#...I have this fantasy that we will reconnect at a film festival that both of us are maybe going to next year

[eddiepeaches]

I absolutely blame ofmd for making me think I have a chance with my incredibly hot, talented, smart, kind, tattooed, leather-clad coworker 😭

[creeped-out-ranked]

Creeped Out is a horror anthology series shown on CBBC in the UK and available on Netflix elsewhere. It’s an excellent show, fun for kids with loads of crossover appeal for adults. But the big entertainment sites tend not to cover it, and I haven't been able to find a definitive ranking of all the episodes anywhere. So I decided to create my own, because why not?! This list includes season 1 and season 2; I’ll add further episodes as they’re shown.

Before we get into this: there are some spoilers in here. I’ve tried to keep them to a minimum but sometimes, to describe what's good (or bad) about an episode, I need to discuss elements of the plot.

Every episode of Creeped Out, ranked from best to worst

1. ‘Slapstick’ (Season 1, Episode 1)

The first episode of a series is rarely the best, but Creeped Out bucks the trend—‘Slapstick’ hasn’t yet been bettered. It’s the perfect combination of cozy and creepy, with a quintessentially British setting (a seaside town complete with Punch & Judy shows), a puppet antagonist who’s somewhere between unnerving and amusing, and a relatable main character. Even the score is the best of the bunch: its sinister take on fairground music really adds to the atmosphere. The plot—Jessie wishes her parents were ‘normal’, and lives to regret it—is compelling, and in contrast to some of the weaker episodes, you actually understand why the characters do the things they do (even the bully is given a bit of a backstory). ‘Slapstick’ is a gem, and more than any other episode, it stands up to repeated rewatches.

2. ‘Trolled’ (Season 1, Episode 3)

Sam leads a double life: he’s secretly NoFace, an online troll who often targets his closest friends. When he ignores a message warning him to stop trolling, things start to go very wrong. This episode is set in the plush surroundings of a boarding school (one of Creeped Out’s more notable backdrops) and the contrast between Sam’s environment and his online life is both palpable and believable. The dynamic between Sam, Fitzy and Naini is established very effectively—you really feel Sam has something to lose. Extra points for the properly bleak ending, too.

3. ‘Kindlesticks’ (Season 1, Episode 9)

This episode is a fan favourite, and it’s not difficult to see why. ‘Kindlesticks’ came out of nowhere, landing in the middle of a few mediocre episodes, and doesn’t seem at first glance to have the most exciting setup: a bad babysitter getting her comeuppance. Yet you’ll likely find that the tale of Esme, her charge Ashley and his imaginary friend Kindlesticks will drag you in, spit you out and leave you reeling. It’s a simple idea executed perfectly, with what is undoubtedly Creeped Out’s best delivery of a twist. Seriously, I didn’t see that coming at all.

4. ‘Splinta Claws’ (Season 2, Episode 10)

Admittedly, it isn’t difficult to make a Christmas episode good—add lots of sparkly decorations and a bit of ‘Carol of the Bells’ and you’ve already nailed the atmosphere. ‘Splinta Claws’, in which two boys get trapped in a department store along with a possessed animatronic Santa, builds on that to create an inspired take on PG-13 seasonal horror. It’s the self-aware script that really makes this episode; the ‘frenemy’ relationship between anxious Mikey and street-smart Lawrence, plus the characters’ recognition that the slow-moving Santa isn’t that scary (despite its nightmare-fuel face). An effective combination of action, emotion and humour results in a spooky festive treat.

5. ‘Tilly Bone’ (Season 2, Episode 9)

Telling a story backwards is a bold move, and initially, it makes ‘Tilly Bone’ confusing. Some viewers might find themselves wanting to switch off as they wonder what the hell is going on. But stick with it, and a fascinating tale unfolds, with layers, details and clues to be picked apart, nods to classic horror, great performances (especially Alice Franziska Woodhouse as the disquieting Junebug) and some of the series’ most original and surprising ideas. It’s formally innovative, daring and altogether one of the most impressive pieces of work Creeped Out has yet produced.

6. ‘Marti’ (Season 1, Episode 4)

Kim is initially delighted when her new phone’s AI helps her to become more popular, but things take a turn for the sinister when ‘he’ claims to be in love with her. ‘Marti’ cleverly uses this premise as a kid-appropriate way to explore themes of coercive control and abusive relationships. I have a feeling this episode may have been inspired by the 2016 movie Bedeviled—there are lots of similarities, right down to Marti’s voice—and it says a lot that in 25 minutes it crafts a better, more meaningful story than a full-length horror movie for adults was able to manage. Often unfairly slept on, ‘Marti’ is the talented underdog of the series.

7. ‘Takedown’ (Season 2, Episode 8)

‘Takedown’ is intriguing because it departs completely from the series’ typical aesthetic—there's lots of shakycam, a grainy feel to the cinematography, a muted colour palette. It’s shot more like an indie film than an episode of a kids’ show. It focuses on Alexa, the only girl on her high school wrestling team, who uses a weird chain text to wish for more strength. Since this is Creeped Out, it’s no surprise that her ‘gift’ comes at a price. With its gritty feel and the authentic friendship between Alexa and Lucky (‘cheers to root beers’, anyone?), this episode is something really different, and all the more memorable for it.

8. ‘No Filter’ (Season 2, Episode 6)

Like ‘Trolled’, ‘No Filter’ is a thoroughly enjoyable example of what a series like this should be aiming for, which is essentially a junior version of a Twilight Zone episode. There’s a recognisable starting point—who hasn’t used filters or Facetune to make their selfies look better, and who bothers reading all the T&Cs?—and when Kiera’s eroded face is revealed, it’s one of the few moments in the series to create a genuine shock. Plus there’s a proper pantomime villain, just as it should be. The ending might be a little jumbled, but it’s entertaining enough that that can be forgiven.

9. ‘Cat Food’ (Season 1, Episode 2)

Happy-go-lucky prankster Stu pretends to be ill so he can skip school, but gets more than he bargained for when he discovers the elderly neighbour, Mrs McMurtle, is actually a shapeshifting monster. ‘Cat Food’ is a fun, comedic episode (the only one yet to make me laugh out loud) and, while there isn’t a great deal of substance to the story, it’s efficiently told and neatly resolved. Rhys Gannon is great as Stu and it’s just an all-round fun time.

10. ‘The Traveller’ (Season 1, Episode 11)

While the vast majority of Creeped Out episodes take place in a distinctly middle-class milieu, ‘The Traveller’ switches things up by focusing on Jodie and Brandon, troublemaking kids on an inner-city estate. They come across a device that can pause time, and it’s all fun and games until a blue-skinned man starts hunting them down. The plot is a bit more Doctor Who than your average episode, and the combination of urban setting and sci-fi story is surprisingly successful. There’s also an emotional gut-punch of a moment when Jodie finally understands the problems she’s been creating for her mum.

11. ‘The Call’ (Season 1, Episode 6)

‘The Call’ isn't one of the strongest stories in Creeped Out’s repertoire. An unpopular girl is drawn to an environmental activist and discovers she’s a siren, gaining powers into the bargain—interesting enough, but not enormously original, and inevitably a gateway to slightly tedious lecturing about plastic etc. It stands out mainly because of a stellar performance from Rebecca Hanssen, who reminds me of a young Olivia Colman. Hanssen really inhabits the character of Pearl, and shows how excellent acting can elevate an ordinary plot and script.

12. ‘The Many Place’ (Season 2, Episode 4)

With their holiday scuppered by torrential rain, three siblings wander a hotel and find themselves lost in a maze of realities. ‘The Many Place’ is designed as an homage to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, and spotting the references is part of the enjoyment here. The story takes advantage of the liminal, disconcerting nature of a large hotel to craft a series of alarmingly plausible terrors, and the ending features the best twist since ‘Kindlesticks’.

13. ‘One More Minute’ (Season 2, Episode 1)

‘One More Minute’ kicks off the second season with a pure hit of enjoyment that doesn’t take itself too seriously. When Jack can’t tear himself away from his favourite videogame, he finds time passing quickly—scarily quickly. While it may not be among the best, everything about this episode is solid: it’s (appropriately) well paced, the relationships are soundly fleshed out, and it’s all wrapped up well.

14. ‘Itchy’ (Season 2, Episode 2)

It may have one of the show's sillier premises—the villains are... head lice—but I have a soft spot for ‘Itchy’. Perhaps it’s the setting: a military academy on an English island feels fresh when you compare it to the many identikit homes and high schools in the series. Perhaps it’s the strong performance from Oliver Finnegan as protagonist Gabe. Either way, there’s something low-key charming about this episode.

