cosplay

Let your cosplay run wild.

A cultural history of gaslighting
In her Oscar-winning performance in the 1944 movie Gaslight, Ingrid Bergman plays a young opera singer, Paula, traumatised by the death of the aunt who raised her, but swept into a whirlwind marriage to a charming musician (Charles Boyer). We watch as Paula becomes increasingly isolated and disorientated, convinced by her husband that she is losing her mind: items disappear; strange noises seep from a locked attic; the gas-fuelled house lighting mysteriously fades and glowers. We realise, before Paula does, that it is her husband creating these head-spinning disturbances; in one scene, she entreats him: “Are you trying to tell me I’m insane?” Her husband retorts: “Now, perhaps you will understand why I cannot let you meet people.”
By Many A-Sun3 years ago in Geeks
Top 100 films directed by women: What is ‘misogynoir’?
Magical Negro Rehab is a satirical sketch for new TV comedy series Astronomy Club. The skit brings together the traumatised supporting black cast from Driving Miss Daisy, The Green Mile and Ghost, among other films. Without a central white character in their lives, the kind-hearted and meek group struggles to find meaning in their own lives.
By Many A-Sun3 years ago in Geeks
Film review: Two stars for comic-book movie Birds of Prey
This is a first: a Hollywood superhero movie written and directed by women, featuring a multi-racial female cast, with no male sidekicks or love interests, and a theme about learning to live without a man. It’s groundbreaking, it’s long overdue, and it’s bound to inspire a generation of girls. But does any of that mean that the film in question is any good? The best way to answer that is to glance at its title, Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. If you think that title is fabulous – or, indeed, fantabulous – you may well think the same about the film. But if you think it is exhaustingly laboured and twee, you should probably watch something else.
By Alessandro Algardi3 years ago in Geeks
Pink Flamingos: The most outrageous film ever made?
John Waters’ legendary underground classic, Pink Flamingos, was made in 1972, but it wasn’t until 1989 that a brave video distributor submitted it to the British Board of Film Classification, in the hope it might receive the official rating that would allow it to be stocked in high street shops. The BBFC agreed to grant Pink Flamingos an 18 certificate, but only on the condition that three minutes of footage were cut from five outrageous scenes.
By Sue Torres3 years ago in Geeks
How Clueless transformed the movie makeover
If there is one thing that Cher Horowitz, the heroine of 1990s teen-movie classic Clueless, loves, it’s a makeover. It’s her “main thrill in life,” her best friend Dionne points out, “It gives her a sense of control in a world full of chaos”. But as Cher plans the transformation of new friend Tai from grungy misfit to Beverly Hills princess, she is blissfully unaware that the person getting the real makeover in this movie is herself.
By Cindy Dory3 years ago in Geeks
Tenet review: ‘It feels like several blockbusters combined’
Christopher Nolan’s Tenet is the first new Hollywood blockbuster to be released in cinemas in almost six months. The good news is that it is so sprawling, so epic, so crammed with exotic locations, snazzy costumes, shoot-outs and explosions that you get six months’ worth of big-screen entertainment in two and a half hours. Clearly, it never occurred to Nolan to tone it down every now and then. Having directed Inception, Interstellar, and the Dark Knight trilogy, he’s not someone you associate with quiet, intimate indie dramas. But it’s still startling to see a film so over-the-top that when one character asks if the villains are planning a nuclear holocaust, another character snaps: “No. Something worse.”
By Cindy Dory3 years ago in Geeks
The Wanderers: The forgotten great coming-of-age film
ou know the sort of film, don’t you? Imbued with nostalgia, full of teenage boys at burger joints and diners and in wide-finned cars, donning white T-shirts and pomaded hair. The plots tend to revolve around the guys getting into mischief of some kind, chasing girls, bickering, and forming deep friendships; typically, these films are set against a joyous soundtrack of doo-wop and rock’n’roll oldies.
By Sue Torres3 years ago in Geeks
Five stars for I'm Thinking of Ending Things
Imagine if Meet the Parents was remade by the writer of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and by the writer-director of Synecdoche, New York and Anomalisa, and you’ll have a fair idea of what to expect from Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things. To put it another way, you won’t really know what to expect at all, because Kaufman’s films are always weirder, gloomier, and more unsettling than you might assume, and his latest, adapted from a novel by Iain Reid, could be the weirdest of them all.
By Cindy Dory3 years ago in Geeks
Mulan review: Live-action remake is ‘humourless and sombre’
Disney’s Mulan is a masterpiece: entertaining, sparklingly funny, striking in its use of artistic angles and imagery, and bold in its feminism and its positive representation of Asian characters. But that’s enough about the cartoon that came out in 1998. Let’s move on to the live-action remake, which is in the unenviable position of being compared to its splendid predecessor. What’s more, this Mulan is being released after months of waiting – the original release date was March – and can be seen for a hefty extra charge on Disney’s new streaming platform, Disney+. It is also the most expensive film ever to have a female director, the first Disney film to have an entirely Asian and Asian-American cast, and the first of Disney’s live-action remakes to have a PG-13 rating in the US. The pressure is on for Mulan to be a staggering success, so I should say right away that, well, it isn’t. Niki Caro’s film is a well-constructed family-friendly wuxia drama, with bright colours, grand scenery, and commendable themes. But it’s best enjoyed if you’re expecting a solid tween movie rather than a monumental cinematic landmark.
By Mejra3 years ago in Geeks
How the Arab Spring changed cinema
It is the story of a reversal of fortune: a camel rider previously recruited by the associates of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to attack protesters at the peak of Egypt’s 2011 mass protests finds his own revolutionary spirit in an October protest of the same year. He does so in a peaceful demonstration – staged by a group of Coptic Christians – against the demolition of a church in the southern part of the country. However the situation spirals out of control; violence erupts, and the rider gets shot by an invisible attacker.
By Mejra3 years ago in Geeks
The timeless appeal of one-man-and-his-dog stories
In the 1991 film adaptation of Jack London’s classic novel White Fang, there's a scene where Ethan Hawke's Jack Conroy, a city boy trying to strike it rich in the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896, inadvertently causes the sled being pulled by the dogs of his guides to topple over. He's brought too many books with him on the journey to Yukon Valley and the weight has offset the balance of the transport.
By Cindy Dory3 years ago in Geeks
Malcolm & Marie is a 'vibrant, perceptive film'
n one long night in the relationship of a film director and his girlfriend, John David Washington and Zendaya talk, shout, argue, insult, attack, counter-attack, kiss, make-up, then argue all over again. The ghosts of many other bad-relationship dramas hover over Malcolm & Marie, including Scenes From a Marriage, Marriage Story and especially Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, whose black-and-white look and one-night time frame are echoed in this new film. But writer and director Sam Levinson, who also created the audacious and enthralling HBO series Euphoria, gives the familiar story a makeover with dynamic, sensitive performances from its hugely talented stars, and a story that broadens to include race and the new Hollywood. The two-character film was devised and made during the pandemic, but needs no special pleading for its circumstances. Levinson turns his small-scale approach into an asset that only enhances the film's intensity.
By Mejra3 years ago in Geeks