by Mattie Lucas
Cinema from a Decidedly Queer Perspective
Janet Planet | 2024
On the surface, Janet Planet has all the trappings of a quirky indie comedy from the early 2000s. It's filled with awkward silences, deadpan humor, and characters who do a lot of standing and staring, creating an air of disaffection that creates both an unusual rhythm and a sense of ironic disconnection with the audience.
For most of its life, the Cannon Group was a minor studio known for brawny B-movies like Death Wish, Cobra, Missing in Action, and Masters of the Universe. But during the 1980s, under the direction of co-owners Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, who bought the company in 1979, Cannon also used some of its profits to take chances on risky auteur-driven projects in an attempt to gain some prestige. One such project was Jean-Luc Godard's King Lear, a deal Golan and Globus infamously made with Godard on a napkin at the Cannes Film Festival, where the pair were tenaciously courting filmmakers.