#Leigh Folk Festival

[river-in-the-woods]

Hello Leigh! hope you're having a good one. I was reading your posts about cultivation and something sparked my interest: you were saying how most magical acts in asian traditions are mediated by Gods, Bodhisattvas and ancestral spirits, in general, calling on somebody with power and authority enough to Do The Thing for you, would that be right? if that's so, do you account for people's own magical abilities somehow? like the clair senses or their own ability to make things manifest? Taking a guess, I would assume it's tied to one's Qi and possibly some form of magic inheritance, but I don't see it discussed often. Is that a thing? how common is it?

Hello :) Hope you're having a good one too.

I can't remember in which post I talked about it, but it seems I did not explain very well! Let's give it another try.

The short answer is yes, you can do magic without other spirits. Because you have a spirit. And though you are oriented to the physical plane, which gives you an advantage on the physical and a disadvantage on the spiritual plane, you can still learn to do everything that spirits can do.

In other words, everyone does have their own capacity for doing magic, and that is tied to how developed a person's subtle body is. In Taoism they talk about qì, jīng, shén and meridians; in Buddhism they talk about the movement of prana through the chakras, or the channels, winds and drops. I'm just speaking broadly, because there are various systems that focus on different numbers of energy centres and channels, and I don't know the half of it tbh. But these are the things that give rise to what you know as clair senses.

The longer answer:

In East Asian traditions, performing magic requires mainly three things:

1) a well-developed subtle body, whether this is for channeling energy or for being possessed by gods in trance

2) a good relationship with the powers you favour, whether that be gods, buddhas or spirits

3) instruction and training by a human teacher, from an established tradition in or outside of your family

You can do magic through any one of these things, but it is not as effective/powerful and not considered 'professional'. If you haven't acquired spiritual authority and training from being part of a lineage, the gods and spirits may ignore your attempts to call on their power, or it simply wouldn't work because you have not received the blessing that gives you the ability to do so.

Without initiation, you would be doing what is considered laypeople's folk magic and cultivation. This has a more devotional approach, is done for general well-being, and does not involve commanding spirits or creating magical amulets and talismans.

There's a lot you can do even as a layperson that can have a real impact on your quality of life. Venerating one's gods and ancestors, attending seasonal festivals, practicing virtue, meditation and breath work. There are also folk magic methods that rely on the virtues of plants, minerals, etc, that are informed by traditional medicine and fēnɡshuǐ.

For lay Mahayana Buddhists there are plenty of sacred mantras and scriptures. The 6 syllable mantra, Golden Light Sutra, Heart Sutra, Lotus Sutra, Diamond Sutra, Great Compassion Dharani, Kṣitigarbha Dharani, Ten Small Mantras, White Robe Guan Yin Mantra, etc... These are popular ones.

Lay Daoists can recite Bǎogào (寶誥) for various deities, as well as the Eight Great Incantations (八大神咒). There are plenty of spells and invocations for protection and purification, which I will not list here. And of course there's studying the Dàodéjīng.

To the Western view, these are all very magical things even for a layperson, and indeed they are. But to us, it is not a separation of magic vs mundane (because there is no separation) rather it's professional magic vs lay magic. This is the defining aspect of being a magician or shaman-priest in East Asia; it's a profession and a societal role like doctor, scientist, musician, writer.

Not sure about other languages, but magic in Chinese is 法, literally 'method'. A Daoist magician is called a 方士, 'method master' – they would be expected (in antiquity, at least) to study not just occult methods but also chemistry, medicine, science, politics, astrology and astronomy.

So this is really the main point of my answer. It's not gods-power vs personal-power, because the reality of both these things is included in our spiritual philosophy. I don't believe there are any traditions of Asian magic that do not involve the concept of spirits both within and without us 😅 this idea of secular magic doesn't really exist outside of the West, as far as I know.

I hope that makes sense. I rewrote this post many times trying to figure out the best way to answer 😆

[krispyweiss]

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Day One, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, Calif., Oct. 4, 2024

Lucinda Williams was not at Day One of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. But Chuck Prophet, Ismay, Steve Earle and Kelly Willis - joined by Willis’ Wonder Women of Country bandmates Melissa Carper and Brennen Leigh - brought Williams’ spirit to the Banjo stage as the Songs from a Gravel Road Band.

They opened the festival guitar-pull style, trading such numbers as “I Just Wanted to See You So Bad” (Wonder Women), “2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten” (Earle) and “Crescent City” (Prophet) before ending with an all-hands-on-deck rendering of “All the Way to Jackson” a little shy of their scheduled 45 minutes of stage time.

Lindsay Lou followed on the Arrow stage sporting white shades and yellow flowers on her mic stand, into which she sang hilarious band introductions and turned them into a magnificent song of their own.

Lou and the all-woman, voices-of-goddesses Queen of Time Band - featuring Isa Burke on electric guitar and violin plus a rhythm section - used their 45 minutes to play a mix of Huffamoose-styled jazz, folk, rock and weepy country music as they offered up songs from the LP for which the band is named (“Nothing Else Matters”) and from across Lou’s discography (“Roll with Me”). And then they were off to catch a flight to the next festival.

So the Sound Biteses flew off to the Swan stage as the harmony-rich strains of the aforementioned Wonder Women wafted from the Banjo …

“… We’re going to slow it down a little bit,” the self-deprecating Milk Carton Kids said from the Swan, where they played their not-quite-ready-for-a-free-festival folk music for a large audience mixed with listeners and talkers. Those who shut their mouths and opened their ears were treated to the sonic heirs of Simon & Garfunkel - except funnier.

“It’s very hard to write a song on banjo without killing a person in the song,” Kenneth Pattengale said as he played a set heavy on selections from I Only See the Moon - and going all the back to “Michigan” - with fellow Kid Joey Ryan.

Surrounded by Golden Highway on the Banjo stage, Molly Tuttle recalled seeing her heroes as a child from the Hardly Strictly grass with her dad. And getting offered a pot brownie while at the festival with her mom.

“Your mom brought you all the way here just to offer you a pot brownie?,” banjoist Kyle Tuttle (no relation) asked incredulously and jokingly.

Playing high-energy, traditional-yet-modern bluegrass, the quintet offered a highly-apropos “White Rabbit” for the San Francisco audience; “San Francisco Blues,” meanwhile, was Tuttle’s waltzing paean to the hometown she left for Tennessee. “Down Home Dispensary” and “Dooley’s Farm” were Tuttle’s amped-up homages to ganja.

She doffed her wig for “Crooked Tree,” a song about what makes Tuttle, who has alopecia, and San Francisco, different - and so very special. Golden Highway received a rousing standing ovation at the end of their 55-minute set.

Sleater-Kinney provided the pre-show soundtrack to Cat Power Sings Dylan ’66 as their kinetic Swan-stage set flooded the field in front of Towers of Gold.

Immediately following their set, Power was barely audible as she sung “She Belongs to Me.” Power was like a whispering specter, guitar and harmonica nearly inaudible, causing Mr. and Mrs. Sound Bites to give up after a few songs only to find excellent sound at the Swan, where “It’s All over Now, Baby Blue” and “Mr. Tambourine Man” were as clear as bells behind where the music was being played.

A half-hour later, the strains of the full-band “Ballad of a Thin Man” could be heard a mile away on the JFK Promenade as Power wrapped her set.

10/5/24

[thejoyofviolentmovement]

Happy May Day! And with Spring fully upon us, that means more festival announcements, y’all! So let’s get to it. Richmond, VA-based music festival Iron Blossom Festival is presented in collaboration with: Starr Hill Presents, an independently owned and operated concert promoter based in Charlottesville, VA that promotes over 300 events each year, ranging from small club shows to multi-day festivals. The company operates multiple local venues and have partnered in festivals across the country, including Bonnaroo, Outside Lands, SXSW, Pilgrimage and more. IMGoing Events, a full-service, independent entertainment company providing first-class live experiences and an innovative leader in the production, booking and marketing of live entertainment events including festivals, concerts and all types of special events. The company creates creates premier concerts and event experiences by offering the most intimate engagements. Haymaker Productions, a production and promotion company that has been producing and promoting concerts in the Richmond area since 2002. The Haymaker Productions team also provides production support for events such as the Olympics, Burning Man, World Cup and Formula One racing while continuing to curate the area’s favorite outdoor concerts at Maymount. Grand Rising Curations, an independent concert and festival promoter producing shows and providing talent buying, marketing, ticketing and production services throughout the United States. Iron Blossom Music Festival will return to Richmond, VA for the second year. Taking place September 21, 2024 – September 22, 2024, the festival will be an end of summer celebration with two days of incredible music, food, art and fun at the Training Center on Leigh (formerly Bon Secours Training Center). The festival draws from its host city’s vibrant and diverse community to bring fans a unique musical experience, with local artists sharing the stage with regional acts and national headliners. This year’s headliners include indie folk-leaning indie rock outfit Mt. Joy; CAAMP, who will be playing their only Southeast show this year; Americana group Turnpike Troubadours and Grammy-nominated soul outfit Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats. The festival’s lineup also includes Trampled by Turtles, Hippo Campus, Joy Oladokun, Indigo De Souza, The California Honeydrops, Royel Otis, Sumbuck, Chance Peña, Say She She, River Whyless, Susto, SG Goodman, Julia Pratt, Sarah Shook & The Disarmers, Victoria Canal, Dogpark, Jack Wharff & The Tobacco Flatts, and Kenneka Cook. Iron Blossom Music Festival’s second edition will be expanding this year’s footprint to include a larger food court an artisan bazaar, a GA+ Lounge and additional free water stations and shade structures while still offering the best of Central Virginia’s food, beverage and maker communities. Fans will continue to enjoy farm to table and delicious street foods, craft beats and cocktails, and wears from dozens of artisan vendors. A VIP experience is also being offered, giving fans up-close views, an exclusive lounge with cash bars, vendors, and more. Fans can guarantee themselves Tier 1 ticket pricing by signing up for the exclusive email/text presale at IronBlossomFestival.com. Tickets will be on sale to the general public tomorrow at noon at IronBlossomFestival.com. “Last year’s event truly was a celebration of the vibrant community here in Richmond. We can’t wait to bring everyone together again for another amazing weekend of music,” IMGoing Events’ Ken MacDonald says. “The city of Richmond continues to grow and thrive and the success of Iron Blossom is because of the people who live here and their enthusiasm for art and culture, especially live music. From the top notch lineup to the incredible food and beverage programming, Iron Blossom will again be one for the books” Haymaker Productions’ Tom Beals says. Iron Blossom Lineup  Mt. Joy CAAMP Turnpike Troubadours Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats Trampled by Turtles Hippo Campus Joy Olado...