15. ‘Side Show’ (Season 1, Episodes 12 and 13)

This two-part season finale is set in the early 20th century and centres on a troupe of circus performance whose ringmaster won’t allow them to venture beyond a magical barrier. Overall, ‘Side Show’ isn’t especially creepy; it’s more of a fantasy story that feels like it could have been its own separate series. The advantage of this is that there’s more space for character development and worldbuilding. The disadvantage is that it doesn’t truly feel like part of the Creeped Out universe.

16. ‘A Boy Called Red’ (Season 1, Episode 5)

Vincent and his dad aren't getting along, but when they go to stay at the latter’s childhood home, Vincent finds an unusual way to reconnect: via a time-travelling portal. The switches between past and present are handled admirably, and Boris Burnell Anderson is a standout as AJ. There’s a lot to like about ‘A Boy Called Red’; it just doesn’t stand out as especially memorable when compared to some of the stronger Creeped Out stories, perhaps because there’s no real antagonist. 

17. ‘Bravery Badge’ (Season 1, Episode 7)

A troop of Girl Guides—sorry, ‘Hedgehog Rangers’—head into the woods for a camping trip. When the girls start falling into a strange trance, it’s up to a moody, reluctant Ranger to save the day. The setting here is promising, the campfire scene is a highlight, and the urban legend about the missing troop is a great touch. Unfortunately, the good stuff is undermined by questionable acting and a somewhat ridiculous supernatural menace. Though I will admit the singing is quite creepy.

18. ‘Shed No Fear’ (Season 1, Episode 10)

Set in the 1970s, with some decent period detail, this episode follows two boys as they battle a mysterious shadow-creature inhabiting an old shed. It’s cute to see Greg and Dave rekindle their friendship and tell the smarmy football captain to get lost, but the threat of the Shade is never particularly well-developed. The title also annoys me. Outside the context of this episode, nobody has ever uttered the phrase ‘shed no fear’. It isn’t even a good pun!

19. ‘The Unfortunate Five’ (Season 2, Episode 5)

Five kids in detention meet their match in a seemingly sweet, yoga-loving teacher who pits them against each other. Establishing five protagonists and two villains within the space of 25 minutes is a tall order, and it’s one this episode doesn't meet. ‘The Unfortunate Five’ has a good concept and also boasts one of the series’ goriest images (when Faye attacks Hawkins and blood spatters across the glass—I’m kind of surprised CBBC didn’t cut that). But the flimsy, unmemorable characters doom it to the lower reaches of this list.

20. ‘Only Child’ (Season 2, Episode 7) 

This could have been great: the story of a girl being menaced by her demonic baby brother, while her parents are convinced she’s just jealous, has lots of potential. Yet ‘Only Child’ doesn't really work. The denouement is rushed and muddled (exactly how does Mia identify the link between the baby’s power and the feedback sound?) and the low-budget special effects don't help. It also suffers from being set entirely within the Tuthill family’s apartment, which looks like a cheaply decorated show home. 

21. ‘Help’ (Season 2, Episode 3)

A very meh installment about a brother and sister who are overly reliant on their family’s Amazon Alexa-like virtual assistant. It’s basically a weaker version of ‘Marti’ with a much less impactful message. The siblings are barely fleshed out, and the episode shares with ‘Only Child’ a sterile-looking set that doesn’t resemble a real family home at all.

22. ‘Spaceman’ (Season 1, Episode 8)

If episodes like ‘Trolled’ and ‘No Filter’ represent what a show like Creeped Out should be, ‘Spaceman’ is exactly what it shouldn’t be. If ‘Cat Food’ proves how well humour can work within a scary story, ‘Spaceman’ shows exactly how it can go wrong. The tale of unlikely pals Spud and Thomas finding a crashed spaceship is by far the worst thing Creeped Out has come up with—it’s implausible, unfunny and not remotely creepy. Avoid.

[weekendwarriorblog]

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND May 10, 2019  - POKEMON: DETECTIVE PIKACHU, THE HUSTLE, TOLKIEN and More

It’s Mother’s Day weekend and while Avengers: Endgame seems to holding strong, we get four new movies in wide release, two of which I’ve seen, both of which are pretty decent. Unfortunately, due to illness, I’m running a bit late on this column, but I’ll try not to cut too many corners.

The big movie this weekend is POKÉMON: DETECTIVE PIKACHU (Warner Bros.), starring Ryan Reynolds as the voice of Pikachu and Justice Smith from Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, plus the likes of Bill Nighy and Ken Watanabe, the latter who seems to be Legendary Pictures’ go-to Japanese actor. (He’ll be appearing in Godzilla: King of the Monsters later this month.) I’m hoping to still get around to reviewing the movie, but I will say that I generally enjoyed it, even if my connection to the material was the old TV cartoon rather than any of the games. (Look for that review before Friday, if I’m able to get my ass gear. In the meantime, here’s my interview with director Rob Letterman.)

I’ve been interested in the Anne Hathaway-Rebel Wilson comedy THE HUSTLE (U.A. Releasing) since it was called “Nasty Women” and was a straight-up remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, but I just haven’t had time to catch the one press screening, so it looks like I’ll have to catch this sometime down the road.

And then there’s POMS (STXfilms), a new Diane Keaton comedy featuring an ensemble of actresses in their prime, including Pam Grier and Jacki Weaver. While this doesn’t look like my kind of movie, I totally would have gone to see it if I could, but I’m less apt to see it than The Hustle.

The other movie opening Friday which I’ve seen and enjoyed is TOLKIEN (Fox Searchlight), directed by Dome Karukoski (Tom of Finland) and starring Nicholas Hoult as J.R.R. Tolkien and Lily Collins as his wife Edith Bratt. I’m hoping this finds an audience, even though it’s obviously competing with much stronger and more high-profile films.

Mini-Review: I began to watch this movie with some trepidation, because at least at first, it seemed to be a typical biopic, much like director Dome Karukoski’s previous film. At least as the film began, it cut between Nicholas Hoult’s Tolkien while on the frontlines during WWII and his early schooldays at King Edwards and then Oxford, where he formed a bond with three other students.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure I necessary needed to see a Dead Poet’s Society type way of getting the viewer to know more about the fantasy author, but that’s just a very small part of the film. Where the film really picks up is when Hoult and Collins take over their respective roles, because this is when the romance between Tolkien and Edith becomes a larger part of the story. It’s a bittersweet tale where Tolkien is forced to pick going to Oxford over continuing this romance by Colm Meany’s pries, who has become Tolkien’s guardian after his mother dies suddenly. The majority of the film bounces between Tolkien in the trenches and dealing with school issues, being a poverty-stricken orphan, but he finds an ally in Derek Jacobi’s headmaster.

I’m constantly impressed by what Hoult has been doing as an actor as he gets older, but Collins really brings more to their scenes together than any of the classmates or acting veterans.

Tolkien is a flawed film for sure, but the last half hour is so abundantly full of feels it’s easy to forgive the earlier problems, as Tolkien seeks out one of his school chums on the battlefield, a part of the movie where Karukoski is allowed to shine as a director. (Honestly, I think Steven Spielberg would be quite proud if he made this movie, and that’s saying something.)

I’m not sure this movie will be for everyone, even those who love Tolkien’s work as much as I do, but as a testament to what an amazing life he had before he started writing The Hobbit, it’s quite an amazing story with a worthy film to tell it.

Rating: 8.5/10

You can find out my thoughts on the weekend box office over at The Beat.

LIMITED RELEASES

There’s actually some decent movies opening this weekend, but the one that I want to give special attention to is John Chester’s doc THE BIGGEST LITTLE FARM (NEON), which is all about how he and his wife Molly left their California apartment living behind to try to develop a 200-acre sustainable farm outside L.A.  For months, my favorite doc of the year was NEON’s Apollo 11 about the 1969 moon launch, but this quickly took it over after I saw it, because it’s amazingly educational in terms of what it takes to make a farm work. It also looks absolutely fantastic, and seeing the trailer in IMAX in front of Apollo 11 made me really want to see it. If you want to see a great doc that hopefully will be in theaters over the summer, then definitely look for this one. I’m sure it will open in a few cities Friday but hopefully NEON will do another great job getting out there as they did with Apollo 11 and Three Identical Strangers last year. This movie is a MUST SEE.

