JUNE 30 — It’s been a long time since I last felt spoiled for choice in Malaysian cinemas. It may have even been two or three years since I last found it really hard to catch up with all the films that I want to see in local cinemas, for the simple reason that so many of them opens on the same day or just a week apart.
Going to watch two new movies in local cinemas a week is pretty easy, but trying to catch three or four new ones in the same week, while juggling work and other personal commitments, well that’s not as easy to co-ordinate.
In addition to the three films that I did manage to see and am about to write about here, I’m also still trying to find the time to catch Adrift (Baltasar Kormakur’s survival drama, his Hollywood follow-up to Everest) and The Leakers, a Malaysia-set crime drama by one of my fave Hong Kong B-movie auteurs Herman Yau.
And those are just films that opened here in the last two weeks. If we count the latest ones that opened just this Thursday, I’ll also have to add Thai rom-com Brother Of The Year, the much awaited sequel, Sicario: Day Of The Soldado, and most excitingly, the latest film from Hindi auteur Rajkumar Hirani (director of modern classics like 3 Idiots and PK), Sanju, a biopic of Sanjay Dutt, to the list.
That is a crazy amount of exciting films to catch in just three weeks, but such is the lot of a film lover like me that when it rains, it pours.
So expect to see another piece like this next week covering the aforementioned films, but in the meantime, let’s see if I can interest you in these three:
Hereditary
Hands down the most talked-about horror film right now, Hereditary possesses the kind of buzz that could easily make it this year’s version of Get Out and the breakout success that follows.
A smart blend of family psychodrama and possession/cult movies, the movie tells the story of the Graham family, and with a title like Hereditary, you know that this is one family that’s cursed with something.
What that something is, however, is not something that I’ll spoil for you here. This is such a carefully told story that it’d be shame for me to reveal much here.
I guess all you need to know is that after grandma’s death, something is definitely going to be brewing with the Graham clan, especially with daughter Annie (an astonishing and Best Actress Oscar-worthy performance from Toni Collette), granddaughter Charlie (a creepy as hell Milly Shapiro) and older grandson Peter.
Like most great horror movies out there, emotional pain will often manifest itself in horrific forms, and this movie is chock full of unforgettable images that will burn into your subconscious. Creepy and scary, this is already one of the year’s finest films.
Incredibles 2
A bit unfortunate to have the tearjerking Bao as its accompanying opening short film, the regrettably reactive (and comparative) online culture has resulted in reports that Bao is better than Incredibles 2, no doubt influenced by the fact that Pixar is well known for the tearjerking tendencies of a lot of its films, from Up to Toy Story 3 to Wall-E and the under-rated The Good Dinosaur.
People may have even forgotten that The Incredibles was actually an anomaly in the Pixar canon, in that it’s an all out spy-action lark with an animated superhero family at its centre, with even the original film lacking the emotional waterworks that pepper most of Pixar’s films.
Incredibles 2 continues along the same path, with a furious pace, big explosive action, and jokes flying at you left, right and centre.
Continuing right after the end of the first film, I’d say that this sequel is just as good and enjoyable, and this is from someone who counts The Incredibles as my favourite Pixar movie so far.
And like The Incredibles, time will be kind to Incredibles 2 and in due time, people will remember it for the great achievement in 60s spy-action movie-making that it actually is.
Ocean’s Eight
There really is no other way to look at it. If you liked the Ocean’s franchise as rebooted by Steven Soderbergh, then you’ll also find plenty to enjoy in this all-female version that, even though it is regrettably not directed by Soderbergh and is directed by Gary Ross (Seabiscuit, Pleasantville and The Hunger Games), retains much of what made the reboot trilogy such big hits in the first place.
Heck, Ocean’s Eight even opens almost exactly like Ocean’s Eleven, only instead of the cool and suave George Clooney walking out of prison, it’s the female version of cool and suave in the form of Sandra Bullock as Danny Ocean’s sister Debbie.
The snappy dialogue, the impressive cons, the meticulously planned heists, twists and reversals that we’ve all come to expect when we came in to watch Ocean’s Twelve and Ocean’s Thirteen are all here.
The only difference here is that the cool cats are female, and unlike the misfiring all-female Ghostbusters reboot, Ocean’s Eight is genuinely fun and enjoyable to watch.
And for a copy of a copy of a copy of a film that’s always wanted to be nothing more than light and frothy entertainment, it’s definitely not something so bad to be.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
