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World War Z poster

Review: World War Z, After Earth and The Hunt

By Cinema and Reviews

Brad Pitt and Mireille ENos in Paramount's World War Z

Bloodless zom­bies would appear to be that latest trend if April’s Warm Bodies and this week’s World War Z are any­thing to go by. No blood means stu­di­os get a lower cen­sor­ship clas­si­fic­a­tion and – hope­fully – a big­ger audi­ence. But the absence of vis­cera also appears to bring with it a loss of meta­phor­ic power. These zom­bies don’t mean any­thing very much; they cer­tainly don’t have any­thing to say about the world we inhab­it, or the fears we share. They are vehicles for jumps, scares and gotcha moments (or in the case of Warm Bodies, not even that).

World War Z posterIn World War Z, co-producer Brad Pitt plays Gerry Lane, not a Beatles song but a dis­il­lu­sioned former UN troubleshoot­er try­ing to start a quiet life with his young fam­ily in Philadelphia. A rap­idly spread­ing out­break of a mys­tery rabies-like dis­ease turns his – and every­one else’s – life on its head. In a mat­ter of seconds the bite vic­tims become almost unstop­pable pred­at­ors, hunt­ing the healthy in grow­ing packs.

[pullquote]The Hunt felt like a beat-up in more ways than one[/pullquote] Lane and his fam­ily are evac­u­ated to an air­craft car­ri­er where the last remain­ing evid­ence of author­ity attempts to restore order. There he unwill­ingly sub­mits to his old boss (Fana Mokoena) and agrees to help trace the source of the dis­ease and maybe find a cure. With the help of a hand­ful of Navy SEALS and a bright young endo­crino­lo­gist (Elyes Gabel) he travels to South Korea where the first reports of the out­break only to find on his travels that things are far worse than any­one can imagine.

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Telluride Diary part six: The show (part three)

By Cinema and Travel

Firstly, I should add a vital – totally Telluride – detail to yes­ter­day’s post. By choos­ing to watch Rust & Bone and the Marion Cotillard Tribute I missed the first indoor screen­ing of Hyde Park on Hudson and there­fore a rare live appear­ance by Bill Murray at the Q&A. Regret is an emo­tion reserved for those who only look back­wards but – damn!

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Legend Leonard Maltin wait­ing to gain entry to At Any Cost.

Back to the show. Sunday was always likely to be a very full day and – with my new found con­fid­ence in the “sys­tem” I was determ­ined to take full advant­age. I once begged the New Zealand Film Festival to let me watch a screen­er of Ramin Bahrani’s Man Push Cart, even though they had chosen not to pro­gramme it because I loved the idea so much and because Roger Ebert has been cham­pi­on­ing the tal­en­ted young dir­ect­or for years. In fact, they have only screened one of his three films to date: Goodbye Solo in 2009.

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