#Christopher Spelman

[nofatclips]

Stay Soft by Mitski from the album Laurel Hell - Director: Maegan Houang

[judgingbooksbycovers]

Creature Needs: Writers Respond to the Science of Animal Conservation

Edited by Christopher Kondrich, Lucy Spelman, and Susan Tacent.

[byneddiedingo]

Joaquin Phoenix and Marion Cotillard in The Immigrant (James Gray, 2013)

Cast: Marion Cotillard, Joaquin Phoenix, Jeremy Renner, Yelena Solovey, Dagmara Dominczyk, Magda Wampuszyc, Angela Sarafyan, Ilia Volok, Antoni Corone, Kevin Cannon. Screenplay: James Gray, Ric Menello. Cinematography: Darius Khondji. Production design: Happy Massee. Film editing: John Axelrad, Kayla Emter. Music: Christopher Spelman.  

[somebaconlover]

Two Lovers (2008)

Directed by James Gray

Cinematography by Joaquin Baca-Asay

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vinessa Shaw, Isabella Rossellini and Elias Koteas

"A kid's got to start thinking about his future sometime."

[aristocratslog]

Astonishing Little Feet from Maegan Houang on Vimeo.

Starring Celia Au, Perry Yung, Robert Lewis Stephenson, Brian Wallace, Max Faugno and Robert Brettenaugh

Written and directed by Maegan Houang Produced by Pin-Chun Liu Executive Produced by Glenn Kaino, Lauri Michelle Firstenberg, and Elaine Sir Cinematography by Christopher Ripley Production Design by Terry Watson Edited by Gus Spelman Composer: Robert Ouyang Rusli Costume Design by Anne Valliant Hair & Makeup by Moung Park Casting Director: Tanya Giang Co-EP: Brooke Baker Sound Design & Mix by Grant Meyers Lead VFX Artist: Jeff Desom Animation & Title design by Laura Nasir-Tamara Production Manager: John Lozada 1st AD: Ted Keffer 2nd AD: Kat McArdle Associate Producer: Po-wei Su Script Supervisor: Merina Seidel Language Consultant: Alice Ko Set PAs: Ferran Molina, Slava Makarov Production Intern: Max Hickman Art Director: Jay Dizon Scenic: Alexandra Papoban Art PA: Le Quang Nhan Lead Man: Angel de La Rosa Set Dressers: Franki Wujcik, Vincent Quintana, Yingxi Wan 1st AC: Jacob Perry, Felipe Larrondo Loader: Darrell Ham 2nd AC: Mohammed Samra Still Photographer: Peter Yung Gaffer: Chase DuBose BBE: Vahagan Gukasyan Swing: Tanner Johnson Key Grips: Luke Poole, Lance Gegner, Brandon Diaz BBG: Myles Evenson Swings: Erik Gold, Ricky Ramon Velazquez Production Sound Mixer: Gabriel Linkiewicz Key Makeup & Hair: Akihito Sawada Healthy Safety Supervisors: Loreto Rodriguez, Wayne Landry, Joowan Bosco Kim On Set VFX Supervisor: Cooper Vacheron @coopvchrn VFX Artist: Matthew Wauhkonen ADR Recordist: Mauricio Escamilla

Shot on Kodak

[sbgraphic]

Astonishing Little Feet from Maegan Houang on Vimeo.

Starring Celia Au, Perry Yung, Robert Lewis Stephenson, Brian Wallace, Max Faugno and Robert Brettenaugh

Written and directed by Maegan Houang Produced by Pin-Chun Liu Executive Produced by Glenn Kaino, Lauri Michelle Firstenberg, and Elaine Sir Cinematography by Christopher Ripley Production Design by Terry Watson Edited by Gus Spelman Composer: Robert Ouyang Rusli Costume Design by Anne Valliant Hair & Makeup by Moung Park Casting Director: Tanya Giang Co-EP: Brooke Baker Sound Design & Mix by Grant Meyers Lead VFX Artist: Jeff Desom Animation & Title design by Laura Nasir-Tamara Production Manager: John Lozada 1st AD: Ted Keffer 2nd AD: Kat McArdle Associate Producer: Po-wei Su Script Supervisor: Merina Seidel Language Consultant: Alice Ko Set PAs: Ferran Molina, Slava Makarov Production Intern: Max Hickman Art Director: Jay Dizon Scenic: Alexandra Papoban Art PA: Le Quang Nhan Lead Man: Angel de La Rosa Set Dressers: Franki Wujcik, Vincent Quintana, Yingxi Wan 1st AC: Jacob Perry, Felipe Larrondo Loader: Darrell Ham 2nd AC: Mohammed Samra Still Photographer: Peter Yung Gaffer: Chase DuBose BBE: Vahagan Gukasyan Swing: Tanner Johnson Key Grips: Luke Poole, Lance Gegner, Brandon Diaz BBG: Myles Evenson Swings: Erik Gold, Ricky Ramon Velazquez Production Sound Mixer: Gabriel Linkiewicz Key Makeup & Hair: Akihito Sawada Healthy Safety Supervisors: Loreto Rodriguez, Wayne Landry, Joowan Bosco Kim On Set VFX Supervisor: Cooper Vacheron @coopvchrn VFX Artist: Matthew Wauhkonen ADR Recordist: Mauricio Escamilla

