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With the recent blockbuster release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens I have heard nothing but praise for the new protagonists and how they (or the adorable BB-8 Droid) are the best thing to happen to the revamped series. Before I rant, let me say how much I loved the new heroes.
Let’s start with a brief history of musical cinema. When Al Jonson’s 1927 film The Jazz Singer became both a critical and commercial success, it ushered in the wave of “talkies”: films with audio.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
From the entire team of Film Inquiry: a very merry Christmas! We hope your holidays will be wonderful and filled with great movies (an, of course, food)!
Christmastime. Is Here. ‘Tis the season of light and gift-giving, but also of nostalgia and tired holiday classics (I imagine that this is the one time of year many of you find the need to break out the VCR).
Christmas films are a part of our cinematic language, and nothing feels better than hanging out with loved ones, drinking cocoa while watching It’s a Wonderful Life, or saying your favorite lines from A Christmas Story (“You’ll shoot your Eye out!”). As great as these films are chances are you won’t pop in a copy of Scrooge on a hot Saturday afternoon in August.
Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men is a unique genre mash-up that contains elements of western, horror, drama, and crime films. The film follows the interwoven arcs of several characters in West Texas in the early 1980s. While hunting, Lleyelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) comes across millions of dollars at the bloody scene of a drug deal gone awry.
A few weeks back the Film Inquiry team vented their rage at the films we felt have undeservedly found a home in the good graces of both critics and audiences. This week, as we gear up for the good nature and cheer of the holidays, we thought we would go the other way and make cases for those films which though finding little love upon their theatrical releases, have managed to make themselves comfy in the warmth of our hearts. It doesn’t matter that critics, audiences and the film culture at large more or less forgot about these films the week after they were released, we know that everyone else is just making a terrible misassessment of work that is of undeniable quality.
Being an actor is hard – and most people should notice this. Spend a few moments trying to learn that exchange of dialogue from that movie you watched the other day, and you’ll quickly realize that regurgitating lines while maneuvering your face in a way that matches what you’re supposed to be feeling is like trying to rub your stomach and pat your head simultaneously (although I can do that flawlessly.) Good acting should capture your soul.
A central attribute to a film’s success or failure is the performances of its stars as certain characters. Now, while it is usually the adult actors or the adult actresses who are the stand-out stars in a feature film, there are also roles where it is the child that puts a new perspective on the approach to and execution of acting. Like adults, the child stars can adapt from supporting roles to leading.
Despite his iconic status as James Bond’s most celebrated foe, Ernst Blofeld has a chequered history in the 007 franchise. It seems as though no one really quite knew what to do with him. The fluctuating, inconstant persona gifted to him by so many various actors was not helped by a legal skirmish in the wings that flared up seemingly every six months.
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 the year 1955.
No movie gives an aura of eighties nostalgia better than St.Elmo’s Fire. The Joel Schumacher directed film is somewhat of an underappreciated ‘masterpiece’.
The Look of Silence, the harrowing companion piece to The Act of Killing, was released earlier this year to universal acclaim. With the film about to be released on streaming platforms in the US, with a ton of awards nominations heading its way (including a place in the shortlist for Best Documentary at the Oscars this year), Film Inquiry spoke to director Joshua Oppenheimer about the past decade in his life making these films, as well as the new form of documentary storytelling he has pioneered. Alistair Ryder for Film Inquiry:
They were at the top of their game. They had it all: the fame, the positive critics, a status amongst the greatest filmmakers of all time, and the power to make any film they wished.