Film Inquiry’s Best Articles Of December 2016
I’m a little late, but hey, better late than never! Happy new year! I hope your holidays were great!
2017 looks like it’s going to be a very exciting year for Film Inquiry, and we’ve already been publishing some great new articles since New Year’s. However, today I want to look back on some of the great articles we published over the course of December, and while we published a little less than normal due to the holidays, we still published some terrific articles that I hope you’ll check out if you haven’t yet!
In case you missed them, here are our favorite articles of December 2016, in no particular order!
Announcing The Film Inquiry Youtube Channel, And More Exciting News!
We published our very first YouTube video last month, announcing that our YouTube channel is going to be a lot more active in 2017. And we had some more exciting news – Film Inquiry became a Rotten Tomatoes-approved publication last month, putting us among the greatest publications around the world!
Watch the YouTube video and read the rest of the announcement here!
MOANA: Animated By The Numbers
“With their newest entry, Moana, the filmmakers have once again told the familiar story. It is the tale of a young person who has both an immense internal and physical power who has to learn to wield that force to better themselves and save their community from destruction. Of course, there are no new stories – there are only reinventions, revisions, and turns on traditions. And though Moana wades successfully into safe waters, it desperately begs to go beyond the shallow reef and overcome worn-out clichés and stagnant tropes.” […]
Read the rest of Mike Daringer’s article here.
Prano Bailey-Bond Talks NASTY & Life As A Female Director
“With the recent international success of her short NASTY, and a couple of features in the pipe line, it’s fair to say Prano Bailey-Bond is smashing through the infamous glass ceiling.
Her haunting style is impossible to ignore, and has led her to work with the likes of Film4, Sony Music and Atlantic Records as well as an impressive collection of awards under her belt. It’s no surprise that Prano Bailey-Bond has been named “one to watch”, but what is the reality of being a female director?” […]
Read the rest of Holly Wyatt’s interview with Prano Bailey-Bond here.
SUGAR MOUNTAIN: Finding The Heart Of Deceit
“Richard Gray’s Sugar Mountain is the best work of his as director to date. He uses breathtaking exteriors shot on location in Seward, Alaska, as the backdrop for a story that reaches levels of Greek tragedy. Gray molds the Abe Pogos screenplay of young, bored people in a small town where everyone knows everything about everyone into a paranoid thriller built upon the muddied ground between lies and the truth.” […]
Read the rest of C.H. Newell’s article here.
ANONYMOUS: Anarchy & Adolescence
“Anonymous follows the exploits of one Alex Danyliuk (Callan McAuliffe), a young Ukrainian immigrant living in suburban Canada. He eks out a meager living for his struggling immigrant family as a rising computer programmer, subsequent hacker, and reluctant global terrorist. Inspired by his early involvement in the nefarious underworld of online crime and identity theft as an active participant in the fictional global conglomerate known in the film as Dark Web, Alex soon finds himself in a fairly enviable and dangerous position.” […]
Read the rest of Sean K. Cureton’s article here.
Blood, Actually: A BLACK CHRISTMAS Tradition
“Horror films have always been a source of comfort for me. When I was little, I was enamoured of the Final Girls who fought their way back from the brink of almost certain death to emerge from the clutches of a monster. Now that I’m older, the nihilism in horror films provides a bar for my own problems in life – yes, I’m worried about my phone bill this month but at least I haven’t given birth to the antichrist.
And sometimes, around the Holidays in particular, they provide a comforting alternative to the seemingly forced gaiety of the season; the commercials that blare at us from a television screen to buy Mom this top-of-the-line blender ensuring the most wonderful Christmas ever is a fantasy that lives in our head the moment until we set foot in a mall or receive our credit card statement.” […]
Read the rest of guest author Alexandra West’s article here.
NOCTURNAL ANIMALS: As Elegant & Lavish As It Is Darkly Cynical
“The story-within-a-story has long been used in literature and film in order to express the inner turmoil of a protagonist, albeit within an additional fictional narrative. Here, the character transposes themselves as the lead character of a story – living through that person’s experiences, and by the conclusion learns to approach their own lives in a new manner.
In Nocturnal Animals, director Tom Ford‘s sophomoric effort, this device is used to frame the entirety of the film. Presented in a lush, hypnotic fashion, the film is one wholly stemming from his unique perspective, though at times it also feels convoluted in an attempt to mesh too many alternating story-lines.” […]
Read the rest of David Fontana’s article here.
The Cinematic Foreshadowing Of Reality Television
“Our current reality television owes itself to the film industry. How far we would go to achieve something supposedly real can be seen clearly within films inspired by the 1973 PBS miniseries, An American Family. This miniseries is truly the start of reality television, but feature films predicted how we would take this genre and expand it into something previously seen as only satirical. Satire, with its over-the-top situations, can correctly predict the future, which is true of early films based around the idea of reality television.” […]
Read the rest of Amanda Mazzillo’s article here.
“Believe In Yourself As An Artist” Interview With Filmmaker & Cinefemme CEO Michelle Kantor
“Behind the non-profit organisation Cinefemme is a great group of primarily women, who aim to improve chances for women filmmakers and artists in Hollywood by providing fiscal sponsorship, organise networking events and offer support. Cinefemme is an interesting organisation – women filmmakers should definitely take note!
We caught up with founder and CEO Michelle Kantor of Cinefemme, who answered some of our questions about the organisation.” […]
Read the rest of Manon de Reeper’s interview with Michelle Kantor here.
HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT: A Deftly Crafted Gift To Cineastes
“One notable absence from Hitchc*ck/Truffaut is Brian De Palma, whose relationship to Hitchc*ck‘s universe is explored in Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow‘s fabulous career overview De Palma, which functions as a sort of companion piece.
What is immediately striking is that Jones has eschewed the usual route of using critics, historians and contemporaries to contextualize the story. Much like Hitchc*ck‘s assertion that ‘logic is dull’, Jones is not interested in biographical niceties, assuming a base level of knowledge which frees him up to delve into his contributors’ insights.” […]
Read the rest of Daniel Palmer’s article here.
What were your favorite articles this month? Let us know in the comments, and we’d also love to hear it if you have any suggestions.
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