Shot on Kodak

[genevieveetguy]

Armageddon Time, James Gray (2022)

[cinesludge]

Movie #47 of 2017: The Lost City of Z

[ryanmeft]

The Lost City of Z Movie Review

The decades around the turn of the 20th century were a time when the sort of stories seen in King Kong or Indiana Jones played out constantly, (usually) minus the magic artifacts and giant monkeys. In The Lost City of Z, English explorer Percy Fawcett sets out to find an ancient city in the Amazon rain forest, one that will prove a notion his colleagues at the Royal Geographical Society laugh at: that South American "savages" had a thriving civilization at a time when the west was still mired in the Dark Ages. James Gray directs a lightly fictionalized version of this story that gets all its impact from real danger, since magic and monsters are off the table.

Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam, of Sons of Anarchy fame) was a man of mythic status and incredible achievements. A veteran of numerous military campaigns and World War I, he was also a maker of maps, the profession that spurred epic adventures for Westerners and often, epic pain for non-Westerners. Sent to the border of Bolivia and Brazil to settle a dispute over who owns what, he and world-weary Henry Costin (Robert Pattinson) and Arthur Manley (Edward Ashley) instead come upon broken pottery and carvings in stone, so deep in the jungle no one is thought to have been able to thrive there. Back home, he adamantly declares this proof that a lost city, which he names Z, is out there somewhere.

There was no surer way to make stodgy old white men mad in the 19th century than to suggest "heathens" and "savages", code for anyone who wasn't white, could have outdone them, ever. Fawcett, backed up by his fiery wife Nina (Sienna Miller), gives a somewhat fictionalized speech to the Royal Geographical Society, in which he declares that South American natives must have been more advanced than the English. Horrors! The crowd are still, however, explorers at heart: they boo the idea that mere jungle dwellers could have been their equal, then turn around and applaud raucously at Fawcett's determination to go back and prove it.

This is naturally thrilling stuff. A hint, a spark, a tiny suggestion that something exists that shouldn't exist. The Amazon is so dense, even today with so many determined to turn it into a line on a ledger, that when I went there with friends it had an honest power even over my "evolved" 21st century mind. In an age before highways and televisions it must have seemed so much more mysterious. Fawcett and company lose men to the river, to the jungle, and over the course of three expeditions (eight in reality) face every danger the jungles offer, from floods to hostile natives to the worst of all, mosquitoes and the blood-vomit-inducing diseases they carry. Last year's Embrace of the Serpent showed the intoxicating power the jungle has on outsiders, a feeling replicated here. Hunnam, with his rough features and stocky muscles, doesn't much look like the tall, thin Fawcett, but he embodies the obsessive dedication required to draw a man back to such a deadly place again and again.

There is a brief scene in which Fawcett, having finally found more evidence of his lost city, is suddenly set upon by water rushing through the rocks he stands between; the jungle can turn on him in an instant. To survive he must make peace with cannibals, be comfortable with snakes around his booted heels, and sail on waters that are literally waiting to devour him. The jungle may or may not kill him, but it will certainly make short work of any illusions he has of being a civilized Englishman. The film doesn't add unnecessary action drama, deriving a great deal of power from the simple(?) act of surviving ordinary days in the depths of the Amazon; no rolling boulders or dart traps needed here. Others are sucked in, as well, with varying results. Nina declares at one point she will go on the next expedition, and their son Jack (Tom Holland, of upcoming Spider-Man fame) eventually becomes old enough to accompany Percy on an expedition (sadly, the film leaves out that he intended to come back and work in Hollywood). Less useful by far is a corpulent braggart named James Murray (Angus Macfadyen), who fancies himself a heroic adventurer but treats the Amazon like it is a day stroll that must accommodate him. He's useful as a comparison to Hunnam's Fawcett, who is goes to this green "hell" specifically to shed his civilized skin.

