Entertainment
Films out this week: From White Noise to Your Christmas Or Mine?-Larushka Ivan-Zadeh and James Mottram-Entertainment – Metro
Here’s what you can expect to see.
In the mood for a dark comedy drama? White Noise might just be your thing (Picture: Netflix)
Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel was famously considered unfilmable – an assessment that’s unlikely to change despite the best attempts of this ambitious, idiosyncratic and ‘interesting’ experiment by the director-writer Noah Baumbach (Marriage Story).
A pot-bellied Adam Driver is bizarrely miscast as a professor of Hitler studies with a loving wife (Greta Gerwig) and a blended family of kids.
Then one day a potentially fatal ‘airborne toxic event’ crashes into their mundane domestic bliss, causing mortality fears to erupt and the movie to switch from neurotic drama-comedy to apocalyptic action-adventure.
Everyone talks in a weird manner that you’ll either get your intellectual rocks off by pondering over the ‘why?’ of or bail out early. Luckily, it’s humorous.
Out Friday in London cinemas, then nationwide on Dec 9 and available from Dec 30 on Netflix
More films out this week
David Harbour (left) and John Leguizamo star in Violent Night (Picture: Allen Fraser)
Violent Night
Stranger Things’ David Harbour stars as a funny, boozy real-life Father Christmas in this blood-curdling cross between Die Hard and Bad Santa.
Wearied by the crass commercialism and greed of today’s yuletide, Santa stumbles into an encounter with the wealthy Lightstone family, whose mansion is under siege from a group of robbers on Christmas Eve. Luckily, this Daddy Xmas is a dab hand at fighting.
Wearing its influences blatantly – John Leguizamo, who featured in Die Hard 2, even pops up as gang leader Mr Scrooge – Violent Night is an odd mix.
Beverly D’Angelo is amusing as Gertrude, the hard-nosed Lightstone matriarch, but the scenes of her young granddaughter bonding with Harbour’s Santa feel out of place in a film where villains get slaughtered by the dozen. Still, it’s a credible alternate to the usual saccharine festive fluff.
Out Friday in cinemas
The Infernal Machine
Guy Pearce plays Bruce Cogburn in the psychological thriller (Picture: Supplied)
The ever-marvellous Guy Pearce stars as a reclusive author who is drawn out of hiding by the messages of an obsessive fan. Think 1990s-style psychological thriller. It co-stars Alice Eve and Alex Pettyfer.
Out Friday in cinemas
Scrooge: A Christmas Carol
A new computer-animated musical of Charles Dickens’ classic yuletide fable. The impressive adult voice cast includes Luke Evans (who voices Scrooge), Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Johnny Flynn, James Cosmo and Jonathan Pryce, but it’s still basically just one to stick the kids in front of.
Out Friday on Netflix
Tori And Lokita
Tori And Lokita sees two teenagers strike up a friendship after travelling from Africa to Europe (Picture: Supplied)
The latest tense slice of social realism from Belgian auteurs the Dardenne brothers. Two teenagers (Joely Mbundu and Pablo Schils) who have travelled alone from Africa to Belgium, struggle to negotiate the immigration system and build a new life.
Out Friday in cinemas
Your Christmas Or Mine?
In this festive Sliding Doors-style romcom, two loved-up drama students (Cora Kirk and Asa Butterfield) end up spending Christmas with each other’s families. Heart-warming and funny with loads of fake snow, it slips down easier than a warm mince pie.
Out Friday on Prime Video
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