Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (MA)
Directed by Frank Miller
Frank Miller’s visually stunning 3D film noir, based on the graphic novel, is intensely black and white with occasional highlights of colour. The entire film was shot against a green screen with the virtual Sin City digitized in. The ruthless city is filled with disfigured men and sexy powerful women. Jessica Alba gyrates into your hearts as the tragic exotic dancer and The Old Town section of Sin City is controlled by a team of prostitutes in killer outfits. Several storylines intertwine but it is succubus Ava Lord (Eva Green) who creates the most damage as she casts her spell over all the men. Dwight McCarthy (Josh Bronlin) confronts the woman of his dreams and nightmares while death and carnage is dispensed with a gleeful intensity in this stylized comic. The parade of sexy women continues and even Lady Gaga gets a look in as waitress Bertha.
The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared (M)
Directed by Felix Herngren
Allan Karlson (Robert Gustafsson) has had a full life. After becoming interested in blowing things up as a boy, he seems to have become involved with many of the great explosions of the twentieth century. As staff at his nursing home light 100 candles on his birthday cake, he climbs out of a window and goes on a hilarious misadventure that is full of surprises. At the railway station, his money can take him to a place in the middle of nowhere but as luck would have it, he finds himself in possession of a suitcase full of money. The film is based on the bestselling novel by Jonas Jonasson, who describes his work as ‘a hopeful satire on the shortcomings of mankind’. This wild and whimsical narrative is reminiscent of Water for Elephants and had the sellout audiences at the recent Scandinavian Film Festival in fits of laughter.
Magic in the Moonlight (M)
Directed by Woody Allen
Apart from being a rather arrogant Englishman, Stanley Crawford (Colin Firth) is a magician who performs disguised as Chinese conjurer Wei Ling Soo. When he is approached by his friend, Howard Burkan (Simon McBurney) to come to the French Riviera in order to expose young psychic medium Sophie Baker (Emma Stone) as a fake, he jumps at the chance. It is the 1920s when spiritualism and séances were quite the rage. Stanley is certain that his rational, scientific mind will unmask the fraudster but Sophie manages to get mental pictures that he can’t explain. Of course much of the magic is in the setting, the exquisite costumes (many which are originals from the period), the lighting and the possibility of romance. Woody Allen’s slick romantic comedy keeps reeling in the audience until they’re caught up in his neatly constructed web.
The Reckoning (MA)
Directed by John V Soto
The youngest of the three LaPaglia boys (Jonathon) is Detective Robbie Green. He is called out to the murder of his colleague Jason (played by Luke, the eldest of the three Hemsworth brothers). He recovers a data card from the crime scene which reveals that teenagers Rachel (Hanna Mangan-Lawrence) and AJ (Alex Williams last seen as a young Julian Assange) are settling the score for the death of Rachel’s sister. The video footage documents the teens’ steps as they confront drug sellers, drug suppliers and even cops, and Green and his colleague Jane Pearson (Viva Bianca) follow the trail which is littered with dead bodies. Shot in Perth, this intense film is full of biblical references about vengeance and has already won a Best Director Award at the British Independent Film Festival. The Reckoning will screen at Hoyts Carousel and Garden City from 5 September for a limited season.
Lezly Herbert
