Horror films have the unique ability of finding terror in even the most comforting of places. Homes, lovers, friendships, and even inanimate objects can become enemies of the night, lurking in the shadows, concealing their true intentions until it’s too late. With Rent-A-Pal, director Jon Stevenson becomes the latest director to turn the tables on the…
Estus Washington Pirkle was a Baptist preacher out of Mississippi and evangelist of the “turn or burn” variety that prized quantity of conversions over the quality of conversions. He was far from the only evangelist to hold the same approach to bringing souls to the kingdom of the Christian God, however, he may the only…
While survival and transitional stories are far from a new tale, their ability to interweave important topics and necessary conversations of the world into the narrative is what keeps them fresh and relevant. It is their ability to stay true to the issues through strong characters and solid setting that maintains their importance throughout the…
Podcasts, puppets, and more are on the menu for the month of September. Goes to show you when there are no limits to creativity when it comes to fundraising through our friends at Seed&Spark! WORKPLACE COMEDY PODCAST Workplace Comedy Podcast (2020) – source: Emmy Laybourne A lot of podcasts are fans yammering about their nerdy…
Xavier Dolan‘s films are often loud, charged with audacious youthfulness and dominated by characters with strong personalities and a tendency for hostility. Sometimes it works, especially when Dolan finds a way to balance the strident feelings exuded from his script with moments of tenderness. But for some other times, it feels like Dolan is more…
It’s hard to not think about our current situation — the pandemic, the lockdown, the self-isolation, etc — while watching Cho Il-hyung‘s zombie thriller #Alive. Granted, Cho, in his directorial debut, takes the somewhat generic formula of zombie apocalypse movies to tell an incredibly resonant story about what loneliness can do to people in a…
To say Brian De Palma is a master of obsession is an understatement. For more than fifty years, he’s demonstrated his skill as one of the best American filmmakers by creating works steeped in paranoia and abound with suspenseful sequences that would have made Hitchcock sweat. His films, while often revolving around characters driven by…
It’s never too late to reinvent yourself in The Forty-Year-Old Version, the feature debut of writer, director, and actor Radha Blank. Drawing from her own life, Radha envisions a woman not dissimilar to herself: a promising playwright who, after being put on a prestigious 30 Under 30 list, saw her career fizzle. Now teaching and approaching 40, she’s…
After a premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last January, Dinner in America, a punk comedy-drama writer/director Adam Rehmeier, came to genre-focused audiences at the virtual version of the Fantasia Film Festival. Film Inquiry chatted with Rehmeier about Mac Demarco, a good mixtape, and finding the right lead actors. This interview has been edited for…
It’s been a weird year, and my experience with 2020’s digital Sheffield Doc/Fest has been unusual. My engagement with the material has been somewhat at an arm’s length, without the opportunity for live participation and networking sessions. Nevertheless, the festival team did a remarkable job of consistently holding virtual Q&A sessions and panels on key…
Emma Jensen’s screenplay spares no time in setting the rules of I Am Woman, directed by Unjoo Moon. Free of the childhood, teenage, and first broken relationship, the film directly begins with Helen Reddy (Tilda Cobham-Hervey) walking through a subway holding her 3-year old daughter, Tracy. Dressed in rosewood, a feminal color, while most men…
Acting is an art form, and behind every iconic character is an artist expressing themselves. Welcome to The Great Performances, a bi-weekly column exploring the art behind some of film and television’s greatest characters. This time, we turn the spotlight on Jennifer Carpenter as the titular character in The Exorcism of Emily Rose. When someone…
A woman will really get in your head in Possessor, the latest from writer/director Brandon Cronenberg. She’s able to do that because she’s backed by a powerful company, one that’s invested in mind control technology that allows Tasya to take control of another person. Through these unfortunate souls she carries out lucrative hits with hardly…
Streaming might be the future, but physical media is still the present. It’s also awesome, depending on the title, the label, and the release, so each week we take a look at the new Blu-rays and DVDs making their way into the world. Welcome to this week in Home Video for September 8th, 2020 including our…
With a filmed version finally being released on Disney+, fans and newcomers alike no longer have to enter a literal lottery for tickets or dig deep into their savings to have the chance to see Hamilton once from a seat fifty feet away, directly behind the world’s first human giraffe. Those that did, however, might…
The word incredible comes to mind when thinking about Francesco Giannini’s The Hall. The relevancy of the film and the parallels it contains will hit hard. It is important to note that the version of the film I had the opportunity of seeing was not yet complete, the current pandemic delaying post-production. Though this did nothing…
There’s no wonder that Australians remain in awe of the iconic work of country music legend and cultural touchstone Slim Dusty; every aspect of his storied career, from his cow-punching stage name to his leisurely ‘Chips Rafferty‘ swagger and way of weaving bush ballads into our national identity, perfectly embodied the classic Australian story, the…
Jon Stevenson’s Rent-A-Pal examines the videotape dating culture of the 1990s in this retro horror film. The film follows David (Brian Landis Folkins), a lonely single guy taking care of his mother who has dementia. In an effort to find a relationship for himself, he joins Video Rendezvous, a dating service. When 6 months pass,…
Kicking off right after the Sydney Film Festival made their historic turn towards making their annual cinematic celebration a digital banquet, the Melbourne International Film Festival – cheekily credited as 68½ edition – gave an online platform to a myriad of international and Australian artists to make their worldwide and domestic debuts, whether it be…
The late Kiarostami’s protegé Ahmad Bahrami returns with The Wasteland (Dashte Khamoush), a moody drama following the plight of a bricklaying factory in the middle of Iranian desert backwater. source: Venice Film Festival As part of the 77th Venice Film Festival’s Orrizonti lineup, and one of two films representing Iran at the festival, Bahrami’s second…
Queerly Ever After is a bi-monthly column where I take a look at LGBT+ films that gave their characters a romantic happily-ever-after. There will be spoilers. I am going to preface my review of the broad culture-clash comedy Mambo Italiano by saying that I am Jewish and Italian, and yes, dinner with my family is…