drama
For as long as there have been films, there have been coming of age movies and there have been high school movies. These types of film, these genres, have become so overdone, that it becomes hard for a single film to really stand out. Dope does.
More than 150 years after the old West faded into legend, the western genre is still very much alive and well. Slow West is the feature debut of writer-director John Maclean. Although it contains some clear watermarks of a first-time director, it is also among the more unique modern westerns in the way that it plays around with traditional western tropes and conventions.
Ever since the glory days of silent cinema, Hollywood has been criticised of running out of ideas. This is why the biopic is the perfect genre for screenwriters and directors. A typical life doesn’t neatly fit into a simple three-act structure, but by highlighting an individual’s greatest successes, and framing them in a way that makes everything else inconsequential by comparison, you can turn something as uninteresting as somebody’s life into a thrilling drama.
Five Minutes is an interactive short horror film set in a future where the world is overrun with zombies. After being infected, dad John knows he only has five minutes before he turns. But he is loathe to leave his daughter, Mia.
Immortality is a myth. This is a fact not only based on a reality standpoint, but also literarily. Ask anybody the first thing which crosses their minds when discussing the subject, and most likely mythical beings such as wizards, witches, vampires or superheroes would top the list.
There is something so endlessly fascinating about the character of Sherlock Holmes that prevents him from ever becoming boring to audiences, no matter how different Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective creation is to the pop-culture tastes of the time. The source material is so undeniably entertaining that even if it gets revised as an action blockbuster, as seen in Guy Ritchie’s two recent movies, or transplanted into the modern day, on Steven Moffat’s BBC series, it never loses any of its original charm. No matter how unique a new adaptation of the stories may be, Doyle’s stories are so widely revered that nearly every adaptation of them remains faithful to the essence of the characters, even if they may take a few liberties.
Testament Of Youth is based on Vera Brittain’s memoir of the same name. Her book pays homage to her own losses while growing up during World War I, but also the great loss felt by her generation. Brittain’s book is perhaps unique in that in the UK we are often told about the loss of life during the war.
Hereafter is a short supernatural film written and directed by Johnny Kenton. The product of a Kickstarter campaign, the film is about a young woman named Katcher (Lydia Wilson), who is called up to try out for a group called ‘The Guardians’. Who are they guarding?
In recent years, the subject of artificial intelligence in movies has become more and more prominent, perhaps because our own technology has become increasingly advanced in that direction. It may not be long before we have created our own race of conscious, intelligent beings. Until then, though, it is always fascinating to surmise about the idea.
Every now and again, a movie adaptation of a novel is made by the perfect directorial fit for the source material, that helps it stay true to the original text and create a new visionary approach that helps it stand on its own two feet as a distinctive work of art. Danish director Thomas Vinterberg has had an eclectic career, yet is mainly renowned for his two emotionally fraught dramas about the devastating effects of child abuse, his 1998 debut Festen (The Celebration) and his previous feature, 2012’s magnificent The Hunt. These movies are excellent in how they don’t spare the viewer from the histrionic emotions that engulf the characters and completely ruin their lives – The Hunt, starring the always-fantastic Mads Mikkelsen as a primary school teacher wrongly accused of abusing a pupil, could easily draw comparisons with Thomas Hardy.
The Duke of Burgundy is that rare thing that almost every movie promises, yet fails to deliver: it is something that you’ve never seen before. It manages to say something universal about the politics and gender roles of relationships using the guise of lesbian sadomasochism, a subject I assume will be entirely alien to most viewers.
Fun relies on spontaneity. If you over-plan something, the less likely it is that people are going to have fun, because nothing will ever live up to expectations. Happiness equally relies on spontaneity and equally cannot be forced; the family in Force Majeure appear to be happy as the movie starts, yet look closely and you’ll see everything isn’t so straightforward.
Even though I may make it look like any idiot can do it, writing reviews is far from easy. The hardest things to review aren’t the plot-heavy science fiction movies or the obscure art house efforts with impenetrable plots like you would imagine – the most difficult movies to review are the films that are just plain boring. I watched Child 44 two days ago, where I made up 100% of the audience for that screening – in the two days since, I have found myself struggling to remember quite a lot of it.
No matter how good their circumstances are, many young people wish they were born in a different time, in a different place, belonging to a different generation they believe they fit in with more. This is almost definitely due to the influence of pop-culture; the 80’s weren’t exactly the best time to live in, yet show a John Hughes movie to any impressionable teenager and they will almost definitely long to have lived in that time period. While We’re Young, the best film to date from director Noah Baumbach, takes a unique look at this theme in the space of one of the best movie montages in recent memory – whereas the young, hipster types long to live in an area of vinyls, VHS tapes and typewriters, the ageing are trying to stay relevant to today, filling their lives with useless technology in order to stay relevant in an ever changing society.
I sat down to watch independent, experimental film How the Sky Will Melt by Matthew Wade the other night with my fiance. Other than bragging about my fiance, I’m including him in the article because he is so very not like me. His favourite movies are comedies, he laughs at fart jokes, and I’m not sure he’s ever seen a David Lynch movie.