Category Archives: Arts & Culture

Not So Christmas Films You Can Watch All Year-Round

Your Christmas movie watchlist doesn’t have to be all about the holidays. While we appreciate the comfort of softcore holiday movies this time of year—and we do—it’s easy to appreciate Christmas movies where the plotting is more ambitious, and where female characters have more agency. To ensure you’re not missing out on the best nontraditional Christmas movies, here are a few films you can watch long after you’ve put the holiday decorations away.
AdvertismentBest unconventional Christmas movies
Blast Of Silence (1961)
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Blast of Silence (1961) is about an angry loner who is also a professional killer. He’s working a hit over the Christmas period but bumps into an old friend who invites him to a Christmas party. Against his better judgment, he gives in to seasonal sentimentality and lets his guard down. It’s not your regular kind of Christmas movie. It’s dark, gritty, and oozing with cynicism towards the season. Christmas is a time when we want to be surrounded by our loved ones the most, and this film captures the feeling of urban alienation and the moral struggles of its lead character. 
Metropolitan (1990)
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AdvertismentWho doesn’t dream of a rendezvous in New York? From Breakfast At Tiffany’s to Gossip Girl, New York is the ultimate place to live the fantasy. “Metropolitan” (1990) is Whit Stillman’s work about a few privileged youths on the Upper East Side and is the ideal film to turn on when you’re craving something that feels like an elegant evening on the town but doesn’t require breaking out the white tie and ball gowns. 
The Holiday (2006)
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The Holiday is the quintessential feel-good romantic comedy, and though it doesn’t break any new ground in terms of plot, it’s undeniably charming and heartwarming in a way that’s perfect for the holiday season. An English cottage, Cameron Diaz’s sprint through snowy fields and country roads in stilettos and the clichés make it a delightful holiday escape that’s perfect for those times when you just want to feel good.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
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AdvertismentDark, quip-filled humour and a murder conspiracy that isn’t completely ridiculous, this film is a Christmas-set neo-noir that blends murder, mystery, and misfit characters with a heavy dose of holiday cheer. Robert Downey Jr. plays a small-time crook who gets involved in a murder investigation while attending a Hollywood party. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is both a sharp satire of crime thrillers and a buddy comedy, with Christmas playing a surprising role in the story. Might give it a try if you are into dark humour.
The Grand Budapest Hotel
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The Grand Budapest Hotel is a whimsical and visually stunning masterpiece by Wes Anderson that blends humor, tragedy, and adventure. Set against the backdrop of a fictional European ski resort, the film chronicles the misadventures of M. Gustave, an eccentric concierge, and his loyal lobby boy, Zero.
Dead End (2003)
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AdvertismentAnother unconventional movie for the psychological horror genre lovers. Set on Christmas Eve, the film follows a family as they drive to their holiday destination, only to find themselves caught in a nightmarish series of events that forces them to confront their darkest fears and deepest secrets. A Christmas themed horror movie to spice up your sleepover? We’ll take that.
Klaus (2019)
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We know Santa, do we know his story? Does he have friends? Klaus (2019), is a stunningly unique animated film that reimagines the origin story of Santa Claus. Klaus offers something fresh: a heartfelt story and the spirit of humanity that the world needs. A perfect mix of humour and message combined, this film offers a fresher perspective of extending the value of Christmas to not just our loved ones, but to everyone around. Maybe the world would be a better place then. 

Shyam Benegal’s Bhumika Was A Powerful Feminist Film Ahead Of Its Times

I shudder to think what my worldview would be like without the late master filmmaker Shyam Benegal. His films were my genesis to the constant evolving lens to life. His works made me ponder on the comfort of advantages versus the discomfort of disadvantages in society. 
AdvertismentHe truly celebrated female achievements and his films were socially conscious narratives on the marginalised, unheard voices of India. So naturally, I loved watching his recordings on the social fabric of a changing India. 
One of his films, that I watched over and over again was Bhumika which means “the role”; played by the late Smita Patil where identity and female agency is constantly evolving with the changes around the protagonist’s life. It made me uncomfortable and also realise how difficult this subject is, to portray as an art form. The dichotomy of being a woman who self-asserts her identity without making her look selfish and self-absorbed. 
Bhumika – Feminist Telling Ahead Of Its Times
Bhumika was an inspiration from the life of the bohemian Marathi actress Hansa Wadkar. In the film one travels with Hansa’s torment and the personal difficulties in her life, which included marital problems, addiction to alcohol, humiliation at multiple levels and also rape at the hands of a magistrate, when she sought help to get out of a troubled relationship. Her marriage ended in a separation with her daughter being kept away from her.
Shyam Babu’s Bhumika sensitively explores the heart-wrenching quest of a woman’s independence and the struggle between societal expectations and the reality of her personal turmoil.

