Every week Film Inquiry publishes the movies that are opening in cinemas! This week: Tomorrowland, Poltergeist, When Marnie Was There, Aloft, Chocolate City, The Farewell Party and Sunshine Superman.
Anyone who is familiar with George Miller’s Mad Max series must have been eagerly anticipating his latest as much as I have. It has now been 30 years since we last saw Max in his post-apocalyptic desert world. But it is almost as if no time has passed.
What’s worse than one gangster socking you in the face? Answer: Twin gangsters as large as Goliath with mitts like rocks…
I was watching the North Irish TV show The Fall a while ago and it struck me how handsome Jamie Dornan is, and how fascinating it is that the creators of the show cast him for the role of the sexual predator and serial killer, the villain of the story. In typical crime films and TV, the average sexual predator is portrayed to be a pretty average if not ugly guy, around or older than 40, and if he’s fat, he preferably has a constant sheen of sweat over his forehead. Someone who kind of grosses you out.
Philosophy is often looked down on as a choice of study. It isn’t readily viewed as a valuable job skill unless you know how to sell it. Deep knowledge of it will probably depress you as well..
Every now and again, a movie adaptation of a novel is made by the perfect directorial fit for the source material, that helps it stay true to the original text and create a new visionary approach that helps it stand on its own two feet as a distinctive work of art. Danish director Thomas Vinterberg has had an eclectic career, yet is mainly renowned for his two emotionally fraught dramas about the devastating effects of child abuse, his 1998 debut Festen (The Celebration) and his previous feature, 2012’s magnificent The Hunt. These movies are excellent in how they don’t spare the viewer from the histrionic emotions that engulf the characters and completely ruin their lives – The Hunt, starring the always-fantastic Mads Mikkelsen as a primary school teacher wrongly accused of abusing a pupil, could easily draw comparisons with Thomas Hardy.
The Duke of Burgundy is that rare thing that almost every movie promises, yet fails to deliver: it is something that you’ve never seen before. It manages to say something universal about the politics and gender roles of relationships using the guise of lesbian sadomasochism, a subject I assume will be entirely alien to most viewers.
Every week Film Inquiry publishes the movies that are opening in cinemas! This week: Mad Max:
This whole Lego thing has gone way too far. There are entire life-size model recreations of X-wings and re-imaginings of famous film scenes all over the American landscape. Suddenly, I’m reliving my childhood but everything is yellow and blocky.
This April, Cobain: Montage of Heck, the new rock doc by Brett Morgen, was released into the world. I was a little apprehensive because I felt as if all the insight that we would be given into the life of Kurt Cobain had already been exposed.
Fun relies on spontaneity. If you over-plan something, the less likely it is that people are going to have fun, because nothing will ever live up to expectations. Happiness equally relies on spontaneity and equally cannot be forced; the family in Force Majeure appear to be happy as the movie starts, yet look closely and you’ll see everything isn’t so straightforward.
Look into Johnny Depp’s eyes in this trailer for Black Mass and you see a man staring you down into the void. A black abyss contained deep in his eyes. Stare at them as he gives you one of the most chilling speeches spoken in one of the most threatening ways possible.
Last month Film Inquiry contributor Rachael Sampson reviewed The New York Film Academy’s newly released infographic exploring gender representation in cinema. In addition to this infographic, the NYFA also published statistics on the portrayal of drugs in movies from 1894 to 2014 for us to review. I’ve always been interested in how society’s feelings towards something considered more ‘taboo’ like drugs is mirrored, if at all, in pop culture, especially in the context of film.
Somebody help me, I’m so lost. The only thing I’m sure of is that this is Chile in 2010. A 121 year old copper-gold mine has just collapsed.