LOGAN (M18)
137 minutes/ ****
This is the Wolverine movie that unlocks the explosive violence that was always inside the Marvel character but, frustratingly, never let out.
Set about a decade from now, the world is free of mutants. Logan (Hugh Jackman) is a survivor and protects the sickly Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Caliban (Stephen Merchant).
A desperate stranger thrusts into his care a girl, Laura (Dafne Keen), who, defying the odds, has mutant powers. She is hunted by a team of assassins led by the cyborg Pierce (Boyd Holbrook).
The motif of family - with Professor Xavier as wise grandpa, Logan as angry dad and Laura as weird daughter, all on a journey to a promised land - is addressed delicately. Yet it is always present in this intimately human and exciting story about a man trying to rise to the myth he sees in a child's eyes.
John Lui
STORIES THAT MATTER 2017: SCREENINGS
The theme for this year's slate of documentaries is conspicuous consumption.
Safari (2016), by Austrian director Ulrich Seidl, zooms in on trophy hunting; City Of Jade (2016), by Taiwan-based Midi Z, digs into the jade mining industry in Myanmar; and Cameraperson (2016, photo), by New York-based Kirsten Johnson, questions what it means to look at the world through a lens.
WHERE: Chapel Gallery, Objectifs, 155 Middle Road MRT: Bras Basah WHEN: March 22 to 25, 7.30pm ADMISSION: Entry by donation, register at storiesthatmatter2017. peatix.com INFO: www.objectifs.com.sg/storiesthatmatter2017/
Boon Chan
BEFORE I FALL (PG13)
99 minutes/ *** ½
Samantha (Zoey Deutch, left) and her three best friends Lindsay (Halston Sage), Elody (Medalion Rahimi) and Ally (Cynthy Wu) are the most popular - and not the nicest - girls at school.
When things go awry at a party on the night of the so-called Cupid Day, Samantha wakes up to discover that her day has started all over again, and again, and again.
Think of this as Groundhog Day (1993) meets Mean Girls (2004). There is a clear moral lesson to be learnt here, yet the movie is not at all preachy.
Yip Wai Yee
CINEMATHEQUE SELECTS MARCH: ON SOUND DESIGN
Intrigued by the art of sound design in films after Singaporean Ai-ling Lee was nominated at the Oscars for sound editing and sound mixing?
Find out more at this screening that pairs short films (including Boo Junfeng's Un Retrato De Familia, 2004) with sound design by Lim Ting Li with one of her influences - the Alfred Hitchcock classic, The Birds (1963).
WHERE: Gallery Theatre, National Museum of Singapore, 93 Stamford Road MRT: Bras Basah WHEN: March 11 ADMISSION: $11 from Sistic (call 6348-5555 or go to www.sistic.com.sg) INFO: nationalmuseum.sg/cinematheque/cinematheque-selects-mar-2017
Boon Chan
