In 2013, Ken Loach seemed destined to enter the pantheon of filmmakers who bow out with a movie that was, at best, inconsequential to the hard hitting filmography that came before. His proposed final film was 2014’s Jimmy’s Hall, a film about the tensions between the Catholic Church, local government and the vibrant youth culture of 1930’s Ireland. For one of the most important British filmmakers of all time, bowing out with a period piece that paid more than a little narrative debt to Footloose ensured underwhelming results.
‘90s nostalgia is in full swing, and with that comes a reboot of the so-terrible-it’s-good television series Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. To many, myself included, the series is a goofy relic of childhood, a cheap mashup of footage from a Japanese superhero program with California teen clichés. With memories of the original series firmly intact, this teaser leaves me wondering where the hell the Power Rangers are.
Paradoxes are not discussed widely in cinema, firstly because they are difficult to understand. Secondly, they simply mess with everyone’s fun. However, they create interesting arguments, and the time travel genre is a great fan of the ‘why not?
Over at our official Facebook page, we are currently posting daily film recommendations with each week being a different theme. This week’s theme is the films of American director Don Siegel. Beginning his cinematic career making montage sequences for Warner Bros (most notably the opening of Casablanca), Don Siegel is quite an influential American auteur, redefining the sci-fi and crime thriller genres throughout his lengthy career.
A midlife crisis is roughly defined as a period of anxiety and disappointment reflecting on your past as you approach middle age. Those going through a midlife crisis are noted to act irrationally compared to their previous behaviour in a need to get out of a self-perceived rut. It has often been noted that no two people react to the dawning of maturity in the same manner, even if the cause of the anxiety is always the same.
America should be done beating around the bush when it comes to race relations, but unfortunately many barriers still exist to open dialogue. That makes the honest language used in Get Out both striking and welcome. This is a movie about the horror of subjugation, but it’s not presented in a tidy biopic or a gritty drama.
The last weekend of TIFF is always bittersweet. On one hand, you’re so sleep-deprived from all the morning/early afternoon screenings that it’s a relief to have your regular schedule back in order. And yet, on the other, you feel a pang in your gut as you realize that the end is nigh – no more friendly crowds, no more of those endearingly irritating commercials, no more Q&As and no more beautiful venues to ogle over as you wait for the programmer to introduce the film (and TIFF has some cool programmers, too).
Nineties psychological horror The Blair Witch Project wasn’t an instant hit. Though a triumph with critics, its box office success was slow, but it now stands as one of the most financially successful independent films of all time, and as a forefather of the found footage trend. Not only did The Blair Witch Project pave the way for found footage horrors like [Rec], V/H/S, and the Paranormal Activity series, sci-fis and fantasies like Cloverfield, Trollhunter and Chronicle also used the format.
It’s not easy to keep a series alive for five films, especially when it’s based on something as slight as an amusement park ride. Yet here we are with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, thanks in no small part to the swashbuckling weirdness that is Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow.
Every year, ten movies are bestowed the honor of becoming nominated by the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences. Many of these films will have already had various successes throughout the year; good festival attendance, box office success and the receiving of other prestigious awards. Yet, only one of the ten films ends the night being declared the best of the best.
Ava DuVernay returns to the documentary format with 13th, a look at the amendment of the United States Constitution that simultaneously abolished slavery and established a loophole for denying rights to targeted groups. The troubling wording in the amendment has to do with convicted criminals, who are the only people exempt from the abolishment of slavery and involuntary servitude. That exemption, while small at the time, has snowballed into a huge issue thanks to America’s system of mass incarceration.
Every Tuesday, Film Inquiry compiles a list of the movies that are opening in cinemas. Opening this week: Max Steel, The Accountant, Kevin Hart:
As readers may or may not know, I took a break from writing these past few months as I was running my first ever film festival. The Drunken Film Fest (DFF) had its inaugural year in Bradford, England this past summer and it was pretty successful for a first year free film festival, if I do say so myself. However, my background when it comes to festivals is not in running them, but rather in trying to get accepted to them.
Bleak thrillers that satirize the modern nuclear family seem to be increasing in popularity in recent years. The most prominent example would obviously be Gone Girl, based on Gillian Flynn’s novel of the same name and directed by David Fincher. The latest film that could classify within this subgenre is The Girl on the Train, which contains many similar elements to Gone Girl, including a mysterious disappearance of a woman, which the film’s events revolve around.
The first televised presidential debate in America took place in 1960, pitting the tanned and dapper John F. Kennedy against the sallow and literally sick Richard Nixon. It was a tumultuous time for the country, with each candidate taking tough questions ranging from the cold war to civil rights issues.