Since breaking out with Trainspotting 20 years ago, director Danny Boyle has proven himself to be one of the UK’s most diverse filmmakers. Growing up in Greater Manchester, UK, in a working class Irish Catholic family, Boyle spent eight years as a choir boy and intended to join the Priesthood, deciding against it at the age of 14. He went on to study English and Drama at Bangor University and began his career in theater in the 1980’s.
To try and properly describe The World of Kanako is quite a tough feat. So far I have a mix of the youth-filled slaughter of Battle Royale, the rapid-fire non-linear editing of John Boorman’s Point Blank, and the grittiness of Sam Peckinpah’s Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, smashed together in a blood soaked blender and left to sit in the sun. The World of Kanako is a brutal, convoluted and pop-culture infused neo-noir which punctures a bandage-wrapped fist in the face of decency in delivering its twisted story.
I would buy Tilda Swinton as the woman of the century. She’s got a magnetic quality that the biggest stars share, yet there’s also an oddball sensibility to her. While not aloof, fame doesn’t seem to be a driving force in her career, as she seems to select whatever roles that piques her interest.
Much attention has been drawn to Hollywood of late, and several condemnations of its practises issued. While the recent #OscarsSoWhite kerfuffle is certainly indicative of a problem, I think the real issue stretches beyond race only. As a colleague here has pointed out in a recent article, we aren’t all fooled.
Back in 2013, a prestigious ballet director from the Bolshoi Theater named Sergei Filin was attacked outside his house, and acid was thrown into his face. He suffered third degree burns all over his face and down his neck and was left blind in one eye. After an investigation, it was discovered that a dancer of the Bolshoi paid the perpetrator; the motive was in reference to the casting of Swan Lake in which Filin was responsible.
Let the Melissa McCarthy love recommence! Audiences have been shelling out money for the former Groundling ever since Bridesmaids, and The Boss marks her last outing before the much talked about Ghostbusters reboot. If the latter is a success then McCarthy will have a franchise on her hands (if she doesn’t already have one with Spy), and her career will be stabilized for years to come.
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 focused on zombie films not directed by George A.
The world is a terrifying place. Its machinations are convoluted constructions managed by a mixture of public servants or private business people whom we would like to assume have the public’s best interests at heart, but whose true motives are more dubious and difficult to discern. Oftentimes financial imperatives outweigh common sense, and the result is disaster on a massive scale.
Every Tuesday Film Inquiry publishes the movies that are opening in cinemas! This week: Race, Risen, The Witch, Embrace of the Serpent, Busco Novio Para Mi Mujer, Neerja and Rolling Papers.
I love the TV show Dad’s Army. Originally aired between 1968 and 1977, it is a show that remains hugely popular to this day, and I can watch it every Saturday night on BBC Two and listen to the radio version every Monday morning on BBC Radio 4 Extra. Like all incredible BBC comedies, it makes up a part of the British psyche and its characters and catchphrases are legendary.
Remember when everyone fell in love with Once? Well, that was nine years ago now, and writer/director John Carney has yet to, and probably never will, produce another hit quite like it. Begin Again made more money, but the success of Once was a right-place-at-the-right-time sort of phenomena.
Should you feel like bringing up Woody Allen in conversation there is a good chance you will either be met with a proclamation of love or a snort of disdain. The Brooklyn-born filmmaker, now in his eighth decade, is divisive for a whole range of reasons (not all of which are related to his films), but he has a solid fan-base that has allowed him to become one of the most consistently working directors around. Averaging out at one film per year, Allen has an extensive back catalogue that is often overlooked.
One of the few common experiences not only among different cultures, but different species, is the act of eating. We all just have to do it, and we don’t have a say in it. Food unites high and low, left and right, young and all, through necessity and playful manipulation of our senses.
It’s a reunion on all fronts in the Forsaken trailer. Characters find each other after a long war, actors reunite with former co-stars, and, of course, Kiefer and Donald Sutherland play father and son for the first time onscreen. Anyone who’s entertained by meta-filmmaking should relish watching the two work through their characters’ broken relationship, but there’s plenty of other less obvious things to suss out from this trailer.
The independent film movement of the 1990’s allowed for a range of young, hungry filmmakers to move to a forefront which many directors nary got a chance to experience in the past. Yearning for voices which were “out of the box” in story, dialogue and acting, these indie flicks began to span beyond just arthouse cinema. Creatives didn’t always have to rely on big studio backing to get their projects off the ground.