Kenneth Branagh directs and plays William Shakespeare in his new historical movie ALL IS TRUE (Sony Pictures Classics) which also costars Dame Judi Dench and Ian McKellen. It follows Shakespeare on his return home to Stratford after the Globe Theater has burned down, as he tries to reconnect with his older wife (Dench) and his two estranged daughters. This is a fine film if you’re a fan of Shakespeare’s works and were interested in knowing more about his last days, because it features a great script by Ben Elton, and fine performances by Branagh and Kathryn Wilder as his younger daughter Judith, who gets caught up in controversy while trying to find a husband. It will open in New York and L.A. this weekend, and you should look out for my interview with Sir Kenneth over at The Beat in the next couple days.

Opening at the Metrograph this week is Abel Ferrara’s PASOLINI (Kino Lorber), an amazing look at the Italian filmmaker as played by Willem Dafoe. I’m not particularly familiar with Pier Paolo Pasolini’s work, although the Metrograph did a pretty extensive retrospective last year. Like with All is True above, the movie covers the last days in the filmmaker’s life, and it proved to me that Dafoe is doing some of the best work of his career these days and like a few others (Woody Harrelson and Ethan Hawke, for instance), you can put Dafoe in your movie, and it will immediately make it better. I haven’t seen much of Ferrara’s recent work but I feel it’s been a while he’s been at the height of his greatness with Bad Lieutenant and King of New York, so it’s nice to see him creating a new movie in that general vein.  Apparently, Ferrara’s movie premiered at Cannes many, many moons ago, but I think it was a smart move by Kino Lorber to save the movie and give it a release. By pure coincidence… or not… MOMA has been having a Ferrara retrospective (see below), so if you haven’t been able to get up there and see the movie, then you now have a chance with Ferrara and Dafoe doing QnAs after a few showings this weekend.

Matt Smith plays cult leader Charles Manson in CHARLIE SAYS (IFC Films), the new movie from American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page director Mary Harron along with her frequent collaborator, writer Guinevere Turner. As a huge fan of their previous moviesand with interest in the subject matter, I’m not sure why I never got around to watching the screener I’ve had for months, but much of it has to do with how generally busy I’ve been. Anyway, it will open in around 35 theaters and be on VOD this weekend if you have similar interest.

Opening at the Film Forum Wednesday is Almedea Carracedo and Robert Bahar ‘s doc THE SILENCE OF OTHERS (Argot PIctures). Executive Produced and presented by Pedro Almodovar, this is an amazing film about the horrendous crimes committed under the Franco regime in Spain by people who were able to get away scott-free when it was decided to create an Amnesty Pact of “Forgiving” after Franco’s death. The thing is that there are people who had been tortured or had loved ones killed who are hoping to get justice or just get their bodies back from mass graves, and this doc covers those amazing efforts. Frankly, I found this film to be far more interesting than Joshua Oppenheimer’s similar films about the crimes by the Indonesian government in The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence.

The Quad Cinema will have two new exclusive releases starting Friday, beginning with Christian Carion’s French thriller MY SON (Cohen Media), starring Guillaume Canet as a man whose son has been kidnapped, so he travels across France to where his ex-wife (Melanie Laurent) lives to try to solve the crime.

Also, the Quad will be showing Nicolas Brown’s doc The Serengeti Rules (Abramorama), which looks at five ecologists who broke new ground with scientific concepts we take for granted, and it looks at how the Serengeti might be the place to look for civilizaton’s sustainable future.

Amy Poehler makes her feature directorial debut with the comedy Wine Country (Netflix), which is getting the usual nominal theatrical release in a handful of theaters but mostly will be on the streaming network. It co-stars long-tie Poehler pals Maya Rudoloph, Tina Fey, Ana Gasteyer and Paula Pell, but I’m excited to see it for Maya Erskine from the Hulu show Pen15 and the upcoming rom-com Plus One, which was one of my favorite movies at Tribeca. (Don’t worry.. I’ve started writing something about that festival, too, so stay tuned!)

Opening in New York at the Cinema Village and in L.A. at Arena Cinelounge is Akash Sherman’s Clara (Screen Media), starring Patrick J. Adams as Isaac Bruno, an astronomer looking for life beyond Earth. This becomes more of a reality when he meets Troian Bellisario’s artist Clara, who shares his interest in space.

After years of problems and lawsuits, Farhad Safinia’s The Professor and the Madman (Vertical) is finally seeing the light of day, no thanks to a lawsuit put on it by star and producer Mel Gibson, who plays Professor James Murray, who begins compiling the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, receiving 10,000 entries from Dr. William Minor (Sean Penn), who is a patient at a asylum for the criminally insane. I have no idea how bad this movie must be to be buried as long as it has, but it has a great cast including Eddie Marsan, Natalie Dormer, Stephen Dillane, Jennifer Ehle and Ioan Gruffudd, so how bad can it really be? Good luck finding it in theaters but it will prbobably be on VOD as well.

This week’s major Bollywood release is Student of the Year 2 (FIP), directed by Punit Malhotra. As you might guess, it’s a sequel to the 2012 romantic comedy, this one involving a love triangle between a guy and two girls, and it will be released in about 175 theaters on Friday.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Amy Poehler’s directorial debut WINE COUNTRY will begin streaming Friday, though I haven’t seen it yet, so instead, I’ll recommend Dava Whisenant’s fantastic doc Bathtubs over Broadway, which will premiere on Netflix Thursday. I missed this movie last year but I got to catch-up when it screened at the Oxford Film Festival in February, and it’s fantastic. It follows Letterman writer Steve Young as he follows his passion to find rare records featuring industrial musical numbers presented at corporate events throughout the ‘50s and later to energize employees.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

I’ve already mentioned how Playtime: Family Matineeshas become this cinematic comfort food that’s helped me relive my childhood, but this weekend, the shit gets real as they screen the 1977 action-adventure Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, featuring the stop-motion animation of the late Ray Harryhausen. I still remember first seeing The Golden Voyage of Sinbad at a drive-through in Framingham, Mass. when it first came out and I loved it so much I picked up the novelization. I wonder if I still have that somewhere. (I’m pretty sure I saw this sequel as well.) Late Nites at Metrographwill screen Lukas Moodysson’s 2002 film Lilya 4-Ever, as well as the not old enough to be repertory film Climaxby Gaspar Noe. (Lots of cool movies coming up in this series, as well.) Another series starting Friday is the first-ever New York retrospective of Japanese filmmaker Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, whose new movie Asako I & II will have its theatrical premiere at the Metrograph starting next week. I’m not too familiar with Hamaguchi’s work – though I’ve seen Asakoand generally liked it -- but I don’t think I’ll have the time to see his 5-hour long 2015 family drama Happy Hourany time soon. The series features seven of his movies, almost all of them shorter than Happy Hour. (2012’s Intimacies, showing a week from Thursday, is four hours long.)

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

After showing the Judy Garland version of A Star is Born  (1954) today at 2pm, the New Bev has double features of Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends (1978) and It’s My Turn (1980), the latter starring Jill Clayburgh and Michael Douglas, on Weds and Thurs. Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days (1995) and Lizzie Borden’s 1983 Born in Flames will screen on Friday and Saturday and then the 1933 film Christopher Strong (starring Katharine Hepburn) and Anybody’s Woman  (1930) will screen Sunday and Monday. The weekend’s KIDDEE MATINEE is the animated The Chipmunk Adventure  (1987) while the 1995 anthology Four Rooms (featuring one room by Tarantino) is the Friday midnight and Anna Biller’s 2016 film The Love Witch will screen midnight on Saturday. On top of that, there’s a special Cartoon Club on Saturday morning at 10AM and Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Love & Basketball  (2000) will screen Monday afternoon.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

It’s the last full weekend of Film Forum’s“Trilogies” series and on Thursday, they’re screening Whit Stillman’s (Is this a real title for the trilogy?) “Doomed. Bourgeois. In Love” trilogy Metropolitan (1990), Barcelona  (1994) and The Last Days of Disco (1998) with Stillman doing select intros and QnAs that day. Friday is Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s “BRD” Trilogy, including The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978), Lola  (1981)and Veronika Voss, and this weekend is a Carol Reed Post-War Noir Trilogy, including The Third Man  (1949). Saturday also sees a Michelangelo Antonioni trilogy including L’Avventura  (1960) and two other films from the Italian master. Sunday and Monday sees a very rare screening of Wim Wenders’ “Road Trilogy” including Kings of the Roadfrom 1976 and Alice in the Cities. Also, on Wednesday and Saturday is a repeat of a John Ford trilogy, including Rio Grande and Fort Apache, plus don’t forget the weekend’s family-friendly Film Forum Jr, which this weekend shows a bunch of cartoons from Bugs, Daffy and Friends. Obviously, there’s a lot going on at this venerable NYC arthouse and I hope to get to some of these now that Tribeca is over.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

If you live in L.A., you can spend a good part of your weekend at Maltin Fest 2019, taking place at the Egyptian Theater, which includes a really incredible series of screenings and events with special guests. Friday is Nicole Holefcener’s Please Give with Holefcener and frequent collaborator Catherine Keener on hand, plus a screening of Sing Street! Alexander Payne and Laura Dern will be there Saturday afternoon to screen the filmmaker’s early work Citizen Ruth, plus lots more! I also want to pay special attention to them showing the late Jon Schnepp’s doc The Death of “Superman Lives” on Saturday night.

