5 fantastic films to watch this weekend 🍿
This week we bring you a supernatural K-horror, a best picture nominee, and a psychological thriller starring America’s current it-girl.
The Big Screen
Immaculate (dir. Michael Mohan)
After starring opposite Glen Powell in throwback rom-com Anyone But You this year, which grossed high but befuddled critics, American it-girl Sydney Sweeney is taking another career left-turn with psychological thriller Immaculate. In the film, Sweeney plays a nun from the States whose new tenancy at a mysterious convent in the Italian countryside brings her in close quarters with a sinister religious conspiracy. Director Michael Mohan’s previous film The Voyeurs (also starring Sweeney) is up there with the most mind-numbingly dense releases of 2021, and in comparison, Immaculate is a massive step in the right direction. It may not be as much of a pull without Sweeney as the lead, but Immaculate is creepy, a little b-movie-esque (to its merit), and ultimately an enjoyable time in the cinema.
Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell (dir. Pham Thien An)
A Vietnamese man and his young son travel to rural Vietnam to arrange a funeral for the former’s sister-in-law, who recently died in a car crash in Saigon. This is the basic premise of Vietnamese filmmaker Pham Thien An’s Inside The Yellow Cocoon, which first made waves when it premiered in the Director’s Fortnight strand of the Cannes Film Festival last year. Almost a full trip around the sun later and the film has finally reached UK cinemas, enjoying a quiet release at the ICA. Don’t let the fact that this is Pham’s feature debut fool you—this is a director with a steady hand, and Inside The Yellow Cocoon feels assured in itself as a result. Its snail-pace is one of its great strengths, proving that transcendental cinema is in as safe hands with the new generation of filmmakers as it is with Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Tsai Ming Liang, and Lav Diaz.
Exhuma (dir. Jang Jae-hyun)
South Korea cinema is well-known for its murky revenge thrillers, but if you’ve seen Momento Mori, The Wailing and A Tale of Two Sisters, you’ll know that SK has just as much a flair for nail-biting horror. Jang Jae-hyun’s Exhuma is the latest to catch fire in the international market, with Odeon and Vue cinemas giving the film a deserved wide distribution. The story follows a wealthy Korean-American family who seek a shaman’s help to rid them of a generational curse. If you still need convincing, it stars veteran actor Choi Min-sik (Oldboy), who in his forty year career has never been anything short than fantastic in any given role. Exhuma is a smart and chilling excavation of the supernatural that makes a great start for anyone looking to find their access point into K-horror.
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (dir. Radu Jude)
Behind all the indulgence of Romanian director Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World is a little bit of wisdom, and a whole lot of bite. If you’re looking for a fun time at the movies, this 160 minute satire probably isn’t what you want to spend your Saturday night watching (though there are a few genuinely laugh out loud moments to be had here), and it admittedly feels like an endurance test to sit through. But this is all seemingly a part of Jude’s plan to make the audience feel as frustrated by the absurd tediousness of modern Capitalism as Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World’s protagonist, an overworked and underpaid content creator shooting a workplace safety video for a soulless mega-corp. An often funny, always angry feature that you may never want to watch again, but you’ll be glad you watched once.
The Small Screen
American Fiction (dir. Cord Jefferson)
Cord Jefferson’s Best Picture nominated American Fiction may not have taken home the gold at the Academy Awards this year (at no fault of its own—it was simply Oppenheimer’s year through and through), but it recently found new life on Amazon Prime Video. The film stars the eternally-impressive Jeffrey Wright as a Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, a university professor whose writing career has hit a rut due to his work supposedly not being “black enough.” In response, he writes a satirical novel under a pseudonym exposing the hypocrisies of the publishing world, which, to his surprise, is an immediate hit. The film is a razor-sharp study of American race relations with one of the great (and sorely underrated) contemporary American actors at its centre. If you’re still making your way through the Best Picture nominees of the 2023 awards season, now’s your chance to scratch American Fiction off your watchlist.
