#OnTheBigScreen: Thys & Trix, Isle Of Dogs and Oceans 8
Thys & Trix
Thys and Trix (Bouwer Bosch and Leandie du Randt Bosch) are siblings and eager yet helpless police officers. Their constant feud results in their expulsion after it causes yet another embarrassment for the police service. Detective Solomons is investigating the activities of a crime syndicate in an exclusive golf estate outside Mossel Bay. Due to their ‘vanilla’ appearance, Thys and Trix are singled out for the first time as the most competent team to lead an investigation. However, the fact that they must pretend to be a married couple to make the investigation credible, complicates the situation.
Solomons has to accompany them but isn’t happy that he’ll be their butler. Soon they have an entire list of suspects. On the list are their neighbours: the Janse van Rensburg’s (the alpha-couple); the Marais’ (the alternative hippie couple); the Le Roux’s (the gay couple) and Heidi (the widower who catches Thys’ eye). Are any of Thys and Trix’s new neighbours perhaps involved with the production and distribution of MTHC, a paralysing hallucinogenic?
Written and directed by Quentin C. Krog and co-written Frannie Van Der Walt.
Isle Of Dogs
Wes Anderson returns to stop-animation for the first time since 2009’s Fantastic Mr Fox with his latest film, Isle of Dogs is a language-obsessed, political conspiracy-themed, stop-motion adventure concerning dogs exiled to a trash island in a near-future Japan.
Set in a dystopian near-future. When, by executive decree, all the canine pets of Megasaki City are exiled to a vast garbage-dump called Trash Island, 12-year-old Atari sets off alone in a miniature Junior-Turbo Prop and flies across the river in search of his bodyguard-dog, Spots. There, with the assistance of a pack of newly-found mongrel friends, he begins an epic journey that will decide the fate and future of the entire Prefecture.
Oceans 8
Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Awkwafina, Rihanna, and Helena Bonham Carter team up in the action-adventure Oceans 8.
Five years, eight months, 12 days...and counting. That’s how long Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock)—just released from prison—has been concocting the greatest heist of her storied career.
She knows what it’s going to take—a team of the best in their field, starting with her former partner-in-crime Lou (Cate Blanchett). Together, they recruit a crew of specialists: jeweller Amita (Kaling); street con Constance (Awkwafina); expert fence Tammy (Paulson); hacker Nine Ball (Rihanna); and fashion designer Rose Weil (Bonham Carter).
The target is $150m in diamonds—diamonds that will adorn the neck of world-famous actress Daphne Kluger (Hathaway), who will be centre stage at the event of the year, The Met Gala.
Their plan appears rock solid, but it will need to be flawless if the team is to get in and get away—all in plain sight.
It also stars Richard Armitage as Claude Becker, Kluger’s unwitting date at the Gala, and James Corden as John Frazier, an insurance investigator trying to put the pieces together.
Gary Ross directed from a screenplay he co-wrote with Olivia Milch, original story by Ross.
On Chesil Beach
Adapted for the screen by Ian McEwan from his own novel, On Chesil Beach is a gripping, heart-rending account of a loving relationship battered by outside forces and influences first formed in childhood, in a society with strict, inflexible rules about uniformity and respectability.
It is summer 1962, and England is still a year away from huge social changes: Beatlemania, the sexual revolution, and the Swinging Sixties.
We first encounter Florence (Saoirse Ronan) and Edward (Billy Howle), a young couple in their early 20s, on their wedding day. Now on their honeymoon, they are dining in their room at a stuffy, sedate hotel near Chesil Beach in Dorset. Their conversation becomes more tense and awkward, as the prospect of consummating their marriage approaches. Finally, an argument breaks out between them. Florence storms from the room and out of the hotel, Edward pursues her, and their row continues on Chesil Beach.
From a series of flashbacks, we learn about the differences between them – their attitudes, temperaments and their drastically different backgrounds.
Out on the beach on their fateful wedding day, one of them makes a major decision that will utterly change both of their lives forever.
Braven
When Joe Braven (Jason Momoa), a humble logger residing along the US/Canada border is confronted by a group of deadly drug runners who have stashed heroin in his secluded cabin in the mountains, he must do everything in his power to protect his family. Little do the elite drug runners know the unassuming man they’ve encountered has an impressive bite colliding two dynamic forces – one fighting for the lives of his family, the other for the love of the kill.
Directed by Lin Oeding and written by Mike Nilon and Thomas Pa’a Sibbett.
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About Daniel Dercksen
Daniel Dercksen has been a contributor for Lifestyle since 2012. As the driving force behind the successful independent training initiative The Writing Studio and a published film and theatre journalist of 40 years, teaching workshops in creative writing, playwriting and screenwriting throughout South Africa and internationally the past 22 years. Visit www.writingstudio.co.za