Hollywood Movies

This article appeared in the November 17, 2022 edition of The Film Comment Letter, our free weekly newsletter featuring original film criticism and writing. Sign up for the Letter here.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Ryan Coogler, 2022)

Since its release in 2018, writer-director Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther has occupied an odd, some might say uncomfortable, position in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Here is a film that dared to fold the hackneyed formal elements of the superhero genre—cacophonous action, self-aware humor, Easter eggs, cameos, dutiful setups for future sequels—into an earnest drama about Blackness, diaspora, and colonial violence. Audiences who might have expected typical, bland MCU triumphalism were instead presented with a complex portrayal of the friction between Africa and its diaspora; a critique of the theft of cultural artifacts by colonizing nations; and a striking, Afrofuturistic depiction of a technologically advanced African nation whose resources and science are sought-after

On the heels of his 2021 film The Grand Duke of Corsica, UK-based Australian director Daniel Graham is back with the highly anticipated, Prizefighter: The Life of Jem Belcher.

Based on the 19th Century boxer, who became the world’s youngest boxing champion, the film stars Matt Hookings as the prize-fighter, as he is guided by trainer Bill Warr (Ray Winstone) and raised by his grandfather Jack Slack (Russell Crowe).

FilmInk caught up with Graham to talk about the challenges of making his latest and what’s ahead.

How did Prizefighter begin? it’s quite different to your previous two films.

“When I came back from Mexico finishing Opus Zero, I started to contact producers in England to work together on projects. And one of the few who answered was Matt Hookings from Camelot films. We’re talking early 2017, so actually almost five and a bit years ago.  What happened then

To hell with “all is calm.”

From the bare-knuckle producers of Nobody, Bullet Train, Nobody, John Wick, Atomic Blonde and Deadpool 2, comes a coal-dark holiday action-comedy that says you should always bet on red.

When a team of mercenaries breaks into a wealthy family compound on Christmas Eve, taking everyone inside hostage, the team isn’t prepared for a surprise combatant: Santa Claus (David Harbour) is on the grounds, and he’s about to show why this Nick is no saint.

The film also stars John Leguizamo, Cam Gigandet, Alex Hassell (Cowboy Bebop), Alexis Louder (The Tomorrow War), Edi Patterson (The Righteous Gemstones) and the legendary Beverly D’Angelo.

Directed by razor-edged Norwegian Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow) and written by Pat Casey and Josh Miller (Sonic the Hedgehog), VIOLENT NIGHT is Christmas movie that will give Die Hard

“Sent before my time into this breathing world, scarce half made up, and that so lamely and unfashionable that dogs bark at me.”

Trumpeting soundtrack and a medieval map – it doesn’t get more English than the opening credits for The Lost King.

‘Based on a true story,’ the titles state, adding ‘Her story’, in a nice pointer to the patriarchal writing of history.

The story is about the search for the remains of King Richard III of England (1452-1485) – first aired to the public in 2013 telemovie The King in the Car Park – in Leicester to be exact, which gives the game away as to where the remains were found. To be fair, the trailer to The Lost King isn’t coy either. Instead, the film focuses on the determined struggle of its main character, amateur historian Philippa Langley, when her obsessive search to find Richard has

The photographer discusses his film project, Blaze.

Australian landscape artist Murray Fredericks is renowned for his large-scale photographs of remote and difficult locations.

Working in both Australia and overseas, Fredericks’ photo-series have taken him to the landscapes of Greenland, Lake Eyre and the Himalayas.

His latest project is Blaze, an observational documentary, which accompanies a series of landscape photographs with fire as their central theme.

Made with Academy Award-nominated team Bentley Dean (co-director) and Tania Nehme (editor), both of Tanna fame, the film depicts blazing trees, and often the flame itself, against flooded lakes and rivers, which have been pervasive in Australia over the La Niña cycles of 2021 and 2022.

Fredericks discusses with FilmInk how it all began.

How did Blaze come about?

“This is a completely accidental film. I asked Bentley Dean to come along, if he could make a five minute behind the scenes sort of