Let me know if you’ve heard this one. A man wakes up after an accident with no memory of who he is or where he’s been, and while incredibly disabling, his predicament leads him down a lengthy search to discover his past and identity. This and other uses of memory loss have been popular in film for generations.
Ewan McGregor stars across Stellan Skarsgård, with Naomie Harris and Damian Lewis, in this film adaptation of the John le Carré (who is also on board as executive producer) novel of the same name, with a screenplay penned by Hossein Amini, helmed by British director Susanna White. With neo-noir ingredients, this thriller falls somewhere between slow-burn and slow-going. At times, we’re left to wonder why there isn’t more action, or twists (I felt similarly during Jack Ryan:
2016’s Sundance Film Festival was a splashy show of muscle from streaming leaders Amazon and Netflix, with early headlines being grabbed by the latter for its pre-festival acquisition of Tallulah. The film reunites Juno stars Ellen Page and Allison Janney for another movie that circles around a baby, but this time Page’s character isn’t as up front about the child’s origins. Tallulah is the kind of film that likely would’ve found a home with a major studio’s independent label, like Juno’s deal with Fox Searchlight, before the streaming companies pushed into feature distribution.
As a society, recent events have left us more divided than ever. The people on one side of this socio-political argument are trying to undermine unrepresented voices in the culture by calling for a cry back to the “good old days” and using hateful rhetoric in order to get what they want. The other side are being labelled as mere “liberals” with a politically correct agenda that isn’t attuned to the desires of the majority of people.
There is offense to be taken with the frame and exterior of physical bodies. Beauty, it has been said, is in the eye of the beholder. Yet, one can’t help but feel that, since the rise of feminism and the development of the male-gaze interpretation, almost all appreciation for the aesthetics of a given film has been entirely lost.
Film Inquiry compiles the info & trailers of the movies that are opening in cinemas every Tuesday. Opening this week: Ghostbusters, The Infiltrator, Cafe Society, Equals, Phantom Boy and Undrafted.
In the opening minutes of Pervert Park, we are introduced to a man recounting a story of loneliness and isolation, detailing how he had trouble building and maintaining relationships and finding his place in the world. It’s one of the most relatable narratives available, and the interview quickly builds a feeling of empathy. That is until he utters the words “then I found this little girl” and we understand how easy it is to create a monster.
Last week, I had the pleasure to talk with Emily Best, who founded the company called Seed&Spark, a crowdfunded film studio. Seed&Spark helps independent filmmakers crowdfund their films, produce them and distribute them. In their own words:
Love Between the Covers is a doc telling the story of the savvy female community that has built a powerhouse industry sharing love stories.
Daniel Radcliffe has certainly blazed his own trail post-Potter, but Imperium takes him out on a limb no one was expecting. Images of him as a white supremacist are certainly startling, so much so that the poster clearly puts his FBI badge front and center to soften the blow. Yep, Radcliffe’s character is only pretending to be Neo-Nazi, but that’s still enough to jar your Potter memories into nightmarish territory.
“Based on a true story.” “Based on true events.” “Inspired by actual events.
We spoke with David Farrier about his weird but great documentary Tickled, how he pitched it and how about how the post-production was.
You may not have signed up for that astronomy 101 course, but you probably should get yourself to a movie theater for Terrence Malick’s universe epic Voyage of Time. It’s sure to be gorgeous, and whatever crazy dinosaur behavior Malick puts on the screen will (allegedly) be explained by Brad Pitt or Cate Blanchett, depending on which version you choose. That, or they’ll ramble existentially about the passage of time, because Malick doesn’t need your narrative clarity.
Sexism in film has been a topic of discussion since the rise of feminism, and in particular, since Laura Mulvey’s 1970’s research into ‘the male gaze’ in cinema. Fortunately, modern films are slowly but surely making a conscious effort to break down stereotypical gender roles and tired one-dimensional characters, but when it comes to the classics, many of the limited and restricted archetypes we try to move away from today are showcased in these films. This year, Alfred Hitchc*ck’s mystery thriller Vertigo was voted the greatest film of all time by a BFI poll.
To accompany Pixar’s latest underwater road movie, Finding Dory, we have a similarly ocean-themed short. Pixar’s Piper started as the brainchild of director Alan Barillaro, and tells the story of a young, diminutive sandpiper learning to gather its own food for the first time. Barillaro worked as a supervising animator on several past Pixar features.