Spider-Man or not, watching this in the cinemas wasn’t a sure thing for me as I’m just too burned out by the superhero genre. Brand New Day being the critical and commercial success that it has with fans raving about it being possibly the best Spider-Man film ever, makes it hard to ignore. Like everyone says, its action set-pieces are great and I’m especially ticked that it borrows visuals from the game that I’ve played through just recently. It’s good too that it focuses more on Peter Parker’s personal life but the story beats feel like retreads of earlier iterations of the character. In the end it’s still a thoroughly conventional superhero movie.
Like no doubt many others, I never even heard of this novel until the film adaptation of it was heavily promoted earlier this year. This still wouldn’t be a book I’d ordinarily read but I heard good things about it on Broken Forum and I am trying to read more outside of genre fiction so here I am. One huge difference is that while the trailers for the film make it out like some sort of cute children’s movie, this book is not that at all. The sheep are intelligent but they are also often wrong because they don’t understand humans at all. It’s funny but it’s also genuinely dark and not at all a book that is suitable for children.
This looks like another film from the strange imagination of Yorgos Lanthimos but it’s actually a remake of a South Korean one. The original director was even slated to direct this but bowed out due to health issues. The premise about two conspiracy-minded nobodies who kidnap a corporate CEO believing that she is an alien is out there but it’s nothing too crazy. Watching it feels underwhelming as it’s just three people in a remote house. I was going to write it off as being merely mediocre but then the twist drops and I’m left asking what the heck was the point of all that?
A Canadian film by a director I’ve never heard of and starring no one of note comes with no great expectations. Yet it is one of the most intense crime thrillers I’ve watched in years and is far and away the most realistic depiction of how a real-life hacker operates I’ve ever seen. The subject of livestreamed torture rooms is shocking enough and seems impossibly difficult to handle in a way that doesn’t feel exploitative. Yet Red Rooms goes one better by diving into the psyche of the kind of person who is obsessed with such content. A superlative film on all counts.
I’m not one for sports films nor have I watched any of the entries in the Rocky franchise aside from the first one. I was persuaded to add this to my watch list by the excellence of Sinners and the realization that it was Creed that convinced Hollywood that Ryan Coogler could be trusted with a blockbuster film. It’s impressive that he not only directed this, he also wrote the screenplay. The result is as good a passing-the-torch movie as you could ask for while staying firmly within the established conventions of the franchise.
Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World stays in my mind for being one of the most subversive films I’ve watched and I always congratulate myself for figuring what it wants to express. Sentimental Value features the same lead actress Renate Reinsve but with multiple key characters in play, it’s harder to narrow down what it’s about. In the event, the theme of depression isn’t as unique but its intricate exploration of parent-child dynamics and perfect execution makes it fantastic anyway.
We’d previously seen the breakout film Wadjda by the Saudi Arabian female filmmaker Haifaa al-Mansour. This one is naturally another film about female empowerment in the kingdom focusing on perhaps the ultimate form of it, participating in its politics. It actually seems to take place in a better environment for women under a government that is trying to enact some reforms and so isn’t quite as depressing. By taking on elections, this isn’t just a more serious subject that buying a bicycle but gives us a better look at the lives of adults in the country.
