Movie of the week – Red Road
Ahead of the release of her latest gem, American Honey (which I’ll rave about next week), the Irish Film Institute is hosting a retrospective of the work of Andrea Arnold, arguably the most talented woman filmmaker working today. This week you can catch her first two movies – 2006’s Red Road (Saturday), a gritty Rear Window-esque thriller set in the sprawling titular Glasgow council estate, and 2009’s Fish Tank (Wednesday), a tough coming of age drama that made a star of our own Michael Fassbender. Both are preceded by screenings of Arnold’s shorts, and both are essential viewing.
Eraserhead
Across the river, the Lighthouse continues its comprehensive David Lynch season with his 1977 debut Eraserhead (Saturday), a surreal, black and white production that’s the very definition of a cult movie, and 1990’s Wild at Heart (Wednesday), a blood-soaked road movie. Neither fully works for me, but both feature striking imagery that you’ll never forget.
De Palma
The must see new release of the week is documentary De Palma, in which legendary director Brian De Palma talks us through his career and his love of cinema. If you’re a fan of his work, don’t miss this opportunity to see it through his eyes.
The Girl on the Train
If only De Palma had directed The Girl on the Train, a mediocre adaptation of a popular novel. Emily Blunt plays an alcoholic who finds herself embroiled in the disappearance of a young woman following a blackout. Blunt is thoroughly convincing as an alcoholic, but not as convincing as the film’s director, writer and editor. This one’s a mess.
Blood Father
Hollywood persona non grata Mel Gibson makes his comeback as a leading man in Blood Father, in which he plays an ex-con forced to go on the run from Mexican gangsters with his estranged teenage daughter. It’s an efficient little thriller with a surprisingly touching central father-daughter relationship, but it could use a couple more action set-pieces.
By Eric Hillis of themoviewaffler.com