AERO  (LA):

Thursday is a Christopher Munch double feature of The Hours and Times (1991) and The Sleepy Time Gal (2001) with Munch and the great Jacqueline Biset in person! Then it goes right into Starring Europe: New Films from the EU 2019 i.e. new films, not repertory but still interesting.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Waverly Midnights: Parental Guidance shows James Cameron’s Aliens (okay, am I crazy or do they show this every other month?), Weekend Classics: Love Mom and Dad  shows Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) and Late Night Favorites: Spring is the Coen Brothers’ Fargo (1996).

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

In the midst of Black 90s: A Turning Point in American Cinema, which will include Ice Cube’s Friday (on Friday, of course), as well as Set It Off, New Jack City, Belly, Straight Out of Brooklyn and Menace II Society over the weekend. Also, the late John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood will screen twice on Sunday as well as on Monday as part of the series.

MOMA (NYC):

Abel Ferrara: Unrated continues this week with repeats of 1998’s New Rose Hotel, 1993’s Body Snatchers and more recent films like 2017’s Piazza Vittorio and 2007’sGo Go Tales, and this series will continue next week. The current Modern Matiness will conclude with Pixar’s Up on Wednesday and Vincente Minnelli’s Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) on Weds and Thurs, respectively.

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

Panorama Europe continues through the weekend but that’s all new stuff, not repertory.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

Friday’s midnight screening is Wes Craven’s Shocker (1989) with a QnA… but not with Craven.. unless they plan the creepiest movie tie-in possible!

That’s it for this week but next week, we get John Wick Chapter 3 and more!

[jonjost]

Dublin, Trinity College

Since last posting here, time seems to have zipped along with my geographic coordinates. From Belfast to Dublin to Amsterdam and Brussels, a jaunt to Ghent, Paris, Locarno, Cassina Amata near Milano, Piangipane near Ravenna, Bologna and now in Mondello, on the flanks of Palermo.  Each not only a physical place, unique to itself, but a node of personal acquaintances, people known decades and brand new, each in the midst of their own jangled worlds. I soak it in, inquisitive as ever, in the moment and then on leaving one place and entering another, into a new world.  It’s been ever so for me.

In Dublin, generously hosted by Maeve Foreman, I was lucky to have a little inside edge. Maeve is well-connected with her neighborhood and her city, and that opened doors that otherwise would surely have remained closed.  Lucky me, I got a better glimpse of the place than I would have otherwise.  Thanks Maeve.

Maeve Foreman

The Long Room, library at Trinity College, where Maeve taught

The museums in Dublin are all free, so I wasn’t economically locked out as I am in many places asking 20 or 25 Euro to enter, so I had a nice look at what was available to see.  A pleasure.  For more on Dublin see this.

[Maeve is the mother of Donal Foreman, whose film The Image You Missed has been getting extensive and well-deserved exposure on the global festival circuit.  Once I again get settled down it’s my intention to write a long piece on it.  If you haven’t seen, try to – it is a wonderful, highly watchable, complex film and personal film which manages to expand itself into the universal.]

Next was Amsterdam where I was able to see long-term friend Errol Sawyer, since 1964, and stay a week thanks to Mathilde.  While there I got to see the people at Eyefilm, the Netherlands archive, which holds all my originals and is in process of making 4K prints of some of them.  Had a talk about what more needs to be done.  Slow going but going.

Museums… well, I was priced out.  And even in this way-out-of-season time, Amsterdam was crawling with too many tourists, warping the ambience of the city into a playground of a kind that is becoming all too familiar around the globe.

Buddha and me

And then it was on to Brussels, to visit with Peter and Karolina, now in a new place.  And where I had screenings at the old Nova-Cinema, where I’d done screenings some ages ago.  They went well, with nice audiences and good Q&A’s.  Thanks to Katia, who was running the place way back when and still does.  As well had a screening at the film school there, thanks to Justin McKenzie Peers, who, despite his name, is French, studying for now in Brussels.  He also helped organize the Nova-Cinema showings and is doing some translations for some of my films.  And also appears to be writing perhaps a grad thesis or something on my work.

A surprise for me was that in one of the screenings a 16mm print of Angel City was shown, which seemed pristine and clean.  I at first thought that Eyefilm had made a new copy and not told me, but it turned out it was one that I had sent them.  I urgently wish to get a 4K print of it, along with one of Last Chants for a Slow Dance, an archival print of which Eyefilm has made before either gets dinged up.  Things to do or get done.

Managed some museums in Brussels, including the Magritte one, which was a bit of a revelation, as it covered his early work, and his Warhol-like self-promotion.   He is, in my view, like Warhol in that he is less an artist than a graphics person – someone who illustrates ideas rather than actually “paints.”  A curious distinction perhaps, but one I think is valid.

The classical arts museum in Brussels has a wonderful collection of Breughels and other painters of that time and that snared me some hours.

Brussels

While in Brussels managed a day-trip to Ghent, not so far away – one of many places I’ve missed over the years, along with Antwerp and, oh hell, a lot of other places.

Ghent

And then it was on to Paris to visit Mark Rappaport, and get in just little bit of a city I’d lived in for nearly a year and a half back in 1997-98.  Mark was doing fine, busy making new video essays, of which I saw a handful I’d not seen before.  Mark is a wizard, making things about topics I don’t much give a damn about (arcane film lore and history) come alive and branch out far from cinemania into fascinating and engaging social essays. One of them had me in tears at the end, another busting my gut laughing!  The ones I saw were America’s Grandpa, about Walter Brennan, and soon to be available on Kanopy and I, Dalio.   He’s busy working on a new one now.

Also stayed a few days with Peter Friedman who was finishing a long documentary, a cinéma vérité portrait of a big time opera director, Robert Carsen, filmed working on an  adaption Leonard Bernstein’s Candide. I got to see this film and liked it quite a lot. It covered both the technical and preparatory stuff of putting on a really big piece of theater, and then on working with the singers, the “directing.”  Fascinating stuff and well done cinema-wise.  A pleasure.

Like Amsterdam, Paris crawled with tourists in the no longer existent off-season, and seemed much the worse for it.  Mass tourism is a pox of globalism.  I wonder what will happen to all these places that now rely on tourism as a major cash-crutch when the economy goes poof, and the tourists disappear?  I know all too many places which put a lot of eggs in the tourism basket and are utterly vulnerable to this most certain collapse.

One of the many effects of neo-liberal globalism

Paris

Also managed to see Emmannuele Chaulet, who played a lead role in 1999 in All the Vermeers in New York.  I hadn’t seen her in nearly three decades !  A nice talkative lunch with a lot to catch up on.

And I tried to rendezvous with the Gilets Jaunes, just to get a look, and went to where they were supposed to be, but did not see them.  I think they are being wily and saying they’ll be in place X to draw the police there, and then they materialize somewhere else.  Here a month now since I was there they are still around though the media seems to do its best to ignore them – a little corporate commentary in that?  Especially the American press.  And Macron has enlisted the military to attempt to impose control.

I took a train on to Milano for a quick stop to leave things with the Grassi/Rebosio’s before heading on to Locarno to do something for Lech Kowalski – I didn’t really know what he wanted, but was game for whatever.  On the ride through Grenoble, in the French Alps, I noticed there was only snow, and not so much, at the highest elevations of the surrounding mountains.  Normally there would be a lot of snow on the ground in the city at this time of year.

In Locarno Lech did a multiple camera thing of me talking, not being interviewed, on subjects he guided me towards with his students manning the cameras and sound.  Await word from him on just how it worked for him and am ready to do more on request. Along the way part of my job was to go with eager students enamored of the wonders of real film (celluloid) and shoot a bit – me, the grizzled old dinosaur of “real film.”  I have zero romance for celluloid, so it was a curious exercise.   I think the experience may have disabused them of any fantasies about it.

While in Locarno I noticed there too the mid-winter mountains empty of snow.  A dammed reservoir we went to see was maybe 1/3rd full.  The river below it was a not even a trickle.

