Casablanca II
Transit (2018): Christian Petzold is shaping to be one of my favourite directors at the pace he’s going. The manner in which he tiers characters, geography and historical context is mesmerizing, making up for the more ambiguous moments in his film-making. Transit is particularly bizarre and unlikely at times, with its characters intermittently gliding and swerving in the way they act, which would make a literal interpretation of their relationships fruitless. Seemingly set during Nazi occupation of France, Petzold chooses to abandon any attempt of strict historical recreation, creating a disturbing sense of modern day conflagrations. The movie’s characters struggle to find transit to America, while the movie plays around with concepts of identity and romance at will, bordering on the absurd. It’s all somehow contagious, the questions, the despair, the passion, even if Transit‘s overt coherence might put some people off it. 9/10
Punch, snort, punch
A Prayer Before Dawn (2017): One of those movies that have been waiting on my watch-list ever since their release, this brutal story of an “English boxer incarcerated in one of Thailand’s most notorious prisons” (IMDb) feels relentless. Not unlike the below-reviewed Brawl, it’s rough and tough, but more sparing with its excesses and more generous with its humanity – in a place so devoid of it. For better or worse, the movie doesn’t dwell on the larger dramas of Billy Moore’s life, one so rife with tragedy and poor decisions that it would need another format for it. Alas, this also streamlines and diminishes the character somewhat. That being said, Prayer is the better prison movie of the week. 8/10
Smile, kill, smile
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019): They all come in twos or threes – after watching parts of the Jeffrey Dahmer story in My Friend Dahmer, it was serial-killer Ted Bundy’s turn to get the full-movie treatment. Unfortunately, there are a lot of times when EWSEaV doesn’t quite make sense, in an off-putting way. While Zac Efron’s performance, widely praised, is indeed worth the run-time, the man alone can’t keep the movie together, as it fails to get the menace behind its charm across. 6/10
Sing, kill, sing
Anna and the Apocalypse (2017): Who doesn’t want to watch a zombie musical? Shame on you! Every zombie movie deserves to be seen. Well, AatA has its moments and takes the Walking Dead/Game of Thrones approach to key character survival odds, which is fun. For a while. Its less than inspired musical moments don’t do enough to feel like more than a cheeky twist to the genre, which is why the thing lost me towards its finale. Props for trying to do something different. 6/10
Grit, grit, grit
Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017): There’s a lot of grit to be had in Craig Zahler’s flick, as the director doubles down with the occasional moments of ultra-violence to rouse the viewer. What really makes the film stand out is Vince Vaughn’s assured performance, who anchors some of the more extravagant characters around him. This bestows the familiar tale of an incarcerated drug handler fighting to save his family with depth and is particularly well served by the uncompromising downward spiral Zahler wishes us to embark upon. 7/10
tributarystu 