[concerthopperblog]

Heart is the Hero Tour 2023: The Wood Brothers live at the Georgia Theatre!

In the late nineties, there was a jazz fusion/acid jazz/jam band/soul jazz group named Medeski, Martin, & Wood (MMW) that caught my attention and quickly became one of my favorite modern jazz groups. On bass for MMW was Chris Wood who I considered one of the premier bass players in the modern jazz genre. Fast forward a few decades to 2004 with the formation of The Wood Brothers by brothers Chris Wood (upright bass) and Oliver Wood (acoustic and electric guitars) with Jano Rix (multi-instrumentalist). Grammy-nominated The Wood Brothers music is considered folk rock/roots rock/blues rock/Americana with a twist of gospel and some elements of jazz (thanks to Chris’ time with MMW). The Wood Brothers have released nine (9) LPs with Heart is the Hero being the latest release (April 14, 2023).

Incidentally, on June 21st, The Wood Brothers announced a winter tour entitled Heart is the Hero Tour 2023 that would begin on October 18th in Marietta, OH at The Peoples’ Bank Theatre and conclude December 8th in Charleston, SC at the Charleston Music Hall. Lucky for Athens, GA, the Georgia Theatre made the cut on the night before the last tour date on December 7th. This would be my first time seeing The Wood Brothers and I was excited to see them finally perform live. This tour stop just so happened to occur on the same evening as the downtown Parade of Lights in Athens, GA. to add a little holiday festivity to the mix.

The Wood Brothers revealed that for this tour they would bring special guest The Watson Twins out on tour with them for their sixteen (16) shows tour to close out 2023. The Watson Twins are an Americana/indie folk band that formed in 2006 and consists of sisters Chandra and Leigh Watson. The Watson Twins have released six (6) LPs, one (1) collaboration LP with Jenny Lewis, two (2) EPs, five (5) singles, and one (1) compilation. The Watson Twins version of The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” is incredible and I was crossing my fingers that they would play this at the Georgia Theatre.

Their latest release, Holler, was produced by Grammy nominee Butch Walker and released to rave reviews on June 23rd on Bloodshot Records. The Watson Twins started off the evening for the excited and eager crowd who braved the traffic of the Parade of Lights traffic with “The Palace” which is off their latest release. “Honky Tonk Heart”, “Hustle and Shake”, and “HOLLER” were three of my favorite songs that The Watson Twins performed during their fiery set.

Check out The Watson Twins setlist from this evening below:

·         “The Palace”

·         “Southern Manners”

·         “Honky Tonk Heart”

·         “My Name”

·         ‘Hustle and Shake”

·         “Devil in You”

·         “Two Timin”

·         “HOLLER”

Head over to The Watson Twins' official store and show them some love today!

The Wood Brothers took the stage at the historic Georgia Theatre, and you could hear the crowd roar as they cheered on the band. The Wood Brothers have a loyal fan base that travels very well when they tour. The Wood Brothers have developed a knack for sharp songwriting, adding their ability to weave intricate storylines and be musical virtuosos in the Roots music/Americana scene has cemented them as fan favorites. On this memorable evening at the Georgia Theatre, The Wood Brothers performed an exceptional set chock full of groovy songs for the fans. The Wood Brothers effortlessly performed songs such as “Pilgrim”, “Line Those Pockets”, “Little Blue”, “American Heartache”, and the crowd’s favorite sing-along “Luckiest Man”.

You can follow this link to The Wood Brothers' Official Store and show them some support. Although The Wood Brothers might be done touring in 2023, they already have some tour dates scheduled for Europe and the United States in 2024. Check them out below:

FEB 3 SAT                            Oran Mor                                                                            Glasgow, United Kingdom

FEB 4 SUN                           Deaf Institute                                                                     Manchester, United Kingdom

FEB 5 MON                         The Bodega                                                                        Nottingham, United Kingdom

FEB 6 TUE                            Lafayette                                                                             London, United Kingdom

FEB 7 WED                          Exchange                                                                            Bristol, United Kingdom

FEB 9 FRI                              TivoliVredenburg - Pandora                                         Utrecht, Netherlands

FEB 10 SAT                          Elbphilharmonie                                                               Hamburg, Germany

FEB 27 TUE                         Rialto Theatre w/Rainbow Girls                                     Tucson, AZ

FEB 28 WED                       The Sound at Del Mar w/Rainbow Girls                      Del Mar, CA

FEB 29 THU                        The Fonda Theatre w/Rainbow Girls                            Los Angeles, CA

MAR 1 FRI                           The Fillmore w/Rainbow Girls                                        San Francisco, CA

MAR 2 SAT                          The Fillmore w/Rainbow Girls                                        San Francisco, CA

MAR 5 TUE                         The Center for the Arts w/Rainbow Girls                    Grass Valley, CA

MAR 6 WED                       Arkley Center for the Performing Arts w/Rainbow Girls       Eureka, CA

MAR 7 THU                        Revolution Hall                                                                  Portland, OR

MAR 8 FRI                           Moore Theatre w/Rainbow Girls                                   Seattle, WA

MAR 9 SAT                          Wild Buffalo w/Rainbow Girls                                        Bellingham, WA

APR 3 WED                         Southern Theatre                                                             Columbus, OH

APR 4 THU                          Ryman Auditorium                                                          Nashville, TN

APR 5 FRI                             Old National Centre - Egyptian Room                      Indianapolis, IN

APR 6 SAT                           Clyde Theatre                                                                     Fort Wayne, IN

APR 7 SUN                          Orpheum Theater                                                             Madison, WI

APR 10 WED                      Englert Theatre                                                                 Iowa City, IA

APR 11 THU                       Madrid Theatre                                                                 Kansas City, MO

APR 12 FRI                          Minglewood Hall                                                              Memphis, TN

APR 13 SAT                         The Pageant                                                                      St Louis, MO

APR 20 SAT                         Moon Crush 2024                                                             Miramar Beach, FL

 Curious about Concerthopper? You can find more music-related articles, interviews, various photo galleries, indie music reviews, our ‘Bars & Bites’ section, our exclusive “She Said, She Said” column, or become a Concerthopper at www.concerthopper.com. Sign up for our monthly newsletter by following this link: The Setlist! Please ‘Like’ our page on Facebook and follow us on Instagram to stay up to date in 2023, on all music-related events/festivals such as Suicidal Tendencies plus special guests Live at The Ranch (Fort Myers), Blackout Tour Part 1: From Ashes to New w/ The Word Alive, Catch Your Breath, and Ekoh @ Rapids Theatre, Greensky Bluegrass Winter Tour 2024: Live at The Eastern, We The Kings: Live at Rec Room (Buffalo), 10 Years of Wage War: House of Blues (Orlando), Metalcore Dropouts – 2nd Semester: Fit For a King & The Devil Wears Prada Live at Town Ballroom (Buffalo), Zakk Sabbath w/ The Native Howl: Live at The Masquerade, Life Is But A Dream… North American Tour: Avenge Sevenfold Live at KeyBank Center (Buffalo), Shoot For The Moon Tour: Sierra Ferrell Live at The Eastern, Seasons World Tour 2024: Thirty Seconds to Mars & AFI Live at MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre, Dresden Dolls: Live at The Eastern, The Deathless Tour: Set It Off w/ Crown the Empire, Caskets, and Death By Choice Live at Water Street Music Hall (Rochester), and Crypta Live at Boggs Social & Supply by following us on all social media formats: Concerthopper on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can also follow my concert hopping on Facebook and Instagram.

[celtic-cd-releases]

https://clannamorna.ca/

https://www.facebook.com/ClannaMorna/

https://clannamorna.bandcamp.com/

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6IUgXS10XrAl17YcczyX2o

[gatheredinamber]

Leigh Folk Festival 2022-06-26

Thanks to two longstanding Friends of the Amber for sharing this: Ivor for recording it, and Rob for alerting me to it. I would have been there myself but for being kept at home by the virus.

Alasdair's set start from around 51 minutes in, and runs for just under 25 minutes. Setlist:

Hymm of Welcome

Orison of Union

The Baron of Brackley

The Bonnie Moorhen

False Flesh

Also featured earlier in the show is a third Friend of the Amber, Diana Collier, who used to present the Library of Aethers show among her many talents. Burd Ellen and Evan Parker are also included. Basically you should listen to it all.

[waterflowergallery]

[estuarysongwritingproject]

Feature on BBC Radio

The lovely Mike Brocken has featured Leigh Folk Festival and its 25th anniversary vinyl release (which features exclusive music from the Estuary Songwriting Project) on his ‘Folkscene’ BBC Merseyside show. You can listen again here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05330gh

[writingquestionsanswered]

hello!! hope you're doing well and I'd like to start by thanking you for all your help and responses:)) Now, i was wondering where we draw the line in between creating a fantasy country and culture inspired by a real life country, and simply creating a fantasy country that IS a real life country. I would like my story to happen someplace where the readers will be able to recognize as Italy-based, just as they recognized, for example, Leigh Bardugo's Ravka as Russian-based. How can i do so without copy-pasting every single detail from Italy?

Real-Inspired Fantasy Country without Creating a Carbon Copy

First, thank you so much for your kind words. I'm so glad you're finding the blog to be helpful. ♥

There are several things that I think make Leigh Bardugo's portrayal of Ravka work so well:

1) Roots in the Language

There's actually an article in the archives of Leigh Bardugo's web site that talked about how she borrowed from the Russian language without using it completely. One way that she did this is by taking familiar English words like "sovereign" and combining it with a Russian root word or affixes, which is how she came up with the form of address "moi soverennyi" for the Darkling. Other words simply sound like Russian words because they use the same prominent letters or combinations of letters, or because they look/sound similar to Russian words. For example, "Ravka" bears some similarity to "Russia." They both begin with 'R' and end with 'A,' they both have a vowel as the second letter, and in the case of Ravka, the "vk" together are strongly reminiscent of Russian. In some cases, she did use actual Russian words, like Tsar and kvas, but only in places where she didn't feel it would take the reader out of the story.

