Some promising new titles this week, including some phenomenally awesome cult favourites.
Repo Man - A youth with no real purpose in life finds himself drawn into the local car repossession company, with its colourful and philosophical characters, and becomes part of a wider conspiracy involving revolutionaries, rival repo men, government agents and dead aliens. Seminal cult classic from Alex Cox that's just so out there you have to watch it to believe it.
Where the Buffalo Roam - Loose biopic about journalist Hunter S Thompson and his relationship with lawyer and politician Oscar Acosta (aka Dr Gonzo). The story is all over the place and it lacks the gonzo feel that it so desperately needed but Bill Murray makes a decent Thompson and it's a good enough performance to warrant watching the movie.
Slaughter House Five - A soldier becomes unstuck in time which causes him to experience every moment of his life at the same time, including his time in the war, his family life and his time as a zoo animal for aliens. A faithful adaptation of Vonnegut's sci-fi masterpiece (Vonnegut himself gave it the thumbs up) Roy Hill manages to capture the absurdity of the plot almost perfectly and the result is a weird but incredibly funny oddity of a movie.
Seven Psychopaths - A struggling screenwriter tries to draw inspiration for his movie from the actions of his oddball friends, which include dog-napping for ransom money, but he finds the line between reality and fiction blurring with every page. It's not as brash or Un-PC as In Bruges but McDonagh's follow-up is every bit a must see, combining incredibly likable unpleasant characters with his trademark quick-fire dialogue and the result is a very very funny movie from one of Britain's most promising directors.
Far and Away - Two young Irish lovers run away to America but life is tough as misfortune waits for them around every corner. Viewed by some as a masterpiece of love in tough times, it does feel like a rehash of other greater stories, but the performance by Cruise and Kidman are convincing enough even if the epic feel the movie went for feels exhausted within the first few minutes.
Cropsey - Documentary following two friends who investigate the disappearance of children in their hometown after they discover the 'bogeyman' from their childhood was actually a real person. Surprisingly creepy for a documentary, the premise is engaging enough but you feel that at the end nothing actually gets accomplished, which will either frustrate you of enhance the actual nature of the film.
Netflix have also uploaded a collection of 30 episodes from the acclaimed Hanna-Barbera adaptation of Peyo's The Smurfs. They aren't in any particular order (so I doubt we'll be getting the full series of 256 episodes) but it's better than nothing and infinitely better than the live-action dreck being peddled to the kids.
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