Another month’s gone by, one in which we published another great bunch of excellent articles! We reviewed a ton of movies, like Despite The Falling Snow, California High, Sing Street, Captain America and Jane Got A Gun. We recommended great Australian genre films, silent films, and women-directed horror films, and published about how we humans can fall in love with artificial intelligence, and how that’s portrayed in film.
Carrie is a movie inspired by one of Stephen King’s first novels, a dark story mixed with dramatic notes, where all the uncertainties and fears of adolescence, such as the problem of being different in a society that does not forgive, are transformed into anger and the desire for revenge. The movie was directed by Brian De Palma in 1976, but I believe it is a timeless story; indeed there have been many remakes, the last one in 2013 by Kimberly Peirce, setting it in a modern context. De Palma’s film, which can be considered a cult classic, shows the daily life of teenagers at an American high school and explores the theme of bullying deeply, adding some gory scenes towards the end.
If a July release date for a sumptuous period romance sounds odd to you, wait until you hear the backstory on Tulip Fever. The movie was originally set to film in 2004 with Jude Law and Kiera Knightly in the lead roles, but it was scrapped overnight when the U.K.
It’s Space Jam Week! Everybody get up, it’s time to slam now. We got a real jam goin’ down.
In Matthew Solomon’s Chatter, Agent Martin Takagi (Tohoru Masamune) comes across the intimate video chats of married couple while monitoring Internet traffic for the Department of Homeland Security. The married couple, played by Brady Smith and Sarena Khan, begin to discover that their new home is haunted. In the same vein of horror films such as Paranormal Activity and the more recent Unfriended, the mechanics within this film felt familiar.
It’s Space Jam week! Anyone familiar with voice acting will immediately recognize the name Mel Blanc. For decades, Blanc popularized the art of voice through many iconic cartoons, among them including, of course, nearly every major original Looney Tunes character.
Mark of the Witch (also known as Another), written and directed by Jason Bognacki, is described as a horror fantasy film. It tells the story of Jordyn, played by Paulie Rojas, who is confronted with her Aunt Ruth’s (Nancy Wolfe) attempted suicide just minutes after blowing out her birthday candles, and soon discovers a dark secret about herself. Jordyn just wanted to know who she is and where she comes from, which her Aunt Ruth acknowledges is a perfectly normal thing for anyone to wonder about.
Let’s be honest, if you’re stuck in a forest without other people, it’s cooler to pal around with a dragon than with apes. Sorry Tarzan, but Pete had a way better messed up childhood than you. While Pete’s Dragon doesn’t quite fit into the live-action reboot trend that Disney is on, it’s certainly of the same mind.
It’s Space Jam week! We currently live in an age where sequels are determined by the success of a film’s opening weekend, announced on the morning after a healthy weekend gross is reported. Heck, in some cases, films get sequels before they are even released to success in the first place; but for every Guardians of the Galaxy that would happily boast it would return, you have a Last Witch Hunter with a broken ego and a failed franchise.
Varda Bar-Kar’s latest documentary Big Voice follows the lives of a Santa Monica school choir over the course of a year, under the instruction of their inspirational yet no-nonsense teacher. Mr Huls, teacher extraordinaire, is an intriguing character – full of passion and with motivation to make the choir bigger and better than ever before. Whilst Mr Huls is certainly the driving force in the documentary, it is Bar-Kar’s interviews with the students which are arguably most interesting.
Is anyone really surprised that one of the biggest companies in the world had a less-than-pristine start? The story of how Ray Kroc took over McDonald’s isn’t a secret, as I recall first hearing about it in my teenage years. It’s not like the shady story has dampened its revenue in any way, so why bother trying to keep all the wheeling and dealing a secret?
Whit Stillman’s adaption of Jane Austen’s relatively unknown novella, Lady Susan, follows the delightfully scandalous exploits of the recently widowed Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale). Lady Susan is forced to leave the Manwaring family’s estate in the midst of adulterous allegations, instead taking up residence with her in-laws and their handsome young relative, Reginald DeCourcy (Xavier Samuel), whereby she attempts to marry off her long-suffering daughter and elevate her own social standing in the process. The ensuing events make for one of the most entertaining and joyfully witty Austen adaptations we have yet been treated to on screen.
Hey, it’s Space Jam Week! Among totems of ’90s nostalgia, few remain as prominent and present in 2016 as Space Jam. The film was Warner Brother’s attempt to turn Michael Jordan’s cultural capital cinematic, as well as the first use of their iconic stable of cartoon characters in a feature since the compilation films of the ’80s.
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 Silent Films from the 1920’s that are worth seeking out.