Hunt For The Wilderpeople (dir: Taika Waititi, 2016, cert 12A)
The premise may be formulaic, bad kid goes to live with cantankerous outsider and learns valuable life lessons (see Kolya also screening this week), but the comedic execution is perfect. There is definitely something off kilter and a little surreal about Kiwi humour; Flight of the Conchords has taught us that, indeed Waititi has written and directed for the show, and it’s that free wheeling anything can happen comedy that drives Wilderpeople along at its frenetically hilarious pace. The stand off, mid chase, between cop and boy where they argue about just which Terminator character they both are is a prime example. Sam Neill’s man of the woods Hec is just about upstaged by wannabe gangster kid Ricky played with anarchically juvenile glee by Julian Dennison. If you need laughs this week then you know where to go. Mon 3 Oct to Thu 6 Oct various times at mac, Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham B12 9QH £8 macbirmingham.co.uk/
Mon 3 Oct to Thu 6 Oct at Electric, Station Street, Birmingham B5 4DY £8.70 www.theelectric.co.uk/ Mon 3 Oct to Thu 6 Oct various times at Lighthouse, Fryer Street, Wolverhampton, WV1 1HT £7.90 light-house.co.uk/

The Clan (dir: Pablo Trapero, 2016, cert 15)
Sometimes a story is just so off the charts mental it has to be true. The Clan is just such a story, a gruelling and wincing two hours in the company of Argentina’s most notorious family. At the fag end of Galtieri’s dictatorship in the 80s times were tough, jobs were scarce and a post Falklands War Argentina was being shunned by the world. The respectable middle class Puccio’s had a novel way of making ends meet. Kidnap and murder. Patriarch Arquímedes is played with horrifying detachment by Guillermo Francella. All lizard like stares and stony silence. One could almost imagine a forked tongue slipping through his deadened lips. Domestic bliss and extreme violence are padded seamlessly into the Puccio world view. There is a pitch black deadpan humour throughout. Not easily forgotten. Mon 3 Oct to Thu 6 Oct various times at mac, Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham B12 9QH £8 macbirmingham.co.uk/
Fri 7 Oct to Thu 13 Oct various times Electric, Station Street, Birmingham B5 4DY £8.70 www.theelectric.co.uk/

The Girl With All The Gifts ( dir: Colm McCarthy, 2016, cert 15)
‘The Girl With All The Gifts’ joins an expanding list of apocalyptic movies made in Birmingham that has culminated with Steven Spielberg’s current redressing of Digbeth and the Jewellery Quarter as dystopian doubles of the future. Don’t quite know what that says about our city. McCarthy’s star studded zombie tale is based on prolific comic book writer M. R. Carey’s novel of the same name, Carey produced the screenplay too. Gemma Arterton and Paddy Considine are our heroes trying to protect mankind’s only hope of survival, the infected child genius Melanie. To do this they must escape Glenn Close’s child dissecting evil doctor and hoards of infected “hungries”. A bit like negotiating Broad Street on a Saturday night then, no wonder it was filmed in Birmingham. Fri 7 Oct to Thu 13 Oct various times at at mac, Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham B12 9QH £8 macbirmingham.co.uk/
Fri 7 Oct at 7.30pm & Sat 8 Oct 7.30pm (+ Q&A with Mike Carey) at Mockingbird, Custard Factory, Digbeth, Birmingham B9 4AA £8 & £5 www.facebook.com/

The Man Who Fell to Earth (dir: Nicolas Roeg, 1976, cert 18)
Never was a role more fitting for the actor playing it than David Bowie’s portrayal of alien humanoid Thomas Jerome Newton. Bowie’s androgynous other worldliness lends a quiet authenticity to the vulnerable timidity of the titular alien. Roeg’s film is beautifully rendered in an almost dreamy and seductive manner. Sedate pacing belies a simmering paranoia and even after several viewings it’s possible to discover things anew. It’s relentlessly downbeat nature may not be to everyone’s taste but we think it’s an absolute classic. It’s a shame it’s not the recently restored 4k version but that just gives us another excuse to watch the film yet again in the future.
Thu 6 Oct 8.30pm at Electric, Station Street, Birmingham B5 4DY £8.70 www.theelectric.co.uk/

