“I’m just a movie guy, I don’t know much about sports,” says old video store clerk Hank of the coming basketball game between local lovable losers the Warriors and LA’s all-star the Lakers, where the outcome seems a foregone conclusion (“we definitely cannot beat LA”). He then launches into a speech on the wish-fulfilment paradigms provided…
It’s Kind Of A Funny Story first published by Film4 Review: They did it to the ‘inspirational teacher’ subgenre in their first feature Half Nelson (2006), and to the ‘true underdog’ sports film in their follow-up Sugar (2008)– and now, once again, writer/director team Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck turn a recognisable genre on its head with It’s Kind Of A…
Half Nelson first published by Film4 Summary: In Ryan Fleck’s debut feature, Ryan (The Believer) Gosling is an inner city teacher in crisis. Review: American cinema’s image of the inner city high school has always been divided along strict ideological lines, generally allowing for only two plot types: in films of a liberal persuasion, teachers are inspirational alchemists…