TRAILER FOR TRAIN TO BUSAN

Another Korean thriller, set for Cannes later this month, releasing a trailer! Train to Busan certainly looks an entertaining watch, while that Cannes lineup inclusion as a midnight screening implies a high quality too. No release details as yet available.

TRAILER FOR KOREAN THRILLER THE WAILING

One intriguing selection among the otherwise high-profile American slate screening out of competition at Cannes this month, Na Hong Jin's The Wailing debuts a trailer. The crime thriller takes on some curious twists even in the above preview, so expect a wild ride indeed from the film itself. Alongside Cannes (and an impending release in South Korea), the film will open in the US on the 27th of May.

THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIV - TRAILER

Albert Serra is one of contemporary cinema's most provocative intellectualists, or perhaps one of its most intellectual provocateurs... The Death of Louis XIV screens as a special screening at Cannes later this month, and looks certain to ignite respect and debate among those lucky cinephiles in attendance. This is the first trailer for the follow-up to Story of My Death, which looks as sumptuous and as strange as expected.

REVIEW - NEIGHBOURS 2: SORORITY RISING (NICHOLAS STOLLER)

Let's get on with it - after all, Neighbours 2: Sorority Rising sure does. A straightforward, unassuming sequel, it is at once an ideal accompaniment to its predecessor and an integrally questionable one. Neighbours 2 launches immediately into itself, recycling everything that made the first movie work with bewildering haste. Nothing especially new is being attempted here, in style and story alike, and Nicholas Stoller and co display a lack of concern for establishing their film's content with the relative diligence they displayed last time around. It's a remarkably rushed film, and charmingly so for those for whom this isn't their first time on the Neighbours lot. But in this endeavour, the film (which thus plays more like a B-side or a second chapter than an individual entity) can't help but feel a little stale. Maybe this is as good an excuse as any to jettison all the extra padding - normally essential things like proper conclusions to loose-thread subplots, introductions to characters etc. But since the very raison d'etre of Neighbours 2 is virtually identical to that of 2014's Neighbours, and since no real attention has been turned toward developing new comedic material, one queries the purpose of this film. Alas, naturally there is one, stressed early and often, possibly too often for those of us already committed to the cause, but you can't fault the writers' dedication in a comedy landscape still dominated by macho culture. Neighbours 2 is every bit the feminist manifesto (and, indeed, the overall equality manifesto) you didn't see coming, not least in that its MVP remains the peerless Rose Byrne. And it succeeds in juggling crudeness with kindness, fending off unnecessary offence. It earns its place alongside its comedy kin, defining itself as genuinely, meaningfully different from the film it's otherwise indistinguishable from.

REVIEW - OUR LITTLE SISTER (KOREEDA HIROKAZU)

A typically observant, engrossing insight into contemporary Japanese culture from Koreeda Hirokazu. Our Little Sister breaks little new ground for the filmmaker, though showcases his skill for dramaturgy with its unforced adaptation of Yoshida Akimi's Umimachi Diary. The source is an ideal one for Koreeda, though perhaps all too ideal - it brings out the good in him, but not the great, aligning as it does too closely to his usual themes, discouraging any expansion from them or experiments away from them. Our Little Sister plays like recent Koreeda through and through, and the jolt of inspiration that this story's alternative origin ought to have provided never materialises. Koreeda hews to this inherited, yet wholly familiar, style and tone throughout, also employing the structure of Yoshida's manga, despite its episodic nature and cathartic content making for unfriendly bedfellows when presented on the screen. Nevertheless, one never questions the quality of the filmmaking, so secure is Koreeda here in the process of examining family life in present-day Japan. Cultures developed over decades, disrupted, disturbed and preserved, clash in expectedly harmonious fashion, the dramatic tension they engender simmering away through every scene of this most perceptive film. In his national cinema at least, nobody today knows character like Koreeda, due to the fact that nobody today knows relationships, particularly inter-generational and/or familial relationships like Koreeda. It's not only there in the writing, but in the charming acting, and in the effective shot compositions. And whether any of this will be new to fans of this filmmaker or not (and I suspect not), there can be little doubting this: the cherry blossom bike ride is the most joyous scene in any film this year.

