Mad God
If a film takes thirty years to make and drives the director into having a mental breakdown and a stay in a psychiatric ward, it’s going to be interesting ride even if it’s not very good but thankfully, Phil Tippet’s stop-motion horror epic ‘Mad God’ delivers the gruesome goods.
Tippet, whose visual effects credits include the original Star Wars Trilogy,. Robocop, Jurassic Park and the Twilight saga directed, produced, wrote, designed and animated this tale of a character dressed in a deep-sea diver costume descending into a hell-scape on a mission armed with a suitcase bomb.
It’s grisly, unsettling and not for the faint-hearted but if you’ve got a strong stomach, you’ll be treated an awe-inspiring feast of nightmarish animation.
RRR
Alleged to be the most expensive Indian movie ever made, RRR is a fantastical fictional story about two real-life Indian revolutionaries, Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem and their fight against the British Raj.
In different hands this premise could have led to a slow-paced David Lean-esq drama, but director S.S. Rajamouli dials everything up to a thousand creating an action-packed visual masterpiece that will keep you exhilarated throughout the three hour running time.
Both the leads playing out the superhuman bromance/frenemy narrative are excellent and if you haven’t got a giant TV in your house, it’s worth investing in one just to appreciate RRR in its full glory.
Compartment No.6
If you lost your heart to Richard Linklater’s ‘Before Sunrise) then this is the movie for you to snuggle up to this summer. Shortlisted for the best International Feature at this years academy awards, Compartment No.6 is the story of a Finnish student travelling by train to from Moscow to Murmansk in the Arctic to study the Kanozero Petroglyphs, rock drawings dated to the 2nd and 3rd Millenium BC that have yet to be deciphered. Forced to share the small train car with a gruff Russian Miner, they form a bond that changes both of their lives.
The unique relationship between the two protagonists is beautifully played. Are they soulmates destined to be together or two lost and lonely people thrown together by circumstance? Compartment No.6 is the unconventional love story for the modern age.
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Based on the true of televangelist Jim Bakker and his wife Tammy Faye who founded the PTL Satellite Network, an evangelical Christian television network, which became one of the biggest shows of its kind on US TV. After becoming embroiled with powerful conservative televangelist such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, Jim aped their right-wing rhetoric of family values and anti homosexuality whereas Tammy was more liberal and compassionate, doing segments on penis pumps and interviewing Steven Pieters, a gay pastor who had contracted AIDS.
Jessica Chastain as Tammy won the Oscar for her role and armed with a cache of prosthetics and make-up, she puts in an exceptional performance and although the movie sometimes feels light-weight, there’s plenty to keep you entertained.
