Straight from Weirdsville comes Bugonia, a captivating black comedy treat about the snarky CEO of a lucrative pharmaceutical corporation (Emma Stone) who is kidnapped by two low-IQ conspiracy theory nutters (Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis).
Thing is, these silly sods don’t want a ransom. They believe with every fibre of their demented minds that the executive they’ve got tied up in their basement is – get this – an alien queen who is planning the takeover of Earth.
So, how does somebody extricate themselves from such a predicament? And what are we to believe about what we are witnessing?
These head games are all part of the wicked fun awaiting those hungry for something different and unexpected as you try figuring out exactly what is going on.
The soiree is very well-directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, who steered Stone to an Oscar win in Poor Things.
In an attempt to impress his Heavenly superiors, a low-ranking guardian angel called Gabriel (Keanu Reeves) tries improving the life of a poor guy (writer/director Aziz Ansari) by making him swap places with a billionaire (Seth Rogen), the idea being to teach him that material wealth isn’t everything.
As anyone with half a brain – which the angel clearly does not possess – could predict, these good intentions are promptly derailed by human nature as the poor guy, who’s been sleeping in his car, discovers how being obscenely wealthy actually has an upside.
A very good, consistently funny reworking of the age-old Trading Places premise, the film marks the impressive directorial debut from Ansari, a familiar face to fans of Parks and Recreation.
Now, some sad news for fans of the 37-year old Predator franchise: the latest entry into the canon, Predator: Badlands, isn’t much chop.
Oh, there’s plenty of chopping in it, that’s for sure, but it’s a pretty wet adventure as a multi-fanged predator and a lost android (Elle Fanning) meet on a planet full of deadly critters and become – gulp – friends.
You read that right. Worse, there’s lots of yapping about family and sensitivity and feelings – but what has any of that got to do with an action-movie franchise about a heartless killing machine?
Not even the fight sequences are much good, comprised mostly by the usual slicing and dicing and shooting, driven by a blizzard of mediocre visual effects.
The predator even has a sense of humour. Lordy lord. Who’d have thought things would ever get so bad?
In the unnerving true-crime documentary The Perfect Neighbour, a long-standing, fairly unremarkable neighbourhood dispute about noisy kids and trespassing slowly degenerates until matters reach a lethal pitch.
Assembled chiefly from footage captured on police bodycams and in detention rooms, the film is primarily concerned with America’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” laws and how far people can go when defending themselves.
It certainly works as a sobering cautionary tale about how not to handle minor disputes with the people across the street.
Though the closing captions make clear the film’s message, the portrayal of the warring neighbours is quite balanced as it deals with the thorny issues of provocation and justifiable violence.
Catch it on Netflix, where it’s proving to be a huge hit. Seems people just can’t get enough of this stuff.
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