Xavier Dolan’s new film seemed like the event so far at Cannes judging by the longest press queue since the beginning of the festival, as well as the hustlers offering hugs in exchange for a screening invitation. Unfortunately, it seems destined to join the ample list of other highly anticipated big-name entries that didn’t quite …
The Conversation is a feature at PopOptiq bringing together Drew Morton and Landon Palmer in a passionate debate about cinema new and old. For their eleventh piece, they discuss Mathieu Kassovitz’s gritty yet sleek portrait of life on the margins of Paris, La haine (1995). LANDON’S TAKE There’s a moment within the first act of Mathieu Kassovitz’s La haine (1995) …
‘It’s Only the End of the World’ will begin shooting in May following his Cannes Jury stint.
The 1990’s introduced the world to Quentin Tarantino, saw the creation of the NC-17 rating, and began the slow call toward fully computer animated films. It began the slow (still slow) movement toward a more diverse industry, with the first African-American director earning an Oscar nomination (John Singleton for “Boyz in the Hood”). And the …
Ocean’s Twelve has a reputation that will always precede it; some have called it an anti-sequel, and publications like Entertainment Weekly have dubbed it one of the worst sequels of all time. Though both reactions are, perhaps, understandable, neither is remotely accurate. Ocean’s Twelve is an inherently self-aware sequel, possibly the most self-aware follow-up in modern history. What Steven Soderbergh, screenwriter George Nolfi (whose original script, Honor Among Thieves, was completely unrelated to Ocean’s Eleven and was sold initially before that remake had been released), and the slightly larger-than-before ensemble cast did was make a sequel to a critically and commercially lauded caper film that was wholly cognizant of the fact that it was a sequel to a critically and commercially lauded caper film. Ocean’s Twelve toys with audience expectations, because to cave into them would’ve promised something potentially more disturbing and commonplace than what many perceived to be an ambitious creative flop: something boring.
Danny Boyle has yet to make a dull movie, but that appears to be the only consistency he’s concerned with. His new film Trance is as amped up, jittery, and stylistically charged as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, and the rest of his filmography, but the story holds up to barely the most minor scrutiny. Trance’s inconsistencies go well beyond its script, all the way down to the various flourishes Boyle employs throughout the film, tossing them out as he deems them useless.
Trance Written by John Hodge and Joe Ahearne Directed by Danny Boyle UK, 2013 Danny Boyle’s return to the thriller genre is also a return to the three character piece nature of his debut feature Shallow Grave, albeit placed within the confines of a heist film set mostly within the human mind. This is bound …
At Inside Out 2012, Toronto’s LGBT Film Festival, I struck up a conversation with a woman – about lesbian scenes, no less. As tantalizing as the premise sounds, she eventually digressed into a rather scholarly discussion about how most of these scenes are sensationalized, how they objectify women, how unrealistic they are, and, of course, …
My first introduction to Vincent Cassell was in 1997 when I saw him in Mathieu Kassovitz brilliant and controversial black and white French film La Haine, one of my ten favorite films of all time. That same year I decided to also check out Jan Kounen’s Doberman which also starred the famous French actor. These …
I love director Darren Aronofsky. Black Swan was my favorite film of 2010 and The Wrestler topped my list back in 2008. Unfortunately, his new two minute spot for Yves Saint Laurent is really lame. The ad stars his latest muse Vincent Cassel, who pretty much roams about stalking beautiful women in an almost dialogue-free …