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A few days ago the trailer for a new film called Army of One dropped. The film was directed by Larry Charles whose credits include Sasha Baron Cohen films Borat, Bruno and The Dictator. Army of One stars Nicolas Cage who in recent years seems to have become a bit of a joke, even though he has always done interesting work.
‘90s nostalgia is in full swing, and with that comes a reboot of the so-terrible-it’s-good television series Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. To many, myself included, the series is a goofy relic of childhood, a cheap mashup of footage from a Japanese superhero program with California teen clichés. With memories of the original series firmly intact, this teaser leaves me wondering where the hell the Power Rangers are.
America should be done beating around the bush when it comes to race relations, but unfortunately many barriers still exist to open dialogue. That makes the honest language used in Get Out both striking and welcome. This is a movie about the horror of subjugation, but it’s not presented in a tidy biopic or a gritty drama.
It’s not easy to keep a series alive for five films, especially when it’s based on something as slight as an amusement park ride. Yet here we are with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, thanks in no small part to the swashbuckling weirdness that is Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow.
Every Tuesday, Film Inquiry compiles a list of the movies that are opening in cinemas. Opening this week: Max Steel, The Accountant, Kevin Hart:
The first televised presidential debate in America took place in 1960, pitting the tanned and dapper John F. Kennedy against the sallow and literally sick Richard Nixon. It was a tumultuous time for the country, with each candidate taking tough questions ranging from the cold war to civil rights issues.
Talk about a project with some serious credentials. Having Denzel Washington and Viola Davis involved is enough to get most people hyped for a substantial drama, but Fences comes with much more behind it. The film is based on the play of the same name by August Wilson, which in the ‘80s had James Earl Jones in the lead, won a slew of Tony Awards, and landed Wilson his first Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Advertising is one of the driving forces alongside film that is keeping cinemas alive. I analysed how general advertisements are being handled within cinemas in an earlier article titled “Cinematic Advertisements: Forgotten Potential?
In the world of movies, you should never go home. It rarely goes well, and even if you do attain some measure of pathos, it comes at great cost. Jack doesn’t have much choice in Jack Goes Home; you have to attend your father’s funeral, but if your mother is horror fixture Lin Shaye, you should really know better.
A man named Paterson living in a town called Paterson seems quaint, like a small oddity you brush by on a road trip. It’s certainly not something you stop for, but then writer/director Jim Jarmusch rarely stops for the obvious thing. Many of Jarmusch’s films, which are considered exemplary of the American independent scene, ignore traditional plot structures, but Paterson seems to be taking things to a tranquil extreme.
Every Tuesday, Film Inquiry compiles a list of the movies that are opening in cinemas. Opening this week: The Girl On The Train, The Birth of a Nation, The 13th, Voyage of Time, Under The Shadow, Middle School:
It’s taken thirteen years for the guys to stage another Christmas heist, but Willie and Marcus are finally back in all their surly glory. They’ve set their sights a bit higher this time, using their Santa and elf routine to infiltrate a large charity group instead of measly department stores. The rude and seemingly uncontrollable antics of Willie put the entire enterprise in jeopardy last time, and thirteen years doesn’t seem to have changed his behavior.
Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong has done a few acting gigs in recent years, but nothing with the heft and screen time of Ordinary World. In the film, Armstrong stars as a rocker in the midst of a mid-life crisis, and his presence is surprising not only as an actor but as a normally aging adult. His character has left the stage behind for normal family life, and with that comes greying hair and a basic style.
Inferno bumps the Robert Langdon film series up to a trilogy, as the symbologist is again swept up in a globetrotting mystery. While not as controversial as the series’ previous entries, The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, the film stills deals heavily with Catholic mythology, this time centering on Dante’s Inferno and its formative influence on the modern idea of hell. It’s not surprising that the series, taken from books of the same name by Dan Brown, have such enduring popularity.
At long last, we have footage for Passengers. Most people have been waiting for this since mid-2015 when news hit that Sony was green lighting a sci-fi romance led by two of the hottest actors in the game. Christ Pratt was flying high off of The Lego Movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Jurassic World at the time, while Jennifer Lawrence was still in the midst of both The Hunger Games and X-Men series.
