STACK NZ June 2015 Issue 63

Hiking America’s 1,100-mile long Pacific Crest Trail is not

for the inexperienced, nor the unprepared. Cheryl Strayed

is both when she embarks on the journey as a way to

recover from grief and self-destructive behaviour. In an

Oscar-nominated performance, Reese Witherspoon perfectly

captures Cheryl‘s complexity – damaged, guilt-ridden and

struggling to find out who she really is, but also a woman

of true grit, wit and determination. Writer Nick Hornby

(

About a Boy)

and director Jean-Marc Vallee (

Dallas Buyers

Club

) cleverly use freewheeling flashbacks to reveal the

circumstances that led Cheryl to embark on her wilderness adventure, which

is fraught with irritations as well as danger. Being a woman alone in the

wild makes Cheryl vulnerable to both men and beasts, but she perseveres,

learning about survival and, more importantly, about herself along the way.

A walk on the wild side

WILD

Reversing the current Hollywood

love-in with all things Nordic,

Danish filmmaker Kristian Levring

here tackles that most American

of genres, the western. And a

mightily impressive effort it is too,

even if it’s closer in feel to the

darker spaghetti westerns of the

'60s. Mad Mikkelsen is his usual

charismatic self as the immigrant

farmer who kills the man

responsible for the death of his

wife and son, only to find himself

hunted in turn by the dead man's

brother, evil land baron Jeffrey

Dean Morgan. The excellent, multi-

national cast also includes Eva

Green as Morgan’s sister-in-law

and Jonathan Pryce as the

town’s shifty mayor.

THE SALVATION

elease Date:

1/06/15

ormat:

Leigh Janiak brings a deeply

unsettling psychological dimension

to the standard cabin-in-the-woods

flick in his stunning horror debut.

Essentially a two-hander, Rose

Leslie (

Game of Thrones

) and

Harry Treadaway (

Penny Dreadfu

are newlyweds who travel to her

family’s idyllic but remote cabin for

their honeymoon. But their dream

vacation begins to unravel when

he discovers her sleepwalking

in the woods and begins to

detect perplexing changes in her

personality. Leslie and Treadaway

are heartbreakingly believable as

the tormented couple and the

ambivalent ending just heightens

the sense of dread. One of the

year’s best horror flicks.

HONEYMOON

Release Date:

24/06/15

Format:

Release Date:

17/06/15

Format:

e recent spate of controversial police shootings in

erica is a sobering reminder that the US has still a long

y to go as far as harmonious race relations are concerned.

d this impassioned, multi-layered drama about the fight

for

voting rights for African-Americans provides some

val

uable insights into why these racial divisions run so deep.

e year is 1965 and Martin Luther King (David Oyelowo)

s just won the Nobel Peace Prize. Dissatisfied that Lyndon

hnson (TomWilkinson) is dragging his heels in legislating

for

equal voting rights for all Americans, he decides to make

a stand in ultra-racist Selma, Alabamba, where their non-violent protests

ignite a brutal police response. Oyelowo is magnificent as King and what

makes the performance – and the film – even more compelling is that

director Ava DuVernay is not afraid to cast him in an unflattering light.

He had a dream

SELMA

When cyber-terrorism creates

chaos in the financial markets

and compromises a nuclear

plant in Hong Kong, convicted

hacker and tech genius Chris

Hemsworth is offered a

temporary get-out-of-jail-free

card in exchange for assisting

the FBI to track down the

person responsible. Directed

by Michael Mann,

Blackhat

is a

topical techno-thriller saturated

in the filmmaker's signature

visual dazzle and neon glow,

with the camera plunging into

and traversing the datastream

in a flashy sequence worthy

of David Fincher. Best viewed

on Blu-ray to better appreciate

Mann's visual tour de force.

BLACKHAT

elease Date:

4/06/15

ormat:

The kind of cookie-cutter psycho-

thriller that was popular in the

'90s (

Single White Female

Fear

The Crush

The Boy Next Door

is an unashamedly corny yet

guiltily enjoyable blast from the

past. Handsome stranger Ryan

Guzman enters the life of Jennifer

Lopez, whose marriage is on the

rocks. Before the half-hour mark

he's already seduced her and

taught her bullied teenage son to

stand up for himself. But when

she rejects his further advances,

things turn predictably nasty.

J.Lo

and

Step Up

hunk Guzman

give this huge appeal for teens,

who will enjoy the racy sex

scenes and fail to notice the

blatant lack of originality.

THE BOY NEXT

DOOR

elease Date:

7/06/15

ormat:

Release Date:

17/06/15

Format:

DVD

REVIEWS