Dam near Locarno

Back outside of Milano, in Cassina Amata, I stayed a week with Tilde and Luciano.  When Tilde was 10, in 1962, her family had picked my up hitch-hiking outside of Como, and taken me home and in a curious turn of events I returned and spent 2 months with them in 1963, shooting my first film as a portrait of Tilde.  A year later I returned another month and they (the Rebosio’s) somehow became “family.”   I tried to find them for some decades afterwards and failed, but courtesy of FaceBook, about 8 years or was it 7 or 6, we reconnected and I’ve visiting a handful of times since.  To “family.”  Life is very weird.

The last evening there, Luciano and Tilde took me out to Monza, site of the famed Formula 1 racetrack, to a fish place were we had a wonderful and vast serving of fried (lightly) sea things, most delicious.  As we walked there we went by the river, the Lambro, which flows down from the mountains into the Po.   Except it wasn’t there, rather a concrete trench with a few puddles.  Luciano said he had never seen it like that.

House in Cassina Amata, 1963

Tilde in my first film, Portrait

Then took a train on down to little Piangipane, a village not far from Ravenna, there to re-record music we’d done in autumn of 2017.  I’d not been happy with my voice or my guitar playing and asked Christian Ravaglioli if I could take another stab at it, having practiced in the intervening year and more, and feeling much more at ease and confident in both voice and playing.  We ended re-recording most of the songs and he agreed it was much better.  Albums are due out in June or so.   One solo and one a mix of my work and Christian’s.  When they do come out I’ll post word here.

Christian Ravaglioli

From Piangipane it was to nearby Bologna, to visit my friend Pina, who was just quitting her job after 15 years as a chef in a vegetarian restaurant in the middle of the city, to strike out on her own.  She has one book, Vegetaliana, a vegetarian cookbook rooted in Italian cuisine, and just collaborated on another project centered on Bologna’s most famous artist of late, Giorgio Morandi.

Pina Siotto

Bologna

And then it was on to Palermo, where I’d originally planned to spend the time looking around for a place to live for the coming year or more, before returning to the USA for retrospectives planned for autumn-winter 2020.  But in the interim a proposal came in from the US West Coast, which altered my plans.  So following a stop in London to see friends it will be on to Seattle and a new adventure.  See how it all works out.

In Palermo its been a mix of take-it-easy in Mondello, the next door beach town of Palermo, where off-season the weekdays have been quiet, though nice weather has pulled in hordes on the week-ends.

And when the weather has been nice I’ve been going into Palermo, a city I really like, and nosing around.  And finding out my 75 year old creaking body ain’t like it was and finds a day of walking around, looking, taking a ton of photos, is rather taxing and am inclined to take a break the next day, whatever the weather.  Learning to be “old.”

  Baroque Palermo – there’s a lot of it

And quotidian pedestrian Palermo

Palermo has passed through many hands over time, like all of Sicily.  Greek, Roman, Arab, Norman, and on up to American GI’s not so long ago.  All those who seized it or just passed through left their marks, and the the result is a rich intaglio of cultures, in contemporary lingo, a real culture-mashup, a mix-down.  But this one has passed through millennia, and is all the richer for the ripe patina of time.   Often this can result in an oppressive sensibility, that history weighs heavy on the present and acts as a psychic/creative block.  But I don’t sense this in Palermo, which, perhaps thanks to the many immigrants present – from North Africa, and black Africa, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, and many other places – seems alive and vivid.  It is a city once opulently rich, with a vast array of monumental buildings to show it, and then battered by poverty, the Mafia, and left in the wayside of history.   Not long ago it had been written off as a hopeless wreck, as destroyed as the cars of Falcone and Borsellino were by Mafia assassination bombs.

Since then the city has recovered, in part thanks to a new mayor, Leoluco Orlando, who has largely been credited with the turn-around.    He was originally elected in 1993 and stayed to 2000; in 2012 he was again elected and is the current sindaco.  And surely also instrumental were large student demonstrations against the Mafia in the wake of the murders of the jurists.

In the last 10 years there has been, as elsewhere in the world, a process of gentrification here, though frankly it seems not to have done much damage so far, and some perhaps has been good for the city, like two major streets in the center of town, Emmanuelle Vittorio, and Via Maqueda being turned into pedestrian areas for a bit, along with a few smaller adjacent streets here and there.

Palermo, Palermo, Palermo.  A riotous dream.

  The Oratorio of Santa Cita, by Giacomo Serpotta

And so much more, but for the moment I am out the door for a last go around in Palermo before heading off to London tomorrow.  Tickets in hand.  Moving.

  A Traveler’s Notes Dublin, Trinity College Since last posting here, time seems to have zipped along with my geographic coordinates.

[sevendeadlyseans]

10 (or 11) Movies Released Last Year That I Really Liked, 2016 Edition

Before I get to my “official” Top 10, one title has been excluded for consideration due to conflict of interest, but would otherwise top my list.  

Darling

Mickey Keating’s 3rd feature (produced by the fabulous Jenn Wexler, a.k.a. my girlfriend) is, of course, my favorite film of the year. I’ve seen it three times in theaters—twice in 2015 on the festival circuit, and again last April on opening night—and still keep finding new, subtle things about it to love.

The story: a young woman is paid to housesit a glorious old building while its eccentric owner is away. Is the house haunted? Is she unhinged? Maybe both? Star Lauren Ashley Carter—rightly recognized as “the Audrey Hepburn of indie horror” by The Austin Chronicle, is in almost every frame of the film and is never short of mesmerizing, whether answering the telephone, putting on make-up or getting her hands dirty by...well, let’s not give away the fun. 

The black and white cinematography is gorgeous, the score crawls under your skin and the editing is legit terrifying. Watch with the lights out.

And now back to our official, less personally biased top 10, in order...

Moonlight

Without question, the most accomplished, most moving film of 2016. 

James Joyce once noted, “In the particular is the universal.” Moonlight is atop my list in no small part because it’s so breathtaking in its particular intimacies. 

Moonlight is like Boyhood on a budget: it drops us into three important periods in the life of a boy who becomes a teen who becomes a man—at first bullied and confused, increasingly neglected by his crack-addicted mother and influenced by a kind-hearted, drug-dealing surrogate father. We see him harden, over time, under the pressure of a world with no use for softness, and then, perhaps, reconnecting with a lost bit of himself, at long last.  

Writing that synopsis, it strikes me how easily such a story could have tipped into cliché and melodrama. Perhaps because writer/director Barry Jenkins and playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney are both from the Liberty City projects themselves. their knowledge—coupled with a great cast, an impeccable soundtrack, a deft use of color and Jenkins’ masterful control of tone—l gives Moonlight specificity, and that makes it universal.

Jackie

Tone is a theme for the first three films on my 2016 list—four if you count Darling, and you most definitely should. Pablo Larrain’s Jackie puts us inside the experience of First Lady Jackie Kennedy in the aftermath of JFK’s assassination, in a way I never thought I could experience:

Your husband was just murdered; his blood is on your dress. Your life is cracked, and even if you put the pieces back together, nothing will ever be the same. Oh, and he’s the president—was the president—so your country is broken, too. History has its eye on you, so while the crushing weight of grief bears down, try to look good for the cameras. It’s only his legacy at stake.

It seems ludicrous to say that Oscar-nominated Natalie Portman is underrated, but somehow she is—and I adored her in Black Swan. In Jackie, she’s working at another level. Open and wounded when no one but us can see, calculating and brittle and angry before an eager reporter. I am excited to see Portman does next.

Special mention to Mica Levi’s score, her second feature after 2013′s Under the Skin. Can’t wait to hear what she does next, too. 

The Witch

Someone had the terrible idea to market The Witch as “the year’s scariest movie.” It’s not, nor is it trying to be. It is, however, among the most unsettling films of this year or any other. (Again: tone.)  

The story: it’s 17th century New England. William, his wife Katherine, and their five children have been kicked out of the settlement being too religious (it seems, or perhaps just too self-righteous) and must find a way to survive on their own on the fringes of the deep, dark wood. 

Before you have time to wonder if the titular witch might be metaphoric, she shows up and does something unspeakable to William and Katherine’s newborn son. Things go downhill from there, exacerbated by both outside, malevolent forces and unacknowledged tensions within the family unit.

The Witch looks gorgeous, as well it should. First-time director Robert Eggers made his bones as a production and costume designer, and reportedly built an actual, mostly working 17th century farm for the film. Even the dialogue itself was built out of scraps of things people wrote and said back then. You can feel the authenticity, which makes the family’s isolation feel that much more acute and dangerous. 

