His face adorns posters and t-shirts across the world and, whilst there aren’t many who can likely claim to have seen his films, there aren’t many who haven’t heard his name. James Dean, like Marilyn Monroe, has elevated to the status of cultural icon in much the same way that Kurt Cobain has in the music world. The poster boy for teenage disillusionment, Dean had an experimental approach to life that ran way ahead of his time.
The overbearing mother is like a cartoon to me, something I’ve seen portrayals of but never experienced in real life. My own mother barely comments on my steadfast single life and accepts both what I wish to tell her and what I choose to play close to the vest. It’s always been that way and hence is comfortingly familiar, which I assume is exactly how those on the opposite end of the mother-daughter spectrum describe their relationship like, too.
If you don’t keep up, the filmography of Québécois director Xavier Dolan could expand into an intimidating mass. He released five films between 2009 and 2014 and already has two more in the pipeline, additionally serving as writer, editor, actor, and costume designer for several of the projects. That output, along with other extraneous facts, like his young age, has drawn headlines that sadly take attention away from what is an expressive filmography.
Film is the art of light. Paradoxically, light is that is the ultimate source required for life to exist, and is the greatest substance to cause horrific calamities. Fire was both a blessing and a curse for ancient civilizations to understand and attempt to harness, but it was quite often their undoing.
As someone who literally knows nothing about the character Doctor Strange, I was not expecting a bald Tilda Swinton to punch Benedict Cumberbatch out of his body in this trailer. It was the first time anything about this project reached out and made me interested, so, good job teaser, you served your purpose. I’m certainly not the only one in the dark about this less-than-prominent superhero, whose name is not as self-explanatory as Ant-Man or the Guardians of the Galaxy.
“The horror genre gets (us) in touch with our primal instincts as a people more than any other genre I can think of. It gives (us) this chance to … reflect on who we are and look at the … uglier side that we don’t always look at, and have fun with that very thing.” —Drew Goddard (IMDb) I may be a little late to the party (by about four or five years) but for those of you who have not yet seen Drew Goddard (writer and director) and Joss Whedon’s (writer and producer) The Cabin In The Woods be forewarned, this article contains spoilers.
Every Tuesday Film Inquiry publishes the movies that are opening in cinemas! This week: Elvis & Nixon, The Meddler, The Huntsman:
In this episode of The Power of Film, I had the pleasure of speaking with Eugene Sun Park, who is a producer and experimental filmmaker in Chicago. We got to chat about the Chicago film industry (and how it differs from Hollywood), his production company Full Spectrum Features and supporting filmmakers of all kinds, the film he’s producing and currently crowdfunding, Signature Move, as well as the awkward, awkward moment at the Oscars where Chris Rock brought out three stereotypical Asian American kids, and no one thought to maybe scrap that, beforehand. Upcoming film:
Rarely is a filmmaker as entrenched in infamy as John Waters. Born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1946, the king of counterculture became known in the 1970s for his creative collaborations with the equally infamous Divine and his gang of Dreamlanders. He began work as a director with a series of experimental short films including Hag In A Black Leather Jacket (1964) and the Andy Warhol-inspired Roman Candles (1966).
To talk about this film, you must talk about the rise and acceptance of post-modernist cinema with mainstream audiences and how this has changed the way modern genre films are tackled. To break it down, post-modernist cinema essentially is cinema that tackles ‘modern’ or traditional cinema. Post-modern cinema wants to actively point out the different film elements that make traditional cinema work, show them to you and deconstruct these cinematic codes in order to stand apart and comment on its established genre/story-telling methods that its currently indulging in.
The unsteady career of director Rob Reiner continues with Being Charlie, a family affair that is very much based on real life. His son Nick Reiner wrote the screenplay (along with Matt Elisofon) about his battles with substance abuse, and the fact that he kept his filmmaking family a part of the plot and got his father to direct makes the real-life parallels unavoidable. Hitting this close to home doesn’t always lead to the best films, though, especially when dealing with something that must’ve happened relatively recently (Nick is currently only 22 years old).
In the beginning, there was light. It moved, it danced, it enthralled, but in the end, it was just light. Even in the silent era, exhibitors recognized the value of sound, coming up with a wide array of live and pre-recorded solutions to the problem of representing reality with only one of our five senses (and drained of color at that).
Even in world cinema, the stories we see on screen are largely those depicting the lives and crises of the most well-off members of each respective society – showing situations that still can largely be referred to as “first world problems” without a sense of ironic bite. It is why a film like Dheepan is so urgently needed in the current, self-centred socio-political climate. It firmly puts us in the shoes of characters whose stories are never told in cinema:
Nobody’s hiding how weird and grotesque Tale of Tales is going to be, and oh how delectable it looks. The adult fairy tale has become a well-used genre of late, and while most draw from the toned down Disney versions or the more bloody Grimm style, there’s a host of other sources out there for filmmakers to start from. Taking that less crowded route is Tale of Tales, which is based on a 17th century Neapolitan collection by Giambattista Basile.
Legend is a word that is batted around pretty easily these days, but one person who is fully deserving of that title is Robert De Niro. One of the most celebrated actors of his generation, the New York born actor has ascended Hollywood’s ranks and is now considered by many to be on par with the likes of Marlon Brando. With seven Academy Awards nominations (two wins), as well as being nominated for eight Golden Globes (one win) and six BAFTAS, De Niro is held in high regard by the industry and public alike, in spite of some questionable career decisions in recent years.