New Releases (12/09/13)

In cinemas this week: Blue Jasmine, Mood Indigo, Riddick, R.I.P.D and The Smurfs 2.

I really enjoyed Blue Jasmine - Cate Blanchett is incredible - and the version of Mood Indigo that I watched at the Sydney Film Festival was wonderful. Unfortunately, the 130 minute cut is not making it to cinemas, rather a 94 minute one. Though I have heard some positive responses to Riddick, this is not a particularly exciting week and both R.I.P.D and The Smurfs 2 look positively awful.

Blue Jasmine - Woody Allen’s latest film Blue Jasmine is a tragic yet comedic masterpiece, amplified by a profound leading performance from Cate Blanchett. Jasmine (Blanchett) is thrust out of upper class existence when she splits from her felonious financier husband Hal (Alec Baldwin). In her free fall she moves out to San Francisco with her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins) to start life anew. Excerpt and linked review from Blake Howard at Graffiti With Punctuation.

Mood Indigo - a French tragic romance co-written and directed by Michel Gondry and starring Romain Duris and Audrey Tautou. An adaptation of Boris Vian's1947 novel Froth on the Daydream.

Riddick - The latest chapter of the groundbreaking saga that began with 2000's hit sci-fi film Pitch Black and 2004's The Chronicles of Riddick reunites writer/director David Twohy (The Fugitive) and star Vin Diesel. Diesel reprises his role as the antihero Riddick, a dangerous, escaped convict wanted by every bounty hunter in the known galaxy. The infamous Riddick has been left for dead on a sun-scorched planet that appears to be lifeless. Soon, however, he finds himself fighting for survival against alien predators more lethal than any human he's encountered. The only way off is for Riddick to activate an emergency beacon and alert mercenaries who rapidly descend to the planet in search of their bounty. The first ship to arrive carries a new breed of merc, more lethal and violent, while the second is captained by a man whose pursuit of Riddick is more personal.

R.I.P.D - Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds headline the 3D supernatural action-adventure R.I.P.D. as two cops dispatched by the otherworldly Rest In Peace Department to protect and serve the living from an increasingly destructive array of souls who refuse to move peacefully to the other side. Veteran sheriff Roy Pulsifer (Bridges) has spent his career with the legendary police force tracking monstrous spirits who are cleverly disguised as ordinary people. Once the wise-cracking Roy is assigned former rising-star detective Nick Walker (Reynolds) as his junior officer, the new partners have to turn grudging respect into top-notch teamwork. When they uncover a plot that could end life as we know it, two of R.I.P.D.'s finest must miraculously restore the cosmic balance...or watch the tunnel to the afterlife begin sending angry souls the very wrong way. 

Weekly Recommendation: Definitely the new Woody.