Wind River 2017
Written and directed by Taylor Sheridan, who previously wrote
Sicario and
Hell or High Water, this is another modern day Western sort of thing, this time focussing on a hunter and an FBI agent teaming up to investigate a possible murder on a native American reservation. As with Sheridan's previous scripts, I found this tense and gripping, with strong lead performances from Avengers cohorts Elizabeth Olsen and Jeremy Renner. It did poke my woolly liberal sensibilities a bit though: Like
Dances With Wolves,
Thunderheart and other such films, it's a story about native Americans that sidelines them in favour of putting whitey in the lead roles. It even has Renner integrated with the natives but better than them at everything.
That sour note aside, it's worth a watch I'd say. Plus, it's an original film for grown ups and those don't get made any more - except for this and all the others that do.
'Fighting With My Family'.
Enjoyable enough. Good performances all round. I think I might have liked it more if I wasn't a wrestling fan as the obvious bits of nonsense shone through. Implying that Paige won the title in an unplanned shoot on live TV being the biggest clanger.
I watched this yesterday and, while it's not as good as
Glow or
The Wrestler, it was nonetheless a pleasant way to while away a Sunday afternoon. I don't follow wrasslin' at all (although I had heard of Paige, through one of the Playstation WWE games) so I've no idea about the nonsense, which probably helped. Florence Pugh is very good indeed. I liked that the Barbie women weren't actually nasty and it was just Paige being insecure (although I reckon she was right to give that one the receipt after getting elbowed in the face, twice). The parallel story of the brother was surprisingly affecting and helped to ground what could easily just have been a puff piece for WWE (although it was still quite puffy).
I was mildly surprised to see it was written and directed by Steven Merchant.