Bhumika makes one question the heavy weight of choice that women carry forever between personal freedom and identity.

AdvertismentSmita Patil, was smouldering, feisty and delivered a career-defining performance as a woman torn between her roles as an artiste, wife, and mother. 
Bhumika was made in 1977. A film way ahead of its time, where it explores the totally tattered life, of the protagonist who is a female and the obvious theme of underlined exploitation, physical and emotional abuse. Which is further fuelled by her self-sabotaging obstinacy. 
Usha in Bhumika (Smita Patil) is an impoverished woman whose struggle for survival starts from a very tender age, which eventually becomes a quest for her to change her identity, and this comes at a very high price. It is the stoical ability to handle the conflicts that life throws at her and the dilemmas she needs to overcome that was her challenge and the catharsis. 
Bhumika is relevant even now as social recognition and search for a new identity for most women isn’t an easy place to navigate. Therefore this tale stays true to its core values and meanings that women have to constantly deal with, in reference to her identity within the family and the community at large. 
Bhumika also boldly explores Usha’s libido and understanding of herself with her lover, in the intense intellectual conversations that she has with him. The dilemma of acknowledging the primal desire in human beings and the conventional role of being a woman with morals determines the respect she would get from the outside world and the inner view of “Who Am I” ? Is thrown to the viewer in this masterpiece non-linear film by Shyam Babu. 
He made many more beautiful films like Mandi, Zubeida, Mammo, Sardari Begum, Ankur and the list goes on. His work will continue to be praised and appreciated by film lovers across the world and art connoisseurs who celebrate the much-needed probe of the social fabric that only true artists can create and understand. 
AdvertismentMohua Chinappa is an author, poet and runs two podcasts, The Mohua Show and The Literature Lounge. She is also member of an award-winning London based non-profit think tank called Bridge India. Views expressed by the author are their own.

The BEST Christmas films of all time! IMDb ranks the top 10 most loved festive favourites – so did yours make the list this year?

 Have YOU got a story? Email [email protected] CHLOE LOUISE FOR MAILONLINE Published: 04:47 EST, 24 December 2024 | Updated: 06:02 EST, 24 December 2024

‘Close Your Eyes’ is the best film of 2024 — but these 10 others are also contenders

It’s often said that December for film critics is like tax season for accountants. This is our crunch time, when we attempt to take stock of the past 12 months’ worth of movies and determine our favorites, individually and collectively.

Earlier this month, the New York Film Critics Circle gave its best picture award to The Brutalist, Brady Corbet’s sweeping drama about a Hungarian-born architect’s postwar American rebirth. A few days later, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, of which I’m a member, gave its top prize to Anora, Sean Baker’s madly entertaining farce about a Brooklyn sex worker.

It says something about the quality of the movies this year that, as much as I like Anora and The Brutalist, both titles landed just outside my own personal list of favorites. Here, then, are the 10 — no, 11 — best movies of 2024.

/ Film Movement

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Film MovementJosé Coronado as Julio Arenas in Close Your Eyes.

Close Your Eyes

It’s been more than 50 years since the legendary Víctor Erice made one of the greatest of all Spanish films, The Spirit of the Beehive (1973). Since then, he’s directed only three features, the latest of which comes after a roughly three-decade absence from the director’s chair.

Both elegiac and quietly rapturous, Close Your Eyes begins as a kind of cinephile detective story, with a streak of meta: The protagonist (played by Manolo Solo) is himself a long-retired filmmaker, trying to solve the mystery of an old friend and former actor who vanished years earlier. By its transcendent final scenes, this absorbing drama has movingly affirmed the power of love, the inevitability of loss and the consoling pleasures of getting lost in the movies.

/ Unifrance; Janus Films

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Unifrance; Janus FilmsAngela (Ilinca Manolache) is an underpaid production assistant in Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World. Ryô Nishikawa plays Hana in Evil Does Not Exist.

Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World and Evil Does Not Exist

In Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, an invigoratingly foul-mouthed dark comedy from the Romanian director Radu Jude, the astonishing Ilinca Manolache plays a production assistant working inhuman hours on a corporate video promoting — wait for it — workplace safety. In Evil Does Not Exist, a quietly haunting drama from the Japanese director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car), a proposed glamping site threatens the environmental peace of a woodsy Japanese town. The consequences of unchecked corporate greed are in full, awful view; so are the killer instincts of two of the best, most fiercely original filmmakers working today.

 

/ Orion Pictures/Amazon Content Services; A24

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Orion Pictures/Amazon Content Services; A24Brandon Wilson and Ethan Herisse star in Nickel Boys. British actor Adam Pearson plays Oswald in A Different Man.

Nickel Boys and A Different Man

These are two most daringly inventive American movies of the year, both of which ingeniously upend our usual notions of empathy and identification. In his wrenching adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s 2019 novel, Nickel Boys, the writer-director RaMell Ross employs a first-person camera that puts us inside the heads of his protagonists, two Black boys enduring juvenile incarceration in Jim Crow-era Florida. In Aaron Schimberg’s squirmingly original and provocative A Different Man, Sebastian Stan plays a “facially unique” New Yorker who gets a miraculous chance to inhabit someone else’s skin — only to find that he still cannot escape his own.

 

/ Neon; Cinema Guild

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Neon; Cinema GuildCarol Duarte and Josh O’Connor in La Chimera. Aliocha Schneider (in pink) stars in Music.

La Chimera and Music

Two enchanting, achingly romantic dramas put a revivifying spin on ancient myth. Josh O’Connor plays a grubbily charismatic modern-day Orpheus in the Italian director Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera, a tale of lost tombs and grave robbers that might as well have been titled Plunder the Tuscan Sun. Meanwhile, with Music, the German director Angela Schanelec weaves an enigmatic puzzle rooted in the story of Oedipus Rex — a tragedy that, in this sui generis telling, loses nearly all its narrative footholds but none of its shattering power.

 

/ Antipode Films; Kino Lorber

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Antipode Films; Kino LorberNo Other Land documents Israeli government’s demolition of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank. Green Border dramatizes the chaos at the Polish-Belarusian border.

No Other Land and Green Border

Two searing films — one nonfiction, one fiction — look unflinchingly into horror. Still without a U.S. distributor, despite having racked up numerous 2024 festival and critics’ prizes, the documentary No Other Land is the work of four filmmakers — two Palestinian, two Israeli — who bravely documented the Israeli government’s demolition of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank. The intensely harrowing drama Green Border, from the Polish director Agnieszka Holland, embroils us in the chaos at the Polish-Belarusian border, where refugees, soldiers and human-rights activists find themselves locked in an agonizing geopolitical limbo.

 

Janus; Bleecker Street /

Divya Prabha plays Anu in All We Imagine as Light; Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Michele Austin are sisters in Hard Truths.

All We Imagine as Light and Hard Truths
The Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia won the Grand Prix at Cannes for All We Imagine as Light, a quietly shimmering drama about three Mumbai women, all of them chafing, in their own way, against gendered expectations. No less attuned to the ties that bind women, and equally rigorous in his pursuit of realism, the veteran English filmmaker Mike Leigh gave us a pared-to-the-bone drama with Hard Truths, featuring Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Michele Austin (both alums of his 1996 triumph, Secrets & Lies) in two of the year’s finest performances.
Copyright 2024 NPR

Anil Kapoor Celebrates His Birthday With Sneak Peek At Upcoming Action Movie ‘Subedaar’

Indian star Anil Kapoor‘s 68th birthday was celebrated earlier today with a sneak peek at his latest movie Subedaar.

Fans were treated to an Instagram clip of the upcoming movie, which stars Kapoor as Subedaar Arjun Maurya, a man who once fought for his nation and must now fight enemies within to protect his home and family.

In the Prime Video clip overlaid with a theme track, the protagonist can be seen preparing to do battle against enemies who have arrived at his house, as the tension ratchets up.

Filming has just wrapped on an outdoor shoot and will commence last leg of filming in January.

Kapoor stars in Subedaar alongside Radhikka Madan, who plays his daughter. Suresh Triveni is director and writer alongside Prajwal Chandrashekar and the movie is produced by Opening Image Films and Anil Kapoor Film & Communication Network.