2) Specific Time and Place

No country or culture is a monolith. "Ancient Egypt," for example, stretched across thousands of years of different dynasties, rooted in somewhat different parts of the same region. Old Kingdom Egypt at Giza would be somewhat different from Ptolemaic Egypt in Alexandria. Ravka was largely inspired by 19th century Tzarist Russia, which would be quite different from say 15th century Russia under Ivan III or Soviet Russia in 1955. Choosing a specific time, place, and culture within your inspiration country brings focus to the details that will best give the look and feel you want for your story.

3) Choose What to Use

There are all sorts of things from your source country you can use as inspiration for your fantasy country: geography, flora and fauna, language, architecture, food and drink, dance and song, mythology and folk tales, cultural traditions and festivals, clothing, social customs... the list goes on and on. It helps if you choose a few specific things to use as inspiration in your story. You might use the architecture, clothing, food, and drink as inspiration for your story, but everything else is wholly your own. Or, maybe you create your own architecture and clothing style, but you use the language, song and dance, and myth as inspiration. There's no right or wrong combination or amount, but knowing what you're using and what you're not creates much-needed consistency.

4) Use Your Original Ideas, Too

Ravka may bear similarities to Russia, but it has a lot of its own unique elements, too. The Grisha and their use the country's Second Army, the Grand Palace as home to the king and the Little Palace as home to the Grisha, the Fold, West Ravka, and their specific enemies are all concepts entirely unique to Leigh Bardugo's imagination. But, although they're not necessarily inspired by anything taken from Russia, the ideas are still complimentary with the Russian elements she did use as inspiration.

You can read more in my post Using an Existing Country as Inspiration. Good luck with your story! ♥

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[letterboxd]

Best of SXSW 2021.

From properly good Covid comedies to an epic folk-horror doc and an Indigenous feminist Western, the Letterboxd Festiville team reveals their ten best of SXSW Online.

We dug out old lanyards to wear around the house, and imagined ourselves queuing up the block from The Ritz (RIP). We dialled into screenings and panels, and did our level best to channel that manic “South By” energy from our living rooms.

The SXSW festival atmosphere was muted, and that’s to be expected. But the films themselves? Gems, so many gems, whether shot in a fortnight on the smell of an oily stimulus check, or painstakingly rotoscoped over seven years.

When we asked SXSW Film director Janet Pierson what she and her team were looking for this year, she told us: “We’re always looking for films that do a lot with little, that are ingenious, and pure talent, and discovery, and being surprised. We’re just looking for really good stories with good emotional resonance.” If there was one common denominator we noticed across this year’s SXSW picks, it was a smart, tender injection of comedy into stories about trauma, grief, unwanted pregnancy, chronic health conditions, homelessness, homophobia and, yes, Covid.

It’s hard to pick favorites, but here are the ten SXSW features and two short films we haven’t stopped thinking about, in no particular order.

Recovery Directed by Mallory Everton and Stephen Meek, written by Everton and Whitney Call

“Covid 19 is in charge now” might be the most hauntingly funny line in a SXSW film. In Recovery, two sisters set out on a haywire road trip to rescue their grandmother from her nursing home in the wake of a severe Covid 19 outbreak. There’s no random villain or threat, because isn’t being forced to exist during a pandemic enough of a threat in itself? If ever we were worried about “Covid comedies”, SXSW managed to flush out the good ones. (Read about the Festiville team’s other favorite Covid-inflected comedies, including an interview with the directors of I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking).)

Alex Marzona praises the “off-the-charts chemistry” between leads Mallory Everton and Whitney Call. Best friends since they were nine, the pair also wrote the film, with Everton co-directing with Stephen Meek. Every laugh comes from your gut and feels like something only the cast and crew would usually be privy to. “You can tell a lot of the content is improvised, which just attests to their talent,” writes Emma. Recovery doesn’t make you laugh awkwardly about how awful the last year has been—rather, it reminds you that even in such times there are still laughs to be had, trips to be taken, family worth uprooting everything for. Just make sure you’ve packed enough wet wipes for the road, and think long and hard about who should babysit your mice. —EK

The Spine of Night Written and directed by Morgan Galen King and Philip Gelatt

Don’t get too attached to any characters from its star-studded cast—nobody is safe (or fully-clothed) in The Spine of Night’s raw, ultra-violent and cynical world. Conjured over the last seven years, directors Philip Gelatt and Morgan Galen King’s rotoscoped epic recaptures the dazzling imagination and scope of their influences Ralph Bakshi and Heavy Metal. Approaching an anthology-style structure to explore how ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’—a proverb more potent now than when Gelatt and King began their project—the film packs a franchise’s worth of ideas in its 90-minute runtime. Though the storytelling justifiably proves itself overly dense for some, it will find the audience it’s after, as other Letterboxd members have declared it “a rare treat” and “a breath of fresh air in the feature-length animation scene”. For sure, The Spine of Night can join Sundance premieres Flee and Cryptozoo in what’s already a compelling year for unique two-dimensional animation. —JM

Kambole Campbell caught up with Gelatt and King (who are also Letterboxd members!) during SXSW to talk about animation inspirations and rotoscoping techniques.

The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson Written and directed by Leah Purcell

Snakes, steers and scoundrels beware! Writer-director-star Leah Purcell ably repurposes the Western genre for Aboriginal and female voices in The Drover’s Wife. Molly Johnson is a crack-shot anti-heroine for the ages, in this decolonized reimagining of a classic 1892 short story by Henry Lawson. And by reimagining, we mean a seismic shift in the narrative: Purcell has fleshed out a full story of a mother-of-four, pregnant with her fifth, a missing husband, predatory neighbors, a mysterious runaway and a young English couple on different paths to progress in this remote Southern land. Purcell first adapted this story for the stage, then as published fiction; she rightly takes the leading role in the screen version, too.

As a debut feature director, Purcell (Goa-Gunggari-Wakka Wakka Murri) already has a firm grip on the macabre and the menacing, not shying away from violence, but making very careful decisions about what needs to be depicted, given all that Molly Johnson and her family are subjected to. She also sneaks in mystic touches, and a hint of romance (local heartthrob Rob Collins can take us on a walk to where the Snowy widens to see blooming wildflowers anytime). Judging by early Letterboxd reviews, it’s not for everyone, but this is Australian colonization through an Indigenous feminist’s eyes, with a fierce, intersectional pay-off. “Extremely similar to a vast majority of the issues and themes explored in The Nightingale,” writes Claira. “I’m slowly realizing that my favorite type of Westerns are Australian.” —LK, GG

Swan Song Written and directed by Todd Stephens

Udo Kier is often the bridesmaid, rarely the bride. Now, after a lifetime of supporting roles ranging from vampires and villains to art-house muse, he finally gets to shine center-stage in Swan Song. Kier dazzles as a coiffure soothsayer in this lyrical pageant to the passage of queer times in backwater Sandusky, Ohio. “He is absolutely wonderful here,” writes Adrianna, “digging deep and pulling out a mesmerizing, deeply affecting and emotionally textured performance, proving that he’s an actor with much more range than people give him credit for.”

A strong supporting cast all have melancholy moments to shine, with Linda Evans (Dynasty), Michael Urie (Ugly Betty) and Jennifer Coolidge (Legally Blonde) along for the stroll. Surreal camp touches add joy (that chandelier, the needle drop!) but by the end, the tears roll (both of joy and sadness). Writer-director Todd Stephens ties up his Sandusky trilogy in this hometown homage, a career peak for both him and Kier. Robert Daniels puts it well, writing that Swan Song is “campy as hell, but it’s also a heartfelt LGBTQ story about lost lovers and friends, vibrant memories and the final passage of a colorful life.” —LK

Leo Koziol spoke with Todd Stephens and Udo Kier during SXSW about Grace Jones, David Bowie and dancing with yourself.

Islands Written and directed by Martin Edralin

Islands is a Mike Leigh-esque story that presents a Canadian Filipino immigrant family full of quirk and character, centered around Joshua, a reticent 50-year-old homebody son. The story drifts in and out of a deep well of sadness. Moments of lightness and familial love make the journey worthwhile. “A film so Filipino a main plot device is line-dancing,” writes Karl. “Islands is an incredibly empathetic film about what it’s like to feel unmoored from comfort. It’s distinctly Filipino and deals with the psychology of Asian culture in a way that feels both profound and oddly comforting.” In a year in which we’ve all been forced to physically slow down, Islands “shows us how slow life can be,” writes Justin, “and how important it is to be okay with that.” Rogelio Balagtas’s performance as Joshua—a first-time leading role—won him the SXSW Grand Jury Award for Breakthrough Performance. —LK

Ninjababy Directed by Yngvild Sve Flikke, written by Flikke with Johan Fasting and Inga H. Sætre

Ninjababy is as ridiculous as its title. When 23-year-old Rakel finds herself accidentally pregnant, scheduling an abortion is a no-brainer. But she’s way too far along, she’s informed, so she’s going to have to have the baby. The ensuing meltdown might have been heartbreaking if the film wasn’t so damn funny. Ninjababy draws on the comforting and familiar (“Lizzie McGuire if she was a pregnant young adult,” writes Nick), while mixing shock with originality (Erica Richards notices “a few aggressive and vulgar moments [but] somehow none of it seemed misplaced”).

An animated fetus in the style of Rakel’s own drawings appears to beg and shame Rakel into motherhood while she fights to hold onto her confidence that not wanting to be a mother doesn’t make her a bad person. Ninjababy’s greatest feat is its willingness to delve into that complication: yes, it’s righteous and feminist and 21st-century to claim your own body and life, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to turn away from something growing inside of you. It’s a comedy about shame, art, finding care in unlikely places—and there’s something in it for the gents, too. The titular ninjababy wouldn’t leave Rakel alone, and it’s unlikely to leave you either. Winner of the SXSW Global Audience Award. —SH

The Fallout Written and directed by Megan Park

Canadian actress Megan Park brought the youthful wisdom of her days on the teen drama series The Secret Life of the American Teenager to her first project behind the camera, and it paid off. Following the scattered after-effects of a school shooting, The Fallout may be the most acute, empathetic depiction of childhood trauma on screen in recent memory. “It sneaks up on you with its honesty and how it spends time with its lead, carried so beautifully by Jenna Ortega. Even the more conventional moments are poignant because of context,” writes Kevin L. Lee. Much of that “sneaky” honesty emerges as humor—despite the heavy premise, moments of hilarity hang on the edges of almost every scene. And Ortega’s portrayal of sweet-but-angsty Vada brings self-awareness to that humor, like when Vada’s avoidant, inappropriate jokes with her therapist reveal her desperation, but they garner genuine laughs nonetheless.

