Novocaine review – Jack Quaid is put through the grinder in ultraviolent action comedy

-
A man’s inability to feel pain comes in handy in this extravagantly gory bank heist caper Risk-averse San Diego assistant bank manager Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid) lives a cautious, cotton wool-wrapped life. It’s not that he’s afraid of getting hurt. Quite the opposite, since a rare genetic abnormality means he’s unable to feel pain. Rather, Nathan is concerned that because of his sensory quirk he risks inadvertently injuring himself. When the girl of his dreams, sparky fellow bank employee Sherry (Amber Midthunder), is abducted during a heist, and Nathan embarks on an off-the-cuff rescue mission, his unusual condition suddenly comes in handy. While Nathan may feel no pain, the audience certainly does: this is an amped-up, cartoonish blitzkrieg of ultraviolence and – fair warning – a bit of an endurance test if deep-fried fingers and snapped bones give you the ick. Directors Robert Olsen and Dan Berk take a sadistic glee in dreaming up extravagant horrors to inflict on their irrepressib...
Post a Comment

‘I was making a film about the trauma of an entire country’: director Alice Winocour on her movie about the 2015 Paris terror attacks

-

After her brother was caught up in the Bataclan siege, Winocour wanted to address the events that had scarred France. She explains why she focused on the aftermath, not the violence

Even from the safety of her home, the film-maker Alice Winocour’s experience of the Paris terror attacks in November 2015 was terrifying. Her younger brother, Jérémie, was hiding in a back room at the Bataclan concert hall, and forbade her from texting him in case it gave away his location. She had to wait to hear that he made it out alive. Later, he told her about a random thought he had while waiting to die: that he had left a half-eaten yoghurt open in the fridge. What would whoever found it make of his poor kitchen hygiene?

It is a touch of human absurdity that resurfaces in Paris Memories, her new film, about the 13 November attacks. Unlike the recent Jean Dujardin film November, it completely ignores religion and largely passes over the bloodshed. Instead, it joins films such as You Will Not Have My Hate and One Year, One Night to wade through the aftermath. The French title Revoir Paris gets it: starring Benedetta’s Virginie Efira as Mia, a radio translator caught in the crossfire in a cafe, the film focuses on how she reconstructs her memories of that night and with them her inner harmony, as well as that of the city of lights.

Continue reading...

from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/x7cgNMy
via IFTTT

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BREAKING: Interstellar back in cinemas due to public demand; Dune: Part Two to also re-release on March 14 in IMAX

-
A lot of Bollywood films have re-released off late but when it comes to Hollywood, a handful of classics have had a re-run in cinemas. Last month, Interstellar re-released and received a rocking response. However, it just had a one-week run. If you missed watching the cult film in cinemas, here’s a reason for you to rejoice. The film will be back on the big screen on March 14, that too in IMAX. Moreover, Warner Bros will also bring back Dune: Part Two on the same day in theatres. A source told Bollywood Hungama, “Interstellar has a huge demand as it’s a film worth watching in theatres, that too IMAX. However, it re-released on February 7 and had to discontinued from February 14 to accommodate the new releases, Chhaava and Captain America: Brand New World. Both these films got a release in IMAX as well.” The source continued, “Many were aware that Interstellar had just a one week run. Hence, it held very well in the weekdays, collecting Rs. 2 crore plus. Yet, there was a section of mo...
Read more

‘I lied to get the part’: Melvyn Hayes on his ‘angry young man’ beginnings – and It Ain’t Half Hot Mum

-
He was tipped to be the next Richard Burton – but ended up as crossdressing Gunner Gloria in the now controversial sitcom. As his breakthrough classic returns to the screen, Hayes looks back One day in 1957, Melvyn Hayes was on the set of a film called Woman in a Dressing Gown when a man sat down next to him. “I was getting paid £5 a day and I’d been on location for three days,” the actor recalls. “All I had to do was walk up to a house and put a newspaper through a letterbox. That was my part. Finished. I said to this bloke, ‘I can’t believe the waste of money on this film. Take me. You could have got a newspaper boy on £1 a day to do what I’m doing.’ Then I said, ‘What do you do then, you lazy bugger?’ And he said, ‘I’m the producer.’” Hayes, now 89, giggles at the memory of the cheek of himself at 23. Back then, £5 a day was a decent whack. His first job in showbiz, in the early 1950s, was as assistant to The Great Masoni, a magician who tasked Hayes with “disappearing twice daily...
Read more

The Portable Door review – Harry Potter-ish YA fantasy carried by hardworking cast

-
Jeffrey Walker’s adaptation of the young-adult fantasy novel retains its edge thanks to its performances, but gets stuck on the whole door thing Adapted from Tom Holt’s 2003 young-adult fantasy novel, this is a passable attempt at kickstarting a new Harry Potter-style franchise set in a fusty-quirky institution, dosed up with extra Gilliamesque grotesquery. Co-produced by the Jim Henson Company, the production design is poky and intense, and the cast – with Christoph Waltz and Sam Neill larking it up – give it their all. But amid all this clutter, it sometimes has trouble moving its story forward. The Portable Door has a nice conceit: the venerable London corporation of JW Wells & Co is responsible for engineering all the daily incidents of coincidence and serendipity that happen in urban life. Not that wet-behind-the-ears intern Paul Carpenter (Patrick Gibson), desperate for any gig, knows the company’s raison d’etre when he signs up. He appears to have no discernible talents wh...
Read more