Civil War | review by Stephen Theaker

Kirsten Dunst plays Lee, a celebrated and determined photojournalist who hopes to get one last photograph of the US president before his inevitable execution by rebels from the Western Alliance, who are closing in on Washington. Texas and California fight together in the alliance, the traditionally Republican and Democrat states setting their differences aside to depose what the director has called in interviews a fascist president. I don’t think that’s spelt out as clearly on-screen, though I saw it in 4DX and it’s easy to miss dialogue when the fans are blasting away. We do learn that he disbanded the FBI and ordered airstrikes on US citizens, and that something called the antifa massacre happened. Florida has also seceded, and the Portland Maoists are among those taking their guns to the White House. The president is in it so briefly and yet played so perfectly by Nick Offerman that Ned Beatty’s record could be under threat.

Annihilation | review by Rafe McGregor

From New Weird novel to small-screen-feel alien movie.

The term ‘New Weird’ became popular in the first few years of this century, but has not been universally accepted. Nor is it clear whether New Weird denotes a new genre, related to but distinct from the (Old) Weird, or simply the way in which new authors have breathed fresh life into the old genre. S.T. Joshi, the critical authority on the Weird, has little time for the term and refers to the ‘modern weird tale’ instead (publishing a book with that title in 2001). Joshi defines the Weird as a retrospective category of speculative fiction, published from 1880 to 1940, that is essentially philosophical in virtue of representing a fully-fledged and fleshed-out world view. He regards H.P. Lovecraft as the exemplar of the genre, which includes Arthur Machen, Edward Plunkett (Lord Dunsany), Algernon Blackwood, Ambrose Bierce and M.R. James. He also sees the tradition as having been continued through to the present by the likes of Robert Aickman, Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, T.E.D. Klein, Thomas Ligotti and Caitlín R. Kiernan. The New Weird was initially associated with China Miéville in the UK and subsequently Jeff VanderMeer in the US. Miéville’s first novel was King Rat, in 1998, and he began his Bas-Lag series with Perdido Street Station in 2000. VanderMeer was best known for his short stories and as an editor and anthologist, editing two definitive collections – The New Weird and Steampunk – with his wife Ann in 2008. He joined Miéville as the co-exemplar of the New Weird in 2014, when all three parts of the Southern Reach Trilogy were published: Annihilation, Authority and Acceptance.