Why?

Many are often understandably apprehensive about turning games into movies because a game fundamentally puts you in control of the experience. There are often tight parameters regarding choices but your actions dictate the game’s pace – something which no movie can replicate. However, the modern Grand Theft Auto series has excelled at telling stories that feel right at home on the big screen. With its focus on character development, visual spectacle and twisting narrative threads that are just as engaging to watch as they are to play through. 

Additionally, a GTA film’s more limited runtime would allow for a more precise distillation of what makes the series great rather than allowing for all the fun but often pointless overindulgences featured in many of the new games. Simply put, it is possible for GTA to become the basis for a good movie. 

What Makes Grand Theft Auto?

But what elements should a GTA movie include to capture the series’ mood?

1. Original Character-driven Crime Story

A GTA movie should tell an original story to avoid unfavourable game comparisons. It should focus on creating an engaging main character (given the toxic masculine mainstream image of GTA a woman lead would be a good idea) whose life is thoroughly explored through a well-plotted crime narrative.

2. Incisive Commentary

Despite its popular image of indulging in mindless sex and violence GTA also features sharp social commentary. Whether it be GTA IV’s exploration of the alienation forced on people emigrating to America, San Andreas’ examination of racism and police brutality or the series sending up American greed. A GTA movie should focus on delivering real-world critiques to keep its sting.

3. Detailed World

GTA’s game worlds are full of things to experience. Radio stations, in-universe films and TV shows, comedy shows, nightclubs and more. Those making a GTA film will have to put a lot of thought into the world’s details and how they serve the film’s story to make it feel as lived-in as the games.

4. Clever Controversy

Whether it’s the hot coffee mod or the increasing revelry in graphic violence Grand Theft Auto often courts controversy. Though as mentioned, underpinning this material is a commitment to commenting on social issues. Even if the writers fail sometimes, thus a GTA film shouldn’t be afraid to include edgy material. As long as it furthers its themes and its use is carefully considered. It shouldn’t just be needlessly offensive.

5. Humour

Any Grand Theft Auto movie needs a funny streak. The series often uses hyperbolic parody and its characters’ darkly humorous personalities to deliver the series’ dark themes and narratives. Many would argue the sense of humour is what really gets audiences to engage with GTA. 

Getting Away With It 

Lastly, let’s hypothesise about some creatives who could make a good job of a GTA adaptation.

Rose Glass

Her latest film Love Lies Bleeding shows Rose Glass can make a violent character-focused crime film that comments on social issues. If she was given an even bigger canvas to work with she could easily make an interesting GTA adaptation.

Dev Patel

Dev Patel’s Monkey Man is an excellent bone-crunching crime film that deals with interesting political themes about oppression, violence and patriarchy and gives us a very fleshed-out world. With a bigger budget, more humour and a willingness to push everything even further Dev Patel could easily make a GTA film. 

Martin Scorsese

Scorsese’s work has greatly influenced GTA already. With him having produced great character-focused, comically tinged, socially conscious crime films like King of Comedy and Wolf of Wall Street and his great ability to build detailed worlds that become characters in themselves Martin Scorsese would probably be everyone’s dream choice to bring GTA to the big screen.

Personally, I think a GTA film is on the horizon. So long as the makers include the elements crucial to the games’ success a GTA film would be a welcome cinematic sight.

Also Read: Is Hollywood Starting To Take Video Games Seriously?

The post Grand Theft Auto: The Movie – Coming Soon? appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

In this article, we will look at some directors without many feature credits to their names who have films starting to make festival tours. We will look at their backgrounds, their styles, and why we think viewers should be excited about their projects.

Rose Glass

Rose Glass got her start making short films at the London College of Communication and the National Film and Television School. In 2019, she made a splash in the horror world with her first feature film, Saint Maud. Her direction and writing yielded a film with an impressively dour and creepy atmosphere, fantastic lead performances and nuanced female characters. Saint Maud saw Glass nominated for several industry awards, including at the BAFTAs and Fangoria’s Chainsaw Awards. Marking her as a director to watch. With her latest film, Love Lies Bleeding, having its UK premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival later this month, it will be interesting to see Glass’ dark, character-focused style in use in a different genre, in this case, a crime story.

Pamela Adlon

With a career reaching back to Grease 2 (1982), which includes acting, writing, producing and TV directing credits, Pamela Adlon is now making her feature directorial debut this year with Babes. Which will be premiering at SXSW. Her citing John Cassavetes’ “conversational, documentary-style” as a creative influence on prior projects, her long acting career and her previous experience directing the naturalistic comedy series Better Things, which, like Babes, deals with themes of motherhood, it’s easy to see Babes being a great launching pad for an artist interested in creating more realistic, grounded work.

Jon Bell

RGM artists call Jon Bell “one of the most experienced Indigenous Screenwriters in Australia”. With writing credits on several award-winning television projects already under his belt. His first feature film is an extension of his short The Moogai. Which I stated was the scariest short film at Celluloid Screams 2021. Owing to Bell’s ability to develop great tension through dark visuals, careful editing and eliciting great performances from his cast. The Moogai (2024) has already had a screening at Sundance and will have a later showing at SXSW. If Bell can keep the style he demonstrated in the original short while expanding the story in interesting ways then The Moogai (2024) may be on track to be one of 2024’s best horror films.

