BODIES BODIES BODIES : Tuesday 20th September 2022.

I saw the MA15+ Rated American black comedy horror film 'BODIES BODIES BODIES' earlier this week at my local multiplex, as Directed by the Dutch Actress, Writer and film maker Halina Reijn in her English language debut, and only her second feature film after 'Instinct' in 2019. The film saw its World Premier screening at the South by Southwest Film Festival in mid-March this year before its release in the US from early August, having so far taken US$13M at the Box Office and generated largely positive reviews.

The films opens up with a close up shot of Bee (Maria Bakalova), a working class young woman from somewhere in Eastern Europe, engaged in a very passionate kiss with her wealthy girlfriend Sophie (Amandla Stenberg). Soon enough the pair are travelling in Sophie's SUV to the home of David (Pete Davidson) Sophie's childhood friend whose father is the owner of the lavish mansion hidden away in the woods for a 'Hurricane Party'. The other guests are David himself and his girlfriend and aspiring actress Emma (Chase Sui Wonders), a podcaster named Alice (Rachel Sennott) and her forty year old boyfriend Greg (Lee Pace) and Jordan (Myha'la Herrold). Max (Conner O'Malley), another guest, left the night before after getting into a fight with David. 

After spending the afternoon and early evening getting high on drink, drugs and dancing, the hurricane blows in and so the gathered guests decide to play a game of 'Bodies, Bodies, Bodies' - a murder in the dark kind of game. The initial game comes to an abrupt halt when Greg announces that he is going off to bed early and David leaves after an altercation with Emma. The hurricane starts to take hold and suddenly all the lights go out and the power supply is lost. Bee subsequently finds David outside under the verandah in the pouring rain with his throat slashed open and a bloodied Gurkha machete knife close by. En masse the girls all run to Sophie's car to alert the local authorities but find that her car battery is dead, so their not going anywhere, and they have no signal on any of their mobile phones to call in 911. 

Greg is suspected as being David's killer and so the group go up to his room to confront him, expecting to find him asleep. But his bed is empty. They search the room for clues as to his possible whereabouts and come across a survival kit containing a map of the local area with a red circle drawn around the estate, and a knife, amongst a back pack containing all manner of other survival type gear. The girls eventually track down Greg on the floor of the gym sleeping wearing a UV face mask with his ear buds in, which explains why he didn't hear them when they were calling out his name. They confront him with various weapons, including his own knife, and after realising they are serious with their accusations towards him, he returns their hostile attitude. Following a struggle, Bee hits him over the head from behind with a kettle bell, not once, but twice, just to ensure that he is dead, and he is! The group further discuss Greg and doubt that he was the killer and Emma surmises that Max, who had confessed feelings for Emma, in fact returned to kill David. Sophie, a sober addict, relapses. Emma kisses her, to Sophie's chagrin, before accepting drugs. Alice later finds Emma dead at the bottom of the stairs, and believes the group is being killed off one by one. Jordan and Alice cast their doubts about the validity of Bee's background, revealing that no one with her name is on record as having graduated from her college, and so they force Bee out of the house and into the gale force winds and torrential rain. 

Taking shelter from the pouring rain and howling wind in Sophie's car, Bee while searching for something dry and warm to wear finds underwear that matches Jordan's bra in the backseat. She goes back to the house looking to gain entry and sees Jordan holding David's father's revolver through a conservatory window. She then crawls back into the mansion through a dog door. Bee then confronts the group, stating that she dropped out of college after one semester to take care of her ailing mother, who has borderline personality disorder. An angry verbal fight breaks out between the group. Jordan, revealed to have been the 'murderer' in the Bodies Bodies Bodies game, expresses bitterness for Sophie due to her drug addiction and using David to get access to her trust fund, and claims Sophie cheated on Bee with Jordan. Sophie says why she would not date Jordan, that she avoids her friends because their behaviour challenges her sobriety, and reveals that Jordan only really 'hate-listens' to Alice's podcast. After Alice responds by insulting Jordan's insecurities, Jordan shoots Alice in the leg, and then points the gun at Sophie. A struggle for the gun follows resulting in Alice being fatally shot in the throat. As Sophie and Jordan fight, Bee pushes Jordan over the staircase bannister, with her crashing onto a glass table on the ground floor. With her dying breath, Jordan fires off the remaining rounds of the gun and tells Bee to check Sophie's text messages. Bee runs and hides from Sophie.

