Shahbaz Khayambashi
XX
It’s no secret that women are all too frequently shut out of the film industry, with few of them being able to make a living or having their work seen. In recent years, there has been a renaissance of genre films made by women, but their work is still a minority in cinemas or at film festivals.
Exit: Music
Nazis plundering art has been a subject of much consideration and curiosity ever since the objects began to be recovered. Plenty of focus has been placed on paintings that were lost and found in this way, and the reasons for it are plain to be seen: the paintings have famous, long-deceased names attached and, due to their singular status, they can only be experienced by a limited number of people and can be valued at…
The Best Movies of 2016
All eyes may be on Damien Chazelle’s La La Land, Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea, or any of the other Oscar darlings, but 2016 offered a lot of other great movies. Below are Wylie Writes’ top picks; don’t forget to click the highlighted titles to read each contributor’s review!
The Founder
Director John Lee Hancock and his company on The Founder have proven themselves to be geniuses for one reason: without a hint of pretense, they have managed to make people pay them to watch a feature length McDonald’s advertisement.
Under the Shadow
Horror cinema is often limited to its wheelhouse of established fears – ghosts, demons, strangers, monsters, or disturbing details. Horror hounds are always looking for different scares though, and are always welcoming of a filmmaker’s ambition. Failure is still an option, but the best case scenario is that these directorial risks pay off and make lasting provocative impressions – much like Babak Anvari’s Under the Shadow. It’s an incredible horror film that deals with not just the supernatural, but also…
La La Land
In this age of postmodernism, filmmakers are always willing to go back to the well and make films which are heavy on pastiche from an earlier Hollywood – these tributes are very hit-or-miss. Damien Chazelle’s La La Land is a strange film that succeeds at its recreations, but fails at everything else.
Lion
There is a genre which developed in the western “enlightened” post-9/11 world which proves that neo-colonialist sensibilities are alive and well. It’s characterized by representations of poverty and suffering in the third world which are set up in a way as to suggest that the citizens of these countries are complicit in their own suffering. Humanity is afforded to some characters, but they are the minority amongst human garbage.
Jean of the Joneses
While Jean of the Joneses may be predictable, the film is the work of an exciting new voice in cinema. Writer/director Stella Meghie truly knows how to write fully developed, sympathetic characters; it’s an absolute pleasure to spend 82-minutes with her creations.
Gimme Danger
Gimme Danger is by no means a groundbreaking documentary. It’s by-the-book filmmaking, full of talking heads and archival footage, and very much reminiscent of the punk rock films of Don Letts. The Letts comment, of course, is not a negative at all. Don Letts is a great person to emulate when searching for cinematic punk rock aesthetics.