Film Inquiry Recommends: Underrated Neo-Noir Films

Over at our official Facebook page , we are currently posting daily Film Recommendations, with each week being a different theme. This is a collection of those recommendations! This week’s theme is Underrated Neo-Noir films.

Words vs. Moving Pictures Vol. 1: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

What inspired me to begin this series was actually the knowledge that Harper Lee, the author of To Kill A Mockingbird, was going to be releasing a new novel called Go Set a Watchmen. As I had remembered being fond of Lee’s writing, I was planning to read it. (I still have not, but am hoping to get to it after this).

Film Inquiry Recommends: Portmanteau (or Anthology) Films

Over at our official Facebook page , we are currently posting daily Film Recommendations, with each week being a different theme. This is a collection of those recommendations! This week’s theme is Portmanteau Films (otherwise known as Anthology Films), films usually compiled of different shorts/segments normally linked up by a connecting narrative.

Macbeth
MACBETH Trailer

If you don’t know who William Shakespeare is, we have failed you as a society. Hollywood has decided to make up for that shortcoming with the story of Macbeth. This interpretation comes as a war drama that has way more colors and wide shots than my middle school English class informed me about.

Jason Bourne and America’s Spiritual Crisis

Near the conclusion of The Bourne Identity (2002), we find our hero, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), taking refuge in a country farmhouse belonging to Eamon, the ex-boyfriend of Bourne’s hostage/lover/sexy barber Marie (Franke Potente). Bourne’s shadowy employers have dispatched a rival Treadstone assassin – known only as The Professor (Clive Owen) – to eliminate the threat posed by their malfunctioning asset. When Eamon’s son notices the family dog has gone missing, Bourne (preternaturally perceptive, as always) recognizes the portent.

Microcosmos documentary
25 Greatest Documentaries Of All Time: Part 1

Though documentaries have been around as long as cinema itself, it is only within the past decade or so that they have started to really gain widespread acceptance. Traditionally marginalized as “academic” or “high-brow” filmmaking, the humble documentary has found a home in an age where authenticity and accessibility have grown to be core cultural values. Also, a core cultural value in this modern age are lists:

Ville-Marie
VILLE-MARIE Trailer

Ville-Marie is a Canadian, French-spoken film about a French actress who takes on a project to get closer to her son, who is in Montreal, Canada, in the hope to reconnect with him. For the first half, the trailer promises a fairly typical family drama, but then it starts to hint at a much darker undertone. As always, Monica Bellucci is mesmerising.

Wes Craven
The Beginner’s Guide: Wes Craven, Director

When you think of horror movies, one name should spring to mind: Wes Craven. He reinvented the teen horror genre and made it his own, alongside creating the most feared character in the horror genre:

TED 2: It’s Exactly What You Think It Is

Ted 2 is exactly what you think it is. Seth MacFarlane is an entertainer who infuses all of his work with the same pop-culture heavy and juvenile abundant humour, from his roots in Family Guy to this, his third cinematic effort. The first Ted was a cinematic surprise, over-performing at the box office to become (at the time) the highest grossing R-Rated comedy of all time.

Loneliness in Film: An Analysis of Colours

Breaking the boarders with transnational themes and making people cry and laugh in the same way? Genre as a global system? Why not!

Shanghai
SHANGHAI Trailer

Interesting. Yun-Fat Chow doesn’t seem to age while Li Gong does. Alright, due to the fact that my favorite Hong Kong actors are getting old, I’m really adamant about doing this trailer discussion.

The Lost Art of The Hollywood Swan Song

Having recovered from the shock upon discovering that summer 1990 was a quarter of a century ago, I recently reacquainted myself with one or two of the cinematic treats that I first enjoyed at the tender age of 15. Darkman got a repeat viewing, as did the sorely underappreciated Quick Change with Bill Murray. I was especially pleased to find that my personal favourite alumni from the class of ’90 had aged so well:

The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet
THE YOUNG AND PRODIGIOUS T.S. SPIVET Trailer

Here comes every new parents’ nightmare, an unattended child. T.S.

Irrational Man
Film Inquiry’s 10 Best Articles of August

Reviews of Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, Inherent Vice and The Diary of a Teenage Girl, an essay on music in film, and a list of Youtube channels everyone passionate about film should follow: just a small collection of the great articles that we published last month!

Ninotchka
Love is All: The Lubitsch Touch in NINOTCHKA

“Comrades! People of the world. The revolution is on the march.