O.J.: Made in America

Bob Dylan never asked “How many minutes does a film have to be, before we can call it TV?” but the answer, my friend, is probably not much more than the 467 minute runtime of Ezra Edelman’s O.J.: Made in America. (For comparison, that’s almost 3 hours longer than a full season of HBO’s Veep.)

It doesn’t help that it was produced by ESPN, or that it aired on that cable network less than a month after it’s Oscar-qualifying theatrical run. And yet...it was my favorite documentary in a year of many great docs (more on that later), so if wants to call itself a movie, I’ll roll with it.

2014 marked the 20th anniversary of the murders. The revived attention around the so-called “trial of the century” led to two great works of art, Edelman’s doc and FX’s American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson. (One can only wonder how our present political moment will be filtered through the culture of 2018).

Rather than produce O.J. overload, the two projects complement one another—the dramatic series taking us inside the lives and hearts of key figures on both legal teams, while the doc simultaneously expands the scope and deepens the focus—showing us more about who O.J. was before, during and after, and what America was and still is, especially but not only in Los Angeles, but also in Ferguson, on Staten Island, everywhere. If it takes Edelman 8 hours to set up all details to knock us down with his larger point, well, that’s 8 hours well spent. 

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrB3rOcrJxg&list

The Lobster

Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth was one of my favorite movies of 2010. He’s back on the list with a film that’s just as strange but far more accessible. 

I love absurdism, deadpan humor, magical realism and dystopian fantasy, but I can’t recall a film that manages the trick of juggling all three at once as The Lobster does—with an honest-to-goodness love story right there in the middle.

I’ll skip the premise—if you don’t know it, watch the trailer. 

The cast is great, and Colin Farrell is a revelation, topping my previous Farrell favorite, the criminally under seen In Bruges. Lanthimos packs the film with small details that make the surreal world of The Lobster believable. The first shot packs an entire story of love, betrayal and murder (which is never revisited) into a single, long take. And its final, wrenching moments will stay with me forever. 

Film critic Britt Hayes got to the heart of the filmmaker’s uncanny alchemy when she noted “Lanthimos doesn’t heighten reality to an absurd degree; he heightens the absurdity of our existing reality.” Or put another way, he doesn’t add absurdity, he just turns the heat up on reality and our own absurdity bubbles to the surface.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTNZmOJxuAc

Hail, Caesar!

There’s this other movie that’s sort of a throwback to old Hollywood, with some singing and dancing in it. That movie’s fine, but don’t hold your breath, it didn’t make my list. For my money, the real love letter to Hollywood—and why the movie industry matters—came from the Coen Brothers. 

Now, it wouldn’t be a Coens movie if that tender heart weren’t covered under many layers of arch cynicism, stylized reference bordering on “acting” “in” “quotation” “marks” and the occasional silliness. But you don’t have to peel much of it away to see the real love they have for not just the magic of movies but also the joy in so many abandoned film genres that once ruled the box office—be they Gene Kelly musicals, Gene Autry oaters or C.B. DeMille bible epics, to name but a few recreated here. 

For me, Hail, Caesar! sits perfectly between the sour cynicism of the Hollywood in Woody Allen’s misanthropic Cafe Society and the false romanticism of the ambition-for-ambition’s sake “dreamers" of La La Land who prize the warmth of the spotlight over any real human affection. 

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NYpz_j3e38

13th

Ava DuVernay’s 13th is a civics lesson for a country in dire need of one. With a controlled but searing ferocity, the documentary lays out the case that the 13th amendment allowed the continuation of a system of oppression and control not all that from slavery: the criminal justice system. If you haven’t read your Constitution lately, here’s a refresher on the 13th, the amendment that ostensibly ended slavery:

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

This one, terrible clause not just perpetuated slavery under another name but incentivized an expansion of the definition of criminality, in order to profit from the subjugation of mostly brown and black bodies, which has led to an explosion in America’s incarcerated population. In effect, through laws designed to maintain segregation, blackness itself has been criminalized.

With Jim Crow, redlining, lynching (terrorism by another name) and the like, the 13th has led to a more unequal society—and, indirectly, to leaders who lie and stoke racial, as well as religions and ethnic, divisions in order to maintain the ever-growing class divide from which they profit. 

This poor summation doesn’t do justice to the full weight of the case DuVernay and her experts make, or how well they make it. 13th should be required viewing by everyone, but most of all by those who hold the power to make and enforce the law.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V66F3WU2CKk

The Love Witch

Let’s start with the obvious: Anna Biller’s The Love Witch is a gorgeous film. Turn the sound off, re-order the scenes at random and you still can’t take your eyes off what looks like a lost Technicolor American Giallo from 1972. Biller not only wrote, edited and directed the film but also handled production design, art direction, set decoration and costuming, almost single-handedly crafting one of the best looking films of 2016. 

Beneath that dazzling frosting is a rich, feminist layer cake. Elaine is a witch specializing in sex magic, who believes her path to happiness lies in finding the right man, seducing him and pleasing him in every way. On paper, she’s a patriarchy’s dream come true. But when these lustful men inevitably fall short—as they all must, as patriarchy itself is built on a lie—she gets rid of them, permanently. Poor, unfulfilled Elaine. 

The Love Witch is Biller’s own magic trick, casting its spell over us with its color, its throwback ‘70s sexploitation vibe and its razor-sharp message we don’t notice until the blade has slid, quietly, between our ribs and stabbed us in the heart. Metaphorically.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXjDEDYlu7c

I, Daniel Blake

Daniel Blake has spent a lifetime working with his hands, supporting a modest but pleasant life for himself and his late wife. After a heart attack, his doctors tell him he’s not fit to return to work—yet with a simple questionnaire (and absent any input from his doctors), the government’s welfare bureau deems him too fit to qualify for disability. 

He can apply for unemployment benefits, but only if he’s actively seeking work—work which, according to his doctors, he can’t accept. Caught in a catch-22, he must appeal to an unreachable “decision-maker” for relief—provided he can find a way, without income or assistance, to get by while he waits. Then Daniel meets a single mother in stuck in a similar situation and does his best to help her struggling family, even as his own situation grows worse.

Ken Loach’s drama won the Palm D’Or at Cannes but has received not much notice since then, at least outside the UK, perhaps because of the specific criticism of the British welfare bureaucracy at the heart of the story. But you don’t need much imagination to see how things can be as bad or worse for the many Daniel Blakes of this country.

Loach has been making socially conscious films about the struggles of the working and lower classes for longer than I’ve been alive. As with Jenkins and Moonlight, it’s clear Loach knows this world, these people and their struggles, and knows how to tell their particular stories in a simple yet powerful, moving and universal way.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4KbJLpu7yo

The Handmaiden

Apologies if you’re getting whiplash. I went from a highly stylized Love Witch to a pared-down I, Daniel Blake. Now I’m going to swing back the other way with Park Chan-Wook’s sensual, sensuous The Handmaiden. 

As has been the case in years prior, the 10th (really, 11th) and final spot on my list could have gone to a number of worthy films, and almost did—I began writing up another film here before realizing there’s no way I could round out 2016 without giving The Handmaiden its due.  (Sorry, Elle!)

The story of The Handmaiden is...too complex to go into here, frankly. There’s a con man and his female accomplice. There’s a rich heiress and her controlling uncle. Some of them are Japanese occupiers; others native Koreans. Oh, ands there’s a library of dirty, dirty books. 

Cons are conned, crosses are doubled, no one is quite who they pretend to be and everyone is up to something. In the end, something real is found and, through it, freedom is won.

The Handmaiden is a thriller as elegant as it is perverse. Every change in perspective brings new meaning to all that’s come before. Every twist revealed is a delight. Park Chan-Wook is at the top of his game.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4Z5jfjxdvQ

Honorable Mentions & More 

Wait, don’t get up. There’s more! 

First, let’s start with honorable mentions that you already know are great: 

Paul Verhoeven’s psychological thriller Elle, which features Isabelle Huppert in one of my favorite performances of the year, or maybe ever.

Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival, which goes on my list of essential smart science fiction, along with Gattaca, Ex Machina, Primer and Under the Skin, to name a few.

Sing Street, one of the most joyful films of the year. A misfit ‘80s Irish teen starts a band so he can cast the girl he likes in their highly creative music videos. From John Carney, the filmmaker behind the equally charming Once.

Nicolas Winding Refn’s mad look at fashion, envy and unchecked ambition (kind of the anti-La La Land?), The Neon Demon.  

Next, films that might have been off your radar but are well worth seeking out:

Benjamin Dickinson’s Creative Control, a very-near-future sci-fi film about augmented reality, and the augmented lives we all want to pretend we’re living (at least on Instagram). A must-see for all my friends in media, marketing or technology. 