What a canvas Darius Khondji has been given to work with. From the docks in Manaus, the Amazon looks like an ocean more than a river, but you don't get very far before the shores start to close in. Today, with all our technology, it is still a place that invites but does not welcome humans, and remains largely unmapped. Imagine how mysterious it must have been in 1905, or even 1925, which is where Fawcett's story ends up. Khondji, who recreated the New York of the early Ellis Islanders in Gray's The Immigrant, here shoots the jungle close, confined, and claustrophobic, with only a single snatch of the kind of sweeping vista we like photos of (a triple waterfall, something to behold). Of course, the crew never got dangerously far into the jungle from their shooting location at Santa Marta in Colombia, but you wouldn't have to to be in some danger. Even in Rio, the foliage constantly reminds you that if everyone left it would have the city back faster than you can imagine. The score by Gray's regular collaborator Christopher Spelman mostly backs off and rarely punches a dramatic moment, instead evoking the haunting feeling of being in an unfamiliar place and hearing a far-off tune you can't make out. Both these elements are essential to the film, particularly in the haunting, speculative closing scenes, where Fawcett's fate is left ambiguous as he is essentially claimed by the jungle to which he has really belonged for so many years.

I didn't read the book by David Grann, who personally filled in some of the blanks of Fawcett's life, but I did read Candace Millard's The River of Doubt, years ago, which gave the river and jungle a powerful hold on my mind long before I ever thought I'd see any of it. That story focused on a man who led an expedition to chart an uncharted tributary of the Amazon, and was temporarily driven insane by it. He was trying to forget his disappointment at losing the 1916 Presidential election. The Amazon in Gray's film seems to be making an important demand to live with it and accept it for what it is. After all, if the likes of Fawcett and Theodore Roosevelt couldn't tame it, what hope would ordinary mortals ever have?

The actual Fawcett, mapping the Brazilian-Bolivian border in 1908

Verdict: Must-See

Note: I don’t use stars but here are my possible verdicts. I suppose you could consider each one as adding a star.

Must-See Highly Recommended Recommended Average Not Recommended Avoid like the Plague

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All images are property of the people what own the movie.

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Happy by Mitski from the album Puberty 2 - Director: Maegan Houang

[indieethos]

The Lost City of Z presents duality of dreams via perilous adventure -- a film review

The Lost City of Z presents duality of dreams via perilous adventure — a film review

Courtesy of Bleeker Street The Lost City of Z has a divinely ominous quality. A roving camera fitted with wide lenses mightily seizes upon expanses and man’s place in the land. A film about men swallowed up by the scenery, be it through the violence of a piranha attack or via more metaphysical soul-shattering mania, which varies from simple constitutional breakdown to private obsession, this film…

[byneddiedingo]

The Lost City of Z (James Gray, 2016) Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Sienna Miller, Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland, Edward Ashley, Angus Macfadyen, Ian McDiarmid, Clive Francis, Pedro Coello, Franco Nero. Screenplay: James Gray, based on a book by David Grann. Cinematography: Darius Khondji. Production design: Jean-Vincent Puzos. Film editing: John Axelrad, Lee Haugen. Music: Christopher Spelman. The Lost City of Z sounds like one of those campy adventure movies spoofing the genre epitomized by King Solomon's Mines and pretty much done to death by the Indiana Jones series. (I also admit that the Z in the title also made me think it had something to do with zombies.) Anyway, how can we take movies about explorations in the Amazon seriously after Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo (1982)? But The Lost City of Z turned out to be a pleasant surprise: an old-fashioned adventure story played straight and done well. Charlie Hunnam doesn't have enough heft and charisma in the lead -- it was originally planned for Brad Pitt (who stayed on as producer after a schedule conflict) and then for Benedict Cumberbatch, either of whom might have filled the part of the obsessive explorer Percy Fawcett better. But writer-director James Gray handles a sprawling story -- we get not only scenes of Amazonian hardship but also of the Battle of the Somme in World War I -- with finesse.

[somebaconlover]

The Lost City Of Z (2016)

Directed by James Gray

Cinematography by Darius Khondji

Starring Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller, Tom Holland and Franco Nero

"Nothing will happen to us that is not our destiny."

[fisforfreakyme]

Oh no, here comes the promised soundtrack! (plus explanations under the cut)

Alfonsina y el Mar - Mercedes Sosa Best Friends - John Paesano Scarlett Meadows Night 2B - Woody Jackson At Home with Mum - Alexandre Desplat Spanish Doll - Poe I Won't Last a Day Without You - The Carpenters Sola, Perdutta, Abbandonata - Christopher Spelman

(Alfonsina y el Mar as kind of like one of the story's theme songs, setting the vibe too) (Best Friends, Ingo visits Gear Station) (Scarlett Meadows Night 2B, Ingo dreams of his childhood) (At Home with Mum, Ingo walks around his home) (Sola, perdutta, abbandonata, Emmet's night at the beach, Ingo thinking about his brother, also kind of like the story’s other theme song) (I Won't Last A Day Without You, the song I imagine Ingo singing to calm his brother when they're kids) (Spanish Doll, no scene in particular, I just like the sad vibe)

[fav-nightmare]

https://soundcloud.com/hdvimeo/christopher-spelman-sola?ref=clipboard&p=a&c=0&si=0c22854a405a4b7aa51ddee767623c00&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing