From the Outhouse to the Art House
Had we ever seen an animated film as emotionally dense as Inside Out? Had a seventy plus year old director ever made an action movie as on edge and youthful as Mad Max: Fury Road? Did The Big Short make our understanding of the financial system even more tragically comic? The fact that these and many more questions exist prove that 2015 was very much so a solid year for movies.
The Force Awakens is a terrific entry into the Star Wars saga for a number of reasons but the one that permeates it so thoroughly is its hearty investment in character.
It pains me to report that Bond’s latest outing, Spectre, pitches its tent squarely in the Quantum of Solace category: a film whose chief concern is hitting cruise control after the massive increase in momentum Skyfall delivered.
Like Lincoln before it, Bridge of Spies holds America’s feet to the fire, testing our ideals and ethics in conflicts that would be most quickly resolved with their abandonment.
A curious trio of films in the last few years has popped up in the wake of innumerable spandex spectacles: Gravity (2013), Interstellar (2014), and The Martian (2015). The similarities and differences that exist between these three works show three directors wrestling with an industry that prizes countless mutants and super soldiers over the intricate spectrum that is human emotion and its place in a greater cosmos.
Sicario, the latest crime thriller from director Denis Villeneuve, brilliantly translates this artistic challenge into a societal one, boxing its protagonists in such a world that rejects ascendancy in favor of concentrated stagnation, with some moments encouraging outright regression.
In this debut entry of “The Cinematic Squared Circle”, we will be taking a look at the crime drama Black Mass and the comedy The Intern.[1] One is about a deranged mad man fighting desperately to claw his way to the top of his field. And the other is a gangster movie featuring Johnny Depp.
As a Shyamalan outsider, I thought that a return to a stripped down, simplified genre film would be a good move that had the capacity to get the director back on track. Thankfully, The Visit does just that.
In so many ways, Straight Outta Compton shows how NWA dropped the guns and picked up mics, which they inevitably dropped on-stage.
Making the human superhuman is a popular motif of popular culture right now, giving rise to the popularity of superheroes on a global scale. But Cruise does not need a cape to prove his abilities as a screen hero. His unshakable will only ensure the villains’ defeat before the opening credits of Rogue Nation begin to roll.
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