Jurassic Park with Conjurers’ Kitchen ( dir: Steven Spielberg, 1993, cert PG)
Why are we recommending Jurassic Park? Well apart from being one of the greatest blockbusters ever made and in our humble estimations the only film to ever utilise CGI effectively, this screening is presented by the mad culinary scientists from Conjurer’s Kitchen. Annabel Lector has prepared a series of gourmetic oddities relating to the action on screen to be consumed at key points throughout the film. We still have our marzipan blood encrusted toe from a Big Lebowski screening, just too nice to eat. Great fun and a whole new angle to see a wonderful film from.
Tue 4 Oct 8.15pm at Electric, Station Street, Birmingham B5 4DY £20.70 www.theelectric.co.uk/

Akira (dir: Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988, cert 15)
Films don’t come much more influential than this. Otomo’s beautifully animated film bulldozed the anime genre into the mainstream. Cartoons could be serious with adult themes. When the bullets fly people get killed, punches land on faces and blood flows copiously. Based on Otomo’s own 2,000 page manga comic book of the same name; we follow Tetsuo, a weakling who is suddenly imbued with super human psychic powers which he puts to violent use against his enemies. In a bizarre case of life imitating art the film is set in a dystopian future just before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Guess where the 2020 Olympics are being held? Neo-Tokyo is about to E.X.P.L.O.D.E.
Sat 8 Oct 3pm & 9.15pm at Electric, Station Street, Birmingham B5 4DY  £8.70 www.theelectric.co.uk/

My Scientology Movie (dir: John Dower, 2016, cert 15)
Louis Theroux’s disarming, almost bumbling charm, has always disguised a razer sharp investigative mind and unlocked access into some of the world’s weirdest places. Well now, in his first big screen documentary, he focuses that finally honed wit on the rapacious cult of Scientology. The paranoid church, and its celebrity worshippers of the galactic overlord Xenu, have rarely been forthcoming regarding their religion and obviously would have no intention of granting one of the world’s greatest idiot exposer’s access. Well no matter, because Theroux subverts this masterfully and brings the aggressive lenses of the Scientology cult to him in a curious cat and mouse film off. If you’re an OT-III level operating Thetan then you probably won’t like this film. For the rest of us it shines a light on the dark insanity of a powerful cult.
Fri 7 Oct to Thu 13 Oct at Electric, Station Street, Birmingham B5 4DY  £8.70 www.theelectric.co.uk/

The Thin Red Line (dir: Terence Malick, 1998, cert 15)
To say the notoriously reclusive Malick likes to take time perfecting his film making process would be rather an understatement. When The Thin Red Line was released it had been twenty years since Malick’s previous release. A director of the highest order and held in reverence by his peers. Malick’s films are sumptuously beautiful, crafted down to the finest detail. Each and every shot is a work of art. The horrors of war are lightly rendered with a subtle beauty normally the realm of oils on canvas, this adds an ugly potency to the bloody carnage on display. The Jackhammer gore of Saving Private Ryan, released the same year, unsettles and terrifies, but the subtler unpeeling of war and its attendant bloody nihilism by Malick lives longer in the memory. John Toll’s cinematography is breathtaking and was Oscar nominated.
Sat 8 Oct 11.30am at Electric, Station Street, Birmingham B5 4DY  £8.70 www.theelectric.co.uk/

Take Me High (dir: David Askey, 1974, cert U)
There isn’t a lot going for Cliff Richard’s limp seventies musical comedy vehicle. Appalling script, clunky direction, ham-fisted songs coupled with leaden choreography and acting so wooden your eyes could get splinters. But the one thing that does make this a film worth seeing is the magical Oscar worthy acting of Birmingham itself. Join our city as it easily upstages the Peter Pan of Pop as he hacks around New Street, Corporation Street, the Library, Gas Street Basin and a host of familiar Brum landmarks all endearingly locked into the brutalist reality of 1974. Not only can you see this film al fresco at the Gas Street Basin’s new Rum Runner Yard, thanks to the ever giving Flatpack bods, your entry fee will also entitle you to sample a 21st century version of the Brumburger around which the whole plot of the film clumsily rotates.
Thu 6 Oct 7pm at Rum Runner Yard, Regency Wharf, Broad Street, Birmingham B1 2DY £15 flatpackfestival.org.uk/

Birmingham on Film runs Fri 16 Sep – Sat 15 Oct see our preview here

Birmingham on Film For our pick of top free events Thu 8 Sep – Mon 10 Oct see here

Films and Burgers at The Rum Runner Yard Thu 6 Oct – Sat 8 Oct see our preview here