If you were delighted by Jean Dujardin’s performance in the Academy Award winning film The Artist, then you might like to check out The Connectionscreening Monday 18^th April at 8.30pm. In The Artist, Dujardin played a 1920’s matinee idol, and in The Connection he steps into the 70s as a French police magistrate trying to clean up the heron trade in Marseilles. Shot in the style of a 70s cop drama, The Connection is stylish and sexy, and once again Dujardin embodies his character and the era. 

Here are my other highlights for the week. 

If you were delighted by Jean Dujardin’s performance in the Academy Award winning film The Artist, then you might like to check out The Connection screening Monday 18^th April at 8.30pm. In The Artist, Dujardin played a 1920’s matinee idol, and in The Connection he steps into the 70s as a French police magistrate trying to clean up the heron trade in Marseilles. Shot in the style of a 70s cop drama, The Connection is stylish and sexy, and once again Dujardin embodies his character and the era. 

Here are my other highlights for the week. 

Who Took Johnny?… Wednesday 20th April, 8.30pm

This month on Rialto Presenters, Judy Bailey introduces a thought provoking series of human-interest documentaries that cover a range of topics, and this week, she looks at story behind the first missing child in America to have his photo on a milk carton. True crime mystery Who Took Johnny is a sensitively and respectfully made documentary that examines an infamous thirty-year-old cold case; the disappearance of Iowa paperboy Johnny Gosch. Directed by David Beilinson, Suki Hawley, and Michael Galinsky (whose previous features include Battle for Brooklyn and Horns and Halos), Who Took Johnny presents a moving portrait of a mother who never gave up looking for her child and in the process changed the way families of missing children are treated by the establishment. The Hollywood Reporter called Who Took Johnny, “Timely, shocking and relentlessly compelling”. 

Cartel Land… Thursday 21^st April, 8.30pm 

Cartel Land is the extraordinary 2016 Oscar nominated documentary from filmmaker Matthew Heinman that follows parallel stories of a group of US and Mexican vigilantes fighting the ruthless drug cartels. In 2013 Heinman began filming with ex solider turned vigilante Tim Foley, who set up the Arizona Border Recon. This group of armed volunteers patrols the border between Arizona and Mexico capturing drug and people smugglers to pass on to law enforcement. Foley is a fascinating, articulate guy with a history of drug addiction, and a documentary on him alone would have been interesting. However, while Heinman was filming with Foley, his father sent him an article about a group of vigilantes on the Mexican side of the border called the Autodefensas, who were also doing their bit to rid the area of cartels. Soon after, Heinman had convinced the Autodefensas’s leader Dr José Mireles to let him film this growing group’s journey. Heinman didn’t stop there; he even infiltrated the cartels, interviewing them as they cooked meth in the middle of the night in the desert. Heinman finds himself in the middle of shootouts and other heavy-handed behavior all of which he captures as objectively as possible. What is most fascinating about this film though is the complexities of vigilantism, and how it’s almost impossible to view this story as one simply between good guys versus the bad guys. Read my interview with Matthew Heinman here.   

Snowpiercer  …Saturday 23rd April, 8.30pm 

Captain America, also known as actor Chris Evans, is almost unrecognizable in this clever, ambitious and thrilling mid-sized sci-fi blockbuster. Snowpiercer is a reminder that you don’t have to have the biggest budget on the block to make an engaging film – just a smart idea executed with heart and soul. An adaptation of a French comic book series Le Transperceneige, Snowpiercer is the vision of South Korean writer director Joon Hi Bong (The Host). His first English language production, Snowpiercer bridges the gap between mainstream and art house with its varied cast including Chris Evan and Octavia Spencer, and Tilda Swinton and John Hurt. The film is set in a post apocalyptic time when the earth has frozen, and the remains of humanity live on a train that travels around the globe via a perpetual-motion engine. The inhabitants are separate by class, with the lower social economic members of society residing at the back of the train in hellish conditions, through to the front of the train where the wealthy live an ostentatious lifestyle. 17 years after boarding the train, Curtis (Evans) and his young side kick Edgar (Jamie Bell) under the mentoring of Gilliam (Hurt) decide the time is right for a revolt and take a no prisoner approach to getting to the front of the train where the train’s creator Wilford (Ed Harris) runs the engine. Brutally violent and unforgiving in its cruelty, Snowpiercer is both a philosophical look at capitalism at a time of social and moral collapse, as well as an exciting thriller. Take a deep breath, and launch on in!