Recent cinema releases include Zack and Miri Make a Porno and My Best Friend's Girl, which are unashamedly stupid duder comedies. Adding High School Musical 3 to that list completes the three feel-good films in the UK movie chart top 10.
Besides them, EVERYTHING out at the moment will make you think about killing yourself. Quantum of Solace (currently the UKs number 1) deals with Daniel Craig's new moody Bond. Body of Lies is all about, well, lies and the lying liars that tell them. Max Payne is a noir about a renegade cop trying to find out who murdered his wife and kid. All pretty depressing.
However, three other films currently on general release at the minute make the said films pale in the sad stakes. They will crush your spirit whilst being really damn watchable, annoyingly amongst the best films of the year. Hunger, rookie director Steve McQueen's debut, is an unflinchingly bleak look at legendary IRA member Bobby Sands who died after hunger-striking for 66 days. It's a really good film - poignant but not preachy.
However, three other films currently on general release at the minute make the said films pale in the sad stakes. They will crush your spirit whilst being really damn watchable, annoyingly amongst the best films of the year. Hunger, rookie director Steve McQueen's debut, is an unflinchingly bleak look at legendary IRA member Bobby Sands who died after hunger-striking for 66 days. It's a really good film - poignant but not preachy.
Gomorrah - about the Italian Comorrah mafia who run most of Naples - will kill any nostalgic memories you have about the gangsters in Goodfellas and The Godfather. The Comorrah are anything but goodfellas - instead they're fat, petty and reckless and have no allegiance to rules and respect. Women and children are targets, as are morons and the weak. Gomorrah is nearly three hours of the starkest, toughest look at gangsterism ever put to celluloid. You'll NEVER watch The Godfather in the same way again after seeing it. Or Scarface. (You'll understand why.)
If anything could have been more depressing but at the same time brilliant, then it's Waltz With Bashir, which probably pips the others to Depresser of the Week. God, it's soul-crushing. Visually beautiful, expertly pieced together and just totally horrible. And without giving too much away, the film's final message is just about the saddest thing you'll ever see in a cinema: The human race is incapable of progress, even when armed with the most pertinent and harrowing memories.
See them, don't see them, just be sure your mental state is in a good place before you take the plunge if you decide to do so. Otherwise, it's pretty horrorific stuff. Be warned... all three are about as good as cinema will get in 2008.
1 comment:
Jesse Whittock's depresser of the week- pretty catchy.
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