(Debra Granik, 2018, US) 109 mins
A tender study of outsiders on America’s rural fringes. A traumatised military veteran (Ben Foster), self-exiled from society along with his devoted teenage daughter (Thomasin McKenzie), is evicted from their national park homestead. Their struggles to get along – with each other and the rest of the world – are rendered with a matter-of-fact sensitivity.
(Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead, 2017, US) 111 mins
Low in budget but rich in ideas, this sci-fi is one to file alongside Another Earth or Shane Carruth’s Upstream Colour, with its mysteries, odd characters and subtly digitally warped reality. The directors play brothers drawn back to a cult they fled years earlier. Like them, we want to stick around and find the answers.
(Paul Wright, 2017, UK) 78 mins
The distinctive notes of the British countryside are captured in this stirring essay film, compiled from archive clips and obscure movies, and backed by a varied score from Portishead’s Adrian Utley and Goldfrapp’s Will Gregory. Into our history of rural tradition and harmony it injects anarchy, revelry and horrors ancient and modern, from witchcraft to mad cow disease.
(Ari Aster, 2018, US) 127 mins
A family curse plays out in awful ways in this domestic horror, which bears comparison with Rosemary’s Baby or The Shining with its building claustrophobic dread, but delivers fresh new shocks of its own. Toni Collette (pictured) leads a fine cast as a matriarch in meltdown, beset by the strains of her dead mother, her troublesome children and some increasingly bonkers, supernatural phenomena.
(Stefano Sollima, 2018, Ita/US) 122 mins
Uncanny timing for a sequel expanding on the United States’ dirty war on the southern border, and its human and moral costs. Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro are the manliest of men to send into a messy situation involving Mexican drug cartels working with Islamist terrorists, with innocent migrants and government meddling muddying the waters.
SR
While work continues on their fifth album in six years, the hardest-grafting band in pop head out on a tour of the UK’s premier cricket grounds, air-show venues and second-tier rugby clubs. Expect a blitzkrieg of top-drawer bangers, PG-rated school-disco fun and a dollop of self-empowerment. The 1st Central County Ground, Hove, Friday 6; touring to 29 July
Since scoring a huge global hit with the Charlie Puth-assisted weepie See You Again – the video to which is currently at 3.6bn views (!) – rapper Wiz Khalifa has been focusing on his fitness, apparently going to the gym five days a week and learning mixed martial arts. Lovely. He’s pulling the focus back to the music, however, with this one-off London gig ahead of a new album. Roundhouse, NW1, Sunday 1 July
For more read the full of article at The Guardian
