The movie release schedule is relatively sparse this weekend as everyone makes way for Jurassic World, the fourth film in the rampaging dinosaurs franchise that began with Steven Spielberg’s movie in 1993.
Jurassic World is “tracking” for a weekend box office of over $400m (€353m) worldwide. The film starring Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard and Vincent D’Onofrio, and looks set to have the biggest release in the history of Universal Studios.
After ten years of operation as a fully functioning dinosaur theme park, visitor numbers at Jurassic World have started to decline and in order to re-spark interest a new hybrid attraction is introduced, with catastrophic results. World is certain to be the most successful Jurassic movie to date, reviving the franchise with a new trilogy of dinosaur titles. The first three films have taken just under $2bn at the box office.
I saw the film this afternoon, and you can listen to my take in the podcast below.
Last year’s much lauded documentary, The Act Of Killing, recalled the overthrow of the Indonesian Government in 1965/66, when more than a million alleged Communists, ethnic Chinese and intellectuals were murdered within the space of a year. In the movie, members of the death squads at the time talked openly about corruption, election rigging and clearing people from their land for developers and they re-enacted the killings, describing their feelings and enthusiastically playing both the victims and their murderers.
The Look Of Silence, which is out this weekend, is a companion piece to The Act Of Killing, and sees an optician return to his village near Medan in North Sumatra to try to find out what happened to his elder brother who was one of the “undesirables” butchered and dumped in the nearby Snake River during the purge. With the assistance of Joshua Oppenheimer, the director of The Act Of Killing, the optician claims to be testing the eyes of elderly villagers and pays house calls to various local figures who were responsible for the killings.
What emerges from his inquiries is a vision of a grotesque, delusional, deeply-twisted society which has built up a comprehensively false picture of itself to justify a thoroughly corrupt history. It is
riveting stuff.
Queen & Country, as I mentioned last week, is a sequel to John Boorman’s 1986 Oscar-nominated coming-of-age drama Hope & Glory, which followed a young boy’s adventures in London during the Blitz.
For Queen & Country, the action jumps ahead about ten years as Billy Rohan prepares for conscription in the Royal Fusiliers prior to going off to fight the Red Menace in Korea. Billy (Calum Turner) quickly shows that he is brighter than the other conscripts, however, they make him a sergeant and he is assigned to train new recruits to type and read maps.
One of the other instructors is a working class tearaway called Percy Hopgood (Caleb Landry
Jones) who, with Billy’s assistance, launches into a comically inventive campaign against the spit-and-polish life of the camp.
There are two main settings in Queen & Country – Billy’s chaotic home near Shepperton on the Thames and his rule-bound existence at Aldershot – and Boorman places them side by side to have one comment on the values represented by the other. The movie’s approach is anecdotal, but it is rich with observation and Boorman, as always, shoots it with elegance and a natural use of the camera. I have to say I found it likeable and immensely enjoyable.
Let Us Prey is a stylish Irish-made horror movie from director Brian O’Malley set in a remote police station outpost in Scotland. We’ll deal with it in more detail on The Picture Show on Saturday evening when Brian will be one of our guests. Tune in from 7pm or listen back to the podcasts here.