Watch on Deadline

Kapoor said: “Subedaar is special. It’s much more than just an action film; it’s about resilience, honor, family and the relentless fight we face in life. I could not have asked a better director than Suresh to captain this film and it is equally special to partner with Vikram and team as we bring this story to life. Revealing this first glimpse of Subedaar Arjun Maurya on my birthday is my gift to the fans who have supported me all these years.”

Toyin Abraham clears the air about shading Funke Akindele, others over her movie

Nollywood actress Toyin Abraham Ajeyemi has cleared the air about shading her colleagues, most especially Funke Akindele and Mercy Aigbe, in her previous post.

The mother of one who recently broke records with her new movie, Alakada Bad and Boujee kindly explained the misinterpreted context in her appreciation post.

Toyin Abraham to her Instagram page to share a video of herself and her fans having fun at the cinema.

She kindly noted that the statement “Without expecting a gift or inducement at the box office to buy our tickets, you’ve stood by us, and we are deeply grateful” was aimed at appreciating those who watched the movie without demanding a gift.

The multiple award-winning actress revealed that reports from her colleagues who meet with fans at the cinemas were not encouraging. She claimed some have refused to watch her film because of the lack of incentive.

Toyin Abraham appreciated their fans and urged anyone not to assume wrong regarding her post.

“I have seen many messages suggesting that my post about the three-day box office performance of Alakada: Bad and Boujee was intended as shade.

Please, that is not true. I am genuinely appreciative of those who have been watching the movie in cinemas without receiving any gifts.

People hosting meet-and-greet events for me have been coming back with feedback that some people are asking for gifts before watching the movie, while some are watching without asking for any incentives.

The movie itself is a gift of love and hard work, and parked with quality entertainment.Therefore, reaching the milestone of ₦58 million in sales in just three days is a true testament to the love and support of those I couldn’t give anything to.

Thanking them sincerely is my goal, not shading anyone and once again, thank you for seeing my movie.”

A few hours ago, Toyin Abraham made a lengthy appreciation note on her verified Instagram page, thanking her fans for wholeheartedly supporting her new project.

The announcement roused the hope of her supporters, who believed she could reach the one billion landmark with her release.

In the post, Abraham subtly shaded those who entice their fans with gifts at the cinema. Although she did not mention names, actresses Funke Akindele and Mercy Aigbe have been doing so since their films started screening.

Christmas movie with 92% on Rotten Tomatoes will destroy you with brutal death scene

Christmas movie with 92% on Rotten Tomatoes will destroy you with brutal death scene | Metro News Metro Shorts This post was originally published on here

Sonic movie cut morbid Big the Cat cameo

As more characters join the Sonic the Hedgehog movie series, fans have been curious when their favourite big cat – Big the Cat – will pop up.

Speaking to IGN alongside the launch of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, the movie series’ writing duo Pat Casey and Josh Miller revealed a Big the Cat cameo had actually been written for the previous film – only to be left on the cutting room floor.

(There’s no spoilers here for the new movie, we should add.)

In Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Big the Cat would have popped up in skeletal form as Sonic passed through a cave. Within it, viewers would have gotten a quick glimpse at Big’s decomposed body. Dark.

Still, confusingly, this might not have been the Big the Cat fans know and love, the duo continued – which perhaps is why the sequence never made it on screen.

“In one draft of Sonic 2, when they’re going through the snowy mountains to the cave, we had a bit, because Sonic 2 was sort of an Indiana Jones,” Casey said.

“Indiana Jones, it’s a trope that at some point a skeleton pops out at you and scares you. So we were going to do that, but with a skeleton of a, I would say, a Big the Cat, not necessarily-”

“Not necessarily the Big the Cat,” Miller interjected.

“But we ended up cutting it,” Casey concluded. “It didn’t make any sense.”

So, no Big the Cat. But on the upside, for fans of the character, no dead Big the Cat either.

Fans have previously celebrated whenever Big has popped up over the years – in Sonic Frontiers, Sonic Racing, Sonic Prime and even Lego Dimensions.

“Sega and Paramount more closely align game and film worlds for an authentic Sonic romp with added Keanu cool,” Ed wrote in Eurogamer’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3 film review.

What’s next for the Sonic films after Sonic the Hedgehog 3’s post-credits scene? Eurogamer’s resident Sonic fan Ed has a spoilery guide.