🍿44: A Chiara
This week we're sharing the best games for film fans and Cillian Murphy's Batman audition tape 🦇
“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.”
~ The Usual Suspects, 1995
Game on…
If you’re anything like us, you’ll love putting your obscure film knowledge to the test — or simply proving how clever you are — with games like Framed, which gives you six ‘frames’ while you have to guess what film they’re from. If you’ve not played it before, it’s a lot of fun.
On the other hand, if Framed has become a part of your daily routine (as it has ours), then you’ll be glad to know there are some more Wordle-inspired movie games:
Posterdle - Here, a film poster will slowly un-pixelate itself and you’ve got to guess what the poster is in the shortest time.
Moviedle - With this one, the whole film is condensed into a one-second montage and you’ve got to guess what it is. If you can’t you’ll get a slightly longer two-second montage, and so on.
The only caveat is that, unlike Framed, these games don’t seem to save your stats and progress unless you’ve got a LikeWiseTV account. That might not be a bad thing though as it looks like a pretty good platform to browse multiple streaming services and get tailored recommendations, that are hopefully better than Netflix recommendations.
Have fun and let us know how you get on - and no, this intro hasn’t been sponsored.
Now for the headlines:
A poster for Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has been released and it looks like we can expect the film to reach the big screen on 23 July 2023. Read more.
The trailer for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio just dropped, and it looks great. Watch the trailer here.
When Ti West’s porn-shoot-gone-wrong horror, X, was released earlier this year, I don’t think anyone was expecting it to get a prequel. But that’s exactly what’s happened. Watch the trailer here.
San Sebastian Festival unveils the 13 films from first and second-time directors that will compete for the 2022 Kutxabank-New Directors Award. Read more.
Salty Popcorn is 100% free, but if you enjoy SP, please consider buying us a cinema ticket for just £5 per month - or a bunch of tickets for just £30 per year. Thank you!
Upcoming Releases
Funny Pages
UK: 16 September // USA: 26 August
In this coming-of-age comedy, teenage cartoonist Robert (Daniel Zolghadri) rejects the comforts of his suburban life in a misguided quest for something more soulful. As strange as this film may look, A24 films rarely disappoint.
She Said
UK: 18 November // USA: 18 November
Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan star as Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, the journalists that published the report that exposed Harvey Weinstein and kickstarted the #MeToo movement.
Fact of the week
Christopher Nolan and Cillian Murphy have worked together on a number of films, including Inception, Dunkirk and The Dark Knight trilogy, but Oppenheimer will be Murphy’s first lead role in a Nolan film.
However, that almost wasn’t the case as Murphy did a screen test (in costume) for the role(s) of Batman and Bruce Wayne. I found a lot of this behind-the-scenes interesting, but you can click here to skip to Murphy’s screen test.
Review: A Chiara
Star rating:
3.5 (out of 5)
Where to watch:
USA: Amazon Prime ($5.99)
UK: In Select Cinemas (hits Mubi on 26th August)
Runtime:
2hr 01m
Director:
Jonas Carpignano
Blurb:
In this arthouse coming-of-age drama, 15-year-old Chiara (Swamy Rotolo) and her family are abandoned by her father when he suddenly becomes a fugitive. As his reasons for disappearing become clearer, Chiara must deal with the consequences of her family’s criminal ties.
The review (NO spoilers):
A Chiara is a refreshing take on a subject that’s been saturated in cinema since The Godfather, but this is not a gangster film. Its focus isn’t on crime or justice - it’s on Chiara (Swamy Rotolo), a young girl trying to cope as the world she knows falls apart. In some ways, it’s a triumph, but the trailer promises more grit than the film delivers and I found it hard to move past that disappointment.
As a fan of ‘gangster’ films, I was excited to see something so familiar through the eyes of someone whose perspective has never, to my knowledge, made it to the big screen. Perhaps the praise it’s received from critics, and its impressive 92% score on Rotten Tomatoes, lifted my expectations too high.
However, what’s particularly interesting about A Chiara is that no member of the central cast is a professional actor. They’re simply residents of Calabria, where the first two films (Mediterranea and A Cambria) of this loose trilogy were filmed and set, a fact that makes their performances really quite impressive.
This may be as much a testament to director Jonas Carpignano as the cast itself, as he revealed very little to his actors about the events that would unfold in each scene. A technique that he felt would allow them to react more naturally - and it works.
Of course, the focus here is very much on Chiara, the hard-faced teenager who’s desperate to be taken seriously by her family. Rotolo just about manages to shine through the near-constant expression of discontent and moodiness (aka. ‘resting-bitch-face’) that she wears throughout the film. Half the time she’s a petulant teenager, the other half she’s an intimidating young adult — you’ll know what I mean when you see her stare — but at times, it feels like there’s something deeper running beneath the surface of her performance. Whatever it is, it’s incredibly captivating.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the film itself as there were moments in the third act where I was checking my watch. It would be unfair to say that the film runs out of steam, as this isn’t quite the case. All the excitement takes place during the first half when the premise of the story is being set up and we’re getting to know the characters. Towards the end, however, it feels as though we’re waiting for something to happen, which ultimately doesn’t.
Scroll down to see what’s in the next issue.
If you liked A Chiara…
A Ciambra
2017 | UK: Amazon Prime (£1.99) // USA: Amazon Prime ($2.99)
If you’ve seen A Chiara, you’ll be interested to know that Chiara (Swamy Rotolo) had a minor role in this 2017 film by Jonas Carpignano. Again, Carpignano cast local, non-professional actors from Calabria and again it focuses on a teenager desperate to grow up and surrounded by criminality.
In the next issue:
Thirteen Lives
UK: 29 July // USA: 29 July | Watch the Trailer
Nolan used to be one of my favorite directors, but Tenet (and everything surrounding it) was such a disappointment that the announcement of a new movie doesn’t even excite me as much anymore... hope it proves me and everybody else wrong!