It now appears to be a given that every few years, Woody Allen produces a film hailed by critics as a “return to form”. In keeping with relatively recent late period offerings such as Blue Jasmine, Midnight in Paris and Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Café Society has also been afforded that accolade. Is this lazy journalism or a concise way of communicating that he has again crafted a film that bears the hallmarks of this aging auteur’s better judgement?
Coming Out is the personal story of young filmmaker Alden Peters. The film follows his coming out process as he tells his parents, friends and siblings how he has repressed his sexuality for a number of years. In using a homemade video style of filming, Coming Out gives us an insight into not only Peters’ journey but into his mindset as he starts to immerse himself into the 2016 LGBTQ lifestyle.
Hollywood seems to be stuck in an age of remakes and sequels. Though original films do exist, they are never as popular or successful as the large-scale blockbusters, which are the only sure moneymakers for studios. Coming from this standpoint, it’s no surprise that Antoine Fuqua’s The Magnificent Seven exists.
Talk about a project with some serious credentials. Having Denzel Washington and Viola Davis involved is enough to get most people hyped for a substantial drama, but Fences comes with much more behind it. The film is based on the play of the same name by August Wilson, which in the ‘80s had James Earl Jones in the lead, won a slew of Tony Awards, and landed Wilson his first Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Advertising is one of the driving forces alongside film that is keeping cinemas alive. I analysed how general advertisements are being handled within cinemas in an earlier article titled “Cinematic Advertisements: Forgotten Potential?
Recently, I spoke with filmmaker Phil Giordano. Originally from Staten Island, New York, he elected to take the NYU’s Directing Program in Singapore, which is where he lives today. In 2010 he released the controversial short film The Empty Playgound, about a man struggling with inner-demons who tries to abduct a young girl from a playground.
The sincerity of The Homestretch is certainly never in doubt. Depicting the plight of three homeless teens in Chicago, Anne de Mare and Kirsten Kelly’s documentary interweaves the personal stories with various facts and statistics highlighting the widespread nature of the issue. Unfortunately, despite its pure intentions, The Homestretch never really manages to succeed to be truly engaging, regardless of the clear warmth of the three featured youths.
In the world of movies, you should never go home. It rarely goes well, and even if you do attain some measure of pathos, it comes at great cost. Jack doesn’t have much choice in Jack Goes Home; you have to attend your father’s funeral, but if your mother is horror fixture Lin Shaye, you should really know better.
Dinner with Dames Case File Who: Simon Barrett, writer of Blair Witch and The Guest, & Cinefemme board and volunteers – Michele Blackwell, Kimby Caplan, Lagueria Davis, Rory Gory, Heidi Honeycutt, Michelle Kantor, and myself, Jenna Payne What: Dinner 1.
It is easy to see how The Girl With All The Gifts could have been toned down and transformed into a generic YA movie in its cinematic adaptation. In the 2014 best-selling novel, the story is told from the point of view of all five central character. Here, director Colm McCarthy focuses on the titular tween character Melanie, exploring this plague-ravaged world from her point of view.
When the title card appears in Daguerrotype, it announces the film as “Le secret de le chambre noire”. That title reflects the film’s goals as a dark, foreboding ghost mystery, and it probably does so better than the title “Daguerrotype” does. But what I like about the title Daguerrotype (misspelled though it might be), is that it refers to the most interesting part of the film:
A man named Paterson living in a town called Paterson seems quaint, like a small oddity you brush by on a road trip. It’s certainly not something you stop for, but then writer/director Jim Jarmusch rarely stops for the obvious thing. Many of Jarmusch’s films, which are considered exemplary of the American independent scene, ignore traditional plot structures, but Paterson seems to be taking things to a tranquil extreme.
Another day of school on Wednesday (September 14th) allowed me to take a break from my TIFFing, which was welcome. However, I was back on the town the next day, my sixth of what would be nine days in total. After the first weekend, TIFF starts to wind down:
Man, did September fly by, or what? We had such an excellent time featuring one short film every day of September during our #ShortFilmADay challenge. You can find the complete list and some additional information about the shorts we featured in our #ShortFilmADay Recap.
Thought the buddy cop movie formula was tired? Well, it is a cinematic breath of fresh air in comparison to the “bad cop” movie. These movies are tiresome depictions of lawmen (and make no mistake, they are always men) who break every rule in the book whilst trying to enforce it – and even though there have been solid entries into the genre in recent years, it can’t help but feel worn out.