Film Reviews
You will see the term postmodern to describe the comedy of The Lonely Island, the comedy team responsible for this film and the birth of the Saturday Night Live Digital Short, as you read opinions on their newest film, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. It is a vague term that means comedy that deconstructs the art and is self-aware.
I first saw My Brief Eternity at the Wales International Documentary Festival, and such was its impact on me that after meeting the director Clare Sturges, and after writing up the festival itself, I resolved to review it so that others would come to know of it. The short documentary is a joint project between Maggie’s and Brightest Films, the former being a cancer charity, the latter Sturges’ production company. The film is about the Welsh artist; Osi Rhys Osmond.
After a brief hiatus with Fast and Furious 7, mainstream horror’s prodigal son James Wan has returned to the Devil’s Church of Jump Scares with a sequel to his paranormal blockbuster, The Conjuring. The main lesson he seems to have learned on his franchise-hopping action excursion is how to make things feel absolutely massive, and in following the golden rule of sequels, he’s applied that bigger-is-better ethos to The Conjuring 2. The ghostbusting duo of the first film – Ed and Lorraine Warren – are called to London to flush out some more housebound demons, but in an effort to raise the stakes over the first film, Lorraine is also faced with her own adversaries:
Usually I will have heard about a film before it is released. It’s odd when that doesn’t happen. It’s even odder when the film was originally released almost a year ago and I still haven’t heard about it.
Despite the title being one of the most fascinating I’ve seen in a while, Careful What You Wish For, directed by Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum, is about as painfully average as a neo-noir thriller film can get. You will not be surprised or fascinated at any point in this film, where a younger man takes an older woman (Isabel Lucas) as his lover. Though, said older woman isn’t all that much older than him, sadly showing how limited roles for women are in this industry.
The vast majority of video game films have failed for not respecting their source material, using them only as basic backdrops to put some hackneyed plot in place for a quick cash-grab. Various franchises like Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia have all failed because of this blatant apathy, and because those involved in their making didn’t care about how to integrate the art of making video games with the craft of making films. The less said about the absolute disasters that were the various video game films directed by talentless hack Uwe Boll, the better.
While many recent horror films have been heavily influenced by the works of prominent directors of the 1980s like David Lynch, John Carpenter and David Cronenberg (very good ones like The Guest and It Follows), this one addresses subject matter not even those films were willing to tackle. Richard Powell’s Heir is the next great homage to those great directors, and can proudly be a part of the recent resurgence in thoughtful horror films designed more to represent real world conflicts as opposed to cheap scares. The plot is simple at first:
In this part of Positive Psychology & Film, Laurie Agard interprets Life Is Beautiful, the inspiring and gut-wrenching Italian war film.
Whilst people constantly bring up the current increasing slog of superhero films, there’s another string of films that are much worse in their repetitive nature that seemingly seem to go under the radar: the bro/stoner comedy. Seth Rogen could be seen as the unofficial face of the stoner movement, films where a manchild is forced to grow up, usually through the love of a woman, in between bouts of marijuana, pop culture references and hanging out with your “bros”.
Man is an individual only because of his intangible memory; and memory cannot be defined, but it defines mankind. — Ghost in the Shell X-Men: Apocalypse, the capper to the X-Men:
Carrie is a movie inspired by one of Stephen King’s first novels, a dark story mixed with dramatic notes, where all the uncertainties and fears of adolescence, such as the problem of being different in a society that does not forgive, are transformed into anger and the desire for revenge. The movie was directed by Brian De Palma in 1976, but I believe it is a timeless story; indeed there have been many remakes, the last one in 2013 by Kimberly Peirce, setting it in a modern context. De Palma’s film, which can be considered a cult classic, shows the daily life of teenagers at an American high school and explores the theme of bullying deeply, adding some gory scenes towards the end.
In Matthew Solomon’s Chatter, Agent Martin Takagi (Tohoru Masamune) comes across the intimate video chats of married couple while monitoring Internet traffic for the Department of Homeland Security. The married couple, played by Brady Smith and Sarena Khan, begin to discover that their new home is haunted. In the same vein of horror films such as Paranormal Activity and the more recent Unfriended, the mechanics within this film felt familiar.
Mark of the Witch (also known as Another), written and directed by Jason Bognacki, is described as a horror fantasy film. It tells the story of Jordyn, played by Paulie Rojas, who is confronted with her Aunt Ruth’s (Nancy Wolfe) attempted suicide just minutes after blowing out her birthday candles, and soon discovers a dark secret about herself. Jordyn just wanted to know who she is and where she comes from, which her Aunt Ruth acknowledges is a perfectly normal thing for anyone to wonder about.
Whit Stillman’s adaption of Jane Austen’s relatively unknown novella, Lady Susan, follows the delightfully scandalous exploits of the recently widowed Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale). Lady Susan is forced to leave the Manwaring family’s estate in the midst of adulterous allegations, instead taking up residence with her in-laws and their handsome young relative, Reginald DeCourcy (Xavier Samuel), whereby she attempts to marry off her long-suffering daughter and elevate her own social standing in the process. The ensuing events make for one of the most entertaining and joyfully witty Austen adaptations we have yet been treated to on screen.
Within the last couple of years, the Western seems to have made a semi-comeback. Recent notable titles include John Maclean’s directorial debut Slow West, the horror-thriller Bone Tomahawk, and Quentin Tarantino’s claustrophobic and violent The Hateful Eight. And, in just a few months, a remake of The Magnificent Seven will be released, a film adaptation which has attracted the likes of Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Vincent D’Onofrio and more (which is hopefully an indication that it is at least halfway decent).