🍿48: See How They Run
This week, SP takes over a new newsletter while a murder victim takes centre stage, literally. 🕵🏼♀️🕵🏻♂️
“Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown.”
~ Chinatown, 1974
Showtime!
A couple of weeks back, Christian from the Please Consume newsletter reached out asking if we at Salty Popcorn would be up for taking over their content for an entire week. Naturally, we jumped at the chance.
If you haven’t heard of Please Consume, it’s a fantastic newsletter that’s on a mission to help people learn more about film by watching. How do they do this? By sending the very best scenes to have graced the silver screen every weekday.
So guess who’s choosing next week’s scenes? That’s right, Salty Popcorn! As of Monday, all the film clips sent out by Please Consume will have been chosen by SP. In fact, the scenes have been chosen already and all of them have been picked from films featured in Salty Popcorn.
Sign up to Please Consume to see what clips made the cut.
Now for the headlines:
Tom Hardy surprised martial arts fans this week when he quietly entered the Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu Open Championship in Milton Keynes and won every match. Read more.
Sofia Coppola is set to direct Priscilla Presely’s biopic starring Cailee Spaeny. Read more.
Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiopic The Fablemans won the Toronto film festival People’s Choice award and is already a favourite Oscar contender. Read more.
Sony is reportedly working on a new Karate Kid film, set to release in June 2024. Read more.
Finally, the Hollywood sign is getting a fresh lick of paint to mark its 100th birthday and if you like watching paint dry, you’ll be glad to know there’s a live stream. Read more.
Salty Popcorn is 100% free, but if you enjoy SP, please consider buying us a cinema ticket for just £5 per month - or a bunch of tickets for just £30 per year. Thank you!
Upcoming Releases
Decision to Leave
UK: 21 October // USA: 14 October
Winner of Best Director at the Cannes 2022, Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, The Handmaiden) returns with a romantic thriller that takes his renowned stylistic flair to dizzying new heights, literally.
Knock at the Cabin
UK: 3 February // USA: 3 February
M. Night Shyamalan is back, this time with a film adaptation of the 2018 novel ‘The Cabin at the End of the World’ by Paul G. Tremblay. Here, a girl and her parents are taken hostage by armed strangers demanding that they make a difficult choice to avert the apocalypse.
Fact of the week
This week’s fact has been submitted by Salty Popcorn’s very own Mia Rodriguez…
The clip doesn’t need an explanation, but here you can see voice actor Frank Welker using a metal bin to create the roars for The Lion King. Welker has done extensive voiceover work, from Scooby Doo to Transformers, though he seems to specialise in making noises for animals and mythical beasts. His filmography is really quite a treat.
Review: See How They Run
Star rating:
3 (out of 5)
Where to watch:
USA: Only in cinemas
UK: Only in cinemas
Runtime:
1hr 38m
Director:
Tom George
Blurb:
A veteran inspector (Sam Rockwell) and a rookie constable (Saoirse Ronin) are thrown into a puzzling whodunit mystery following the murder of the Hollywood director set to make a film-adaptation Agatha Christie’s smash-hit play, ‘The Mousetrap’.
The review (NO spoilers):
With a star-studded cast, a well-written script and some bitingly funny moments, See How They Run is a detective caper that’s sure to delight audiences - especially those who have seen Agatha Christie’s ‘The Mousetrap’.
Here we have a high-stakes dramedy that manages to put aside much of the seriousness you’d expect of a murder investigation. There’s no question of the mood, tone or silliness, all of which are delivered in delicate measure and centre on the bond between world-weary Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) and overly-eager Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronin).
Their dispositions make for a winning formula as their relationship is almost as endearing as it is funny. Ronin brings a certain charm to Stalker that’s hard to imagine anyone else pulling off. From the get-go, she tries achingly hard to be both a likeable and good copper, while Rockwell’s Stoppard tries just as hard to humour and guide her.
London’s longest-running theatre production is not only central to the plot, but the film itself is laden with references and similarities to the 70-year-old play. So much so it’s almost worth watching the play before seeing the film!
But despite the praise, for a film with a relatively short runtime of 98 minutes, it does feel a little slow at times. Somewhere in the middle, the pace changes and skips a beat in the process. While it’s worth a watch if you’re looking for an easy comedy, my expectations were set a little higher.
Scroll down to see what’s in the next issue.
If you liked See How They Run…
Knives Out
2019 | UK: Amazon Prime (£2.49) // USA: Amazon Prime ($3.99)
When a world-famous crime novelist is found dead following his 85th birthday party, it’s up to private investigator Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) to figure out what happened. But even he doesn’t expect trail sinister intentions that soon unravel.
In the next issue:
Don’t Worry Darling
UK: 23 September // USA: 23 September | Watch the Trailer
Do the roar!
Agree with the 3/5 on See How they Run, although loved Sian Clifford particularly in this. Also 10/10 to you for the clip of Flee on Please Consume - absolute tearjerker!