No review embargo signatures today so I’m free to actually talk about the movies I saw. Today I attended Press & Industry screenings of the James Ward Byrkit directed Coherence and the David Gordon Green directed Joe. Lastly I was fortunate enough to be around to see Elijah Wood and Celyn Edwards red carpet arrival for the premier of Set Fire to the Stars.

Coherence

A group of friends are catching up for dinner when the power cuts out leaving them isolated from the outside world. After that, a series of events lead them to become increasingly paranoid and suspicious of each other leading them to question which of the group can be trusted.

Unfortunately this is the sort of film that is hard to talk about without spoiling completely which forces me to be general. I really loved this film, it was a low budget claustrophobic sci-fi mystery that explores the idea really well. The characters felt very natural and the mystery was filled with so much intrigue keeping the audience fascinated throughout. Atmosphere was very effectively created here with lots of close camera shots of the characters bringing the audience right in the middle of the unsettling mood being created, very good stuff and would highly recommend.

Joe

In Joe, Nicholas Cage plays the titular character who takes a young boy named Gary (Tye Sheridan) under his wing to pass on the value of his life experience to help him survive a brutal and unfair world.

It’s so refreshing to see Cage do a role where he actually does some acting. It’s incredibly rare of late so it’s nice to be reminded just how good the guy is. In this film he gives a wonderfully raw and nuanced performance as he plays a man bent on doing the right thing by this young boy who starts working for him. Joe and Gary form a close bond throughout the film and the two actors play this very well, the society they live in is in a lot of ways kill or be killed so the really interesting scenes come from Joe teaching Gary about the realities of life. There’s some patented Cage craziness in here too which is as hilarious as always but for a change he’s playing a character. The film is basically a simple story well acted and well told, one of Cage’s best films in years and definitely worth checking out.

Red Carpet – Set Fire to the Stars

This wasn’t in my plan for today but I managed to be around to see this happen. It was quite a manic atmosphere as the cast and crew arrived to be swamped by autograph hungry fans and quote hungry press. I personally didn’t get the chance to ask anything but I did manage to snap some images that I’ve put below for your perusal. Unfortunately I was only armed with my phone having left my camera at home but the phone did good considering.

Celyn Jones arrives

Celyn Jones signs autographs

Elijah Wood on the red carpet

Cast and crew photo, didn’t turn out the best