Martha Marcy May Marlene is a psychological thriller about a young woman’s reintegration with society after escaping a farm-based commune with cult tendencies. Martha, who is renamed Marcy May by the cult in a common indoctrination tactic, escapes the commune physically, but is trapped mentally and emotionally by the cult’s brainwashing. Throughout the story, Martha’s past haunts her present and loosens her hold on reality.
Note: This article contains spoilers.
Expect audience reactions to the film Drive to be wildly polarized. From the advertisements and marketing, viewers are probably expecting to see the new Ryan Gosling actioner as a slightly repackaged, art-house reworking of The Transporter (2002). However, when I saw the movie recently, the audience was clearly (and in some cases, loudly) baffled, laughing at odd moments while shifting uncomfortably during others. Indeed, the film is set to confound expectations, for Drive is a fever-dream neo-noir film masquerading as cheap, commercial multiplex fodder. It is a mysterious, subversive work of art, veering close to the edge of self parody while also playing its material in ardent sincerity. With this essay, I want to explore Nicolas Winding Refn’s new film Drive as a metatextual exercise, and as such, will reveal spoilers along the way.
Continue reading “California Dreamin’ and LA Noir: DRIVE as Metatextual Cinema” »
Drive is a highly stylized pulp noir action-drama from acclaimed Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (Valhalla Rising, 2009). Ryan Gosling plays Driver, an inscrutable loner who is a stunt driver for Hollywood by day and the wheel man for armed heists by night. He instantly falls in love with his neighbor Irene, played by Carey Mulligan, and soon becomes part of her son Benito’s life. When Driver learns that Irene’s ex-con husband Standard, played by Oscar Isaac (Robin Hood, 2010), will soon return home from prison to reunite their family, Driver is willing to step aside. Unfortunately, Standard’s past follows him home and Driver agrees to drive for one last job to settle Standard’s debt. Nothing is what it seems, and Driver sets on a course to keep Irene and Benito safe at all costs.
Once I’m sitting down in front of that big screen (or even small screen), I tend to forget what I’ve read or seen about a movie. It’s like clockwork. I forget the trailers, the commercials, the music, and sometimes aside from the big stars and directors, who’s even supposed to be in it. I just let it wash over me. All that said, when watching Restless I couldn’t help but compare newcomer Henry Hopper’s character to the film’s director Gus Van Sant.
See, Hopper plays Enoch Brae, a young man who has dropped out of the business of living by crashing funerals and hanging out in cemeteries after a car accident claimed the life of his parents. It’s at one of these funerals where he meets Annabel Cotton, a lively and charming naturalist with an affinity for Charles Darwin and a deep love for the world despite having terminal cancer, played by the delightful Mia Wasikowska (more on her in a minute), and they develop a unique and quick personal bond, despite their worlds crashing in on them.
Warrior is poised to do for mixed martial arts (MMA) what The Karate Kid did for local karate gyms everywhere. After 14 years apart, estranged brothers Tommy’s and Brendan’s paths collide in a once-in-a-lifetime MMA event.
Tom Hardy (Inception) plays Tommy, an ex-Marine who escaped his abusive, alcoholic father, played by two-time Oscar nominee Nick Nolte, with his mother. Fourteen years later, he returns to Pittsburgh—without warning—and enlists his father to train him for the largest MMA event in history, Sparta, which holds a $5 million purse. Tom Edgerton (Animal Kingdom) is Brendan, an ex-fighter-turned-school teacher and father of two who is hit hard in the economic downturn. He returns to fighting for extra cash and sees Sparta as the long shot that could change his life.
In his short films, director Rashaad Ernesto Green was never reluctant to tell difficult stories, and his first feature film pushes that personal aesthetic of his even more.
In Gun Hill Road, Green tells the story a family in transition — in more ways than one. Esai Morales plays Enrique Rodriguez, who unceremoniously returns home from his latest three-year stint in prison to find not only his wife rejecting his attempts to reassert himself as head of the household, but a son about whom something seems seriously off. Not helping is a deep secret that Enrique is living with that constantly consumes his thoughts, but he chooses to focus on re-forging his relationship with his wife and son.
