Reviews of some of the films I've recently seen (including Knock Knock, pictured above), in order from best to worst...
Orion:
The Man Who Would Be King
(Director:
Jeanie Finlay)
When
Elvis Presley popped his clogs in August 1977, many people refused to believe
the King had really gone. Stepping into the breach soon after came Orion, a
mysterious Presley 'lookalike’ in a mask, who, whilst an eerie dead ringer for
the King voice-wise, was substantially younger and much taller. It didn’t stop
Elvis fans clamouring to see him and some even to believe he was the legend “reborn”.
Orion performed concerts and released LPs (ironically enough through Sun
Records) and, for a time at least, seemed to successfully exploit his manufactured
association with the star’s history and music. As British director Jeanie
Finlay’s fascinating and ultimately heartbreaking documentary reveals, though,
there was a lot more to the story than that of a cynical chancer exploiting gullible
people’s affection for a dead star. In fact, this is ultimately a very
sympathetic portrait of a man – real name Jimmy Ellis – who wanted fame so
desperately he allowed himself to be manipulated into an entirely bizarre
situation that soon felt more like a prison than a music career. Fame chewing
up and spitting out the unwary is a tale as old as the hills but one rarely
told as effectively as it is here.
Rating:
WWWW
Orion: The Man Who Would Be King is available now on Curzon Home Cinema
The
Nightmare
(Director: Rodney
Ascher)
This is
a fascinating and disturbing documentary exploring sleep paralysis, a medical ailment
whose many sufferers are plagued by horrifying night-time visions and
hallucinations. Director Ascher – who himself has the condition – talks to
eight different sufferers and, using actors and special effects, recreates the
sometimes disturbing, often downright terrifying, images and scenarios that
await them when asleep. Some feel the condition’s effects so keenly they have –
perhaps foolishly – eschewed medical explanations and treatment, believing
sleep paralysis is supernatural in nature. Spending time with the people
interviewed you quickly realise the deleterious impact the disorder has had on
their lives, and how exhausting and dispiriting it must be to, literally, fear
sleep. In the film’s most unsettling scenes, Ascher and one of his subjects
illustrate how the condition could be an explanation for ‘alien abduction’
stories, making particular reference to the famous Whitley Strieber case. Rather
cleverly, the director also shows how sleep paralysis sufferers have utilised
the condition in their art; from John Henry Fuseli’s painting The Nightmare to
Wes Craven’s horror film classic A Nightmare On Elm Street.
Rating:
WWW
The Nightmare is available now on Curzon Home Cinema
The Nightmare is available now on Curzon Home Cinema
The Lobster
(Director: Yorgos Lanthimos)
Greek filmmaker Lanthimos is responsible for the beguilingly bizarre Dogtooth, one of my favourite films of the last 10 years and this – his first English-language picture – starts in the same impressive vein. Set in a surreal near-future world where single people must find a mate in 45 days or face being turned into an animal of their choice, our story focuses on Colin Farrell’s newly-divorced David. He’s booked into a posh country hotel and forced to mix with other singles, breaking off only to help hunt the pack of wild loners, who live in the woods, with a tranquiliser gun. The first hour is blisteringly good – a laugh-out-loud funny and excoriating satire on the enormous pressures society brings to bear on single people to find a mate and the sanctions imposed upon those who don’t (for Lanthimos, they are made, quite literally, less than human). The second half, in which the director has to engage with something approaching an actual plot, isn’t nearly as successful as Farrell escapes into the forest and hooks up with the loners, including Rachel Weisz (a short-sighted woman with whom he falls in love) and their no-nonsense leader Léa Seydoux. The satire is still there – especially when you realise these militant singletons have as many rules and regulations as the people from whose clutches Farrell has just slipped – but it doesn’t quite hit as hard or as effectively as it does earlier on. Ultimately, then, The Lobster is a frustrating experience, although Lanthimos deserves great credit for assembling such a terrific cast (which also includes Olivia Colman, John C Reilly, Ben Whishaw, Ariane Labed and Ashley Jensen) and creating a film quite unlike anything else I’ve seen all year.
Rating: WWW
The Lobster is in cinemas now
Knock
Knock
(Director:
Eli Roth)
I’m not
the world’s biggest Roth fan so calling Knock Knock the US
Rating:
WWW
Knock Knock is available now on VOD, DVD and Blu-ray
The
Overnight
(Director:
Patrick Brice)
Disappointing
sex comedy starring Adam Scott (Parks And Recreation) and Taylor Schilling
(Orange Is The New Black) as a married couple recently moved to Los Angeles from Seattle
Rating:
WW
The Overnight is available now on VOD and DVD
Fidelio:
Alice
(Director: Lucie
Borleteau)
Slow-moving
and, it has to be said, slightly mucky, French film from first-time director
Borleteau. The titular Alice (Ariane Labed) is an engineer on a freighter that
just happens to be captained by Gael (Melvil Popaud), her first love. Lonely
and horny with her graphic novelist boyfriend hundreds of miles away, she
recommences their affair, whilst every now and again reading through the
scurrilous, shag-packed diaries of the dead man she replaced on board. The
impossibility and impracticality of monogamy is a theme worth exploring but
Fidelio is too often more interested in getting Labed out of her clothes and
into la bed than truly engaging with its subject matter.
Rating:
WW
Fidelio:
Ratings
WWWW = Wonderful
WWW = Worthwhile
WW = Watchable
W = Woeful
