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Returning to the bountiful setting of World War II era Europe is The Innocents, being released in a few countries under the title Agnus Dei. The latter is more indicative of its focus, following a French Red Cross doctor who must treat pregnant nuns near where she is stationed in Poland. It seems that no one was left unscathed in the war-ravaged country, hence the unwanted and potentially disastrous pregnancies that are based on real occurrences.
2016’s annual Woody Allen movie is Café Society, which kicked off this year’s Cannes Film Festival and drew more attention for a joke aimed at Allen than its middling reviews. This kind of reaction to his films isn’t uncommon. The last year he didn’t release a movie was 1981, and it’s more like clockwork than an event when another one comes out.
Before you start bemoaning the post-apocalyptic saturation of the movie world, let’s take a good, hard look at the trailer for Into the Forest. Yes, the power goes out and the grocery stores are emptied, but there’s no great battle against these events, no chosen person who must bring humanity back. Instead, there are two sisters who gather food and comfort each other as the world changes around them.
Every Tuesday Film Inquiry publishes the movies that are opening in cinemas! This week: Finding Dory, Central Intelligence, Tickled, The Last King and Clown.
Well, you can’t say that Ben Affleck isn’t trying to capitalize on his success. Since winning his second Oscar for Argo, he’s famously taken over the role of Batman, including writing and directing the upcoming caped crusader’s first solo film in the DC Extended Universe. In addition to that commitment, he’s also peppered in several acting appearances in stand-alone thrillers.
One of the only films that can take on Ghostbusters as the most hated project of 2016 is Ben-Hur. It’s not drawing the same level of public ire, but those with any sense of film history will remember the 1959 epic led by Charlton Heston and immediately wonder why. The complication is that the 2016 Ben-Hur is not a remake of the 1959 film or the 1925 silent version.
Every week Film Inquiry shares the movies that are opening in cinemas! This week: The Conjuring 2, Warcraft, Now You See Me 2, Genius, De Palma, Diary of a Chambermaid, From Afar and King Jack.
Riding into the summer movie season with some neon cool is Nerve, a thriller starring Emma Roberts and Dave Franco. The plot sounds like something out of a Dark Web horror story: an online site that pays players to take dares from watchers quickly escalates into a real-life game of survival for our two protagonists.
It’s a Werner Herzog documentary. So you’re sold, right? Okay, so not everyone’s as gung ho about the raspy filmmaker’s inquisitive wanderings as I am, but putting that man in the director’s chair guarantees a few things about Lo and Behold:
If a July release date for a sumptuous period romance sounds odd to you, wait until you hear the backstory on Tulip Fever. The movie was originally set to film in 2004 with Jude Law and Kiera Knightly in the lead roles, but it was scrapped overnight when the U.K.
Let’s be honest, if you’re stuck in a forest without other people, it’s cooler to pal around with a dragon than with apes. Sorry Tarzan, but Pete had a way better messed up childhood than you. While Pete’s Dragon doesn’t quite fit into the live-action reboot trend that Disney is on, it’s certainly of the same mind.
Is anyone really surprised that one of the biggest companies in the world had a less-than-pristine start? The story of how Ray Kroc took over McDonald’s isn’t a secret, as I recall first hearing about it in my teenage years. It’s not like the shady story has dampened its revenue in any way, so why bother trying to keep all the wheeling and dealing a secret?
Every Tuesday Film Inquiry publishes the movies that are opening in cinemas! This week: Me Before You, Popstar:
Have we all let the farting corpse premise sink into our bones enough to not get distracted? Remember, a movie is not its pitch or its three-line synopsis or even its trailer. The conversation about Swiss Army Man seems to be getting stuck on these points, and as eye-catching as they are, it’s leaving us in danger of settling for knee-jerk reactions instead of giving the movie an honest chance.