BURGONIA
Did Emma Stone really shave her hair off? This is the question that is ringing in everyone’s minds. Don’t worry, the spoiler won’t be provided. You have to watch the movie for that. Termed as an ‘Absurdist’ plus ‘Black Comedy’ helmed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Burgonia stars Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons and Alicia Silverstone. It is an English-language rendition of Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 South Korean film Save the Green Planet!. It depicts two young men who kidnap a powerful CEO, fearing that she is an alien plotting to destroy Earth. David Rooney (The Hollywood Reporter) sang its praises, claiming, “If anything, it’s distrusting in humanity’s ability to rise above our own failures, arguing that while it’s not too late to turn things around, we probably won’t anyway.” If that doesn’t send a wave of thrill down a a cinephile’s spine, I don’t know what will.
AKA CHARLIE SHEEN
Let’s step into reality for a while; it’s not so bad, is it? Perhaps this documentary can answer this quandary. The two-part documentary film explores Charlie Sheen’s initial years and beginnings of his career, after his drug abuse allegations and public consequences, as well as the impact these events have had on his family, friends, and industry colleagues, particularly Chuck Lorre and Jon Cryer, who starred with him on the popular television series Two and a Half Me. In the documentary Charlie Sheen debunks the myths and conspiracies surrounding his scandals and sexual revelations. Seriously, who doesn’t love celebrity gossip, drama and scandals? I am in for it, and so should you.
THE LONG WALK
Want to see a subservient version of Orwell’s 1984 and King’s The Running Man? Based on the novel by Stephen King, ‘The Long Walk’. In an imminent America devastated by an economic downturn, fifty young boys are forced to compete in the Long Walk, a cruel government-sponsored endurance event with simple rules: keep walking or die. The story has an intuitive groove at its best, but the camaraderie is doomed to fail because the supplementary military, led by a comically boisterous commander portrayed by Mark Hamill, routinely winnows down the weary pack, and nearly every horrific headshot is depicted in full, gory detail. The book was inspired by the events conspired during the Vietnam War. The cast appears to be prompted by what truly happens during wartime, which is the cause of many deaths – bodies giving out, delirium, disease, insubordination, desertion, and the enemy slaughtering you. Brutal.
CHAINSAW MAN – THE MOVIE: REZE ARC.
I’d love to proclaim that Mappa cooked with one. The animation level is being compared to the elite Jujutsu Kaisen because no CGI was used in this god-esque level of cinematography. The graphic coming-of-age tale by Tatsuki Fujimoto was initially serialised in 2018. There is no denying the film’s artistic quality: director Tatsuya Yoshihara and crew create incredibly lifelike urban settings, which are made even more striking when Reze detonates her earthly form with a grenade pin from her neck and when a possessed Denji, armed with chainsaws, mounts a counterattack above his shark familiar. Perhaps, dear reader, I am more excited to see Makima on screen than Denji. But Denji and Reze’s blend of chaos and mayhem would be so exciting that the anime community would perhaps be biting their fingernails off.
DEAD OF WINTER
A devastated hermit (Emma Thompson) becomes disoriented on backroads near a Minnesota lake and seeks assistance in an isolated cottage in the woods during a blizzard. Here, she encounters a young woman (Laurel Marsden) kidnapped by a distraught pair (Judy Greer, Marc Menchaca) who are armed and ready to kill. Secluded and without mobile service, this unlikely hero realises she is the woman’s last hope for survival. An eternal winter instead of summer is waiting in the fold for those who’d love a bloodcurdling thriller that’d freeze their bones.
Perhaps it doesn’t appear as something that has nuances of sparkly cinematography, but from all its reviews and reasons, it is bound to keep you on your toes. After all, who wouldn’t appreciate an emo woman saving another emo girl from people diagnosed with psychotic-emo disorder? It’s an underrated masterpiece.