Tiago Teixeira

Another horror director about to make the leap from shorts to full-length films is Tiago Teixeira. The Frightfest regular (his previous shorts Molar, Dog Skin and Wrong Number all having played at the festival before) will be debuting his upcoming movie Custom at Glasgow Frightfest in March. The award-winning filmmaker’s penchant for precise and glacial camera movement, eye-catching colour and his clear understanding of visual storytelling, owing to his studying of cinema and design, should have horror fans excited for an arresting work that doesn’t rely solely on sound for scares.

Julie Lunde Lillesæter

Finally, we would like to highlight a documentary filmmaker whose work has already been featured on several high-profile news sources and whose feature debut will be coming to SXSW soon. A critical media and communication studies graduate from LSE, Lillesæter’s career has focused on humanising marginalised and oppressed voices. Such as migrants, the LGBTQ community and people affected by climate change. Her mixture of handheld and poetic visuals creates both an immediacy and an emotional depth to her work. Her film An Army of Women looks at a group of women’s struggle for justice against law enforcement for their inaction regarding sexual violence cases. An unfortunately all too common occurrence. With Lillesæter’s track record, this film is sure to provide searing insight into a difficult subject. In a way that sensitively foregrounds the people affected.

These are just some up-and-coming directors whose careers we are interested to see progress. Hopefully, their upcoming projects will cement their positions as filmmakers. And with many talented new directors out there we will continue seeking out more rising creators for everyone to see.

Also Read: The Impact: How Dozens of Filmmakers Around The World Crowd-Created A Film About The Apocalypse

The post Emerging Directors To Watch In 2024 appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

Heaven and hell are mixed up

Being a nurse or caretaker is one of the hardest jobs there are so we have the utmost respect for any woman or man out there doing the job. They take care of us but who’s taking care of them? Well, Maud (Morfydd Clark) is being taken care of by her God. According to her, He’s navigating her to her ultimate goal and is with her along the entire (twisted) way. Now He guides her to her next patient called Amanda (Jennifer Ehle). While former dancer Amanda is ill, she still enjoys life by doing what she loves: smoking, drinking and enjoying the company of other people.

Maud and Amanda are the opposite. Light versus darkness. Monotonous life versus vibrancy. Firm believer vs atheist. Despite their different lifestyle, the women grow close to each other. It all seems to go fine. Amanda brings enjoyment into Maud’s life, while Maud teaches Amanda about God. It’s clear that Maud is excessively devoted to God as he takes over her life completely. However, it’s not only figuratively speaking. No, he’s also taking over her own body. Once that happens, the way to the light becomes extremely dark as we’re pretty sure that the Bible doesn’t include self-harm, bloodshed and jealousy.

Slow start but rushed ending

When making a movie, as a director, you always have to make sure that the audience can connect to your film in one way or another. In this film, Glass gives you the time to step into the shoes of Maud (although maybe that’s something you don’t want to do after all), get to know her lifestyle and her dedication to her patient and to God. Therefore Glass opted for a slow start and a low-key middle.

A real connection is established between the audience and Maud during the first hour, but sadly, that’s also the reason why the ending feels rushed. A lot is happening towards the end, and so it feels like as the movie is a bit unbalanced. It maybe would have been better if the start and the middle come to life a bit more or that the ending was stretched out. Nevertheless, the story of Saint Maud is a very unique one. One that’s brought to the screen stunningly by both the cast and crew, led by the magnificent Clark.

Clark leads the way

When watching Saint Maud, it’s clear that this movie must have been a very demanding one, both physically and emotionally for Clark (The Personal History of David Copperfield, Crawl). Whether it was Maud going through different emotional phases or devoting her body to God, we can still feel her pain thanks to Clark’s knockout performance. Clark also guides us to the story via a dark voice-over, and because of that, Maud’s feelings become even bigger.

Ehle (Vox Lux, The Miseducation of Cameron Post) her portrayal of the flamboyant but also the broken Amanda is big in its fragility and emotions. The chemistry between Ehle’s and Clark is the glue that holds the whole movie together. Even the more supporting roles coming from Lily Frazer (The Gentlemen, Tomorrow) as Amanda’s lovers, and Lily Knight (Their Finest, Brand New-U) as Joy, a young woman who knows Maud from the past and thanks to who we get to learn more about Maud’s dark past, are lovely to watch.

The crew brings even more darkness to Saint Maud.

Not only the stunning cast make from this movie an entirely captivating one to watch but also the crew certainly adds a lot of darkness to Saint Maud. First of all, there’s the terrifying and terrific score provided by Adam Janota Bzowski that certainly brings that haunting vibe to this movie. There’s also the tremendous cinematography from Ben Fordesman who always finds a way to put a sinister element into the scene. Saint Maud is for both men their full-length feature debut and what a debut it is!

Big and bold

We were lucky enough to have seen Saint Maud on both the small screen during the virtual press screening and in the cinema. Let us tell you: there’s only one way to watch this bold movie in the best way, and that’s by seeing it on the big screen. Not only for the genuinely well-balanced cinematography, the horrifying score but most importantly for the impressive performance by Morfydd Clark.

Rating: (4 / 5)

Saint Maud will be released in U.K. cinemas on the 9th of October.

Also Read: 5 Captivating Performances From Method Actors

The post Review: Saint Maud appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.