Film Reviews
In 2013, Ken Loach seemed destined to enter the pantheon of filmmakers who bow out with a movie that was, at best, inconsequential to the hard hitting filmography that came before. His proposed final film was 2014’s Jimmy’s Hall, a film about the tensions between the Catholic Church, local government and the vibrant youth culture of 1930’s Ireland. For one of the most important British filmmakers of all time, bowing out with a period piece that paid more than a little narrative debt to Footloose ensured underwhelming results.
A midlife crisis is roughly defined as a period of anxiety and disappointment reflecting on your past as you approach middle age. Those going through a midlife crisis are noted to act irrationally compared to their previous behaviour in a need to get out of a self-perceived rut. It has often been noted that no two people react to the dawning of maturity in the same manner, even if the cause of the anxiety is always the same.
Ava DuVernay returns to the documentary format with 13th, a look at the amendment of the United States Constitution that simultaneously abolished slavery and established a loophole for denying rights to targeted groups. The troubling wording in the amendment has to do with convicted criminals, who are the only people exempt from the abolishment of slavery and involuntary servitude. That exemption, while small at the time, has snowballed into a huge issue thanks to America’s system of mass incarceration.
As readers may or may not know, I took a break from writing these past few months as I was running my first ever film festival. The Drunken Film Fest (DFF) had its inaugural year in Bradford, England this past summer and it was pretty successful for a first year free film festival, if I do say so myself. However, my background when it comes to festivals is not in running them, but rather in trying to get accepted to them.
Bleak thrillers that satirize the modern nuclear family seem to be increasing in popularity in recent years. The most prominent example would obviously be Gone Girl, based on Gillian Flynn’s novel of the same name and directed by David Fincher. The latest film that could classify within this subgenre is The Girl on the Train, which contains many similar elements to Gone Girl, including a mysterious disappearance of a woman, which the film’s events revolve around.
Coming Out is the personal story of young filmmaker Alden Peters. The film follows his coming out process as he tells his parents, friends and siblings how he has repressed his sexuality for a number of years. In using a homemade video style of filming, Coming Out gives us an insight into not only Peters’ journey but into his mindset as he starts to immerse himself into the 2016 LGBTQ lifestyle.
Hollywood seems to be stuck in an age of remakes and sequels. Though original films do exist, they are never as popular or successful as the large-scale blockbusters, which are the only sure moneymakers for studios. Coming from this standpoint, it’s no surprise that Antoine Fuqua’s The Magnificent Seven exists.
The sincerity of The Homestretch is certainly never in doubt. Depicting the plight of three homeless teens in Chicago, Anne de Mare and Kirsten Kelly’s documentary interweaves the personal stories with various facts and statistics highlighting the widespread nature of the issue. Unfortunately, despite its pure intentions, The Homestretch never really manages to succeed to be truly engaging, regardless of the clear warmth of the three featured youths.
It is easy to see how The Girl With All The Gifts could have been toned down and transformed into a generic YA movie in its cinematic adaptation. In the 2014 best-selling novel, the story is told from the point of view of all five central character. Here, director Colm McCarthy focuses on the titular tween character Melanie, exploring this plague-ravaged world from her point of view.
When the title card appears in Daguerrotype, it announces the film as “Le secret de le chambre noire”. That title reflects the film’s goals as a dark, foreboding ghost mystery, and it probably does so better than the title “Daguerrotype” does. But what I like about the title Daguerrotype (misspelled though it might be), is that it refers to the most interesting part of the film:
Thought the buddy cop movie formula was tired? Well, it is a cinematic breath of fresh air in comparison to the “bad cop” movie. These movies are tiresome depictions of lawmen (and make no mistake, they are always men) who break every rule in the book whilst trying to enforce it – and even though there have been solid entries into the genre in recent years, it can’t help but feel worn out.
Baz Luhrmann is a divisive director. His unique blend of pop culture references coupled with highly choreographed, hyperbolic sequences can, for some, prove distracting. Certainly, these criticisms are understandable, if not valid.
During September, we featured a short film every day, to promote general awareness of short films and the great talent behind them, and to help people find some excellent shorts. Today we’re listing all the short films we featured. We’re also including a bunch of fun graphs to illustrate the data behind the short films!
Killer Friends is a short horror-comedy written by Zach Noe Towers and co-directed by Towers and Tina Carbone. The film stars Jenna-Lee Carreiro, Dave Racki, and Peggy Sinnott alongside Towers, who plays the indestructible jerk himself, Scott. With Friends Like This, Who Needs Enemies?
Sometimes when a movie starts off slow, it picks up and has a good pay off in the end which makes the slow and boring parts forgivable. That’s not the case for Detours, written by Mara Lesemann and directed by Robert McCaskill. The film stars Tara Westwood and Carlo Fiorletta with cameo appearances by Paul Sorvino and Phyllis Somerville.