What to Watch this Week (24-30 Jan)

Article by The Skinny | 24 Jan 2017

The best things to watch this week on the big screen, the small screen and your laptop screen, including Trainspotting 2 and Hacksaw Ridge

Flamingo

We’re delighted that Flamingo, the bruising and beautiful short film from Bryan Ferguson, is now available to watch online. Ferguson was winner of The Skinny’s short film competition in 2015 for the visceral Caustic Gulp, and Flamingo, which debuted at last year’s Glasgow Short Film Festival, was similarly bracing. It was so extreme, in fact, that several people fainted in the premiere screening. With its arrival online, you’re now able to watch it and pass out in the comfort of your own home.

Ghost In the Shell

Ahead of its upcoming live action remake starring Scarlett Johansson, there's a chance to once again dive into the mind-expanding sci-fi strangeness of the original anime about a female cyborg assassin trying to track down an all-powerful cybernetic hacker (or something). If the convoluted plot of this dizzying cyberpunk action flick set in a rain-soaked dystopia seems familiar, it’s because the Wachowskis would rip it off wholesale three years later with The Matrix.

In cinemas on Web 25 Jan. To find your nearest participating cinema, go to Ghost in the Shell's official site.

T2: Trainspotting

We’ve been waiting 20 years, but the followup to Danny Boyle’s iconic Trainspotting hit cinemas this Friday. Given the expectations that have been building over the last few months, expect busy cinemas this weekend.

Our reviewer, Joe Walsh, gave the film the thumbs up. Despite being “messy, befuddled, and a little disjointed,” Boyle’s sequel "brims with the same energy as the original," he wrote.

“It manages to escape sequel syndrome and is more like a rehab reunion,” notes Walsh. “Most surprising of all is that Boyle has made a touching movie that avoids sentiment but still manages to intoxicate.” Read our full T2: Trainspotting review.

In cinemas from Friday 27 Jan

Hacksaw Ridge

We thought we’d seen our last Mel Gibson film, but he’s back from the ignominy of his racist and misogynistic outbursts and likely heading for some Oscar nominations for his new war film (we suppose if Americans are happy to have a misogynist as president, they’re cool with watching a misogynist's movies).

This story might be about the heroism of a nonviolent conscientious objector who saved 75 men during WWII without firing or carrying a gun, but this is a Mel Gibson movie, so expect lots of gratuitous violence and some Jesus analogies.

In cinemas from Friday 27 Jan

Cameraperson

We love Kirsten Johnson's Cameraperson, a deeply moving memoir of her life as a cinematographer which takes the form of a tapestry of unused documentary footage and home movies she has shot and collected over her 25 year career.

Our reviewer, Patrick Gamble, called it “an enthralling journey of shifting perspectives of the world,” adding that “Cameraperson dismantles the myth of the objective documentary, forcing the audience to interrogate the very idea of ‘looking’ and what it means to carry the burden of accumulated memories.” Read our full Cameraperson review.

In cinemas from Friday 27 Jan

http://theskinny.co.uk/film