The central idea to Tomorrowland, Disney’s latest attempt to turn a theme park attraction into a blockbuster spectacle, is flawless. Instead of being pessimistic about the future, why don’t we adopt the same attitudes of previous generations and look at the future with a sense of optimism, awe and wonder? After all, today’s younger generations are being fed miserable visions of the future by pop culture, with every major summer tentpole movie of the past few years having villains who argue that the best way to save both the planet and humanity as a whole is to destroy it.
When you grow up around film, you see a lot of the best and craziest role models. It was incredible to watch the performance art of Charlie Chaplin, or the storytelling of directors such as Akira Kurosawa and Stanley Kubrick. The Godfather movies, with the exception of #3, still stand the test of time for the conserved pacing, subtlety and epic everything that was those two films.
Some films parody the media, others predict what effect it will have on us in the future, other movies just have fun with the subject. Whether its a streaming network, printed journalism, television or radio transmissions the media is massive, and inescapable, so why not make movies about this oppressive facet of life? These films vary in years, themes, genre’s and that’s why they are so important.
James has an older brother, Frankie, who has just been released from prison. Frankie, like many movie criminals, wants James to join him in “real estate”. “Real estate” in this definition requires James to be the wheelman and basically destroy the life he’s been building.
Every week Film Inquiry publishes the movies that are opening in cinemas! This week: San Andreas, Aloha, Results, Gemma Bovery and Heaven Knows What.
For most people Pitch Perfect wasn’t something they saw in the cinema. They watched in on DVD on a whim or chanced it after hearing about it from a friend. Released just as Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson’s careers were on the rise (and was possibly one of the films that gave them a leg up) it initially went under the radar, but as the years have passed the film has garnered great reviews and the Barden Bellas now have a huge fanbase.
Here’s a movie to look forward to in October, just in time as you’re cosplaying your favorite comic book superheros. In Crimson Peak, a lovely, prim and proper author becomes emotionally torn between her childhood friend and a mysterious outsider. Trying to escape her past, she becomes entwined with a house stuck in its past.
They say that love conquers all. Whether that is racial or gender inequality, the struggle of the underclass, global conflict or even the gulf of time. No matter what, there is a belief that love can cross all boundaries and transform the lives of those who experience it.
As you get older, explosions and sexual innuendo in movies no longer bring you the excitement they used to when you were younger. It’s not even that you want to see something overly artistic. Quite the opposite.
To the eyes of international audiences, Nordic countries are stereotypically relied upon to produce gruelling, depressing thrillers, movies in the vein of Sweden’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and TV shows in the vein of Denmark’s The Killing. One country that seems exempt from the current cultural fascination with “Nordic Noir” is Finlan. Whereas other (mostly Scandinavian) countries in Northern Europe are importing their grim and gripping thrillers worldwide, Finnish cinema seems to be playing to a different trend entirely from their neighbouring cousins.
In some ways, the cinema is the closest thing we can experience to travelling through time – certainly the closest of any art form. In the dark room of a movie theatre, an audience can be transported to the distant past or spectacular visions of the future, and even in watching films from the 30’s and 40’s we can look at the lives and faces of people who died many years ago. Time travel became popular as a literary device with HG Well’s The Time Machine – published in 1895, the same year that the Lumière Brothers made Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat.
Every week Film Inquiry publishes the movies that are opening in cinemas! This week: Tomorrowland, Poltergeist, When Marnie Was There, Aloft, Chocolate City, The Farewell Party and Sunshine Superman.
Anyone who is familiar with George Miller’s Mad Max series must have been eagerly anticipating his latest as much as I have. It has now been 30 years since we last saw Max in his post-apocalyptic desert world. But it is almost as if no time has passed.
What’s worse than one gangster socking you in the face? Answer: Twin gangsters as large as Goliath with mitts like rocks…
