交换民宿

奇幻西游：新世界

　　未来世界，科技与数据主宰一切，当旧城区变得又老又挤，以最新科技打造的新世界，成为人人向往的移居地，然而唯有贡献值最高的菁英，才有资格入住。八戒（许光汉 配音）又懒又自私当然失格，但他为了让奶奶（钟欣凌 配音）过好日子，决定违背良心，与建商总裁牛魔王（庹宗华 配音）私下交易……　　影片将《西游记》搬到科幻场景，八戒化身赛博胖客，与理工男三藏（刘冠廷 配音）、火爆护卫悟空（庾澄庆 配音）、女机器人小净（邵雨薇 配音），穿梭新旧混杂市景，探索幸福真谛。

地狱无泪

吾辈本如斯

　　在大雨瓢泼的星期五，帕克夫人（Kassie Wesley DePaiva 饰）突然身体不适，跌倒路旁的水坑中痛苦死去。该事件给她的家人以不小的打击，三个孩子伊莉丝（安拜·柴尔德斯 Ambyr Childers 饰）、萝丝（朱莉娅·加纳 Julia Garner 饰）和罗瑞（Jack Gore 饰）忧伤不已，男主人弗兰克（比尔·萨奇 Bill Sage 饰）却似乎格外震惊。在孩子们的眼里，爸爸是至高无上权力的象征，女孩们渴望像同龄人一样快乐自由成长，却无奈必须服从爸爸的命令。笼罩在淡淡悲伤中的帕克家，隐藏着令人不敢直视的恐怖秘密，一本日记揭示着家族注定被诅咒的命运和历史。　　与此同时，小镇周围的人口失踪事件和意外被洪水冲出的手指骨，引起了有心人的关注，帕克家的秘密即将大白天下……

等待方舟

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.

亚当·桑德勒：爱你

 A new comedy special from Adam Sandler directed by Josh Safdie (making his comedy special directorial debut), Adam Sandler: Love You premieres globally on Netflix on August 27, 2024.