DVD of the month
Girls, eh? Tey’re everywhere these days. Not just in parks and buildings and
such, but they pop up in films quite a lot, too. Tey’ve had dragon tattoos, been interrupted, and done gossip, all for our entertainment, and, though some will dismiss this as political- correctness-gone-mad, I honestly sometimes wonder where cinema would be without them. Well, this month I endeavoured to find out just that, and settled down on my man- sized sofa with some manly flavoured ice-cream and a pint of chardonnay to watch David Fincher’s latest offering, ‘Gone Girl’.
Te bad news is that I still don’t know where cinema would be without girls, as the title of this film is a wretched lie and there are loads of them in it. “Yeah, Jay, but it’s not called ‘Gone Girls’ plural, is it. Maybe there’s one fewer girl in it than the mean average
GONE GIRL
number of girls in films, in which case the title is accurate,” I hear you cry. And you’re right, of course.
Te good news is that, despite being a little girl-heavy for my research, ‘Gone Girl’ is a damn fine film. Based on the hugely popular novel by Gillian Flynn, it’s a tense and twisty tale of boy- meets-girl, boy-and-girl-fall-in-love, girl-disappears, boy-is-heavily- implicated-in-disappearance-of-girl- but-fiercely-protests-his-innocence, boy-becomes-embroiled-in-media- circus, in which we’re never certain where our sympathies should lie, only that TV people are top arseholes.
It’s difficult to find anything wrong with it, really, as one would expect with a film by one of today’s most accomplished directors. Too many girls, maybe? Perhaps, but if this experience has taught me anything, it’s that girls are here to stay. We may as well get used to it. Jay Freeman
February FILM RELEASES
06 February SelmaOscar nominated true story of Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1965 struggle to get voting rights in America. Tis film serves as a poignant reminder that ordinary people fought and died to achieve this goal, and the violent opposition that they stood against.
13 FebruaryFifty Shades of GreyUltimately unsatisfying yawn-o movie based on the popular filth-filled e-book of the same name. Not enough sex to be proper dirty, not enough plot to be a proper film, and starring people that don’t look anything like the characters did in your head when you read the book one handed. Quite literally, a load of old wank.
20 February CakeJennifer Anniston turns in the performance of her career as a woman who, following her own tragedy, becomes fascinated by the suicide of a member of her chronic pain support group. Wonderfully scripted, delicately balanced, criminally overlooked by the Academy.
27 February It FollowsA nice twist on the teen horror genre, It Follows tells the tale of a sexually transmitted haunting. Yup, that’s right. She’s got souls in her holes. Tis sounds like a spoof, it’s not. It’s actually rather creepy, brilliantly scored and very well executed (no pun intended). Smiley
FebruaryDVD RELEASES
02 February Maps to the StarsDavid Cronenberg’s latest is a welcome - for me, at least - return to the darker, nastier, weirder form he made his name with. Julianne Moore is extraordinary as the unravelling matriarch in a celebrity family with a past more chequered than Chubby Checker’s House of Chessboards, Prague.
09 February Black Mirror – Series 1, 2 & SpecialTis complete set of Charlie Brooker’s satirical, disturbing, and darkly comic vignettes is worth buying for the masterful Christmas Special alone. If Phillip K. Dick had written ‘Tales of the Unexpected’, it would have been like this.
16 February Game of Trones – Season 4No, I’ve never heard of it either. It’s probably foreign. I had a quick scan through the disks, though, and it seems to be about tits and dragons. And there’s a little fat kid who drinks wine. And everyone dies. I doubt it’ll catch on, but check it out if that sort of thing pickles your gherkin.
23 February FuryKinda like ‘Warhorse’, but with a tank instead of a horse. Or ‘Tank Girl’, but with Brad Pitt instead of a girl. Or ‘Tomas the Tank Engine’, but with Hitler instead of the Fat Controller. I’m afraid I haven’t seen it. Jay Freeman
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