In this debut, Park shows an unmatched understanding of non-linear ways that young people process their pain. Sometimes kids try drugs! Sometimes they scream at their parents! But more often than not, they really do know what they want, who loves them, and how much time they need to grieve (see also: Jessie Barr’s Sophie Jones, starring her cousin Jessica Barr, out now on VOD and in theaters). The Fallout forsakes melodrama to embrace confusion, ambiguity and joy. Winner of both the SXSW Grand Jury and Audience Narrative Feature Awards, and the Brightcove Illumination Award. —SH

Ludi Directed by Edson Jean, written by Jean and Joshua Jean-Baptiste

When Ludi begins, it’s quiet and dreamy. The film’s opening moments conjure the simple pleasures of the titular character’s Haitian heritage: the music, the colors, the people. Ludi (Shein Monpremier) smiles to herself as she starts her morning with a tape recording her cousin mailed from Haiti to Miami, and listens as her family members laugh through their troubles before recording an upbeat tape of her own. But that’s where the dreaminess ends—Ludi is an overworked, underpaid nurse picking up every shift she possibly can in order to send money home. Writer-director Edson Jean fixates on the pains and consequences of Ludi’s relentless determination, which comes to a head when she moonlights as a private nurse for an old man who doesn’t want her there.

Ashton Kinley notes how the film “doesn’t overly dramatize or pull at false emotional strings to make its weight felt. The second half of the feature really allows all of that to shine, as the film becomes a tender and empathetic two-hander.” George’s (Alan Myles Heyman) resentment of his own aging body steps in as Ludi’s antagonist. Jean throws together jarring contrasts: George throwing Ludi out of the bathroom, followed by Ludi’s memories of home, followed by another lashing out, followed by a shared prayer. The tension is unsustainable. By interspersing the back-breaking predicament of a working-class immigrant with the sights and sounds of the Caribbean, Ludi elegantly, painfully reveals what the cost of a dream can be. —SH

Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror Written and directed by Kier-La Janisse

Building on the folk horror resurgence of films like The Witch and Midsommar, Kier-La Janisse’s 193-minute documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched is a colossal, staggering undertaking that should school even the most seasoned of horror buffs. “Thorough is an understatement,” says Claira.

Combining a historian’s studied, holistic patience with a cinephile’s rabid, insatiable thirst, the film, through the course of six chapters, broadens textbook British definitions, draws trenchant socio-political and thematic connections, debunks myths and transports viewers to far-flung parts of the globe in a way that almost feels anthropological. As Jordan writes, “Three hours later and my mind is racing between philosophical questions about the state of hauntology we generationally entrap ourselves in, wanting to buy every single one of the 100+ films referenced here, and being just a bit in awe of Janisse’s truly breathless work.” An encyclopedic forest worth losing yourself in—get ready for those watchlists to balloon. Winner of the SXSW Midnighters Audience Award. —AY

Introducing, Selma Blair Directed by Rachel Fleit

There’ll likely be some level of hype when this intimate collaboration between actress Selma Blair and filmmaker Rachel Fleit comes out later in the year on Discovery+, and that’s okay, because that is Blair’s intention in sharing the details of her stem-cell transplant for multiple sclerosis. There’d be little point in going there if you are not prepared to really go there, and Introducing, Selma Blair is a tics-and-all journey not just into what life is like with a chronic condition, a young son, and a career that relies on one’s ability to keep a straight face. It’s also an examination of the scar tissue of childhood, the things we are told by our parents, the ideas we come to believe about ourselves. “I almost felt like I shouldn’t have such intimate access to some of the footage in this documentary,” writes Andy Yen. “Bravo to Selma for allowing the filmmakers to show some truly raw and soul-bearing videos about her battle with multiple sclerosis that make us feel as if we are as close to her as family.” —GG

Femme Directed by Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping

I May Destroy You fans, rejoice: Paapa Essiedu, who played Arabella’s fascinating best friend Kwame, takes center stage in Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping’s intoxicating short film Femme. It’s a simple premise—Jordan, a femme gay man, follows his drug dealer (Harris Dickinson, mastering the sexually repressed brusque young man like no one else) home to pick up some goods on a night out. Except, of course, it’s not that simple. The co-directors build a world of danger, tension and electricity, with lusciously lensed scenes that lose focus as the threat rises. Frankie calls it “hypnotizing and brutal and gorgeous” and we couldn’t agree more. A crime thriller wrestling with hyper-masculinity seen through the eyes of an LGBTQ+ character, with a sucker-punch ending to boot, the world needs more than twenty minutes of this story. —EK

Play It Safe Directed by Mitch Kalisa

If you (unwisely) thought that the vulnerable, progressive environment of drama school would be a safe space for Black students, Play It Safe confirms that even a liberal bunch of actors (and their teacher) are capable of being blind to their own egregiously racist microagressions. Mitch Kalisa’s excellent short film explores structural prejudice head-on, in an electric acting exercise that rests on where the kinetic, gritty 16mm camera is pointing at every pivotal turn. At first, we’re with Black drama student Jonathan Ajayi as he receives the assignment; then we are with the rest of the class, exactly where we need to be. “Literally in your face and absolutely breathtaking,” writes Nia. A deserving winner of the SXSW Grand Jury and Audience narrative shorts prizes. —GG

Follow the Festiville team on Letterboxd

[parf-fan]

In-house shows have been posted!

As always, the following info is from the Faire’s website.

Queen's Court

Join the Mount Hope Welcoming Committee as they greet Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, at the Globe Stage! See the Queen, enjoy a sampling of the many entertainments available during the day, and learn what lies in store for all visitors to Mount Hope!

[Ah, so they’ve moved it back to the Globe for this year.  Here’s hoping everyone interested in seeing this show is aware of the stage change and doesn’t go sit at Endgame for fifteen minutes wondering where tf the preshow is until they finally look more closely at their daily writ and then say a few choice words along with their best friend as the two of us raced off to the new stage.]

Variety Royale

How can one even begin to pick a favorite act here at Mount Hope? Well Her Majesty aims to do just that. Watch as the festival's performers battle for the title of The Queen's Favorite, and perhaps even more importantly, enough food to feed themselves and their family for a whole week!

[Who needs Chess when you can have a battle of the Humanities department!]

Ultimate Joust

Join Her Majesty and the people of Mount Hope as they preside over the final joust of the day! Strength will be tested, Honor will be challenged, and the very cause of Chivalry hangs in the balance. An explosive fireworks celebration awaits the victorious Knight and their supporters afterward!

[I’d be suspicious of this promise of a “fireworks celebration”, except that I know there are simply logistically not the numbers necessary to stage an attempted insurrection. It may be actual fireworks.]

Disasterpiece Theater 

Years ago, Mount Hope gained a reputation as a testing ground for new and unconventional community theatre. Has it lived up to Sir Walter's lofty goals? Can anything get it back on track? Was it ever on track to begin with? What is a track? Theatre will happen. It might be a Masterpiece, it might be a disaster, but it will always be a Disasterpiece.

[One, thank God. I mean, they’d’ve been daft to cut it, but all the same. Two, Sir Walter was namedropped as a historical figure and that makes me happy. Three,“What is a track?”  The cast this year is not divided by track as they’ve been before! There may not be tracks at all!  This description is fricking clever].

Finale Pub Sing 

End the festival day in joyously boisterous song lead by Demetrius and Friends! Join Her Majesty, Her Court, and the shire folk of Mount Hope as they bid you farewell with songs we all know and love.

[But like,,, its not at a pub, right?  That would be logistically too crowded to be safe rn.]

Music with Her Majesty

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth enjoys singing her favorite musical selections with a few new Shire friends. Don't miss this royal performance!  [It’s back babyyy!]

Tea Time

Come join the two most in-the-know Courtiers in her Majesty's retinue as they discuss the hottest topics of the day. Gossip is illegal, so they definitely will not be gossiping; but rest assured, Tea shall be served, and if some is spilled, so be it!

[Listen. You can’t just go posting things like that.]

Mags' To Rich's*

She's rich. She's poor. But they both can agree on one thing: dating is hard. Join Mags Cockburn and Lady Rich as they sing about men, love, and …other things. *Contains material not suitable for children.

[Ooooh, Jules is Mags again, but as a Bacch! Coolio. My guess is that Lady Rich will be portrayed by Leigh Ann Hamelin, because music. Might not be, though. Musical ability is not limited to those historically on the music track.] [Also can we talk about this show’s title, ‘cause it’s clever.]

Guts & Glory: A Scottish Cooking Demo

Join Scottish Ambassador, Argyle Douglas, as he weaves comedy and storytelling into a cooking demonstration of Scotland's most famous dish, Haggis. This exhibition features an authentic Scottish "plushie" sheep happily providing authentic "plushie" organs thus enabling everyone to savour the experience without any worries about "nasty bits".  This show is fun for the whole Family (bring your children, your grandmother, your dog).

[why...why is “plushie” in quotation marks. what are they implying.]

A Whole Experience* 

Join Abe Froman, The Sausage King, and Argyle Douglas, Scottish Ambassador, as they wax poetic about the merry mix-ups in which mature couples find themselves. The Battle for Understanding, Is Compromise Truly Worthwhile in the Long-run?, When Honesty is not the Best Policy, are just the tip of the ice-burg of topics discussed. Ultimately, this show is a celebration of being human and the foibles that come with that condition. Come prepared to laugh and share in "A Whole Experience"!  *Contains material not suitable for children.

[Strictly speaking, this show sounds less like a celebration of being human and more like a celebration of being an alloromantic allosexual human in an érosish relationship, but that could be false advertising.]

And finally, neither listed last nor remotely least....

Whose Jest Is It Anyway?