As daylight breaks through the next morning and the hurricane has blown over Sophie tearfully confesses to Bee that she relapsed and witnessed Emma falling down the stairs to her death. However, Bee holds her at gunpoint, demanding to see her texts. Sophie tosses her phone away and they struggle, inadvertently picking up David's phone in the process, which shows that David accidentally slashed his own throat trying to use the Gurkha machete knife to open a Champagne bottle for a TikTok video, so revealing that there never was a real murderer. As Bee and Sophie realise the night's bloodshed was all in vain, a confused Max returns to the mansion, sees the corpse of David and asks what happened here? To which the girls turn to each other with a stunned expression on their faces as the power comes back on, and Bee's mobile phone starts pinging, stating that she now has reception. Alleluia!

I have to say that in 'Bodies Bodies Bodies' if this microcosm of the young adulthood in the third decade of the 21st Century is anything to go by, then we are all doomed. Forget climate change, forget financial crisis, forget wars and political unrest, forget COVID because this group of wealthy, nihilistic, self-centred, over privileged drug and alcohol addled social-media wannabe twenty somethings are indeed a force to be reckoned with . . . and all for the wrong reasons! But maybe that's the point that Director Halina Reijn is trying to make, and in that respect she succeeds on all levels. The dialogue is quick witted, sharp and right out of the Gen Z dictionary, with aspects of social commentary coming to the fore upended with plenty of blood and gore and a rising body count, and the cast of young actors here land their roles well enough, but this film for me failed to land as either a horror or a comedy. It's all style over substance which may suit the Gen Z demographic this film is undoubtedly aimed at, but for this older film goer, I'm looking for something more!

'Bodies Bodies Bodies' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 10th January 2019.

The 8th annual AACTA (Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts) International Awards were held at The Mondrian Hotel, Los Angeles on Friday 4th January 2019 and hosted by Australian Television Presenter Renne Bargh. The AACTA International Awards honour the best achievement in film excellence from the previous twelve months irrespective of geography, and as determined by the Australian Academy’s International Chapter who vote across seven award groups. Amidst all the attendant glitterati and glamourati, this years winners and grinners were announced as :

* AACTA International Award for Best Film : 'ROMA' beating out 'A Star Is Born', 'Vice', 'Blackkklansman' and 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.

* AACTA International Award for Best Direction : Alfonso Cuaron for 'ROMA' beating out Bradley Cooper for 'A Star Is Born', Spike Lee for 'Blackkklansman', Warwick Thornton for 'Sweet Country' and Yorgos Lanthimos for 'The Favourite'.



* AACTA International Award for Best Screenplay : Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara for 'THE FAVOURITE' beating out 'A Quiet Place', 'Blackkklansman', 'Bohemian Rhapsody' and 'Roma'. 

* AACTA International Award for Best Lead Actress : Olivia Colman for 'THE FAVOURITE' beating out Glenn Close for 'The Wife', Toni Collette for 'Hereditary', Lady Gaga for 'A Star Is Born' and Nicole Kidman for 'Destroyer'.

* AACTA International Award for Best Lead Actor : Rami Malek for 'BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY' beating out Christian Bale for 'Vice', Bradley Cooper for 'A Star Is Born', Hugh Jackman for 'The Frontrunner' and Viggo Mortensen for 'Green Book'.

* AACTA International Award for Best Supporting Actress : Nicole Kidman for 'BOY ERASED' beating out Amy Adams for 'Vice', Emily Blunt for 'A Quiet Place', Claire Foy for 'First Man' and Margot Robbie for 'Mary Queen of Scots'.

* AACTA International Award for Best Supporting Actor : Mahershala Ali for 'GREEN BOOK' beating out Timothee Chalamet for 'Beautiful Boy', Joel Edgerton for 'Boy Erased', Sam Elliott for 'A Star Is Born' and Sam Rockwell for 'Vice'.

