Powder Film Review - Teenage Electric Daydreams

Powder (1995)

We’ve all been there at some point. No matter how hard you try, you don’t fit in. You don’t know why. There’s something that you can’t put your finger on between you and ‘them’. Whether the ‘them’ are your parents, your friends, the people you went to school with, the streets where you live. You feel different, almost like you’re a different species to those around you, and you wish you didn’t. There is nothing you wouldn’t give to fit in like the rest of them. To not feel on edge, to look at people and see something that resembles what you are like in them. To be normal. The kicker is that it feels more acute when you’re young. 

On paper, Powder [DVD] initially appears to be a straightforward coming of age drama. A reclusive young man is pulled out into the world and thrust into the small town spotlight. There are a small few who recognise him for what he is, something special. To the majority he’s the weirdo.

Boy Wonder Review – Broken Revenge

Boy Wonder (2010)

What would you do? If as a young child you saw your Mother killed in a car-jacking, what would you do? Would you try and come to turns with it? Would you attempt to rebuild your life, never forget her, but over the years at least try and arrive at some kind of peace? Or, as is the want these days, get yourself a costume and some “wonderful toys” or bitten by a radioactive spider and join the fight against crime?

In Boy Wonder [DVD] , Sean Donavon does neither of these things. He becomes an A-grade student. He learns languages, he listens to classical music and he’s a strong athlete. He trains at a kick-boxing gym, but doesn't enter tournaments – what’s the point of competitions? What’s the point when all the time you’re looking for the killer of your Mother? After all these years you’re still looking. You may not have found them, but there are plenty of other people out there who need justice to be brought against them, just read the newspapers.

Sea Wall Review - One Man's Soul

Sea Wall (2012)

One Man. One camera.

In a time when we're spit-balled with CGI and aggressive jump cuts designed to make us feel excited at the most pointless events, Sea Wall is at the other end of the film making spectrum. One character. One camera. That never moves. No music. We're in brave territory here, or we're about to be bored rigid.

I watched this on a laptop with headphones in a packed coffee shop and for half an hour the entire world disappeared. My coffee went cold. I think, I think I'd been laughing out loud. I think I'd been sat in the middle of all these people going about their day with very wet eyes.

Sea Wall starts off with a man, Alex, rambling about a holiday he took with his wife, daughter and father-in law. Meandering and looping back on itself, the words touch on family, life and faith in God or something more than the little lives that we have. As Alex trundles off down the tangents and side alleys of his story the feeling begins to grow that all this is going somewhere. You don't know where it's going as you watch Alex, who seems so bright and alive and open, but for some reason you can't pin down a knot of anxiety starts to tighten in your stomach. 

Drive Review - A Moment of Neon Movie Beauty

Drive (2011)

I'm going to nail my flag to the mast straight from the off on this one. I love Drive . No, I don't love it, I've become obsessed by it. When I watched Drive for the first time, when the credits rolled, I got myself a drink and hit play on the DVD again. That's only ever happened to me a handful of times. Of all the films I've watched over the last few years this is the one I go back to the most. With every watch it gets better, reveals more and bares a part of its guts never seen before. 

Driver is a stunt driver, working film sets. Between stunt jobs he works at Shannon’s garage. Between those jobs he works as a getaway driver. When he moves into a new apartment he meets his neighbour and her son.

That’s your set up for the movie, and really, the entire movie hinges on the last line above – he meets his neighbour and her son. Everything else that happens in the film comes from that small moment, everything.