Just because the Queen is on the Shire doesn't mean the people of Mount Hope need to take themselves seriously all day! Come join the shire folk as they engage in some games of Wit, Hilarity, and Downright Silliness; all based on suggestions from the audience, so every show is different! Here are some testimonials from real audience members: • "I laughed until I stopped!" - Bern D'bread, Baker • "Seriously, whose jest is it? They never answer that blasted question!" - Yuri Gnollcakes, Privy Attendant • "I took an afternoon off inventing to watch 'Whose Jest…?' My brain is now so dead I'll never invent again!" - Leonardo Da Vinci, Early Renaissance Man • "Bridget!" - Bridget Moorhouse, Lat Master of Revels

[FUCK YEAH IT’S BAAAAACK!!!!!  I’ve been waiting years for this!  Granted, that waiting has been much more congenial since I discovered Friday Knight Improv and since they added improv track shows to the Faire day, but I have nevertheless been waiting for this for years!]

[But more important than that, I want to discuss the final testimonial there.  You’ll notice that there appears to be a typo in attributing the quote, beyond just missing the middle ‘e’ from Moorehouse.  There’s a missing letter from the modifier of the title.  It says “Lat”.  Now, while it turns out that “lat” is, in fact, a word, I very much doubt that they are attempting to define Bridget as a former silver coin of Latvia equal to 100 santimi.  No, there are two words that it could be.  One, it could be missing an ‘e’, making the word “late”.  On the outside, that seems reasonable enough; Bridget was in her prime in 1520 and this season takes place sometime after 1558.  But there is yet another option.  The missing letter could be an ‘s’, making the intended word “last”.  The last Master of Revels.  As in: Mount Hope has not had a Master of Revels since Bridget?  Or as in: there is no Master of Revels after Bridget because Bridget is still the Master of Revels and will always be the Master of Revels even unto the ending of the world, for Bridget is forever, possibly Eldritch, a force of pure chaos, unending and unchanging, Eternal.

This is one typo I hope they never fix.]

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 10/13/20: FREAKY, THE CLIMB, MANK, HILLBILLY ELEGY, AMMONITE, DREAMLAND, DOC-NYC and MUCH MORE!

It’s a pretty crazy week for new releases as I mentioned a few times over the past couple weeks, but it’s bound to happen as we get closer to the holiday movie season, which this year won’t include many movies in theaters, even though movie theaters are still open in many areas of the country… and closing in others. Sigh. Besides a few high-profile Netflix theatrical release, we also get movies starring Vince Vaughn, Margot Robbie, Kate Winslet, Saoirse Ronan, Mel Gibson and more offerings. In fact, I’ve somehow managed to write 12 (!!!!) reviews this week… yikes.

Before we get to the new movies, let’s look at a few series/festivals starting this week, including the always great documentary festival, DOC-NYC, which runs from November 11 through 19. A few of the docs I’ve already seen are (probably not surprisingly, if you know me) some of the music docs in the “Sonic Cinema” section, including Oliver Murray’s Ronnie’s, a film about legendary jazz musician and tenor sax player Ronnie Scott, whose London club Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club has been one of the central cores for British jazz fans for many decades.

Alex Winter’s Zappa is a much more satisfying portrait of the avant-garde rocker than the doc Frank Zappa: In His Own Words from a few years back, but I was even more surprised by how much I enjoyed Julien Temple’s Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan, because I’ve never really been a Pogues fan, but it’s highly entertaining as we learn about the chronically-soused frontman of the popular Irish band.

I haven’t seen Robert Yapkowitz and Richard Peete’s in My Own Time: A Portrait of Karen Dalton, a portrait of the blues and folk singer, yet, nor have I watched Marcia Jarmel and Ken Schneider’s Los Hermanos/The Brothers about two brother musicians separated from childhood after leaving their native Cuba, but I’ll try to get to both of them soon enough.

Outside of the realm of music docs is Ilinca Calugareanu’s A Cops and Robbers Story, which follows Corey Pegues from being a drug dealer and gang member to a celebrated deputy inspector within the NYPD. There’s also Nancy (The Loving Story) Buirski’s A Crime on the Bayou, the third part of the filmmaker’s trilogy about brave individuals in the Civil Rights era, this one about 19-year-old New Orleans fisherman Gary Duncan who tries to break up a fight between white and black teens at an integrated school and is arrested for assaulting a minor when merely touching a white boy’s arm.

Hao Wu’s 76 Days covers the length of Wuhan, China’s lockdown due to COVID-19, a very timely doc that will be released by MTV Documentary Films via virtual cinema on December 4. It’s one of DOC-NYC’s features on its annual Short List, which includes Boys State, Collective, The Fight, On the Record, and ten others that will vie for juried categories.

IFC Films’ Dear Santa, the new film from Dana Nachman, director of the wonderful Pick of the Litter, will follow its Heartland Film Festival debut with a run at COD-NYC before its own December 4 release. The latter is about the USPS’s “Operation Santa” program that receives hundreds of thousands of letters to Santa every year and employees thousands of volunteers to help make the wishes of these kids come true.

Basically, there’s a LOT of stuff to see at DOC-NYC, and while most of the movies haven’t been released publicly outside festivals yet, a lot of these movies will be part of the doc conversations of 2020. DOC-NYC gives the chance for people across the United States to see a lot of great docs months before anyone else, so take advantage of some of their ticket packs to save some money over the normal $12 per ticket price. The $199 price for an All Access Film Pass also isn’t a bad deal if you have enough time to watch the hundreds of DOC-NYC offerings. (Sadly, I never do, yet I’m still a little bummed to miss the 10Am press screenings at IFC Center that keeps me off the streets… or in this case, sitting on my ass at home.)

Not to be outdone by the presence of DOC-NYC, Film at Lincoln Center is kicking off its OWN seventh annual “Art of the Real” doc series, which has a bit of overlap by running from November 13 to 26. I really don’t know a lot about the documentaries being shown as part of this program, presented with Mubi and The New York Times, but check this out. For just 50 bucks, you can get an all-access pass to all 17 films, which you can casually watch at home over the two weeks of the fest.

Okay, let’s get to some theatrical releases, and the one I’ve been anticipating the most (also the one getting the widest release) is Christopher Landon’s FREAKY from Blumhouse and Universal Pictures. It stars Kathryn Newton as Millie Kessler, a high school outcast who is constantly picked on, but one night, she ends up encountering the serial killer known as the “Blissfield Butcher” (Vince Vaughn), but instead of dying when she’s stabbed with a ritual blade. The next morning Millie and the Butcher wake up to discover that they’ve been transported into the body of the other. Oh, it’s Friday the 13th… oh, now I get it… Freaky Friday!

Landon is best known for writing many of the Paranormal Activity sequels and directing Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones. Msore importantly, he directed Happy Death Day and its sequel Happy Death Day 2 U, two of my favorite Blumhouse movies, because they so successfully mix horror with comedy, which is so hard to do. That’s what Freaky is all about, too, and it’s even harder this time even though Freaky has way more gruesome and gory kills than anything in Landon’s other films. Heck, many of the kills are gorier than the most recent Halloween from Blumhouse, and it’s a little shocking when you’re laughing so hard at times.

Landon does some clever things with what’s essentially a one-joke premise of a killer in a teen girl’s body and vice versa, but like the Lindsay Lohan-Jamie Lee Curtis remake from 2003, it’s all about the talent of the two main actors to pull off the rather intricate nature of playing humor without losing the seriousness of the horror element.

It may not be too surprising with Vaughn, who made a ton of dramas and thrillers before turning to comedy. (Does everyone remember that he played Norman Bates in Gus Van Sant’s remake of Psycho and also starred in thrillers The Cell and Domestic Disturbance?) Newton is a bit more of an unknown quantity, but as soon as Tillie dawns the red leather jacket, you know that she can use her newly found homicidal attitude to get some revenge on those who have been terrible to her.

In some ways, the comedy aspects of Freaky win out over the horror but no horror fan will be disappointed by the amount of gory kills and how well the laughs emerge from a decent horror flick. Freaky seems like the kind of movie that Wes Craven would have loved.

I’m delighted to say that this week’s “Featured Flick” is Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin’s indie comedy THE CLIMB (Sony Pictures Classics), a movie that I have seen no less than three times this year, first when it was playing Sundance, a few months later when it was supposed to open in March… and then again last week! And you know what? I enjoyed it just as much every single time. It’s an amazing two-hander that stars Covino and Marvin as best friends Mike and Kyle, who have a falling out over the former sleeping with the latter’s fiancé, and it just gets funnier and funnier as the friends fight and Kyle gets engaged to Marisa (Gayle Rankin from GLOW) who hates Mike. Can this friendship possibly survive?

I really had no idea what to expect the first time I saw The Climb at the Sony Screening Room, but it was obviously going to be a very different movie for Sony Pictures Classics, who had started out the year with so many great films before theaters shut down. (Unfortunately, they may have waited too long on this one as theaters seem to be shutting down again even while NYC and L.A. have yet to reopen them. Still, I think this would be just as much fun in a drive-in.)

The movie starts with a long, extended scene of the two leads riding bikes on a steep mountain in France, talking to each other as Kyle (once the athlete of the duo) has fallen out of shape. During the conversation, Mike admits to having slept with Kyle’s fiancé Ava (Judith Godréche) and things turn hostile between the two. We then get the first big jump in time as we’re now at the funeral for Ava, who actually had been married to Mike. Kyle eventually moves on and begins a relationship with his high school sweetheart Marisa, who we meet at the Thanksgiving gathering for Kyle’s extended family. In both these cases, we see how the relationship between Mike and Kyle has changed/evolved as Mike has now fallen on hard times.

It's a little hard to explain why what’s essentially a “slice of life” movie can be so funny. On one hand, The Climb might be the type of movie we might see from Mike Leigh, but Covino and Marvin find a way to make everything funny and also quite eccentric in terms of how some of the segments begin and end.  Technically, it’s also an impressive feat with the number of amazing single shot sequences and how smooth some of the transitions work. It’s actually interesting to see when and how the filmmakers decide to return to the lives of their subjects – think of it a bit like Michael Apted’s “Up” series of docs but covering a lot shorter span in time.

Most importantly, The Climb has such a unique tone and feel to other indie dramedies we’ve seen, as the duo seem to be influenced more by European cinema than American indies. Personally, I think a better title for The Climb might have been “Frenemied,” but even with the movie’s fairly innocuous title, you will not forget the experience watching this entertaining film anytime soon.

