THE SOUVENIR PART 2
Cinemas Now
* * * *
Joanna Hogg’s follow-up to her sublime autobiographical rendering of a troubled relationship she had in her early adulthood maintains an air of artful exquisiteness while shifting the focus from love to art. This time, her young self completes her film school training by working through the events of Part 1. It’s a glorious, intriguing film, thoroughly engrossing and deeply personal.
DJANGO AND DJANGO (Netflix)
* * *
If you think nothing could be more entertaining than watching Quentin Tarantino celebrate the career of the “second Sergio of Spaghetti Westerns,” Sergio Corbucci, then this is the film for you. The kind of film you’d once only ever see at film festivals, now on Netflix!
THE DROPOUT (Disney+)
Extremely entertaining look at the rise and fall of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes anchored by a career-best lead performance from Amanda Seyfried.
A SONG CALLED HATE
* * * 1/2
VOD Now through iwonder.com
Everyone loves a feature-length documentary about an Icelandic techno-heavy-BDSM band’s political coming-of-age during the Eurovision Song Contest, right? Ok, it sounds niche – and it is, of course, on the surface – but Anna Hildur Hildibrandsdottir’s film following the band Hatari as they navigate the complexities of Israeli / Palestinian politics and attempt to stage a protest while participating in the 2019 show in Tel Aviv is eye-opening, compelling and thoughtful. The band members are aggressively political at home in Iceland, but the situation in Israel clearly rattles them, and watching them try to maintain their position in the face of actual fear makes for honest, universal drama.
FRIENDS AND STRANGERS
* * * 1/2
Opening 10 March in select cinemas
James Vaughn’s modest feature debut is a beguiling, entrancing, sunny Sydney jewel with a hum of strange menace. A bit Rohmer and a bit microbudget Lynch, it’s its own thing, an odd, and oddly magical, original.