Is there a term for one-hit wonder film directors? Whilst the idea of the one-hit wonder is quite prevalent within music (I’m a sucker for late ’90s, early 2000s one hit wonders, who doesn’t love Breakfast at Tiffany’s?), it’s a concept that’s becoming quite frequent in cinema as well; filmmakers who coast off the success of one film.
Get ready for a division, because King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is directed by Guy Ritchie. I’m sure some of you have already left, siting the modernist spin and frantic energy that Ritchie injects into his films as turnoffs, while others are sitting there gleefully awaiting a good time at the theaters.
With the DVD/Blu-Ray release of The Invitation, I was able to snag a quick interview with the film’s director, Karyn Kusama. Taking place in a Beverly Hills mansion in L.A over the course of an evening.
In recent years, the gangster film seems to be a stale genre, with a majority of the films lacking any distinctive qualities. Last year’s Black Mass is a prime example, with the only really memorable aspect of the film being Johnny Depp’s performance. Viewed against this backdrop, then, The Infiltrator just manages to stand out amongst modern films.
We’ve seen Robert De Niro in a boxing film before, right? Yeah, it was just a little movie called Raging Bull, so there’s no way his return to the cinematic ring will overshadow what Hands of Stone is actually about. Okay, so everyone’s focusing on De Niro’s return as legendary trainer Ray Arcel, but the film is really about Edgar Ramírez’s Roberto Duran, a Panamanian boxer who was part of the dominant Fabulous Four during the 1980s.
You may be surprised to learn that David Fincher’s career almost never got off the starting grid. 1992’s Alien 3, a poisoned chalice if ever there was one, turned out to be a torrid experience for the former music video director (he had helmed videos for luminaries such as Jermaine Stewart & Madonna, most famously ‘Vogue’), to the point he genuinely considered giving up filmmaking. What a loss to cinema that would have been.
When I sat down to watch Observance, I wasn’t sure what to expect. It opened with a rather artsy tone, as waves crashed against rocky cliffs, all in black and white. After a minute or so of this, the film cuts to Tenneal (Stephanie King) walking through the streets on her way home.
In this era of cinematic universes, branding is key. The goal is for audiences to recognize and become invested in the world being built, not necessarily the individual movies. Think about it this way:
Usually, I’m not a fan of the ‘comedy’ genre of film. I find that ninety-five percent of the time, it’s filled with bland, repetitive plot lines that all crack the same sort of jokes: either helpless characters struggling with awkwardness, or more slapstick physical comedy.
The suspense thriller gets a modern makeover in Nerve, which takes on both modern cyber culture and the cult of instant celebrity in a slickly produced, fast-paced crowd-pleaser aimed straight at the audience that’s the most likely to get it. Nerve is self-consciously cool to a fault, but it does know who its target audience is. Nerve is particularly timely in light of the current worldwide furor over Pokémon GO.
Film Inquiry publishes a list of the movies that are opening in cinemas every Tuesday. Opening this week: Jason Bourne, Equity, Tallulah, Gleason, Nerve, Bad Moms, Indignation and The Tenth Man.
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 bank heist films.
You may have already spotted our announcement on Twitter, or in the widget on the sidebar here on the Film Inquiry website, but let’s also officially announce it: My book, Film Analysis for Beginners: How to Analyse Movies is now available on Amazon!
Meera Menon’s film Equity manages to tick a lot of boxes off in terms of the kind of characters it depicts and focuses on, from having a female lead (an incomparably skillful Anna Gunn, best-known for Breaking Bad), to a female ensemble, to numerous women behind the camera (led by director Menon, helming her second feature). One of many truly impressive feats the film manages to pull off is that it not once feels like it’s ticking any boxes – that the film is inclusionary of layered, dimensional female characters is of course, noteworthy, but it is one of its many strengths. Chief among these strengths is the compelling narrative, which starts from the screenplay (credited to Amy Fox, story by Sarah Megan Thomas, also onboard as a producer and co-star, with producer and co-star Alysia Reiner), and is bolstered by Menon’s capable direction, Gunn and the ensembles’ applause-worthy performances.
A man and his dog come to the wrong town in writer/director Ti West’s In a Valley of Violence, but not because there’s ghosts or goblins running amok. The low-budget horror darling is leaving all the scary stuff behind for his western, providing him with brand new genre conventions to play with. The most obvious twist here is that the valley has some weird humor mixed in with its deadly reputation, which just might slow down the adversaries played by Ethan Hawke and John Travolta.