This week we have three new release movies coming to your local Odeon. We launch with a tale of divided loyalties and mounting pressures in the face of racial injustice as confronting one teenager who must learn to speak up and have the courage of her convictions. This is followed up by a comedy drama of a married couple who in order to fulfil their lives, decide to adopt not one, not two but three siblings with life changing consequences for them all. Wrapping up then, we have a documentary following the lives of five Labrador puppies from birth until two years as they are brought into the world to be trained ultimately to be Guide Dogs for the blind.

Whatever your taste in big screen film entertainment is this week - be it any of the three latest release new movies as Previewed below, or those doing the rounds currently on general release and as Reviewed and Previewed in previous Blog Posts here at Odeon Online, you are most welcome to share your movie going thoughts, opinions and observations by leaving your relevant, succinct and appropriate views in the Comments section below this or any other Post. We'd love to hear from you, and in the meantime, enjoy your big screen Odeon outing during the coming week.

'THE HATE U GIVE' (Rated M) - this American drama film is Directed by George Tilman Jnr. whose previous Directing credits include 'Men of Honour', 'Notorious', 'Faster' and 'The Longest Ride'. Based on Angie Thomas's 2017 novel of the same name, and Written for the screen by Audrey Wells who died aged 58 on 4th October - the day before the film saw its theatrical release in the US. The film Premiered at TIFF in early September, was made for US$23M, has so far grossed US$33M, and has been universally acclaimed, in particular for the performance from Amandla Stenberg in the lead role.

Starr Carter (Amandla Stenberg) seems to spend her life switching between two worlds - the poor, mostly black neighbourhood of Garden Heights where she lives, and the wealthy, mostly white Williamson Prep School that she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is soon shattered when she witnesses one night the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil Harris (Algee Smith) at the hands of a Police Officer. Facing pressure from all sides of the community, including a local gang 'The King Lords' who control the neighbourhood, Starr must find her voice and decide to speak up for what's right and stand her ground in the face of racial injustice. Also starring Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby, Anthony Mackie and Common.

'INSTANT FAMILY' (Rated PG) - released in the US in mid-November, this American comedy drama offering is Directed, Co-Produced, and Co-Written for the screen by Sean Anders, cost US$48M to make and has so far grossed US$76M and has been generally well received by Critics. The story here surrounds Pete (Mark Wahlberg) and Ellie (Rose Byrne) Wagner who determine there is a void in their lives and decide to start a family. They subsequently stumble into the world of foster care adoption. Initially hoping to take in one small child, but when they meet three siblings, including a rebellious 15-year-old girl Lizzie (Isabela Moner), they find themselves speeding from zero to three kids overnight, including also Juan (Gustavo Quiroz) and Lita (Julianna Gamiz). Now, Pete and Ellie must try to learn the ropes of instant parenthood in the hope of becoming a happy family. Also starring Octavia Spencer and Tig Notaro as a pair of social workers who guide the Wagners through the foster care process.

'PICK OF THE LITTER' (Rated G) - this documentary feature film is Directed by Don Hardy and Dana Nachman who between them also Produce, Wrote and take Cinematography credits. The film charts the life story from birth of five Labrador puppies as they undergo the lengthy training process on the journey to become guide dogs for the blind. Named Patriot, Potomac, Primrose, Poppet and Phil the five guide dogs in training were born on the campus of Guide Dogs for the Blind’s San Rafael, California campus. Barely a day old before their training begins, and eight weeks later, each young pup is farmed out to 'puppy raiser' - individuals or families who’ll foster them through up to sixteen months of socialisation training and other preliminary preparations for lifelong roles in the service of a blind or vision impaired person. After their period of fostering, the dogs head back to the campus for ten weeks of 'formal guide work' with an assigned staff member who often wears a blindfold to test the dogs’ reactions to obstacles, traffic hazards and verbal commands. The successful canine graduates are then matched with the lucky few among some 1,100 applicants per year in the US alone. The film was released in the US in late August last year, has done the festival circuit, and has received generally widespread acclaim. Cute and heart warming, this is a story for dog lovers everywhere.

With three new release films this week to tempt you out to your local Odeon, remember to share your movie going thoughts with your other like minded cinephile friends afterwards here at Odeon Online. In the meantime, I'll see you sometime somewhere in the week ahead at your local Odeon.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-