Ross A. Lincoln wrote “based on the statuary and monuments that have survived, not to mention thousands of years of other cultures commenting on them, they definitely weren’t white people with flowing, curly blond locks, and their gods were definitely not Europeans.” Lincoln’s argument dynamites Idris Elba’s role in Thor, which is not permissible, so logically (sic) it’s now racist to not depict the Egyptian gods as Egyptian, but it’s also racist to depict the Norse gods as Norse. If the gods of Egypt ought to look Egyptian, who, that’s bankable, can play them? Amir Arison, Mozhan Marno, Sarah Shahi, and Cliff Curtis wouldn’t merit a $140 million budget. And casting them because (barring the Maori Curtis) they hail from nearer Egypt than Gerard Butler, but are not actually Egyptian, is itself racist. Does Alex (Dark City) Proyas, who hasn’t directed anything since 2009, really deserve this firestorm for just trying to work?

Hail, Caesar!

The Coens stop writing for money and return to directing on March 4^th with a 1950s Hollywood back-lot comedy. A lighter effort than Barton Fink, this follows Josh Brolin’s fixer as he tries to negotiate the return of George Clooney’s kidnapped star from mysterious cabal ‘The Future’ with the help of fellow studio players Channing Tatum, Alden Ehrenreich, and Scarlett Johansson. The relentlessly mean-spirited Inside Llewyn Davis was a surprise aesthetic nadir after True Grit’s ebullience, so we can only hope the return of so many of their repertory players can galvanise the Coens to rediscover some warmth.

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice

Zack Snyder gave us the neck-snap heard around the world in Man of Steel. On March 25^th he continues his visionary misinterpretation of Superman, and can also ruin Batman, Wonder Woman, Lex Luthor, Alfred Pennyworth, and Doomsday. Ben Affleck and Jeremy Irons entice as Bruce and Alfred, and Affleck has undoubtedly got the script punched up by inserting his Argo scribe Chris Terrio into the mix, but Snyder is still directing. How Snyder ever got the keys to the DC cinematic kingdom is amazing, but when if he blows this he cripples The WB.

The Neon Demon

Keanu Reeves made a comeback in 2015 with John Wick and Knock Knock. But can he impart some of that momentum to Nicolas Winding Refn to help him recover from the unmerciful kicking he got for Only God Forgives? Refn is working on a third of Drive’s budget for this horror tale of Elle Fanning’s wannabe actress who moves to LA, to find her vitality drained by a coven led by Christina Hendricks. Details are very sparse, other than that it’s about ‘vicious beauty,’ but this could be intriguing, blood-spattered, gorgeous, and enigmatic, or a total fiasco…

The Avengers 3 Captain America: Civil War

Anthony and Joe Russo, the directors who gave you the worst choreographed and edited fight scenes you’d ever seen in Captain America 2, return with …more of the same, because why bother doing it better when you’ll go see it anyway? May 6^th sees Mark Millar’s comic-book event become a camouflaged Avengers movie as Robert Downey Jr and Chris Evans’ superheroes fall out over the fate of Sebastian Stan’s reformed Bucky. Expect incomprehensible fights, the occasional decent action sequence, wall to wall fake-looking CGI, and more characters than Game of Thrones meets LOST.

Snowden

The master of subtlety returns on May 12^th as Oliver Stone continues his quest to make a good movie this century. His latest attempt is a biopic of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), whose distrust of the American government should be catnip to Stone’s sensibilities. Zachary Quinto is journalist Glenn Greenwald, Shailene Woodley is Snowden’s girlfriend, and supporting players include Timothy Olyphant, Nicolas Cage, and Melissa Leo. Expect a hagiography with stylistic brio, and no qualms about whether the next large building that blows up might be on Snowden for blowing the lid on how terrorists were monitored.

X-Men: Apocalypse

Oscar Isaac is Apocalypse, the first mutant, worshipped for his godlike powers, who awakes in alt-1980 and turns Magneto (Michael Fassbender) to the dark side as one of his Four Horsemen alongside Psylocke (Olivia Munn), Storm (Alexandra Shipp), and Angel (Ben Hardy). James McAvoy loses his hair from the stress of being upstaged by the powers of Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) and the ever-increasing star-power of Jennifer Lawrence. Director Bryan Singer’s return to the X-fold in 2014 was a triumph, but rushing this out for May 27^th invites disaster; can enough time really have been spent on scripting?