As Attack the Block opens, a white woman walking alone in a rough neighborhood is mugged by a group of mostly non-white teens. That’s where the cliché ends. The mugging is interrupted by what looks like a meteor crashing into a nearby car. The kids check out the damaged car to increase their take for the night, but one of them is scratched by an unknown creature hiding in the bowels of the wreckage. The kids band together and retaliate, killing the creature, which they come to believe is an alien. They return to their South London projects, brandishing the carcass like a trophy. Little do they know, larger, more menacing aliens are on their way, for revenge. They spend the rest of the film fighting for their lives holed up in and around their building, which they refer to as “the Block.”
Funny man Conan O’Brien was dealt a bad hand when he was edged out of hosting The Tonight Show after only seven months. Instead of wallowing in self pity during his six-month exile from television, he took his grief on the road and shared it with his fans. Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop is a new documentary from Rodman Flender (Let Them Eat Rock) that follows O’Brien’s Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour. The film encompasses the tour from its inception to its final performance for an up-close-and-personal look at O’Brien in raw form. It also provides a behind-the-scenes look at a comedy writing staff working fast and under stress to pull off a multi-city comedy/music tour.
The film is mostly vérité style, but there is a strong narrative throughout — likely because O’Brien is very comfortable in front of a camera and he just can’t stop being funny. In the film, O’Brien is candid that the tour will allow him to exorcise some demons. He admittedly craves being in front of an audience. But he does not come off as arrogant — he is incessantly humble with fans and generous with his time. When the tour is announced via Twitter, venues sell out within minutes, yet O’Brien remains anxious as the news rolls in. He seems surprised that people would actually pay to see him. He remains genuine and does not take his success for granted.
Submarine is the off-beat coming-of-age comedy about an intellectual and introverted Welsh teen named Oliver Tate. At 15, Oliver’s world view is quite advanced, but borders on delusional. Instead of rebelling against his parents, he analyzes their neurosis as a therapist would, removed and objective. He takes to monitoring their sex life by recording the level of their bedroom dimmer switch and performing “routine checks” of their wardrobe chest. When his mother’s old flame Graham moves into the neighborhood, Oliver’s misguided attempts to save his parents’ marriage set off a series of comic turns. Meanwhile, Oliver’s own pursuit of self-discovery drive him to join the school bullies to catch the attention of the self-proclaimed pyromaniac Jordana. The trials of their relationship is the stuff of teenage first love blossomed through blackmail and nurtured through coerced diary writings. Oliver’s safe and easily decipherable world is turned upside down as reality, life, love, loss, and pain set in. Submarine is a clever mixture of comedy gags strung together into a story of burgeoning maturity that feeds the imagination through its artful, visual style and provides quite a few laughs along the way.
The aftermath of a school shooting has been explored many times in films like Elephant (2003), Bowling for Columbine (2002), and American Gun (2005). Filmmakers have delved into the psyche and motivations of the shooters or the grief of the victims’ families, but few have truly examined the dual pain and shame felt by the families of the shooters. Beautiful Boy is the cinematic emotional journey of a married couple on the verge of separation that finds out its only son committed a mass shooting at his university before taking his own life.
Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon) and Maria Bello (A History of Violence) star as Bill and Kate Carroll, a typical American suburban couple whose marriage is quietly imploding. Their son, played by Kyle Gallner (Jennifer’s Body), calls one night, and his parents do that thing that most families do — they don’t share what is really on their minds. Instead, they say the safe, meaningless canned phrases meant for comfort, and then hang up the phone and ignore that nagging feeling that something isn’t quite right. The next day, Bill and Kate learn their son took loaded guns onto campus and killed fellow students and teachers before killing himself. From that point on, the two must deal with their grief, the media attention, awkward pity from friends and relatives, and the damning legacy of their only son.
Follow @LimiteMagazine
Limité is dedicated to capturing the echelon of modern world
culture‹elevating the unique and inspiring in fashion, design, travel, the
arts, and pure expression. Fueled by a desire to serve as the voice uniting
cultures from around the globe, Limité celebrates diversity, creativity, and
a passionate lifestyle for the modern man and woman.
About Limité Magazine
Subscribe to our feed
Feed your favorite Newsreader with the latest lifestyle, music, film, dining,art and design, fashion, literature news.
Subscribe to our feed here
Limité Magazine
Fresh Media, Inc.
1803 Riverside, Suite 5K
New York, New York, 10034
info@freshmediainc.com
Design by: Maurizio Pennucci
Built by: Andy Rudorfer
Privacy Policy
Advertisement
Powered by WordPress 2.5.1
