Prepare yourself for another round of bad boy cops in War on Everyone, the latest from writer/director John Michael McDonagh. While sticking to his earned reputation for sharp-witted and thoroughly inappropriate humor, McDonagh takes a few steps away from his normal setup in his third outing. Gone is Brendan Gleeson and the familiar Irish setting, instead taking advantage of American police’s battered reputation as loose cannons with badges.
As has happened many times before, Christine will be released on the heels of a frightfully similar movie. Both this biopic and the documentary Kate Plays Christine, released earlier this summer, are based on the life of newscaster Christine Chubbuck, who committed suicide live on-air in 1974. While the case has faded from widespread public knowledge, it exists on the fringe thanks to various websites and videos dedicated to the most shocking televised events in history.
Tom Ford isn’t dabbling in filmmaking. While primarily a fashion designer, his 2009 debut A Single Man turned heads not only for its style but its deeply felt rumination on loss. He co-wrote and directed that project, and while its depth was a delightful surprise, it also set the bar very high for his sophomore effort.
Free Fire really isn’t into small talk. It just wants to put some weird characters in a set piece and let the good times roll. That high bar is why it’s imperative that they got quality actors like Oscar winner Brie Larson.
The tradition of fraternity hazing is well-known in America, with rush week on campus being synonymous with strange antics and the occasionally harried classmate. The dark side isn’t hidden, either, which 24-hour news companies jump on to fill time. Annual reports of dangerous stunts and the occasional injury or death are treated with a somber tone, questioning why collegiate-level young men take part in such ridiculous antics.
It would be easy to accuse The Girl with All the Gifts of being a fad product. It’s set in a dystopian future, it’s got zombies, and there’s even a chosen one-esque girl at its center. It all seems dreadfully familiar, but a bit of digging reveals that this project is anything but a studio rummaging for profit.
Paul Verhoeven returned to the Cannes Film Festival and to critical favor with his newest movie, Elle. Now that the unusual rape-revenge story is about to be unleashed on the wide world, the remaining question is whether it can be financially viable. Isabelle Huppert stars as said victim, who is otherwise a successful business executive and a fiercely take charge kind of woman.
The original Ouija is the kind of movie that pisses off cinephiles far more than the average moviegoer. It was competently made schlock, a paint by numbers horror film that never took a single chance. If it had faded into obscurity, then none of us would say anything about it.
Julia Hart’s career takes another unexpected turn with Miss Stevens, a dramedy about a struggling teacher escorting three high schoolers to a drama competition. Hart was a teacher herself before writing the period home invasion thriller The Keeping Room, and with her second screenplay she takes on directing as well. While Miss Stevens may seem frothily familiar, I would warn against putting this film in a box.
Welcome to every parent’s nightmare: your kid isn’t just lost in a store but has been whisked away by a train, putting so much distance between you that it’s impossible to reconnect. What would you think after decades of not seeing your child?
Let’s play a game. Let’s guess how many reviewers will use the word ‘inspirational’ when describing Queen of Katwe. The first trailer avoids the word, but it’s putting it right on the tip of your tongue with the swelling music and the numerous snippets of pep talks.
While being yet another in a long line of films about broaching adulthood, Girl Asleep addresses the awkward transition using fantastical elements, which just might be the best way to capture how foreign this period of life really feels. The film is adapted from a play staged by Adelaide’s Windmill Theatre, with many of the key players being more active in the theater than the film community. Director Rosemary Myers is Windmill Theatre’s artistic director and boasts no other film credits, as does costume/production designer Jonathan Oxlade.
It wasn’t a stretch for the Sundance Film Festival to include Other People in its opening night lineup. With a plot about a struggling writer returning home to care for his cancer-stricken mother, it ticks about as many indie trope boxes as you can without feeling like an overstuffed mess. Familiarity, however, does not make a film bad, and Other People has a solid backbone that should lift it above comparable films.
I know nothing of cultural revolution. I’ve only had a taste of the violence and hate-speech that must permeate such events, as the majority of Americans have turned their back on the presidential candidate that spews toned-down versions of such rhetoric. Still, it’s been a strange time, with acquaintances openly asking each other where we are going and what we are doing, with a fear that is barely veiled.
The universal praise and frenetic bidding war that enveloped the Sundance premiere of Manchester by the Sea was hard to miss. That Amazon (with Roadside Attractions) won out with a promised theatrical run and awards season push only heightened its profile, placing it squarely at the forefront of industry-changing conversations about the role of streaming companies in film production and distribution. Amazon publicly states that they’re targeting a void with the films they acquire, providing a home for quality, non-mainstream films that have been suffering since many indie labels closed their doors.