The Wackness
A 90210 joke here, a Boyz II Men comment there, some RIP Kurt Cobain street art for good measure, and hey presto: it's 1994! Welcome to director Jonathan Levine's The Wackness.
This earnest, urban melodrama is hardly Spike Lee. When white guy Luke (Josh Peck) falls in love with white girl Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby), the warm fuzzies aren't exactly dumbed down, but there's no brain-breaking politics either.
Hunger
Word association: when I say "hunger strike", do you think "brimming with cinematic possibilities"? Maybe not. Turner Prize-winning artist and first-time feature director Steve McQueen thought otherwise, and it just won him the Camera d'Or prize at Cannes. (Shows what you know, huh?)
It's easy to see why.
Celebrity: Dominick Dunne
Why does Dominick Dunne hate Frank Sinatra? Because Ol' Blue Eyes once instructed a flunky to punch Dominick in the head as a lark. Yes, Dunne's career trajectory - from social climber to movie producer to "the defining voice of Vanity Fair" - is weighed down by a torrential downpour of Old Hollywood name-dropping.
CHOKE
Chuck Palahniuk owned the late 90s. From the moment Fight Club splattered into popular consciousness, he stood in the cyclone-eye of our every swirling subcultural anxiety.
It seemed inevitable that we'd be bombarded with so many Palahniuk film adaptations that we'd finally have to learn how to spell his name - and yet it's taken this long to see CHOKE hit cinemas, translated into a dirty indie comedy with delusions of grandeur.
Burn After Reading
Ever since Blood Simple back in 1984, Joel and Ethan Coen have produced a steady stream of unrelentingly oddball features that totter on the border between melodrama and black humour. Now, after the unexpected success of last year's No Country for Old Men, it seems the Coen Brothers can do, well, whatever they please.
Man On Wire
In 1974, French tightrope walker Philippe Petit strung up a cable between two corners of the World Trade Centre buildings in New York and went for an awe-inspiring stroll. Suddenly, the up-til-then ambivalent public response to the new constructions was converted into a fever of art-fuelled patriotism.
WALL-E
Why does everyone love Pixar? Exhibit A: when Pixar became aware of footage showing someone who cried every time the hero of their latest film simply said his name, they flew her to the wrap party. They're that awesome.
Director Andrew Stanton's last masterpiece was Finding Nemo and it opened with the massacre of almost an entire family of baby fish.
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