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This time, there are EIGHT new films out for you to choose from, led by Fighting With My Family. Here are the titles, with more info below:
- Fighting With My Family
Burning Men
Destination: Dewsbury
The Hole In The Ground
Sauvage
Serenity
What They Had
The Aftermath
Fighting With My Family looks like the perfect example of a film where once you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the entire film.
Nick Frost is former wrestler Ricky Knight who, together with his family, make a living performing at small venues around the country, while his children dream of joining World Wrestling Entertainment. However, son Zak (Jack Lowden), is not best pleased when his sister, Raya (Florence Pugh – The Little Drummer Girl, and above-left), beats him to the punch… so to speak, as she is the one who is chosen.
This looks so terrible, and while it gave me a laugh when Dwayne Johnson (The Rock, in wrestling terms) popped up a couple of times, that really is enough for me.
Fighting With My Family does not get a knockout from me.
Writer/Director: Stephen Merchant
Also stars: Lena Headey, Vince Vaughn, Stephen Merchant, Kim Matula, Eli Jane
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
Burning Men
When young musicians Ray (Ed Hayter) and Don (Aki Omoshaybi) are evicted from their South London squat, they decide to sell their precious vinyl collection and fly to Memphis in search of their destiny. Frustrated by the shortfall in funds, they steal an ‘uber-rare’ Black Metal record at a Camden record fair and head out of town to sell it. As they drive north in their beaten-up Volvo Amazon, picking up hitchhiker Susie (Elinor Crawley) en route, they find themselves stalked by dark forces apparently unleashed by the ‘devil disc’ they have stolen.
Director: Jeremy Wooding
Also stars: Sarah-Jane Potts, Andrew Tiernan, Simone Lahbib, Christopher Fulford, Denise Welch
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Destination: Dewsbury
Back in the 80s, five friends cause raucous in their schooldays. Twenty years on and they’ve got jobs they don’t want and wives who don’t want them. The leader of the gang, Frankie, is now dying in Yorkshire. The others find out and they get together for one last sad, mad, bad road trip to Dewsbury, before it’s all too late. Mix in a dollop of The Inbetweeners‘ intellectual wit, add a pinch of bromancing from The World’s End, and then stir in a few ladles of The Hangover’s vomit and you’ve got Destination: Dewsbury, destined to be one of 2018’s funniest releases.
Watching the trailer, it looks a little all over the place, but could be okay.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Maybe!
The Hole In The Ground
Trying to escape her broken past, Sarah O’Neill is building a new life on the fringes of a backwood rural town with her young son Chris. A terrifying encounter with a mysterious neighbour shatters her fragile security, throwing Sarah into a spiralling nightmare of paranoia and mistrust, as she tries to uncover if the disturbing changes in her little boy are connected to an ominous sinkhole buried deep in the forest that borders their home.
However, if you did have any interest in this, then when you watch this trailer, you’ll see it’s a ton of jump scares and nothing else.
Director: Lee Cronin
Stars: Seána Kerslake, James Quinn Markey, Simone Kirby, James Cosmo
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
Sauvage – No, it’s not a film about the silly Johnny Depp man-perfume advert.
Leo is 22 and sells his body on the street for a bit of cash. The men come and go, and he stays right here – longing for love. He doesn’t know what the future will bring. He hits the road. His heart is pounding.
This looks an interesting drama, and it could work. It’s certainly had a lot of critical acclaim.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Maybe!
Serenity reunites Interstellar‘s Anne Hathaway and Matthew McConaughey, the latter of whom looks rather like William Petersen in To Live And Die In L.A., with his big silly beard.
But about the plot, and it tells the (sea) tale about the mysterious past of a fishing boat captain (Mr McC), which comes back to haunt him when his ex-wife (Hathaway) tracks him down with a desperate plea for help, ensnaring his life in a new reality that may not be all that it seems…
In short, that means it looks like it feels like an acid trip.
Writer/Director: Steven Knight
Also stars: Diane Lane, Jason Clarke, Djimon Hounsou, Jeremy Strong
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
What They Had centres around Bridget (Hilary Swank – Logan Lucky), who returns home at her brother’s (Michael Shannon), urging to deal with her ailing mother (Blythe Danner), and her father’s (Robert Forster) reluctance to let go of their life together.
At first, this looked okay, but degenerated into being a bit too sickly sweet, so I’ll give it a miss.
Writer/Director: Elizabeth Chomko
Also stars: Taissa Farmiga, Josh Lucas, Aimee Garcia, Jay Montepare
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
The Aftermath shows that World War II is over, and a British colonel and his wife (Jason Clarke and Keira Knightley) are assigned to live in Hamburg during the post-war reconstruction, but tensions arise with the German who previously owned the house, Stefan Lubert, played by Alexander Skarsgård, who is actually Swedish.
Even though period movies aren’t really my bag, this looks like it could be pretty good… oh, until it started dropping into romantic slush as she falls for the German guy whose wife died in the war.
Director: James Kent
Novel: Rhidian Brook
Screenplay: Joe Shrapnel, Anna Waterhouse
Also stars: Kate Phillips, Jannik Schümann, Fionn Shea, Alexander Scheer, Tom Bell
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.