Warcraft

Duncan Jones completes the Christopher Nolan career path by moving from Moon to Source Code to Warcraft. June 10^th sees Vikings main-man Travis Fimmel daub on blue face-paint as Anduin Lothar. The battle with the Orcs has an interesting cast including Ben Foster, Toby Kebbell, Paula Patton, Dominic Cooper, and the great character actors Clancy Brown and Callum Keith Rennie. But its greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. Has there ever been a truly great adaptation of a computer game to a movie? And if Warcraft’s a good movie that’s unfaithful to the game will gamers stay away?

Finding Dory

June 17^th sees another unnecessary unwanted sequel to a beloved early Zeroes film. Why exactly do we need a sequel to Finding Nemo? Besides it being a post-John Carter retreat into an animated safe space for director Andrew Stanton? Marlin (Albert Brooks) sets out to help forgetful Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) find her long-lost parents, who are voiced by Diane Keaton and Eugene Levy. Other voices include Ty Burrell as a beluga whale, Kaitlin Olson as Dory’s whale shark adopted sister, and Ed O’Neill as an ill-tempered octopus. Stanton is writing too, but can aquatic lightning really strike twice?

Star Trek Beyond

Star Trek marks its 50^th anniversary with this reboot threequel on July 8^th, but the recent trailer didn’t whet any appetites. Despite having Furious maestro Justin Lin in charge and Simon Pegg as the final writer on a script with 5 credited scribes the footage was solely notable for (a) Kirk’s bad hair (b) a vaguely Star Trek: Insurrection with gaudier colours vibe (c) forced attempts at humour. Star Trek Into Darkness was a frustrating exercise in creative cowardice, a flipped photocopy of Star Trek II. Let us hope this time originality has been actively sought out.

Ghostbusters

July 15^th sees… another reboot. Paul Feig couldn’t stow his ego and just direct Dan Aykroyd’s Ghostbusters 3 script, so… “REBOOT!”. Kate McKinnon and Kristen Wiig are great, but Feig wrote this with Katie Dippold (who penned his execrable ‘comedy’ The Heat) so it won’t be. Feig’s drivel about gender-swapping hides an obvious truth. The Ghostbusters were all male because Akyroyd and Ramis wrote for themselves, SNL pal Murray, and Eddie Murphy; when Murphy dropped out, Zeddmore’s part shrank as his jokes were redistributed. Feig’s Ghostbusters are all female to cynically reposition attacks on his creative bankruptcy as sexism.

Doctor Strange

November 4^th sees Benedict Cumberbatch swoosh his cape as Stephen Strange, (That’s Dr. Strange to you!), an arrogant surgeon taught magick by Tilda Swinton’s Ancient One. Director Scott Derrickson is perhaps hoping to mash his resume of Sinister and The Day The Earth Stood Still, especially as Sinister co-writer C Robert Cargill has polished this. Mads Mikkelsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Rachel McAdams co-star, but before we get excited, this is Marvel. Marvel took the outré world of comic-books and cinematically rendered it as predictable, conservative, self-aggrandising, boring tosh. How off the leash do you bet Derrickson will get?

The Death and Life of John F. Donovan

Kit Harington is the titular movie star who is undone when Jessica Chastain’s gossip columnist reveals his correspondence with a young girl, and an unreasoning witch-hunt begins. And it’s the first movie written and directed by Xavier Dolan in English! So, why Fears not Hopes, you ask? Because Dolan in a BBC Radio 4 interview expressed nervousness that he didn’t instinctively understand English’s nuances the way he did with French, and because with big names (Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates, Michael Gambon) comes pressure to tone down material and make a commercial breakthrough.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Didn’t you always desperately want to know the back story of that throwaway line about how brave rebels died to smuggle out the plans for the Death Star? … Whaddya mean ‘No’?!! Do you have any idea how much money Disney has on the line here?? You damn well better develop an interest by December 16^th when Oppenheimer of the Empire Mads Mikkelsen has a crisis of conscience and enlists the help of his smuggler daughter Felicity Jones. Disney paid 4 billion for the rights to Star Wars, they retrospectively own your childhood now.