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Mad Max: Fury Road, the latest from Australian director George Miller, is overtly, and perhaps primarily, an action film. The vast majority of its two hour runtime is devoted to a single unrelenting chase sequence; it both drives the narrative and provides a platform for the manic and brilliantly staged action set-pieces which will define the film for many audiences.
In 2007, I was a zombie and I was murdered by a man named Graham Clarke. Okay, I was actually a hungry film student in Los Angeles and I was working on a short film in which Graham played the hero. In student films, “working” also means being the token extra and that’s how I ended up doing my best zombie shuffle in Among the Dead.
Joe Strummer, born John Grammar Mellon, is best known as the scowling, screaming, warrior-poet who sang lead vocals and played rhythm guitar for the “only band that matters”: The Clash. The man with the gravel voice and the idealist political agenda was never afraid to voice his opinions on current events.
The ‘Suspension Of Disbelief’ is an important factor in the consumption of art, any sort of art. Whenever we are presented with a vision of the fictional world our enjoyment of it rests on us deciding for one moment to accept it as realistic fact. For example, we all know a time-travelling DeLorean is frankly impossible, but if we were to spend the entire of Back To The Future considering how highly unlikely Marty’s adventure was, well, then we would not get swept into the story, and would certainly not enjoy ourselves as much.
In the fast-paced world of show business, projects are announced before swiftly being cancelled every day. Yet there are some film projects that obsess their creators for years, always on the verge of getting made, before the cinematic powers that be decide otherwise. This article is a celebration of the best movies never made – films that would have been surefire masterpieces, that generations of film fans have had to resort to merely imagining existing.
Alex Garland’s Ex Machina reminds us that we are all just line workers in a baby-making factory. Mankind has evolved over time to have a very strong sex drive; a drive that reveals itself during the most seemingly insignificant events of our lives. At the grocery store buying yogurt?
“My approach to 3D is in a way quite conservative … I want it to be comfortable. I want you to forget after a few minutes that you are really watching 3D and just have it operate at a subliminal, subconscious level. That’s the key to great 3D and it makes the audience feel like real participants in what’s going on.
Some films parody the media, others predict what effect it will have on us in the future, other movies just have fun with the subject. Whether its a streaming network, printed journalism, television or radio transmissions the media is massive, and inescapable, so why not make movies about this oppressive facet of life? These films vary in years, themes, genre’s and that’s why they are so important.
I was watching the North Irish TV show The Fall a while ago and it struck me how handsome Jamie Dornan is, and how fascinating it is that the creators of the show cast him for the role of the sexual predator and serial killer, the villain of the story. In typical crime films and TV, the average sexual predator is portrayed to be a pretty average if not ugly guy, around or older than 40, and if he’s fat, he preferably has a constant sheen of sweat over his forehead. Someone who kind of grosses you out.
Last month Film Inquiry contributor Rachael Sampson reviewed The New York Film Academy’s newly released infographic exploring gender representation in cinema. In addition to this infographic, the NYFA also published statistics on the portrayal of drugs in movies from 1894 to 2014 for us to review. I’ve always been interested in how society’s feelings towards something considered more ‘taboo’ like drugs is mirrored, if at all, in pop culture, especially in the context of film.
With 2015’s blockbuster season kicking off with two box office smashing sequels in Fast & Furious 7 and The Avengers: Age of Ultron, the film industry now, more than ever, lies at the behest of the big-budget follow-up. Star Wars:
Stoner movies aren’t really the best education on weed culture, I’ll be honest with you. If you learnt everything about toking up from watching comedies like Pineapple Express (2008) and This is the End (2013), you know that men like to get really high. They roll up joints and blunts, take plenty of hits on bongs and bowls, and order in family-size pizzas.
There are those people who turn their noses up at the romantic comedy. They see it as a silly kind of film designed to entertain a delusional audience. I am not one of those people.
Independent filmmakers spend a lot of time and money applying to film festivals. With each passing year, the number of competitive film festivals seems to grow almost exponentially. And with submission platforms like Withoutabox.
In cinema, age-gap relationships have been forever on display, from Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall to those seen throughout Woody Allen’s cinematic adventures (including his most recent Magic in the Moonlight). The age-gap relationship often takes the form of an older man and a younger girl, though there are the exceptions (take a look at The Graduate). Aside from the problematic conventions of the leading men ageing and the women remaining youthful in looks and spirit, the age-gap film poses questions about sexuality that mainstream Hollywood often shies away from.