With the end of the January exam season on the horizon and the start of second semester looming, an escape to the cinema is definitely fitting. This week has everything from a nostalgic look at all of the best teen movies with Beyond Clueless, to human machines in Ex Machina and Johnny Depp as a part-time crook in Mortdecai. Read the full extent of this week’s releases below.
Beyond Clueless is the ‘ultimate movie about teen movies’ by Charlie Lyne, that began through Kickstart. The film takes a journey into the depths of the teen movie genre through the eyes of over 200 coming-of-age classics, from Rushmore to 10 Things I Hate About You. It has been dubbed a guide to the best (and worst) of teen movies, and has an original soundtrack by band Summer Camp.
Ex Machina sees Caleb, a young programmer, working on what at first sight is the project of a lifetime. He is invited to a hidden research facility that has seen a breakthrough in artificial intelligence through the creation of the very real female AI, Ava. Complications arise when Caleb finds himself falling for Ava, despite her supposed lack of consciousness. What forms is a thriller about the nature of what is real and what is programmed.
Mark Wahlberg stars as gambling Lit professor Jim Bennett in The Gambler. When Jim’s gambling habits spiral out of control he is forced to borrow money from his mother before he loses everything and owes money to all of the wrong people, including a gangster played by John Goodman. A relationship with a student should complicate things, but could give Jim a surprising second chance.
La Maison De La Radio is a French documentary from BAFTA-nominated filmmaker Nicolas Philbert, exposing a full 24 hours in the life of Radio France. From one dawn to the next, Philbert captures the activity from recording studios, producers, presenters and journalists, not to mention the days various guests.
Mortdecai, a gripping action comedy starring Ewan McGregor, Olivia Munn, Gwyneth Paltrow and Johnny Depp as Charles Mortdecai; a vivacious art dealer who embarks on a race against the Mi5, a group of angry Russians and his own wife in a bid to recover a stolen painting rumoured to hold a wealth of Nazi gold.
The unpredictable winter of 1981 was indeed A Most Violent Year in New York City. This crime-action and drama centres around a family of immigrants unfortunate enough to choose this particularly violent year to expand their business in the face of all that threatens to destroy them.
