Flora and Son
SimilarAmélie (2001),
Boys Don't Cry (1999) Bugsy Malone (1976), Chicago (2002), Dirty Dancing (1987), Enchanted (2007), Erin Brockovich (2000), Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019), Forrest Gump (1994), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), Gridiron Gang (2006), La Vie en Rose (2007), Mamma Mia! (2008),
Mary Poppins (1964) Moulin Rouge! (2001), Random Harvest (1942), Shall We Dance? (2004), The Karate Kid (1984), What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971),
Watch afterEverything Everywhere All at Once (2022), Five Nights at Freddy's (2023), Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023),
Oppenheimer (2023) Saw X (2023), Shortcomings (2023),
StudioFilmNation Entertainment,
About 75 minutes into Flora and Son, its script veers toward the self-reflexive. “What movie are you in?” Flora (Eve Hewson) snaps. “One without you in it,” her son, Max (Orén Kinlan), replies. This sort of exchange fits holistically into writer-director John Carney’s latest. It’s self-aware, sure, but it’s not meta. Like most of the film’s writing, it is entirely transparent in its machinations, going so far as to declare them at points. Supporting characters largely function as symbols rather than people. Continue Reading →
Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields
The acclaimed documentarian joins The Spool to discuss Brooke Shields, her work, her life, and her relationship to "Brooke Shields" the image.
In 1981, Roger Ebert wrote a profile on Brooke Shields in which he—quoting a press agent—said, “She will be with us for the rest of our lives.” That turned out to be remarkably prescient, but neither the agent nor Ebert could have anticipated the myriad number of ways Shields has been with us in that time. Yes, she is extraordinarily beautiful. But many equally attractive people have come and gone, while Shields remains a consistent part of pop culture’s firmament. From her early appearances in films like Pretty Baby (1978), The Blue Lagoon (1980), and Endless Love (1981) and her controversial TV ads for Calvin Klein jeans, all of which focused on her sexuality while she was literally a child, to her shift in the later Eighties to become America’s Virgin to her reinvention as a comedic actress in the Nineties to becoming an advocate for those suffering from postpartum depression (and suffering the slings and arrows of Tom Cruise in full asshole mode as a result), Shields has been a persistently relevant figure in the American popular consciousness.
While Shields has lived much of her life in the public eye, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, a fascinating two-part documentary from Lana Wilson now streaming on Hulu, proves that she still has a great deal to say. Given access to nearly a half-century’s worth of archival material, which she presents alongside contemporary interviews with Shields, Wilson paints a fascinating, eye-opening portrait that demands a new consideration of Shields and her career. Much of her story is harrowing, be it specific to her life—her wrenching descriptions of sexual assault and her tumultuous relationship with her mother—or experiences too many young women in the spotlight share. (If you think having someone inquire about the state of your virginity sounds awful, imagine having talk show hosts do so on live television.) And yet, not only has Shields survived, she is thriving. She has found peace with herself and is able to look back on her life with a sense of control over it. Continue Reading →
Studio 666
Is Satanic panic even a thing anymore? When’s the last time we’ve heard anything about backmasking, or songs somehow influencing impressionable teenagers to kill themselves? It’s entirely possible that this is all still a thing, and I’m simply too old and out of touch to know anything about it. B.J. McDonnell’s Studio 666, the feature film debut of Foo Fighters, is a lovingly hokey homage to a time when “the Devil’s music” was such a grave concern for parents (and Tipper Gore) that Congressional hearings were held about it, and lawsuits were filed against heavy metal bands in an attempt to hold them responsible for what was more likely caused by untreated mental illness and drug abuse. Continue Reading →