This week’s movie releases
Steve McQueen tells the harrowing true story of a free man sold into slavery in 12 Years a Slave Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy trudges on with The Desolation of Smaug
With just his first two features, Hunger and Shame, British former video artist Steve McQueen has transformed himself into one of the most important filmmakers working today. His third, 12 Years a Slave, will only consolidate that reputation. Continuing his preoccupation with human bodily extremes, its brutal portrayal of American slavery is set to get Academy members reaching for their voting forms in their droves. The ever-superb Michael Fassbender again features, but top billing goes to Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northup, on whose harrowing true story the film is based. A black man born free in New York in 1808, he was kidnapped and sold into slavery, working on plantations in Louisiana for over a decade, before ultimately telling all in his 1853 autobiography. The talented support cast features Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Brad Pitt and newcomer Lupita Nyong’o.
Next, a prediction: sometime in 2015, once all three parts of Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s 300-page The Hobbit have been released, some enterprising YouTuber or, who knows, even Hollywood producer, will edit them down into a marvelous slimline two-hour version. For now, though, the stretched-out saga trudges on with part two, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, though at least this time it’s reported to have picked up the narrative pace. Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) continues his epic quest alongside Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and a company of 13 dwarves into the dwarf kingdom of Erebor and onwards to the Lonely Mountain and a showdown with the dragon Smaug (voiced by Freeman’s Sherlock co-star Benedict Cumberbatch).
Talking of dangerous missions, Naomi Watts treads sensitive ground taking on the role of the late Princess of Wales in Oliver Hirschbiegel’s biopic Diana. The movie zeros in on the final years of her life after her divorce from Prince Charles and her romances with heart surgeon Hasnat Khan and playboy film producer Dodi Fayed.
Wild things
Free Birds is a kooky kids animation about two time-traveling turkeys (voiced by Owen Wilson and Woody Harrelson) who head back to the first Thanksgiving to get their species off the holiday menu.
From naturalist and filmmaker Joaquín Gutiérrez Acha, Spanish documentary Guadalquivir examines the flora and fauna lining the banks of the Andalusian river, including Golden Eagles, Iberian lynxes and, especially, a rather fantastic fox. Flamenco star Estrella Morente provides the narration.
