And we’re back. With Easter done and dusted, that puts us already a quarter of the way through 2016. So far the year has been a great one for cinema with many of the Oscar-nominated-films, particularly The Revenant and Room, delivering on their promise – which isn’t always the case with the awards crop.
However, there’s little of cause for optimism with regard to the worms in this week’s can of releases, all of which have had equally poor receptions.
There’s an improbable biopic of Eddie The Eagle (yes, the ski jumper) starring Hugh Jackman and Taron Egerton, which has been directed by Dexter Fletcher (yes, he of Press Gang).
London Has Fallen, a sequel to the 2013 disaster actioner, Olympus Has Fallen, manages to surpass its predecessor only in lack of brains and credibility.
Secret In Their Eyes, is a police procedural about a female investigator who reopens the case of her teenage daughter who was raped and killed ten years ago. Not even Julia Roberts, Chiwetel Ejiofor or Nicole Kidman can rescue this one.
If you read Danish, your options increase with the Finnish Golden Globe nominee The Fencer and the Oscar-nominated Mustang from France.
For the rest of you, there were also a number of films released during our Easter hiatus, including the critical bomb/box office juggernaut Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which manages to avoid the ‘so bad it’s good’ label to land squarely in the ‘so bad it’s boring’ box.
Meanwhile, Batman of yesteryear, Christian Bale, crept back onto our screens in the latest film from Terence Malick, (Dark?) Knight Of Cups – see this week’s review.
At Cinemateket from April 2-10 there’s the fourth annual Music Film Festival. The program is the biggest yet with over 30 films and special events and screenings to attend. They kick off with Daft Punk Unchained, a new film about the French robo-duo, on Saturday at 16:30.
The late great David Bowie is also well represented this month with Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars playing twice during the festival and a separate series featuring his efforts as an actor including Labyrinth and The Man Who Fell to Earth (dfi.dk/Filmhuset).
