A sprawling, ambitious, indulgent, and assuredly unnerving follow-up to his terrifying critical and commercial success Hereditary, Ari Aster’s sun and blood drenched Midsommar is yet another example of a filmmaker throwing everything they can into their second feature because their first major success has allowed them a lot of leeway to go a bit crazy and over-the-top.
Jack Reynor
Actor, film buff, and budding director Jack Reynor talks about his work on Hereditary director Ari Aster’s latest challenging thriller, Midsommar, in theatres everywhere on Wednesday, July 3.
A wildly uneven mash-up of high concept sci-fi and clichéd family-in-crisis tropes, Jonathan and Josh Baker’s Kin starts off with an interesting enough premise and a stacked cast of old pros and newcomers trying their hardest before quickly setting into a boring groove and finally switching over into braindead idiocy in the final act.
Oscar winning filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow has proven herself to be a master of suspense, with most of her films centering around characters trying desperately by any means necessary to survive another day. Her latest collaboration with The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty screenwriter Mark Boal, the historical period drama Detroit, is no exception. Built around a sustained sequence of unease, tension, and violence both psychological and physical that will stand as one of her finest filmmaking moments, Bigelow’s look back rioting and racial injustice in Detroit during the summer of 1967 will haunt the memories of viewers for a long time.
Sing Street is a smart, touching, and completely charming riff on youth, 80s music, love, passion, and dreaming big. The cast is wonderful, and the music–from the soundtrack to the original songs–is perfect. It’s a film that needs to be seen, and reseen, and it will leave you smiling–I have no doubt about it.