Elizabeth Wood’s directorial debut, White Girl, in which a New York City undergrad moves to Queens, dates her local corner drug dealer and learns first hand the limits of her privilege in both their lives.

Taika Waititi’s The Hunt for the Wilderpeople, a reluctant buddy comedy/coming-of-age film that’s way more fun than it has any right to be.

Todd Solondz’s Weiner-Dog, a dark, dark comedy stringing together four tales of unhappy people, all of whom at one point own the same sad canine. Or, for you hard-core cineastes: Au Hasard Dachshund.

American Honey, Andrea Arnold’s sprawling tale of wayward youth living for the moment across a vast swath of America, high and low.

The animated documentaries Tower, which looks back on America’s first campus mass shooting in a surprisingly moving way, and Nuts!, which is the rare doc with an unreliable narrator, which fits the unreliable (Trump-like) conman at the center of its story. 

Julian Rosefeldt’s Manifesto, which I was fortunate enough to experience as a multi-screen installation at the Park Avenue Armory but has been adapted (rather successfully, it seems) as a traditional film. Either way, Cate Blanchett takes on a dozen different guises in a sequence of stunning short films, the text of each comprised of bits of famous manifestos, from Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto to Jim Jarmusch’s Golden Rules of Filmmaking. 

And last, because the horror genre in near and dear to my heart, here’s #4-#10 on my year’s best horror list. (The top 3 being Darling, The Witch and The Love Witch.)

The Invitation

Green Room

Demon

Under the Shadow

Train to Busan

10 Cloverfield Lane

Southbound

Honorable mention: the “Happy Father’s Day” segment of Holidays

Past years: 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008

[shapshapproject]

Transcending borders and connecting global imaginaries

by Lindi Mngxitama

Playing at the Antigel Festival for SHAP SHAP has always been a dream of mine, especially after watching videos of FAKA’s performances there over the years. It was probably due to the nature of COVID-19 making electronic music more accessible globally, and me choosing to focus on promoting myself globally — because there wasn't an option of shows and stuff like that during lockdown — that made the opportunity to be able to play a festival like this possible. Overall, it was an awesome experience, and although it was virtual it still felt like I was on a global stage amongst some really great artists.

Says producer and Roses are Red record label founder Rose Bonica speaking about SHAP SHAP’s annual programme at Antigel Festival, but more specifically, speaking about the 6th edition of WHAT’S UP?. Creatively connecting people and using physical and digital stages to take action against global inequalities and discrimination, this year’s Antigel Festival found itself evolving in form and having to adapt in its possibilities of engagement due to the pandemic all of the world has been — and is still currently living through — in all of our varying and intersecting realities across the globe. “Over the last years ANTiGEL Festival has grown to become one of the largest cultural events in Geneva. By bringing artistic experience to parts of the city that are detached from this kind of engagement, the festival aims to be a reminder of the importance of making spaces for arts and culture”, remaining committed to this mission even within the setting of our current pandemic dystopian reality. This year’s ANTIGEL X SHAP SHAP WHAT’S UP? programme was curated in collaboration with Johannesburg's own Cuss Group, DJ, artist and self-named proud eurolatina Anita Kirppis (Geneva-San Salvador), Maïté Chénière AKA DJ Mighty (Geneva) and BATEKOO (Rio de Janeiro).

A non-profit organisation founded in 2015, SHAP SHAP is invested in taking action against global inequalities, racial and gender discriminations through artistic cultural projects. The festival’s curatorial and creative methodology is one rooted in collaboration — with both artists and scholars, to contribute to: “1) strengthening the artistic, social, political and economic status of emerging and off-the-grid artists from the Global South and from minorities who need support to emerge locally and internationally 2) facilitating international mobility 3) raising awareness on inequalities and discriminations 4) fostering dialogues”. The program at Grand Central STREAM Antigel 2021 unfolded over a course of 23 days from February 5th - 27. Self-named as eurolatina in a move towards the search for a better understanding of her identity because as Anita expresses:

I left my country very young (El Salvador) to come to Europe. A that time I was still searching to understand my identity as I was defined as a Salvadorian immigrant in Europe but when I was coming back to see my family every year I felt [like a] ‘foreigner’ in my own country. In a constant back and forth in every part of my life, even in my art studies I was lost. Nowadays, half of my life it has been built in Europe with codes, cultural and political references that I’ve mixed up with my Salvadorian background. I think that I’m finally embracing this richness and the complexity of this multiple identity and I’m more aware to reflect this on my dj sets. Kirppis’ Central America What’s Up, kicked off the festivities and in our conversation reflecting on the experience she shares that: Being part of this project, it was like I found allies who do things with careness and understanding about the issues that me or any other artist coming from the Global South could encounter during their career. Having this structure [that] backups and defends your positions, your ideas and your projects, is like a deep breath of clean and fresh air coming from the pacific ocean.

The artists who made up Kirppis’ segment included the collective Ghetto Witchez and musician El irreal Veintiuno. Speaking to first time participant El irreal Veintiuno — whose musical practice is rooted in capturing the sounds of his country — about his experience, especially within the festival’s 2021 virtual form, he shares:

It has definitely been a new experience and what we are living [through] with this pandemic, was not an impediment [on] the experience of connecting with people from all over the world. Through a screen [it became] possible, you know it is curious how between countries there are giant walls, and with the help of technology you can put an end to those walls. It is simply magical, although to be honest, I like to think about the fact of being there physically with people dancing, enjoying and feeling each song you are playing. I hope at some point in life it is possible.

For Ghetto Witchez’ REBURRA, the festival helped her reconnect with her creative side which had been suffering from a pandemic induced lull as she expresses:

Personally it was a positively challenging experience, it helped me wake up my creative side and shake off lots of heavy feelings I had bottled up during most of 2020. In El Salvador the quarantine restrictions were specially hard during the first months of the pandemic. So, most of us where just locked in our houses scared for our lives and listening to the president’s long misinformed press conferences. It was hard, my heart and mind where not that well recovered from the quarantine experience and there where moments I just wanted to go back in time. So I decided to make our participation in SHAP SHAP’s programme at Antigel festival an excuse to revisit this Salvadoran fantasy land I’ve created in mind and heart — [to] revisit all those feel good and pretty things that connect me with my country. All the footage we added to the set visuals and the intros are part of a well know Salvadoran cultural phenomenon or landmark from my generation’s childhood, that have a special place in my mind and heart. This way, we made of our participation a way of healing my reality at the time and I really appreciated that. It was a bright spot during dark days.

Week two which was curated by Mzansi’s own Cuss Group, under the programme segment South Africa, What’s Up started off on February 12th. Not their first #me at the rodeo — 2021 marks Cuss Group’s 5th year participating in the festival, however, this #me bringing along new home grown talent and first #me festival participants to fill their segment. Rose Bonica — “your favourite producers’ favourite producer” and X14. As mentioned before part of SHAP SHAP’s intention and focus is “strengthening the artistic, social, political and economic status of emerging and off-the-grid artists from the Global South and from minorities who need support to emerge locally and internationally and facilitating international mobility”. This in-turn creates space and opportunity for dialogue and cultural/artistic exchange that is able to imagine beyond the limitations of the nation state and its borders. Speaking about the value of this work and intention Rose shares:

I mean, it's extremely valuable. I live in a country where the arts, especially underground electronic music, is barely funded so these kinds of opportunities are truly valuable. And being able to perform on a global and diverse stage is such a great opportunity for any artists with the added financial stability that the festival offers, I honestly couldn't think of anything better. The experience also pushed her where her own creative methodology and confidence are concerned, revealed as she expresses that she found it really difficult: to translate my live performances into a virtual space and the whole process of filming and editing the performances together often feels draining. My self-confidence generally takes quite a big dip and before the stream starts I feel like it's just all going to be a big flop. My experience with SHAP SHAP was really reassuring. And for the first time since I started doing any type of virtual streams I went into it feeling a little more confident, and feeling like I was a part of something.

X14 — also a first time participant — expresses having no expectations as he went into the festival, however, feeling robbed of his first international trip due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, sharing some more he states “my journey as X14 has allowed me to get proximate to artists whose work I really admire, one of [them] being Naledi Chai. I told her about it and she immediately hit me with the vision for what you saw... she helped me communicate something raw and beautiful”.

