What to Watch this Week (12-19 Sep)
The best films to watch this week on the big screen, the small screen and your laptop screen, including Taika Waititi's joyous Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Netflix's tricksy new time-travel movie ARQ
What to watch: Hunt for the Wilderpeople
We love Taika Waititi here at The Skinny. Nothing in 2015 made us laugh more than his vampire house-share mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows. His involvement in the latest Thor film has even made us anxious to see a Marvel movie. We also adore his bitter-sweet coming of age film Boy, from 2010. He’s in a similar mood with new film Hunt for the Wilderpeople, which follows a rotund 13-year-old who goes missing in the bush with his reluctant guardian Hec (Sam Neill). “Quirky outsider comedy is clearly Waititi’s forte,” said our reviewer, Michelle Devereaux, “and here it’s polished to an effortlessly funny, confident and crowd-pleasing shine.” Read the full review.
Released 16 Sep by Vertigo
Also worth a look: The Clan
Based on an astonishing true story, Pablo Trapero’s taut crime thriller follows Arquimedes Puccio – an avuncular remnant of Argentina’s military junta – as he kidnaps wealthy men and women in the early 80s with the support of his family. Our reviewer, Michael Jaconelli, praised the film's “muscular swagger reminiscent of Scorsese” and said that “with a classic rock soundtrack and vivid cinematography to match the performances, The Clan is at once a thrilling crime saga and haunting reminder of Argentina’s history.” Read the full review.
Released 16 Sep by Curzon Artificial Eye
What to watch at home this week: Matinee
A lost gem in the filmography of Joe Dante (Gremlins, The ‘Burbs), this is one of the director’s most personal films. Set in Key West during the Cuban Missile Crisis, it stars John Goodman as Lawrence Woolsey, a low-rent horror filmmaker who turns up with something to help take everyone's mind off the real possibility of total nuclear annihilation: Mant!, a ridiculous nuclear panic horror about a man whose DNA is fused with an ant while getting his teeth X-rayed. The film within the film is as schlockily brilliant as it sounds, while the story around it is as smart, funny and heartfelt as anything Dante’s ever made. Read our review.
Released on Blu-ray and DVD 12 Sep by Arrow Video
Also worth a watch: Flight of the Phoenix
Some proper old-school movie-making here with Robert Aldrich’s Flight of the Phoenix, a proto-disaster movie centred on a plane wreck that leaves a group of men stranded in the middle of the Sahara desert. As the surviving crew sit around in the heat trying to conserve their water, tensions build between the plane’s luddite captain (James Stewart) and the German aeronautical engineer (Hardy Kruger) who has a plan to get the plane, or at least bits of it, back in the air. Aldrich’s film is bursting at the seams with vivid performances, including Ernest Borgnine as a stir crazy oil rig worker, Peter Finch as a stoic British army officer, Richard Attenborough as the drunk navigator and, most memorable of all, Ian Bannen as the wisecracking Scot with all the best lines.
Released on Blu-ray and DVD 12 Sep by Eureka! Entertainment
What to stream this week: ARQ
This trixy little time-travel movie – a Netflix original – has us intrigued. A kind of Groundhog Day story, the film follows a couple (Robbie Amell and Rachael Taylor) who find themselves stuck in a loop in their lab and fending off mysterious intruders who want to get hold of the eponymous contraption, a new energy source that could save humanity. Of course, it’s the ARQ that’s also turned space and time to spaghetti. Time-travel movies can sometimes be hard to pull off, with the narrative usually getting lost in the concept’s central paradox, but ARQ is written and directed by Tony Elliot, the creator of intriguing and twist filled series Orphan Black, so we have high hopes.
Streaming on Netflix from 16 Sep