Maybe this should be called “Netflix week,” because the streamer is releasing a number of high-profile movies into theaters and on the streaming service. Definitely one of the more anticipated movies of the year is David Fincher’s MANK, which will get a theatrical release this week and then stream on Netflix starting December 4.

It stars Gary Oldman as Herman Mankiewicz, the Hollywood screenwriter who has allowed himself to succumb to alcoholism but has been hired by Orson Welles (Tom Burke) to write his next movie, Citizen Kane, working with a personal secretary Rita Alexander (played by Lily Collins). His story is told through his interactions with media mogul William Hearst (Charles Dance) and relationship with actress and Hearst ingenue and mistress, Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried).

It I were asked to pick one director who is my absolute favorite, Fincher would probably be in my top 5 because he’s had such an illustrious and varied career of movie styles, and Mank continues that tradition as Fincher pays tribute to old Hollywood and specifically the work of Orson Welles in every frame of this biopic that’s actually more about the troubled writer of Citizen Kane who was able to absorb everything happening in his own Hollywood circles and apply them to the script.

More than anything, Mank feels like a movie for people who love old Hollywood and inside Hollywood stories, and maybe even those who may already know about the making of Welles’ highly-regarded film might find a few new things to appreciate. I particularly enjoyed Mankiewicz’s relationships with the women around him, including his wife “Poor Sarah,” played by Tuppence Middleton, Collins’ Rita, and of course, Seyfried’s absolutely radiant performance as Davies.  Maybe I would have appreciated the line-up of known names and characters like studio head Louis B Mayer and others, if more of them had any sort of effect on the story and weren’t just

The film perfectly captures the dynamic of the time and place as Mank is frequently the only honest voice in a sea of brown nosers and yes-men. Maybe I would have enjoyed Oldman’s performance more if everything that comes out of Mankiewicz’s mouth wasn’t an all-too-clever quip.

The film really hits a high point after a friend of Mank’s commits suicide and how that adds to the writer’s woes about not being able to save him. The film’s last act involves Mank dealing with the repercussions after the word gets out that Citizen Kane is indeed about Hearst.

Overall, Mank is a movie that’s hard to really dig into, and like some of Fincher’s previous work, it tends to be devoid of emotion. Even Fincher’s decision to be clever by including cigarette burns to represent Mank’s “reels” – something explained by Brad Pitt in Fight Club – just drives home the point that Mank is deliberately Fincher’s most meta movie to date.

You can also read my technical/crafts review of Mank over at Below the Line.

Ron Howard’s adaptation of JD Vance’s bestselling memoir HILLBILLY ELEGY will be released by Netflix into theaters ahead of its streaming debut on November 24. It stars Amy Adams and Glenn Close, but in honesty, it’s about JD Vance, you know, the guy who wrote the memoir.  The film follows his younger years (as played by Owen Asztalos) while dealing with a dysfunctional white trash family in Middletown, Ohio, dealing with his headstrong Mamaw (Close) and abusive mother dealing with drug addiction (Adams).  Later in life, while studying at Yale (and played by Gabriel Basso), he has to return to his Ohio roots to deal with his mother’s growing addiction that forces him to come to terms with his past.

I’m a bit of a Ron Howard stan – some might even say “an apologist” – and there’s no denying that Hillbilly Elegy puts him the closest to A Beautiful Mind territory than he’s been in quite some time. That doesn’t mean that this movie is perfect, nor that I would consider it one of his better movies, though. I went into the movie not knowing a thing about JD Vance or his memoir but after the first reviews came out, I was a little shocked how many of them immediately went political, because there’s absolutely nothing resembling politics in the film.

It is essentially an adaptation of a memoir, dealing with JD Vance’s childhood but then also the past that led his mother and grandmother down the paths that made his family so dysfunctional. I particularly enjoyed the relationship between the older Vance and his future wife Usha (as played by Freida Pinto) earlier in their relationship as they’re both going to Yale and Vance is trying to move past his family history to succeed in the realm of law.

It might be a no-brainer why Adams and Close are being given so much of the attention for their performances. They are two of the best. Close is particularly amusing as the cantankerous Mamaw, who veers between cussing and crying, but also has some great scenes both with Adams and the younger Vance. The amazing special make-up FX used to change her appearance often makes you forget you’re watching Close. I wish I could say the same for Adams, who gives such an overwrought and over-the-top performance that it’s very hard to feel much emotionally for her character as she goes down a seemingly endless vortex of drug addiction. It’s a performance that leads to some absolute craziness. (It’s also odd seeing Adams in basically the Christian Bale role in The Fighter, although Basso should get more credit about what he brings out in their scenes together.)

Hillbilly Elegy does have a number of duller moments, and I’m not quite sure anyone not already a fan of Vance’s book would really have much interest in these characters. I certainly have had issues with movies about people some may consider “Southern White Trash,” but it’s something I’ve worked on myself to overcome. It’s actually quite respectable for a movie to try to show characters outside the normal circles of those who tend to write reviews, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the movie might be able to connect with people in rural areas that rarely get to see themselves on screen.

Hillbilly Elegy has its issues, but it feels like a successful adaptation of a novel that may have been difficult to keep an audience invested in with all its flashbacks and jumps in time.

Netflix is also streaming the Italian drama THE LIFE AHEAD, directed by Edoardo Ponti, starring Oscar-winning actress Sophia Loren, who happens to also be the filmmaker’s mother. She plays Madame Rosa, a Holocaust survivor in Italy who takes a stubborn young street kid named Momo (Ibrahima Gueye), much to both their chagrin.

I’ll be shocked if Italy doesn’t submit Ponti’s film as their choice for the Oscar’s International Film category, because it has all of the elements that would appeal to Oscar voters. In that sense, I also found it to be quite traditional and formulaic.  Loren is quite amazing, as to be expected, and I was just as impressed with young Ibrahima Gueye who seems to be able to hold his own in what’s apparently his first movie. There’s others in the cast that also add to the experience including a trans hooker named Lola, but it’s really the relationship between the two main characters that keeps you invested in the movie. I only wish I didn’t spend much of the movie feeling like I knew exactly where it’s going in terms of Rosa doing something to save the young boy and giving him a chance at a good life.

I hate to be cynical, but at times, this is so by the books, as if Ponti watched every Oscar movie and made one that had all the right elements to appeal to Oscar voters and wokesters alike. That aside, it does such a good job tugging at heartstrings that you might forgive how obviously formulaic it is.

Netflix is also premiering the fourth season of The Crown this week, starring Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth and bringing on board Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher, Emma Corin, Helena Bonham Carter, Tobis Menzies, Marion Bailey and Charles Dancer. Quite a week for the streamer, indeed.

Another movie that may be in the conversation for Awards season is AMMONITE (NEON), the new film from Francis Lee (God’s Own Country), a drama set in 1840s England where Kate Winslet plays Mary Anning, a fossil hunter,  tasked to look after melancholic young bride, Charlotte Murcheson (Saoirse Ronan), sent to the sea to get better only for them to get into a far more intimate relationship.

I had been looking forward to this film, having heard almost unanimous raves from out of Toronto a few months back. Maybe my expectations were too high, because while this is a well-made film with two strong actors, it’s also rather dreary and not something I necessarily would watch for pleasure. The comparisons to last year’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire (also released by NEON) are so spot-on that it’s almost impossible to watch this movie without knowing exactly where it’s going from the very minute that the two main characters meet.

Winslet isn’t bad in another glammed-down role where she can be particularly cantankerous, but knowing that the film would eventually take a sapphic turn made it somewhat predictable. Ronan seems to be playing her first outright adult role ever, and it’s a little strange to see her all grown-up after playing a teenager in so many movies.

The movie is just so contained to the one setting right up until the last 20 minutes when it actually lives the Lyme setting and lets us see the world outside Mary’s secluded lifestyle.  As much as I wanted to love Ammonite, it just comes off as so obvious and predictable – and certainly not helped by coming out so soon after Portrait of a Lady. There’s also something about Ammonite that just feels so drab and dreary and not something I’d necessarily need to sit through a second time.

The animated film WOLFWALKERS (GKIds) is the latest from Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart, directors of the Oscar-nominated Secret of the Kells (Moore’s Song of the Sea also received an Oscar nomination a few years later.) It’s about a young Irish girl named Robyn (voiced Honor Kneafsey) who is learning to be hunter from her father (voiced by Sean Bean) to help him wipe out the last wolf pack. Roby then meets another girl (voiced by Eva Whittaker) who is part of a tribe rumored to transform into wolves by night.

I have to be honest that by the time I got around to start watching this, I was really burnt out and not in any mood to watch what I considered to look like a kiddie movie. It looks nice, but I’m sure I’d be able to enjoy it more in a different head (like watching first thing on a Saturday morning).

Regardless, Wolfwalkers will be in theaters nationwide this Friday and over the weekend via Fathom Events as well as get full theatrical runs at drive-ins sponsored by the Landmark, Angelika and L.A.’s Vineland before it debuts on Apple TV+ on December 11. Maybe I’ll write a proper review for that column. You can get tickets for the Fathom Events at  WolfwalkersMovie.com.

Next up is Miles Joris-Peyrafitte’s DREAMLAND (Paramount), starring Margot Robbie as Allison Wells, a bank-robbing criminal on the loose who encounters young man named Eugene Evans (Finn Cole) in rural Dust Bowl era North Dakota and convinces him to hide her and help her escape the authorities by taking her to Mexico.

Another movie where I wasn’t expecting much, more due to the generic title and genre than anything else, but it’s a pretty basic story of a young man in a small town who dreams of leaving and also glamorizes the crime stories he read in pulps. Because of the Great Depression in the late ’20, the crime wave was spreading out across the land and affecting everyone, even in more remote locations like the one at the center of Dreamland.

The sad truth is that there have been so many better movies about this era, including Warren Beatty’s Bonnie and Clyde, Lawless and many others. Because of that, this might not be bad but it’s definitely trying to follow movies that leave quite a long shadow. The innocent relationship between Eugene and Allison does add another level to the typical gangster story, but maybe that isn’t enough for Dreamland to really get past the fact that the romantic part of their relationship isn’t particularly believable.

As much as this might have been fine as a two-hander, you two have Travis Fimmel as Eugene’s stepfather and another generic white guy in Garrett Hedlund playing Allison’s Clyde Barrow-like partner in crime in the flashbacks. Cole has enough trouble keeping on pace with Robbie but then you have Fimmel, who was just grossly miscast. The film’s score ended up being so overpowering and annoying I wasn’t even remotely surprised when I saw that Joris-Peyrafitte is credited with co-writing the film’s score.

