Cinema Roundup 26th September

0The movie of the week, and indeed one of the year’s very best, is Paolo Virzi’s Human Capital. The movie looks at how two families on different ends of the economic scale become intertwined due to their involvement in a road accident. The story is broken into four chapters, three of which present the events from the perspectives of individual characters, and the technique is used so well it’s impossible to imagine this story being told in any other fashion. With a terrific ensemble cast, Human Capital is a gripping drama, and one of the key works of the recession era.

David Cronenberg is a filmmaker I’ve cooled on over the past couple of decades. The further he’s distanced himself from the horror genre, the worse his films have become, but he makes an impressive return to form this week with Maps to the Stars, his best movie in a quarter of a century. A tale of Hollywood incest, both literal and figurative, the movie is packed with loathsome characters that you can’t take your eyes off. Young Evan Bird steals the show as a narcissistic child star who seems based on Justin Bieber.

Ida is a stunningly photographed black and white Polish movie about a Catholic nun who learns the family she never knew were actually Jewish. Teaming up with a gruff aunt, the two set out to find her family’s burial site, uncovering Poland’s dark past along the way. As you can imagine, it’s a laugh free experience, but a worthwhile one.

The Equalizer is the latest big screen reboot of an old TV show, but bears little resemblance to its source material. Edward Woodward’s suave James Bond type has now become Denzel Washington as an aging Jason Bourne figure. Few actors have wasted their potential to the degree Washington has over the decades, and despite his natural charisma, this is a dull, derivative cash-in.

The Lighthouse cinema is hosting a comprehensive retrospective of the work of Stanley Kubrick over the next couple of months. You can expect most of them to feature as future movies of the week, but the movie that kicks off the season this week, the director’s debut Fear & Desire, is awful; so bad that Kubrick attempted to destroy all copies of the film. The screening is accompanied by his short films though, which might make it worthwhile.

If you’re a fan of documentaries, you need to check out the Irish Film Institute’s annual Stranger Than Fiction festival, running from Thursday to Sunday. Featured docs cover subjects as diverse as Irish-American gangster Whitey Bulger, the Dunnes Stores trade disputes of the 80s, and the life of film critic Roger Ebert. The full lineup can be found at ifi.ie/stf

By Eric Hillis

Image: Movie of the Week, Human Capital