The term “prestige TV” has been around since the ’90s. It was used to categorize certain shows which were considered highbrow and “elevated” compared to their somewhat ordinary counterparts. In the late 90s, TV was experiencing burnout. Sitcoms had become too formulaic and audiences were desperate for a new kind of entertainment. The arrival of the following shows from cable networks changed the landscape for good: The Sopranos and The Wire, both from HBO, as well as Breaking Bad and Mad Men, from AMC. By the time the streaming giant Netflix launched its first original show in 2013 with House…
Author: Osamudiamen Joe
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The Kenyan film industry is finally getting the Netflix treatment, expanding the streaming giant’s reach across Africa. The first original series from Africa to debut on Netflix was Queen Sono, a South African production which premiered back in 2020. Since then, other South African titles have graced the streaming service such as Blood and Water, Kings of Jo’burg and Jiva! Last year, Kemi Adetiba’s King of Boys: The Return of the King premiered on the platform after a long moment of anticipation from fans and was the talk of the town for a while. Blood Sisters pulled off a similar…
Paul Thomas Anderson is one of cinema’s most beloved auteurs. The film director who dropped out of film school after attending only two days of lectures has made a name for himself not only in America but also across the globe as one of the most brilliant and confident visual storytellers working today. PTA, as he is popularly called, wears multiple hats as far as the filmmaking process is concerned; he writes, produces and directs his screenplays and is more than capable of filling the role of a cinematographer as evidenced by his work in the 2017 period drama, Phantom…
Something Special is the latest outing from Fruitful Studios, a production company located in Lagos. In the vein of Juju Stories, the most recent movie from the Surreal 16 trio, Something Special is an anthology of three stories centered on three special moments in the lives of its characters. Written and directed by Precious Asuai and Oluwatosin Oyalegan, the stories are all set in Nigeria and are explorations of love in the form of certain moments in people’s lives and how those moments impact them. ‘The Pick Up’ Review: Minimalist Short Film Digs Deep into a Bag of Expressiveness In…
According to experts, imposing restrictions on the creative process is more likely to encourage creativity than stifle it. The rationale behind this is that by placing some restrictions on their process, the artist has automatically created a problem for them to solve. It gets the neurons firing and the creative juices flowing. These restrictions can come in various shapes and forms. Consider deadlines, the bane of many a writer’s existence, and yet, most of the time, a necessary restriction for success. The famous artist, Piet Mondrian, gave birth to modernism by limiting his paintings to primary colors and right angles,…
The first twenty-five minutes of Amandla are captivating to say the least— it’s a pity it mostly goes downhill from there. The Nerina De Jager-written and directed movie is set in South Africa during apartheid, and the first act follows the Khumalo family working on the land of their white boss, Mr. Jakob. The Khumalo family comprises the father, Bangizwe; the mother, Numosa; and their sons, Impi and Nkosana. Related: Five Other Netflix Series to Watch if You Enjoy ‘Blood & Water’ Amandla begins with the boys, Impi and Nkosana, out hunting in the fields. The cinematography here favors wide,…
Iranian visual artist Shirin Neshat once said, “Magical realism allows an artist like myself to inject layers of meaning without being obvious. In American culture, where there is freedom of expression, this approach may seem forced, unnecessary and misunderstood. But this system of communication has become very Iranian.” Even though magical realism was coined by Franz Roh, a German art critic, in 1925, to describe a method of painting which strayed away from realism, it did not become a movement until the 1950s when its style became popular among writers in Latin America and the Caribbean who blended elements of…
“Do you know what Maria means?” one character says to another during the naming ceremony of the titular child. In typical arthouse movie fashion, the pair are interrupted before a reply can be offered. The seed of that question however has already been planted in the mind of the audience. Maria means “sea of bitterness”, or “sea of sorrow.” For Maria Ebun Pataki is a story about a mother, Derin (Meg Otanwa), suffering from postpartum depression. The film follows her in the first few months after the delivery, a process that made Derin lose a lot of blood along with…
Dance has been employed in various ways throughout film history. In Footloose (1984), it’s a symbol of teenage rebellion and expression. More recently, Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit (2019) ends with the main characters dancing in front of their home celebrating their freedom as the Third Reich falls to pieces around them. And in The Wedding Party (2016), a dance montage is used among other things as visual shorthand to show the audience how much the characters have changed. Fatimah Binta Gimsay, in her short film, Ijo, makes dance the final straw that shatters the wobbly foundation of a marriage. Every…
Sofia Coppola (Somewhere, The Beguiled) often frames her characters gazing out of car windows, quiet and deep in contemplation, desperately searching for answers to their plight as the outside world carries on with its business. It’s one of her directorial calling cards, and it’s an effective way of putting us in a character’s headspace: drenched in melancholy and trapped in a metal cocoon, unable to share in the freedom and vitality just beyond the windows. In her 2003 film, Lost in Translation, that shot is employed at the beginning and it captures perfectly the ennui of Bob Harris (Bill Murray),…