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This week, there are SEVEN new films out for you to choose from, led by Overlord. Here are the titles, with more info below:
- Overlord
Bros: After The Screaming Stops
Wildlife
Widows
Won’t You Be My Neighbour?
Kin
The Grinch
Overlord is the new bizarre horror movie from producer JJ Abrams and let’s hope it can be a damn sight more enjoyable than the recent lacklustre offerings, Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, although he directed those and he’s just producing this one. Then again, with Mr Abrams, I get the impression he’s massively hands-on either way.
On the eve of D-Day, American paratroopers are dropped behind enemy lines to carry out a mission crucial to the invasion’s success. But as they approach their target, they begin to realize there is more going on in this Nazi-occupied village than a simple military operation. They find themselves fighting against supernatural forces, part of a Nazi experiment.
Mixing horror with World War II, this looks like the movie version of the modern Wolfenstein games!
Overlord looks like great fun – and Pilou Asbæk (Borgen) is always worth a watch – and the film is released in the UK on October 25th.
Oh, and the lead, Wyatt Russell, also recently starred in the superb Ingrid Goes West, starring Aubrey Plaza.
Director: Julius Avery
Screenplay: Billy Ray, Mark L Smith
Also stars: Bokeem Woodbine, Iain De Caestecker, Jacob Anderson, Hélène Cardona, John Magaro, Jovan Adepo
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Bros: After The Screaming Stops
In the 1980s, Bros were one of the biggest bands in the world – for 15 minutes. Having sold out stadiums around the world, they were the youngest to this day to play Wembley and their Push album went to Number 1 in over 20 countries, selling 10 million copies worldwide. The rise and fall of Bros was meteoric.
This film charts twins Matt and Luke Goss’s reunion 28 years on, having hardly spoken and not played together since their split. With an incredibly fractured relationship and only 3 weeks to go until sell-out gigs at The O2 London, will they be able to put their history aside and come together as brothers to play the show of their lives? A raw and emotional look into the aftermath of fame and the re-connection between two twins torn apart by their past.
Personally, I actually went to see their first ever gig, a warm-up at the Manchester Apollo, back in the day. I was 15 and it was 1987, the tickets were £5 each and I hugely enjoyed it! I almost went deaf, but it was a hell of a lot of fun.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Wildlife centres around a boy who witnesses his parents’ marriage falling apart after his mother finds another man.
Paul Dano was a revelation as the young Brian Wilson in the Beach Boys biopic Love And Mercy, and here, he adapts the novel by Richard Ford, and also directs.
The trailer for this looks both bizarre and intriguing, but both Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan, rarely put a foot wrong, so I’m very much looking forward to this.
Also stars: Bill Camp, Ed Oxenbould, Zoe Margaret Colletti, JR Hatchett, Blaine Maye, Darryl Cox
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Widows adapts the 1983 Lynda La Plante TV series, but updates it by putting it in Chicago and adding in big explosions.
It’s the story of four women with nothing in common except a debt left behind by their dead husbands’ criminal activities. Set in contemporary Chicago, amid a time of turmoil, tensions build when Veronica (Viola Davis – Suicide Squad), Alice (Elizabeth Debicki – The Night Manager), Linda (Michelle Rodriguez) and Belle (Cynthia Erivo) take their fate into their own hands and conspire to forge a future on their own terms.
From the trailer, it does look a pretty interesting pot-boiler and has a great trailer, so I am looking forward to this.
Widows has been released on Tuesday this week so they can cash in on a 6-day “weekend”, given the odd way these things work, which I’ve mentioned countless times before. The longest ‘weekend’ you can have is 9 days, and is done by releasing a film on a Saturday.
Release a film in the right week and you can cash-in on an easy No.1. There’s not a huge amount of mainstream competition this week.
Director: Steve McQueen
Writers: Gillian Flynn, Steve McQueen
Also stars: Colin Farrell, Liam Neeson, Carrie Coon, Jon Bernthal, Daniel Kaluuya, Garret Dillahunt, Robert Duvall, Brian Tyree Henry, Lukas Haas, Jacki Weaver, Kevin J O’Connor
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Won’t You Be My Neighbour?
Charmingly soft-spoken and yet powerfully incisive expressing his profound ideals, Fred Rogers was a unique presence on television for generations. Through interviews of his family and colleagues, the life of this would-be pastor is explored as a man who found a more important calling to provide an oasis for children in a video sea of violent bombardment. That proved to be his landmark series, MisteRogers’ Neighborhood (1968), a show that could gently delve into important subjects no other children’s show would have dared for that time.
In doing so, Rogers experienced a career where his sweet-tempered idealism charmed and influenced the world whether it be scores of children on TV or recalcitrant authorities in government. However, that beloved personality also hid Rogers’ deep self-doubts about himself and occasional misjudgments even as he proved a rock of understanding in times of tragedy for a world that did not always comprehend a man of such noble character.
Personally, while I’ve heard the name (particularly in The Breakfast Club), Mr Rogers is not someone who’s ever had an impact in the UK, and I can’t see this doing much over here.
Director: Morgan Neville
Stars: Fred Rogers, Joanne Rogers, John Rogers
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
Kin
Co-directors Jonathan Baker and Josh Baker‘s Sci-Fi action thriller features James Franco, Zoe Kravitz, and Dennis Quaid. A young boy (Myles Truitt) finds a powerful otherworldly weapon, which he uses to save his older adoptive brother (Jack Reynor) from a crew of thugs. Before long, the two of them are also pursued by federal agents and mysterious mercenaries aiming to reclaim their asset.
Chased by a vengeful criminal, the feds and a gang of otherworldly soldiers, a recently released ex-con, and his adopted teenage brother are forced to go on the run with a weapon of mysterious origin as their only protection.
It all looks rather too silly, but not quite enough to write it off entirely..
Writers/Directors: Jonathan Baker, Josh Baker
Also stars: Carrie Coon, Ian Matthews, Gavin Fox, Lily Gao, Michael B Jordan
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Maybe!
The Grinch is am animation which comes from Illumination, the same studio as Despicable Me, The Secret Life of Pets and Sing, and centres around a grumpy Grinch who plots to ruin Christmas for the village of Whoville, the man himself voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch.
It’s not my bag, though.
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.