Under The Shadow

What do you do when the people outside are worse than the horror inside the house?

Moonlight

2016 - Directed by Barry Jenkins.  Written by Barry Jenkins based on the play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by Tarell Alvin McCraney.  Starring Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, Travante Rhodes, Janelle Monáe, Naomie Harris and Mahershala Ali

★★★★★

Sometimes,  a movie just works from beginning to end and when you search for something, anything to criticize it starts coming down to "oh hey, I'd have liked more of this one thing."  Such is Moonlight, the story of a young boy in Miami searching for his identity in three separate phases of his life.  We first meet him around ten, called Little, as he's dealing with a mother sort of keeping it together as a nurse who also has a crack habit and also dealing with bullies chasing him from school.  It's the sort of thing where you can tell this has been going on for a while and could be going on for quite a while more.

Swiss Army Man

Swiss Army Man (2016) - Directed and written by Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan.  Starring Paul Dano, Daniel Radcliffe and Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

★★★★ 1/2

What seems at first almost an odd excuse for farting corpse jokes becomes something much deeper and stranger and sad, but with a weird joy to it. This could have been a disaster in execution but instead builds into something wonderful and strange.

Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids

Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids (2016) - Directed by Jonathan Demme.

★★★★

I'm really not sure what I have to say about this.  It's massively entertaining, Demme remains probably the best concert documentarian alive and Justin Timberlake comes across as one of the hardest-working entertainers you'd ever want to meet.

Don't Breathe

Don't Breathe (2016) - Directed by Fede Alvarez.  Written by Fede Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues.  Starring Jane Levy and Stephen Lang

★★★★

I can't decide if this home invasion thriller turned on it's ear has one twist too many or just enough, but either way it's almost sickeningly effective with it's turns of events.  To say anything more about the plot than Jane Levy plays a young woman in Detroit who goes to invade the home of a blind veteran (an excellent Stephen Lang) and then things spiral out of control would be to reveal too much.  Suffice to say that if Fede Alvarez and Jane Levy, who previously collaborated on the far-better-than-we-deserved remake of Evil Dead in 2013, want to keep on making movies together than I'm completely on board for that.

Incidentally, this is the third Detroit-based horror film I can think of in recent years after Only Lovers Left Alive and It Follows. That's an interesting mini-trend.

Anthropoid

Anthropoid (2016) - Directed by Sean Ellis.  Written by Sean Ellis and Anthony Frewin.  Starring Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan.

★★★

An interesting if not entirely effective historical drama based around the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Nazi forces in Czechoslovakia in 1942.  There are a lot of things to like in this, such as the performances of Dornan and Murphy, but it feels stretched out at 2 hours with what feels like a really tacked-on romance plot for Murphy's role, Jozef Gabčík.  Worth seeing, but not something that is essential to seek out.  You could always just read the excellent Laurent Binet novel HHHh about the assassination and the aftermath instead.

Eye In The Sky

Eye In The Sky (2016) - Directed by Gavin Hood.  Written by Guy Hibbert.  Starring Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman, Phoebe Fox and Barkhad Abdi.

★★★★ 1/2

An excellent and affecting look at drone warfare usage and the collateral costs, and the ethical and legal calculations that go into such strikes.  Helen Mirren stars as a British Colonel on the path of a Islamic militant responsible for several suicide bombings and is working with Kenyan intelligence, including an agent played by Captain Phillips star Barkhad Abdi, her own superiors, such as a General played by Alan Rickman in his last performance and the US drone pilots played by Aaron Paul and Phoebe Fox.

Tale Of Tales (2016)

Tale Of Tales (2016) - Directed by Matteo Garrone.  Screenplay by Edoardo Albinati, Ugo Chiti, Matteo Garrone and Massimo Gaudioso

★★★ 1/2

It never quite makes the leap to greatness, but there is a lot to love in these interwoven adaptations of three old Italian fairy tales. Lush and sad, it's worth checking out if you like fairy tale adaptations that don't indulge in feeling the need to update them without a reason.