Magic Mike
Channing’s chaps – ★★★★
A google search for “Soderbergh retirement” returns 603,000 results. Ever since March 2011 when the director told The Hollywood Reporter that he would be retiring after his next two pictures, the film world has been hoping he’s been pulling our legs. While he has since gone back and adjusted these claims to say it may only be a “sabbatical” and that he could just focus on television projects, it is almost certain that the man regarded as Hollywood’s most “interesting” film-maker isn’t going to be as “present” as he has been since making a splash by winning the 1989 Palme D’Or at Cannes with Sex, Lies and Videotape.
Killer Joe
Kentucky Fried Crazy - ★★★★
William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection) takes Tracey Letts’s play Killer Joe to the big screen with an impressive all-star ensemble cast. Even more impressive is Matthew McConaughey at the helm, putting in a potentially career-changing performance.
Bernie
Linklater, linklater, oh where have you been - ★★★★
Richard Linklater’s new film Bernie tells the true story of the rise and fall of Jack Black’s small-town Texas mortician Bernie Tiede. Bernie is an immensely popular member of the community in the town of Carthage who is as big a hit with the LOLs (little old ladies) as he is with the drama society. He befriends a wealthy widow by the name of Marjorie Nugent, played by Shirley MacLaine, and eventually becomes her aide and travel companion. However the unconventional relationship quickly turns sour and when she disappears the whole town starts to ask questions. If you need the real-world scoop on what happened, then you can check out the NYTimes, or the Daily Mail if you’re that way inclined.
