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This week, there are SIX new films out for you to choose from, led by Dragged Across Concrete. Here are the titles, with more info below:
- Dragged Across Concrete
Greta
Red Joan
Head Full Of Honey
A Dark Place
Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich
Dragged Across Concrete reunites Vince Vaughn and Don Johnson, from the same writer/director S Craig Zahler‘s incredible Brawl In Cell Block 99. I’ve still to see Zahler’s Bone Tomahawk, but I heard nothing but good things about that.
Vaughn showed he was fantastic in a drama role – and a million miles away from his disappointing and lazy comedy roles, so it’s great to see more of this. Meanwhile, Don Johnson is awesome in anything. It also has Mel Gibson, who had a great career comeback with How I Spent My Summer Vacation, but then threw it away with Daddy’s Home 2 and The Expendables 3.
Still, we also have Udo Kier (Iron Sky, as well as Brawl…), Michael Jai White (Spawn Director’s Cut), Thomas Kretschmann (Stalingrad 3D) and Dexter‘s Jennifer Carpenter.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Greta stars Chloë Grace Moretz (The 5th Wave) as Frances, a sweet, naïve young woman trying to make it on her own in New York City, who doesn’t think twice about returning the handbag she finds on the subway to its rightful owner. That owner is Greta (Isabelle Huppert), an eccentric French piano teacher with a love for classical music and an aching loneliness.
Having recently lost her mother, Frances quickly grows closer to widowed Greta. The two become fast friends — but Greta’s maternal charms begin to dissolve and grow increasingly disturbing as Frances discovers that nothing in Greta’s life is what it seems in this suspense thriller from Academy Award-winning director Neil Jordan.
What follows feels like it’s turning into a modern-day Single White Female!
Director: Neil Jordan
Screenplay: Neil Jordan, Ray Wright
Also stars: Maika Monroe, Colm Feore, Stephen Rea
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Red Joan stars Judi Dench as Joan Shttps://dvd-fever.co.uk/dvd-fever/wp-admin/post.php?post=89741&action=edittanley, in a film which tells her story as the woman who was exposed as the KGB’s longest-serving British spy… It sounds completely mad, but it’s a true story inspired by the life of British civil servant Melita Norwood.
I like the look of this, and you can rarely say no to Judi Dench, so I’ll definitely check this out.
Director: Trevor Nunn
Screenplay: Lindsay Shapero
Also stars: Stephen Boxer, Stephen Campbell Moore, Sophie Cookson, Tom Hughes, Ben Miles
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Head Full of Honey stars Nick Nolte as an elderly man suffering from Alzheimer’s, who embarks on a final road trip with his granddaughter.
The film is based on the movie Honig im Kopf, and while I haven’t seen the original, this does look rather effecting and sweet.
ScreenWriter/Director: Til Schweiger
Original writer: Hilly Martinek (based on the picture “Honig im Kopf“)
Also stars: Claire Forlani, Eric Roberts, Emily Mortimer, Matt Dillon, Jacqueline Bisset, Til Schweiger, Costa Ronin, Emily Cox, Dominic Coleman
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
A Dark Place (aka Steel Country)
When a young boy goes missing in a sleepy backwoods town, a local sanitation truck driver, Donald (Andrew Scott), plays detective, embarking on a precarious and obsessive investigation.
Scott is always worth a watch when he’s at his most manic, and this certainly looks like it could be worth a watch.
Director: Simon Fellows
Writer: Brendan Higgins
Also stars: Bronagh Waugh, Denise Gough, Catherine Dyer, JD Evermore
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich
And now the stinker of the week: Deadly Nazi puppets… which is a shame, as it comes from co-writer S Craig Zahler, who brought us the aforementioned Brawl In Cell Block 99 and Dragged Across Concrete.
All hell breaks loose when a strange force animates the puppets up for auction at a convention, setting them on a bloody killing spree that’s motivated by an evil as old as time.
Directors: Sonny Laguna, Tommy Wiklund
Writers: S Craig Zahler, Charles Band, Kenneth J Hall
Stars: Thomas Lennon, Jenny Pellicer, Nelson Franklin
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.