STACK #169 Nov 2018

CINEMA REVIEWS

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A STAR IS BORN RELEASED: Oct 18 DIRECTOR: Bradley Cooper CAST: Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Sam Elliott, Marlon Williams RATING: M

SCREENING IN NOVEMBER 2018

A timeless love story is passionately reborn.

There’s a reason this is the fourth time A Star Is Born has been made into a major motion picture. Aside from that perennial fantasy of being whisked away from your ho-hum existence by a megastar, the narrative can be neatly updated into whichever scene the current era most idolises. This time around it’s the tour-heavy modern music jag, with Bradley Cooper as the messed- up and mumbling rockstar Jackson Maine and Lady Gaga as spunky aspiring musician Ally, whom the former happens to see performing in a drag bar when he stumbles in one drunken night. Gaga offers an impressive evolution of

personality over the course of the film; in its beginnings when Ally is closer to Gaga’s own Stefani Joanne Germanotta self, she’s adorably incredulous. When her career’s on the ascent and she’s harshly reprimanded for sending her dancers off-stage, her face falls, and it’s heartbreaking. As she begins to take control of her destiny, her features gain resolve but they don’t harden – she manages to convince us that her character’s love for Jackson is the golden thread and absolute constant of her life. You’d have to be stone not to be moved when Ally first throws caution to the wind and walks on stage after Jackson’s spontaneous invitation – filmed by Cooper in very close-up, mobile shots which move in-step with Ally, with the heaving festival crowd looking just about ready to tsunami the stage – and Cooper and Gaga do have chemistry, which makes the story’s anguished moments genuinely stirring. The film also presents as a kind of eulogy for the apparently dying art of ‘real musicianship’ in the epoch of stadium pop tours. It’s a little lumbering as an allegory, but don’t think about that angle too hard – it’s the only thing bringing down this otherwise very entertaining, cannily-shot, moving update to a timeless story. Zoé Radas – is ready and waiting for him. Wearing the trauma of the past like her own mask, Laurie has been preparing for this very night, and Jamie Lee Curtis rises to the occasion as if she’s harbouring a personal grudge. Nevermind that she killed him in Halloween H20 (1998) – this latest chapter ignores the events of all prior sequels to serve as a direct follow-up to the original. What it isn’t is another generic slasher film aimed at the teen market. Director David Gordon Green has eschewed jump scares and cheap shocks in favour of the slow-build suspense and shadowy milieu that distinguished Carpenter’s film. The bodycount is higher, the kills brutal without being gratuitous, and Michael’s murderous MO is as measured and methodical as that of his younger self. When you consider he’s now a sixty-something maniac in a Shatner mask, he’s even creepier. This Halloween resurrection is a worthy sequel-cum-reimagination that will satisfy fans, paying respectful homage to the original without blatant fan service. The only real gripe is a surprise and unnecessary twist that simply doesn’t work at all. Scott Hocking

Rami Malek's uncanny transformation into Queen frontman Freddie Mercury is just one of the highlights awaiting audiences in this hugely anticipated rock biopic that chronicles Freddie and the band's rise in the ten years leading up to their legendary appearance at the 1985 Live Aid concert. Then of course there is the killer line-up of classic Queen tracks. Look up to the screen and see on Nov 1 . BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

This time around, Adonis Creed is training for his next big bout, against an opponent with ties to his family’s past – the son of Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren). Back in the ring on Nov 29 . CREED II

RELEASED: Oct 25 DIRECTOR: David Gordon Green CAST: Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Will Patton RATING: MA15+ HALLOWEEN

A welcome homecoming for the horror franchise.

This might sound like faint praise, but the new Halloween is the best film in the long-running franchise since John Carpenter’s 1978 original. It also restores Michael Myers’ status as the ultimate screen boogeyman after numerous lame sequels reduced him to a stereotypical masked maniac. 40 years after he stalked babysitter Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) on Halloween night and murdered her friends, Michael has once again escaped from Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, only this time Laurie – now a survivalist grandma

The timeless tale returns with Kingsman 's Taron Egerton as the legendary archer, Ben Mendelsohn as the Sheriff of Nottingham, and Jamie Foxx as Little John. Robbing from the rich on Nov 22 . ROBIN HOOD

Joel Edgerton's second film as director is a powerful insight into a gay teenager's ordeal in a church-supported conversion program. Find out why you can't simply pray away the gay on Nov 8 . BOY ERASED

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NOVEMBER 2018

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