What to Watch this Week (27 Mar-2 Apr)

The best things to watch this week on the big screen, the small screen and your laptop screen, including the live action Ghost in the Shell remake, Ben Wheatley's Free Fire and Rainer Werner Fassbinder masterpiece Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

Feature by The Skinny | 29 Mar 2017

Best new films in the Multiplex

Free Fire

Ben Wheatley returns with a great cast (Brie Larson, Cillian Murphy, Noah Taylor, Armie Hammer), he puts them in a single location (an abandoned warehouse), adds a juicy setup (an arms deal that goes horribly wrong), and lets the wisecracks as bullets fly. Read our interview with Wheatley and Free Fire star Sharlto Copley | Read our review of Free Fire

Released 31 Mar by StudioCanal

Ghost in the Shell

The much-anticipated live action remake of Masamune Shirow’s legendary manga Ghost in the Shell is released this week. The casting of Scarlett Johansson has proved controversial, however, with many accusing the filmmakers of whitewashing. The director of the original Ghost in the Shell anime, Mamoru Oshii, weighed in on the debate, claiming he has no problems with Johansson in the role.

“What issue could there possibly be with casting her?” Oshii said. “The major is a cyborg and her physical form is an entirely assumed one.” With that contentious issue out the way, we’re left with only one question: is the film any good? The trailers and clips look promising, but we’ll find out for sure on Friday.

Released 31 Mar by Paramount

Best new film in the Arthouse

Graduation

Another intricate, quietly gripping drama from Romanian New Wave star Cristian Mungiu. Here he follows a well-meaning doctor who finds himself up to his elbows in corruption as he attempts to boost his daughter’s grade on her final school exam. “Graduation offers another suspenseful web of compromises from Mungiu,” wrote our reviewer Josh Slater-Williams, “with an achingly sad figure at its centre: a man trying to secure better prospects for his daughter in terrible circumstances, while only serving to set off a proverbial ticking time bomb for his own life and so many others.” Read our full review.

Released 31 Mar by Artificial Eye/Curzon

Best old film

Fear Eats the Soul

New German Cinema firecracker Rainer Werner Fassbinder made 40 films in his short career before his early death at 37. This might be the best. Taking Douglas Sirk's Hollywood melodrama All That Heaven Allows as a starting point, Fassbinder tells the story of a May-December romance between an aging German widow and a Moroccan bricklayer. Their sweet courtship horrifies the neighbours and the widow’s adult children, one of which is played by Fassbinder.

Modern Germany had perhaps not moved on as far as it had seem by the 1970s, and echos of its dark past lay everywhere in this film. Despite the prejudice and moral hypocrisy, Fear Eats the Soul is as lush as the Sirk melodramas from which it takes its influence, and Fassbinder’s use of colour, framing and expressive camera work is constantly surprising and evocative.

Released 31 Mar by Arrow

Best streaming

Five Came Back

Based on Mark Hariss’s book about five great Hollywood directors – Frank Capra, John Ford, John Huston, George Stevens and William Wyler – who interrupted their careers to serve in WWII, this Netflix docuseries explores how these filmmakers’ exposure to humanity’s capacity for evil challenged their grasp of the world and altered their work. A must see for film buffs, with contributions by five contemporary directors: Steven Spielberg, Guillermo Del Toro, Francis Ford Coppola, Paul Greengrass, and Lawrence Kasdan. Meryl Streep narrates.

Streaming on Netflix from 31 Mar

http://theskinny.co.uk/film