REVIEW - HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS (MICHAEL SHOWALTER)

Hello, My Name Is Doris communicates ideas we understand in a language to which we've become well accustomed as moviegoers. So what makes it feel so refreshing? Insight and precision, combined with a mildly alternative perspective, give this indie comedy a shot in the arm, filling it out with development of character and scenario alike that's as advantageous to the narrative as it is to the comedy. Michael Showalter fondly engages in hipster dialect and culture, whilst satirising it with awareness and exactitude (qualities which many satirists overlook and replace with bile), never resorting to cheap nastiness. This is crucial, since it's directly connected to the film's presentation of its central figure, Sally Field's office worker Doris. Between Field's heartwarming, hilarious performance, and a thorough and sympathetic comprehension of her character, Hello, My Name Is Doris manages to work as a charming character study, an affable comedy, and a piquant manifesto against ageism. Its positive attributes are multitudinous, then, but only within the inherently underwhelming frame of the conventional, indeed downright stereotypical indie blueprint which Showalter adheres to all too readily. He's smart and talented, and could push himself further in this regard - shot compositions are plain, editing is unremarkable, soundtrack is lazily pretty and twinkly in that offensive way. There's a better movie beneath these stylistic trappings, one which showcases the abilities of an older female actor without condescension or excessive cliche. That's what makes Hello, My Name Is Doris, in spite of itself, so refreshing.

REVIEW - CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR (ANTHONY RUSSO AND JOE RUSSO)

Good enough, if you want it to be. And who's to argue that, after 300 movies in the last five years, the 'Marvel Cinematic Universe' hasn't become a kind of alternate reality, a story of such detail and such (financial) magnitude that it has acquired a weight of such significance as to actually matter? And indeed, if you want it to matter, then yes, Captain America: Civil War does matter, I'm sure. It's good enough. But it doesn't matter to me. Every time I sense a new development occurring in the sphere of superhero movies, I wonder if we've finally reached the zenith, or the nadir, of these movies, like they surely can't progress, or regress, further. And yet they surely can, and always do. Civil War feels like a turning point to me - no longer content with adequate filmmaking (at best), Marvel must now matter. And they're going full force, but with dreary insularity - not commenting upon the world outside, but upon the world within, their alternate reality; it's not for nothing that this is now known as a 'universe'. The characters engage in pithy, pointless, quasi-political discussions about issues that they don't understand, and that bear little-to-no relevance to the real lives of us viewers. It's not self-referential, it's self-obsessed, and ridiculously portentous; thus, its success is predicated upon those viewers subscribing to the reality of this fabricated universe, and deciding that, if it matters to Captain America, it matters to me too! Civil War seeks respect in its unintellectual intellectualism, though the politicking is merely a sideshow for the obligatory mega-scale mayhem. It'll draw such respect from people inclined to care about the micro-details within this sorry subgenre, in the same way that some people consider adding chocolate chips to their vanilla ice-cream a radical, exciting departure. There are other flavours out there, people! Captain America: Civil War is vanilla ice-cream, just with added chocolate chips, and it's not good enough for me*.

* Vanilla is actually my favourite flavour, but you know what I mean.

SECOND TRAILER FOR THE HANDMAIDEN

For those of us who don't understand Korean, what about this dialogue-free trailer for Park Chan Wook's Cannes-headed The Handmaiden? No clearer, though no more confusing either, and equally as tantalising! Check out the first trailer too, complete with all the Korean you don't understand!

REVIEW - DEMOLITION (JEAN-MARC VALLEE)

An obnoxious infatuation with Hollywood cliche comes to a head with Demolition, Jean-Marc Vallee's third consecutive American feature and firmly the worst yet. This is a more talented director than almost anything in this film would allow you to appreciate: the way he rejigs classic dramatic constructs, infuses them with unforced naturalism, his empathy for characters, his rapport with actors - all either fully or partially concealed beneath the trite cluelessness of Demolition's scenario and script. It's such a shame because my appetite for fine filmmaking will surely never wane, whereas my appetite for movies about white, heterosexual manchilds finally discovering their true worth and making a meaningful connection with the wonderful world around them is an appetite that's actually never even existed. It's a perfect vehicle for Jake Gyllenhaal, though, and by now you likely know why; anyway, beyond serving as a blatant vanity project (Jake has a hot body, the ladies all love Jake, Jake is smart and successful, Jake has a hot body, Jake is respectful to women, Jake has a hot body, Jake is macho, Jake dances, Jake is accepting of gay people, Jake has a hot body), this is exactly the kind of undemanding, semi-comedic part at which he excels. Between himself and Naomi Watts - undervalued as ever - they both prove and provide what worth this inane film possesses. It's beneath them, and beneath Vallee, and it's probably beneath you too. But did I mention that Jake has a hot body...?

TRAILER FOR BRILLANTE MENDOZA'S MA' ROSA

Them Filipino filmmakers do know how to put the work in. Brillante Mendoza returns, naturally to Cannes, with Ma' Rosa. Little is yet known about the drama, which has no international theatrical releases confirmed, though it's surely bound to see its profile raise after its Cannes competition premiere later this month. The above trailer is the first look we've gotten of the film.