Film Inquiry’s Best Articles Of May 2016

Another month’s gone by, one in which we published another great bunch of excellent articles! We reviewed a ton of movies, like Despite The Falling Snow, California High, Sing Street, Captain America and Jane Got A Gun. We recommended great Australian genre films, silent films, and women-directed horror films, and published about how we humans can fall in love with artificial intelligence, and how that’s portrayed in film.

As usual, we covered a wide variety of topics! In case you missed them, here are our favourite articles of May 2016, in no particular order!

The History Of Folk Horror: A British Tale

“In the brilliant and insightful documentary A History of Horror, British writer and actor Mark Gatiss explores the horror genre throughout many countries. While discussing British horror cinema of the 1960’s, Gatiss uses the term ‘folk horror’ to describe a short but very curious subgenre. The films that make up this genre are unmistakably British and owe a large debt to the trail blazers of horror cinema in Britain: Hammer Horror Productions.” […]

Read the rest of Eoghan Crabbe’s article here.

Making A Sex Scene With James Franco

“In early September 2014, James Franco took to social media announcing that he would be teaching a new class at his school and encouraged actors, writers, and directors to apply for the 12-week course which would result in a short film. Having previously taken a writing course at Studio 4 over the summer, instructed by David Garrett & Stacy Miller, which invited several industry professionals to speak and give great advice, and having just screened my first feature film in Fort Lauderdale on the silver screen, I was definitely interested in taking this class to learn from someone who is very successful in an industry that I am also working hard to be successful in. I applied as a writer and a director. I found out I was accepted into the class as a director the first week in October.” […]

Read the rest of Jacqui Blue’s article here.

What Is Mise-en-Scène? Pt I: Setting & Costume

“Mise-en-scène is one of the great terms used in film criticism. It is also the most basic and is usually the first thing you’ll learn on any film theory course. Unfortunately mise-en-scène is also, strangely, one of the hardest terms to understand. Literally translated, the term means to ‘put on stage’ or ‘put in the scene’ (although I asked a French friend once and she described it as ‘organising furniture in a tableau’). The best way to understand the term it is to first think of a moment in a film you really love. Now, conjure up a freeze frame of this moment. Think of how it looks: how the actor is placed, what they were wearing, how the shot is lit. That there, that is the mise-en-scène.” […]

Read the rest of Julia Smith’s article here.

10 Gangster Films From Abroad: Part III

“Yes, there’s crime in every country, and where there’s crime there are criminals, and when they get organized they become gangsters, and if said country has a film business chances are they will make gangster movies. Whether or not we glorify, deify, vilify or romanticize these scofflaws of the screen, one cannot deny the power and sustainability of gangster film.” […]

Read the rest of Alexander Miller’s article here.

Positive Psychology & Film: Women’s Careers

“The concept of “work as a calling” is a prominent construct in the field of positive psychology.  Psychologists and film buffs Niemiec and Wedding masterfully relate it back to the world of cinema.  Protagonists in “work as a calling” films believe that their work expresses who they are. Work isn’t seen simply as a job or a career with a focus on advancement, but rather the protagonist views their work as something that has a socially useful and fulfilling purpose.

Only 12 percent of protagonists in top-grossing films over the past decade have been women and very few of them had career or work as a calling as a theme. This means men and women have been watching films where male characters drive the storytelling plots which are often driven by men’s careers, and everything else centers around these ideas.” […]

Read the rest of Laurie Agard’s article here.

THE NICE GUYS: Distinct Originality & Sophisticated Escapism

“Shane Black’s The Nice Guys couldn’t come at a better time. Actually, strike that. If it had come out just a few months later after the slog of the summer movie season of blockbuster remakes, sequels, reboots, and rehashes had polluted our minds, then perhaps it would be received all the more with acclaim. It’s a movie of certain detective story tropes and clichés, yet is able to transcend the limitations of such fictional conventions by fleshing out unique turns with established formalisms.  See, Hollywood, you can follow traditional models and structures without merely replicating the formula that ultimately adds nothing to the existing genre (here’s looking at you, Star Wars: The Force Awakens).” […]

Read the rest of Mike Daringer’s review here.

The Power Of Film Podcast #3: Samantha Shada, Director

“In this third episode of The Power of Film, I spoke with the lovely Samantha Shada. She is a director, hosts the screening series Seeking Our Story, and she works at one of the big studios – a busy lady who has a lot of unique insights into the world of film! We spoke about a lot, from film in general and symbolism in film, the status quo of the studio system (and, very interesting, the current state of film marketing) to film preservation. We had a great time, and it’s a fast-paced, engaged chat. Enjoy the listen!” […]

Listen to the podcast here.

Film Inquiry Weighs In #1: Crimson Peak

“Crimson Peak was sold to audiences as a full-blown horror film, one which mixed The Amityville Horror–style atmosphere with giallo-inspired aesthetics. What people got instead was an old school Gothic romance, which merely used supernatural elements as part of the story, not the focus of the narrative. Whilst most people praised the visuals, many audience members and critics were highly divisive on the film itself, with many people either loving del Toro’s carefully constructed film, with others labeling it as quite boring and merely feeling like a derivative of del Toro’s earlier Spanish horror hybrids. With some time now since the film’s initial release, we asked some of our writers to give their current thoughts on the film, which range from love to flat-out disappointment.” […]

Read the rest of the Film Inquiry Team’s article here.

THE GOD CELLS: The Messy Collision Of Science, Business, And Belief

“On the surface, what the medical industry should be doing is simple: saving and improving lives. All possibilities should be explored and tested, with the breakthroughs made readily available to anyone who needs it. In practice, though, nothing is that simple. Science is messy, people are flawed, and there’s rarely a eureka moment where the answer is found. The gap between how it is and how it should be naturally causes frustration, and when the end result is people needlessly suffering, criticisms should be launched loudly and vehemently.

That is the goal of the documentary The God Cells, which targets the underutilized and occasionally banned research of fetal stem cells in America. It sheds light on the great promise these treatments offer, the roadblocks in their way, and the large number of people who are being harmed by the delays in research.” […]

Read the rest of Emily Wheeler’s article here.

The Mind On Film: Representative or Farfetched?

Obsessive compulsive disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder etc. all have dubious stereotypes surrounding them, and it could be argued that film is responsible for these myths. To those who do not suffer/know someone with mental health issues, cinema might be their only source of knowledge regarding the matter. With a repetition of stereotypes, can it be said that these issues are ill perceived, creating slight derision out of very sensitive and personal matters?”

Read the rest of Rachael Sampson’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.