Dreamland is fine, though it really needed to have a stronger and more original vision to stand out. It’s another classic case of an actor being far better than the material she’s been given. This is being given a very limited theatrical release before being on digital next Tuesday.

This might have been Netflix week, but maybe it could have been “Saban Films Week,” since the distributor also has three new movies. Actually, only two, because I screwed up, and I missed the fact that André Øvredal’s MORTAL was released by Saban Films LAST week. Not entirely my fault because for some reason, I had it opening this week, and I only realized that I was wrong last Wednesday. Oh, well.  It stars Nate Wolff as Eric Bergeland, an American in Norway who seems to have some enigmatic powers, but after killing a young lad, he ends up on the lam with federal agent Christine (Iben Akerlie from Victoria).

This is another movie I really wanted to like since I’ve been such a fan of Øvredal from back to his movie Trollhunter. Certainly the idea of him taking a dark look at superpowers through the lends of Norse mythology should be right up my alley. Even so, this darker and more serious take on superpowers – while it might be something relatively unique and new in movies – it’s something anyone who has read comics has seen many times before and often quite better.

Wolff’s character is deliberately kept a mystery about where he comes from, and all we know is that he survived a fire at his farm, and we watched him kill a young man that’s part of a group of young bullies.  From there, it kind of turns into a procedural as the authorities and Akerlie’s character tries to find out where Eric came from and got his powers. It’s not necessarily a slow or talkie movie, because there are some impressive set pieces for sure, but it definitely feels more like Autopsy of Jane Doe than Trollhunters. Maybe my biggest is that this is a relatively drab and lifeless performance by Wolff, who I’ve seen be better in other films.

Despite my issues, it doesn’t lessen my feelings about Øvredal as a filmmaker, because there’s good music and use of visual FX -- no surprise if you’ve seen Trollhunters -- but there’s still a really bad underlying feeling that you’re watching a lower budget version of an “X-Men” movie, and not necessarily one of the better ones.  Despite a decent (and kinda crazy) ending, Mortal never really pays off, and it’s such a slog to get to that ending that people might feel slightly underwhelmed.

Seth Savoy’s ECHO BOOMERS (Saban Films) is a crime thriller based on a “true story if you believe in such things,” starring Patrick Schwarzenegger as Lance, a young art major, who falls in with a group of youths who break into rich people’s homes and trash them, also stealing some of the more valuable items for their leader Mel (Michael Shannon).

There’s a lot about Echo Boomers that’s going to feel familiar if you’ve seen Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring or the heist movie American Animals from a few years back, but even with those similarities, Seth Savoy has a strong cast and vision to make more out of the fairly weak writing than another director might manage. Schwarzenegger, who seems to be pulling in quite a wide range of roles for basically being another generic white actor is only part of a decent ensemble that includes Alex Pettyfer as the group’s ersatz alpha male Ellis and Hayley Law (also great in the recent Spontaneous) as his girlfriend Allie, the only girl taking part in the heists and destruction. Those three actors alone are great, but then you add Shannon just doing typically fantastic work as more of a catalyst than an antagonist.

You can probably expect there will be some dissension in the ranks, especially when the group’s “Fagan” Mel puts Lance in charge of keeping them in line and Allie forms a friendship with Lance. What holds the movie back is the decision to use a very traditional testimonial storytelling style where Lance and Allie narrate the story by relaying what happened to the authorities after their capture obviously. This doesn’t help take away from the general predictability of where the story goes either, because we’ve seen this type of thing going all the way back to The Usual Suspects.

While Echo Boomers might be fairly derivative of far better movies at times, it also has a strong directorial vision and a compelling story that makes up enough for that fact.

In theaters this Friday and then On Demand and Digital on November 24 is Eshom and Ian Nelms’ action-comedy FATMAN (Saban Films/Paramount), starring Mel Gibson as Santa Claus and Walton Goggins as the hired assassin sent to kill him by a spoiled rich boy named  Billy (Chance Hurstfield) who unhappy with the presents he’s being brought for Christmas.

While we seem to be surrounded by high concept movies of all shapes and sizes, you can’t get much more high concept than having Mel Gibson playing a tough and cantankerous* Kris Kringle (*Is this the week’s actual theme?) who is struggling to survive with Mrs. Klaus (played by the wonderful Marianne Jean-Baptiste from In Fabric) when they’re given the opportunity to produce military grade items for the army using his speedy elf workshop. Unbeknownst to the Kringles, the disgruntled hitman who also feels he’s been let down by Santa is on his way to the North Pole to fulfill his assignment.

You’ll probably know whether you’ll like this movie or not since its snarkier comedic tone is introduced almost from the very beginning. This is actually a pretty decent role for Gibson that really plays up to his strengths, and it’s a shame that there wasn’t more to it than just a fairly obvious action movie that leads to a shoot-out. I probably should have enjoyed Goggins more in a full-on villainous role but having been watching a lot of him on CBS’ The Unicorn, it’s kind of hard to adjust to him playing this kind of role.  I did absolutely love Marianne Jean-Baptiste and the warmth she brought to a relatively snarky movie.

I’m not sure if Fatman is the best showing of Eshom and Ian Nelms’ abilities as filmmakers, because they certainly have some, but any chance of being entertaining is tamped down by a feeling the filmmakers are constantly trying to play it safe. Because of this, Fatman has a few fun moments but a generally weak premise that never fully delivers. It would have thrived by being much crazier, but instead, it’s just far too mild.

Malin Åkerman stars in Paul Leyden’s CHICK FIGHT (Quiver Distribution) as Anna, a woman unhappy with her life and inability to survive on the little money she makes at her failing coffee shop. When Anna’s lesbian traffic cop friend Charleen (Dulcé Sloan) takes her to an underground fight club, Anna her trepidation about joining in, because she has never been in a fight in her life.  Learning that her mother has a legacy at the club, Anna agrees to be trained by Alec Baldwin’s always-drunk Murphy in order to take on the challenges of the likes of Bella Thorne’s Olivia.

Another movie where I’m not sure where to begin other than the fact that I’m not sure I’ve seen a movie trying so hard to be fun and funny and failing miserably at both. Listen, I generally love Akerman, and I’m always hoping for her to get stronger material to match her talents, but this tries its best to be edgy without ever really delivering on the most important thing for any comedy: Laughs.  Sure, the filmmakers try their best and even shoehorn a bit of romance for Anna in the form of the ring doctor played by Kevin Connolly from Entourage, but it does little to help distinguish the movie’s identity.

Listen, I’m not going to apologize for being a heterosexual male that finds Bella Thorne to be quite hot when she’s kicking ass in the ring. (I’m presuming that a lot of what we see in her scenes in the ring involves talented stuntwomen, but whoa! If that’s not the case.) Alec Baldwin seems to be in this movie merely as a favor to someone, possibly one of the producers, and when he disappears with no mention midway through the movie, you’re not particularly surprised. Another of trying too hard is having Anna’s father Ed (played by wrestler Kevin Nash) come out as gay and then use his every appearance to talk about his sex acts.  Others in the cast like Fortune Feimster seem to be there mainly for their bulk and believability as fighters.

Ultimately, Chick Fight is a fairly lame and bland girl power movie written, directed and mostly produced by men. I’m not sure why anyone might be expecting more from it than being a poorly-executed comedy lacking laughs.

And yet, that wasn’t the worst movie of the weekend. That would be Andrzej Bartkowiak’s DEAD RECKONING (Shout! Studios). Yes, the Polish cinematographer and filmmaker who once made the amazing Romeo is Bleeding, starring Gary Oldman and Lena Olin, has returned with a movie with the onus of a premise that reads “a thriller inspired by the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.” No, I did not make that up. It mostly takes place in Nantucket, Massachusetts, which I guess is sort of close to Boston, but instead it focuses on the relationship between teens Niko (K.J. Apa) and Tillie (India Eisley), the latter whose parents died in a plane crash that might have been caused by a terrorist. It just so happens that Niko’s brother Marco (Scott Adkins) is an Albanian terrorist. Coincidence? I think not!

Once you get past the most generic title ever, Dead Reckoning is just plain awful. I probably should have known what to expect when the movie opens with Eric “Never Turned Down a Job” Roberts, but also, I strong feel that Scott Adkins, better known for his martial arts skills, is easily one of the worst actors ever to be given lines to say in a movie. And yet, somehow, there are even worse actors in this movie. How is that even possible?

Although this presumed action movie opens with one of three or four fight sequences, we’re soon hanging out on the beach with a bunch of annoying teenagers, including Tillie, who is drowning the sorrow of recently losing her parents by literally drinking constantly in almost every single scene. When she meets the handsome Eastern European Niko, we think there’s some chance of Tillie being saved, but it isn’t meant to be.

Part of what’s so weird is that Dead Reckoning begins in territory familiar to fans of Barkowiak’s movies like Exit Wounds, Cradle 2 the Grave and Maximum Impact but then quickly shifts gears to a soppy teen romance. It’s weird enough to throw you off when at a certain point, it returns to the main plot, which involves Adkins’ terrorist plot and the search by FBI Agent Cantrell (played by James Remar) to find the culprit who killed Tillie’s parents. Oh, the FBI agent is also Tillie’s godfather. Of course, he is.

Beyond the fact that I spent much of the movie wondering what these teens in Nantucket have to do with the opening scene or the overall premise, this is a movie that anything that could be resembling talent or skill in Barkowiak’s filmmaking is long gone. Going past the horrendous writing – at one point, the exasperated and quite xenophobic Cantrell exclaims, “It’s been a nightmare since 9/11... who knows what's next?” -- or the inability of much of the cast to make it seem like anyone involved cares about making a good movie, the film is strangled by a score that wants to remind you it’s a thriller even as you watch people having fun on the beach on a sunny day.

Eventually, it does get back to the action with a fight between Cantrell and Marco… and then Marco gets into a fight with Tillie’s nice aunt nurse Jennifer where she has a surprisingly amount of fighting skills. There’s also Nico’s best friend who is either British or gay or both, but he spends every one of his scenes acting so pretentious and annoying, you kind of hope he’ll be blown up by terrorists. Sadly, you have to wait until the last act before the surfboards are pulled out.  (Incidentally, filmmakers, please don’t call a character in your movie “Marco,” especially if that character’s name is going to be yelled out repeatedly, because it will just lead to someone in the audience to yell out “Polo!” This is Uwe Boll School of Bad Filmmaking 101!)

