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Janeites unite, because here’s a Jane Austen adaptation that’s not another Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility! Writer/director Whit Stillman delved into Austen’s deep cuts for the epistolary novel Lady Susan, a piece she wrote before her major novels that remained unpublished until after her death. As you can see from the trailer for Love & Friendship, the source material is a bit of a standout from Austen’s other work.
The juvenile humor of a man named Weiner getting caught in a sexting scandal is almost impossible to resist, as you either give in to the giggles or smile at the you-can’t-write-that-shit feel of the situation. For those unaware, this happened in America (twice) to former U.S.
With the spy genre in full resurgence, audiences may not be salivating for another entry. Don’t sleep on Our Kind of Traitor, though, because it’s based on a John le Carré novel (same name), which comes with the promise of a different kind of espionage. Carré generally avoids a lot of action, preferring to keep his spies stuck in the murkiness of the real world.
Every Tuesday Film Inquiry publishes the movies that are opening in cinemas! This week: Captain America:
There’s something timeless about Roald Dahl’s children’s stories that always made me assume they were older than they were. The effect likely comes from their blend of weirdly dark situations and moralistic underpinnings, which feels very much like old fairy tales. Most modern pieces for children are toned down or bland, but Dahl didn’t speak down to kids.
Quirky family dramas are a dime a dozen, so in addition to handling complex relationships and a mixed tone, they must do something to distinguish themselves from the pack. Some projects respond by amping up the quirk while others go for a big emotional payoff. The best manage to do both, which is precisely what people praised the best-selling book that The Family Fang is based on (same name) for doing.
Equals feels so familiar because its setup has been in heavy use since the post-World War I era of science fiction. A totalitarian government that controls people’s emotions? That’s Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, George Lucas’s THX 1138, Kurt Wimmer’s Equilibrium, and a litany of other stories far too vast to name off.
Every Tuesday Film Inquiry publishes the movies that are opening in cinemas! This week: Keanu, Mother’s Day, Ratchet & Clank, Papa Hemingway in Cuba, The Man Who Knew Infinity, Viva & A Beautiful Planet.
I have a sneaking suspicion that every actor wants to be in a western, but box office results prove that audiences don’t want to see all those westerns. Sure, slinging on a holster and leaning against a fence looks cool, as one of the promotional photos for The Magnificent Seven proves, but without some sort of twist, people are not buying tickets. True Grit (2010) and Django Unchained are perhaps the only pure westerns to crack $100 million at the U.
Not much is given away in the trailer for The Wait, the first feature from Italian director Piero Messina. A mother connects with her son’s girlfriend before he is due home, and Sicily is given a quality that can be interpreted as either dreamlike or feverish depending on the individual moment. The extra bit of information I’ll give away is that the film takes place over Easter weekend, which adds some hefty religious symbolism to the idea of waiting.
The overbearing mother is like a cartoon to me, something I’ve seen portrayals of but never experienced in real life. My own mother barely comments on my steadfast single life and accepts both what I wish to tell her and what I choose to play close to the vest. It’s always been that way and hence is comfortingly familiar, which I assume is exactly how those on the opposite end of the mother-daughter spectrum describe their relationship like, too.
As someone who literally knows nothing about the character Doctor Strange, I was not expecting a bald Tilda Swinton to punch Benedict Cumberbatch out of his body in this trailer. It was the first time anything about this project reached out and made me interested, so, good job teaser, you served your purpose. I’m certainly not the only one in the dark about this less-than-prominent superhero, whose name is not as self-explanatory as Ant-Man or the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Every Tuesday Film Inquiry publishes the movies that are opening in cinemas! This week: Elvis & Nixon, The Meddler, The Huntsman:
The unsteady career of director Rob Reiner continues with Being Charlie, a family affair that is very much based on real life. His son Nick Reiner wrote the screenplay (along with Matt Elisofon) about his battles with substance abuse, and the fact that he kept his filmmaking family a part of the plot and got his father to direct makes the real-life parallels unavoidable. Hitting this close to home doesn’t always lead to the best films, though, especially when dealing with something that must’ve happened relatively recently (Nick is currently only 22 years old).
Nobody’s hiding how weird and grotesque Tale of Tales is going to be, and oh how delectable it looks. The adult fairy tale has become a well-used genre of late, and while most draw from the toned down Disney versions or the more bloody Grimm style, there’s a host of other sources out there for filmmakers to start from. Taking that less crowded route is Tale of Tales, which is based on a 17th century Neapolitan collection by Giambattista Basile.