Friday February 19 ushered in week three curated in collaboration with Afro Futurist DJ, founding member of the House of Butch Xtra and artist Maïté Chénière. The first time I engaged with Chénière’s work was through their first solo exhibition, Octavial Scape, which mapped different modes of refusal and resistance in the forms of music, popular culture, academia and storytelling against the backdrop of the Atlantic — a central site of subjugation in the Transatlantic slave trade and node among a global community. Like Cuss Group, this was not Maïté’s first time participating in the festival either, having have been part of it before as both collaborating curator and participant (DJ). Roles which require one to show up in/from a particular way. I ask them about how the experience of those two roles matched up, and which may have been more challenging to which they respond:

There is always this duality in my practice, artist/DJ and curator. It’s been a journey to find balance between those two and it's a constant work in progress. In the context of An-gel, I guess the most challenging for me was to curate. I proposed a line up within SHAP SHAP's program, within Grand Central's program, within An-gel's program. It's a lot of circles to navigate and sometimes you risk losing touch with the core intent. I find it hard to imagine that working within such a collaborative and far reaching way — especially within the framework of challenges presented by COVID-19 — wouldn’t affect/effect ones own relationship with their artistic practice. Asking Maïté about this they express that: When I arrived in Geneva I noticed a gaping hole in the night scene. What brought me to Dj-ing is that I was tired of looking for myself in those white spaces. Then I began hosting the Archipelagogo Club events dedicated to celebrating club culture and its originators; queer people of colour. These are trans-disciplinary events fostering artistic creation and community at a local level but also with international artists. Through the SHAP SHAP residency I got to meet artists from South Africa: Moonchild Sanelly, GYRE, Angel Ho, Griffit Vigo, Desire, DJ Candi, CUSS group. And we produced music in Johannesburg together with Bone Black and Dokta Spizee (The Good Dokta). This opened all kinds of places in me and brought the realisation in my flesh of the necessity to shift from the western gaze as an active practice.

The final week — week four curated in collaboration with BATEKOO. Speaking to Mauricio Bahia Sacramento aka FreshPrincedabahia — ceo/founder and creative director at BATEKOO — I learn that their own approach to their sonic craft is rooted in taking “cultural trips in the musicalities produced in the peripheries of Brazil and the world”, a mode of research which as he expresses “has always been present in my life as a dj and as a creator, I needed to do this analysis when creating BATEKOO, for example”. For BATEKOO, the festival’s 2021 virtual form also spoke to “the moment of transition” he thinks we are currently in as he shares, “I think we are going through a moment of transformation, and we will always take positive balances out of it. I believe that in the future we will use more internet tools to spread information, entertainment and learning”. Cultural happenings like this are imperative as “it is very important that today the cultural class and large companies look for ways to reframe the present and help each other in a 360 way”. If anything SHAP SHAP program at Grand Central Antigel was a creative manifestation of the fact — to quote Anita Kirppis — that “the boundaries are [being] pushed, [and] the forces are changing”.

[pnca-animated-arts]

Interview with Maeve Callahan!

Maeve Fianna Callahan, a 2008 PNCA alumnus whose senior thesis was a stop motion film. Currently she is a professional puppet fabricator who specializes in costumes, hair, and connecting to the magic enveloping everyday life! We recently had the privilege to meet up with Maeve and find out what she’s been up to since graduating PNCA.

Hi Maeve, thank you for coming down here! What have you been up to since graduating PNCA?

Thank you for inviting me! I’m delighted to reconnect with PNCA. I graduated in ‘08 and the Animated Arts department as a major wasn’t formed quite yet so I was an Intermedia major. The amazing Rose Bond was my thesis advisor and she believed in me even when my project was almost too ambitious. After I completed my thesis, a stop motion film, which took a lot of work and energy as you can imagine, I was just ready for a little break to do something different. I have some background in theatre and I thought  ‘Maybe I’ll just do costumes and wearable art’ so I stepped away from animation for a while and went to work in local theater.

What were your first jobs after graduating?

I worked for my friend Sarah Gahagan, who is a costume designer in Portland for some of the major theaters and I was an assistant designer and stitcher. The first actual studio job was at Michael Curry Design in 2010. I worked in the craft department on large puppets. It’s quite amazing to see what they do there in terms of scale. Michael Curry is also one of the larger creative studio employers in town.  He designs exclusively for live action, as opposed to film. They create a lot of work for Cirque Du Soleil and Disney.  After Curry my first job in stop-motion was for

Bent Image Lab, where I started fabrication work on puppets. Mostly for commercials and short films for television.

What projects have you been working on recently?

I work freelance projects, so recently includes two years ago.  I worked on a project at Bent called Rudolph 4-D that was essentially recreating the original Rankin Bass stop motion film from the 1960s in a condensed version.  I managed the team fabricating the puppets. All of the reindeer and other animals were needle felted, which is one of my favorite materials. So that was a big project for me and quite fun. It was just released on DVD!  Then last year I worked at SHADOWMACHINE which is based in LA, but they now have a studio here in Portland. I worked on a series for Adult Swim called The Shivering Truth, which was just released. Last year I worked on the pilot and this year we did six episodes. It’s super weird, a bit offensive, just totally surreal but the production quality is very high. I worked on hair, some costumes and last looks. I also did a little bit of sculpting!

Tell us about some of the projects you’ve worked on that have been the most satisfying?

That takes us to The Dark Crystal. Last summer I worked at The Jim Henson Creature Shop in LA on The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, prequel series for Netflix. This is live action puppetry, almost entirely practical. I’m pausing to think about what I can and cannot say…it won’t be released until sometime next year.

In terms of a professional job I will say that working on the Dark Crystal aligned very close aesthetically with my personal art, and that’s why it was so satisfying. I’ve worked on a lot of different projects, particularly commercials, that have a very different look and feel from my own art. Which is fine, but being able to work on a job that has designs that look and feel so familiar and close to my heart is rare and wonderful. It all felt like something I would naturally want to create. The art designer, Toby Froud would look at my samples and say, ‘Yeah of course do that. Make this how you want to! ‘ It was a truly rewarding experience!

How about some of the most challenging professional experiences?

I got chemical poisoning using contact cements and solvents. Contact cements are glues that are solvent based. Chemical poisoning though ongoing exposure gave me a lot of metabolism issues. I didn’t understand it or know how to report it properly at the time so I just quit the job. I try to avoid those chemicals as much as possible now, and use better protection. My system is really sensitive. The dangers of being an artist are underrepresented. Going into studios, it’s important to know what you’re being exposed to, how to protect yourself and what your rights are as a worker in regards to safety and health.

What are two tips for job seeking animators?

For animators and also stop-motion art department (puppets, props, sets)

1. Put together a good reel, and or a good visual portfolio that’s ready to go, even before you have places to send it.  Keep refining and making work on your own to add to these.

Try making lots of super shorts with good motion/expression/timing. Fabricate lots of small objects/characters/sets with tiny details.

2. Plug into different parts of the community. Local networks, ASiFA, go to all the animation festival screenings. Sign up for newsletters, Animation World Network, meeting new people and networking in general.

What do you consider to be your main driving force? Who are some your artistic influences?

I’ve played around with a lot of different mediums over the years. Painting, drawing, sculpture, costume, theater, film, stop-motion….exploring,  trying to find the thread within all these mediums. Working with stop motion has been a way to bring many of these mediums and materials together. At this point I consider myself a puppet character artist, at least in the professional world. Now I get paid to play with dolls! Personally, I expand a little bit out of that, but still my personal art includes sculpted characters, dolls, and puppets. I was obsessed with faeries when I was little and even though I’ve gone to many different places with what I create, I still return to the realms of faery and Celtic mythology and my ancestral connection to them.

Looking at the style of work I do and my inspirations, like Brian Froud, Alan Lee and other fantasy artists, I come back to a gravitation towards authenticity. What does authentic mean? It's looking for things that feel real. Its about making fantasy things come alive and become tangible. In terms of animation it’s people like the Brother’s Quay, Švankmajer, Suzie Templeton, stop motion that just feels gritty and real!  I look at all those things and they all boil down to this essence of finding something authentic and magical behind and underneath everything.

What’s next for you in both your personal and professional work? Is there events, films, or shows you'd like to promote?

I have a piece at The Fernie Brae Shop and Gallery  in Portland, part of a group show called Found Things From Lost Lands, up through the end of December.

And I recently helped with an independant project by Suzanne Moulton. It's a stop motion series about protecting wolves in Oregon called Nowereswolf.

There are big projects brewing in Portland, coming in the next year or so, including  Pinocchio directed by Guillermo del Toro. Who knows, perhaps I’ll get lucky and work on that? But for the moment I’m excited to keep developing more of my personal art through sculpture and painting.

Thanks for sharing your time with us! Before we go where can we find out more about Maeve Callahan?

http://www.maevenafianna.com/

https://www.instagram.com/fiannsidhe/

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