The point is that the movie is just all over the place yet in a place that’s even remotely watchable. There even was a point when Tillie was watching the video of her parents dying in a car crash for the third or fourth time, and I just started laughing, since it’s such a slipshod scene.

It’s very likely that Dead Reckoning will claim the honor of being the worst movie I’ve seen this year. Really, the only way to have any fun watching this disaster is to play a drinking game where you take a drink every time Eisley’s character takes a drink. Or better yet, just bail on the movie and hit the bottle, because I’m sure whoever funded this piece of crap is.

Opening at New York’s Film Forum on Wednesday is Manfred Kirchheimer’s FREE TIME (Grasshopper/Cinema Conservancy), another wonderful doc from one of the kings of old school cinema verité documentary filmmaking, consisting of footage of New York City from 1960 that’s pieced together with a wonderful jazz score. Let me tell you that Kirschheimer’s work is very relaxing to watch and Free Time is no exception. Plus the hour-long movie will premiere in Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema, accompanied by Rudy Burckhardt’s 1953 film Under the Brooklyn Bridge which captures Brooklyn in the ‘50s.

Also opening in Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema Friday is Hong Khaou’s MONSOON (Strand Releasing) starring Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) as Kit, who returns to Ho Chi Minh City for the first time since his family fled after the Vietnam War when he was six. As he tries to make sense of it, he ends in a romance with Parker Sawyers’ American ex-pat and forms a friendship with a local student (Molly Harris). Unfortunately, I didn’t have the chance to watch this one before finishing up this column but hope to catch soon, because I do like Golding as an actor.

I shared my thoughts on Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer’s FIREBALL: VISITORS FROM DARK WORLDS, when it played at TIFF in September, but this weekend, it will debut on Apple TV+.  It’s another interesting and educational science doc from Herr Herzog, this time teaming with the younger Cambridge geoscientist and “volcanologist” to look at the evidence left behind by meteors that have arrived within the earth’s atmosphere, including the races that worship the falling space objects.

Opening at the Metrograph this week (or rather on its website) is Shalini Kantayya’s documentary CODED BIAS, about the widespread bias in facial recognition and the algorithms that affect us all, which debuted Weds night and will be available on a PPV basis and will be available through November 17. The French New Wave anthology Six In Paris will also be available as a ticketed movie ($8 for members/$12 for non-members) through April 13. Starting Thursday as part of the Metrograph’s “Live Screenings” is Steven Fischler and Joel Sucher’s Free Voice of Labor: The Jewish Anarchists from 1980. Fischler’s earlier doc Frame Up! The imprisonment of Martin Sostre from 1974 will also be available through Thursday night.

Sadly, there are just way too many movies out this week, and some of the ones I just wasn’t able to get to include:

Dating Amber (Samuel Goldwyn) The Giant (Vertical) I Am Greta (Hulu) Dirty God (Dark Star Pictures) Where She Lies (Gravitas Ventures) Maybe Next Year (Wavelength Productions) Come Away (Relativity) Habitual (National Amusements) The Ride (Roadside Attractions, Forest, ESX) Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (Netflix) Transference: A Love Story (1091) Sasquatch Among the Wildmen (Uncork’d) All Joking Aside (Quiver Distribution) Secret Zoo (MPI Medi Group/Capelight Pictures)

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, I think you’re very special and quite good-looking. Feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

[katlynlennie-blog]

The ruffle detail on the top of the sleeve

Wait, one more thing, in non Premier League soccer schedule news. The LA Galaxy head to Seattle to take on the Sounders in the final match of the regular season. Winner takes the Supporters Shield and gets home field in the West (tie goes to Seattle).

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[dagongreyjoy]

Readings for 2020

I aim to read a book a week, with ten poetry books to be also read along the year. I’ve chosen not to ration along fiction/nonfiction and other lines, except poetry, and just choose whatever I want to read. 

I’ve also excluded academic stuff (at least in my field) from this list. Only 62 left to go!

Main Reads:

The Pre-Raphaelite Tragedy by William Gaunt

The Books of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Time’s Traveller’s Almanac edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer

Mythe et Épopée I. II. III. by Georges Dumézil

She-Wolves by Helen Castor

The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen

Into the Unknown by Alexander Maitland

Inventions of the Middle-Ages by Chiara Frugoni

The Assassins by Bernard Lewis

The Southern Gates of Arabia by Freya Stark

Poetic Edda trans. by Carolyne Larrington

The Tin Drum by Günter Grass

Letters from Iceland by W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice 

Kolyma Tales by Varlam Shalamov

Les Bouts du monde by Roger Willemsen

The Face of War by Martha Gellhorn

The Collected Works of Kahlil Gibran

Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andrić

The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade

The Early Romances of William Morris

Feudal Society by Marc Bloch

The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry by Walter Pater

Behind the Wall by Colin Thubron

The Wanderer and Other Old English Poems

Getty Apocalypse

Winchester Psalter Miniature Cycle

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Journaux de Guerre 1939-1948 by Ernst Jünger

Auriez-vous crié "heil Hitler" ? : Soumission et résistances au nazisme : l'Allemagne vue d'en bas (1918-1946) by François Roux

Life of William Morris I & II by J.W. Mackail

The Pre-Raphaelites by Aurélie Petiot

The House of Borgia by Christopher Hibbert

The Prince in Splendour: Court Festivals of Medieval Europe by Richard Barber

The Grasmere Journal by Dorothy Wordsworth

A Story as Sharp as a Knife: The Classical Haida Mythtellers and Their World by Robert Bringhurst

In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin

Mani & Roumeli by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Seeds of Change by Henry Hobhouse

The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution by Mark Roseman

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Voyageurs Arabes ed. La Pleiade

The Writer’s Map Huw Lewis-Jones

Coventry by Rachel Cusk

Lesbians Nuns by Rosemary Curb and Nancy Manahan

The Closed Doors by Pauline Albanese

The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa

Mrs Bridge by Evan S. Connell

Becoming Eve by Abby Stein

Red Clocks by Leni Zumas

The Pre-Raphaelite Dream by William Gaunt

The Book of Legendary Lands by Umberto Eco

Icelandic Folk Legends by Alda Sigmundsdóttir

Poetry:

Selected Poems of Yevtushenko

Golden Treasury of English Verse ed. by Francis Turner Palgrave

Selected Poems of Edward Thomas

Selected Poems of Wilfred Owen

Selected Poems of Rupert Brooke

Selected Poems of Anna Akhmatova

Georgian Poetry 1913-1915

Selected Poems and Songs of Robert Burns

If not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho trans. Anne Carson

The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

[quietdaysco]

Primrose Path - Devlog #010

November was very productive! This month was NaNoWriMo, or “National Novel Writing Month”. This is typically a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel during November that a lot of writers and authors choose to do (with varying levels of success). All that creative energy definitely spurred us on this month with our own challenge!

Check out our progress report:

Main Game Progress

Writing

Common Route:

Rough Outline: 100% ✓

Revised Outline: 100% ✓

Draft Script: 50%

Word Count: 79,506

Scenes: 50* /100

*Scenes are counted when they are ready for internal review, qualifying them as complete for the first draft.

We’ve finished 20 scenes this month, which means we’ve completed 50 scenes for our first draft! We’re halfway done! That’s a total of nearly 80,000 words so far, and these numbers are only going to get bigger!

We haven't been without a small hiccups, but it looks like we’re slowly writing more and more each month. We’re eager to keep up that momentum.

Take a gander at some of our favourite unrevised snippets from this month: 

PRIYA: Morning, hotshot. PRIYA: Wow, you look like you woke up on the wrong side of life... PRIYA: ... then fell out of bed and onto two fists. One for each eye.

The tall blonde woman folds her cards and rises from her seat in a huff. SAMSON: (Chuckles) Clearly, you don't share your wife's sense of humour. She rolls her eyes, throwing her bag over her shoulder. AMANDA: Pipi, we're leaving. As she leaves, a small Pomeranian jumps off from Sam's lap and scurries behind her.

PRIYA: Are our readers interested in intimidating, towering thug dad vibes? MC: Are you? PRIYA: I watch hour-long videos of a buttery-voiced Russian narrating a tournament between elephant beetles in captivity. PRIYA: I am not the majority of our readers.

With her grasp firmly on me, I pull her out of the crowd. Her prim and proper appearance, a little more disheveled. MC: That wasn't so bad, right? LEIGH-ANNA: You're insane. MC: Y'know, people do say that.

If this is the kind of content you like to see, we’d love for you to jump into our Discord server! We occasionally share much longer unrevised excerpts and discuss the game in much more depth with our community.

Behind The Scenes

Concepts

This is a potential face concept for auto and tech CEO, Samson Opeyemi. We’re trying to work around a few face refs, so as well-rendered as this sketch may be, we’re eyeing a few other facial structures. 

Are you a fan of any of these? Let us know! We love to hear from you guys, and your support can have a direct influence on our design decisions. We want this to be something everyone enjoys.

Real Life

Coda’s been contracted for a sequential artist position with an animation and video game studio! Getting some industry-level experience on creating and managing production materials is nothing but a boon for the team going forward. She believes this will strengthen her composition and scene directing skills, which will help make Primrose Path and other projects going forward much more engaging.

A Short Break

The holidays are here, so we’ve decided we're gonna take it a little easier this month! Our next update will be at the end of January, as we settle down for the festive period and college finals. Self care is important to us, so we make a conscious decision to try and achieve a more balanced lifestyle. We're far from perfect, but we encourage everyone else to do the same.    We hope to see you in 2020 with some big changes! ♥

We’re focusing on monthly devlogs for our Tumblr, but we have to ask: Are there other kinds of content and updates you folks would like to see here? We want to know! Shoot us a message in our Ask the Devs inbox here on Tumblr, or hit us up on Twitter, Discord, and Lemma Soft!

Socials

• Micro-updates on Twitter!   ♦ Factoids with Greyson!  • Writing Progress on GitScrum! • Live art development on Twitch! • Art logging on Instagram! • Ask us anything here! • Continue the discussion on Discord! • Master thread on Lemma Soft!