#Los Angeles Film Critics Association

[thejewofkansas]

Awards Season 2023-24: Awards Round-Up 12/11

The local critics groups are starting to announce their winners, and with that comes the newest edition of these weekly posts where I set group against group to see what trends I can identify – or what categories remain wide open. First, a quick word on the European Film Awards, which gave Anatomy of a Fall Best Film, Director, Screenwriter, Actress, and Editing. Again, it’s not eligible for the…

[universalmovies]

Los Angeles Film Critics 2022: Everything Everywhere All At Once e Tár miglior film ex aequo

#LosAngelesFilmCritics 2022: #EverythingEverywhereAllAtOnce e Tár miglior film ex aequo

Con un colpo di scena, i Los Angeles Film Critics Awards 2022 hanno decretato miglior film ex aequo due film diversissimi tra loro: Everything Everywhere All At Once e Tár. Per la quarta volta nella sua storia, i Los Angeles Critics Awards hanno dunque decretato due titoli come miglior film a pari merito. Per quanto riguarda Tár di Todd Field, che si è aggiudicato anche il premio per la miglior…

[denimbex1986]

'When the companies behind Ira Sachs’ new drama about the shifting currents of intimacy in a troubled love triangle submitted Passages to the Motion Picture Association ratings board, they probably anticipated an R.

But the MPA came back with an NC-17 rating, forcing the distributor to release the film (which premiered at Sundance earlier this year) unrated rather than risk commercial marginalization or impose cuts that would diminish its intensity...

Let’s be clear: Passages — which Mubi opened Aug. 4 in Los Angeles and New York before expanding to other cities in the weeks to come — is a movie with a generous amount of sex, both gay and straight. But it’s neither particularly explicit nor remotely gratuitous, even if it’s frequently quite hot.

The sex is, above all, integral to the movie’s emotional texture, to the way the characters navigate their volatile relationships, the way they express their feelings and explore their connections through their bodies as they come together and pull apart. In other words, the film’s candor in depicting sex and nudity nudges it closer to European cinema than American.

The ratings controversy around Sachs’ movie comes just as Oppenheimer has been generating talk on social media and in the press about being the first Christopher Nolan movie to feature sex scenes. The trysts between Cillian Murphy as scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and Florence Pugh as his lover both before and during the former’s marriage earned the release an R rating, which is standard given the glimpses of sweaty flesh on view.

But the fact that people are talking about it at all — and no one has been talking about it louder than Nolan himself — just underlines how squeamish American movies are about sex and sensuality.

The sex scenes in both those movies serve a clear narrative purpose. In Nolan’s film, they convey the magnetism of Oppenheimer and its ultimately devastating effect on a woman who, while not really on screen long enough to acquire much complexity, is defined by her intellectual curiosity, political radicalism and carnal desire.

The actual intercourse — once during the affair and once years later, as a haunting specter conjured in a security hearing — is brief and somewhat mechanical, while a long post-coital discussion has Murphy and Pugh sitting naked in armchairs on opposite sides of a room, carefully positioned and framed to keep crotches out of sight. The scene looks like an interview for an admin job at a nudist colony. It’s anything but erotic.

The scene in the Paris-set Passages that evidently had the MPA clutching their pearls, by contrast, is erotically and emotionally charged, raunchy and tender. It takes place after narcissistic German filmmaker Tomas (Franz Rogowski) has strayed outside his marriage to English print-maker Martin (Ben Whishaw) with Agathe (Adèle Exarchapoulos), a French schoolteacher he met at the wrap party for his latest feature.

Back in bed with Martin again, Tomas more or less offers himself up, resulting in sex that could be a bid for forgiveness, a reconciliation, a sad acknowledgment of enduring feelings or a manipulative attempt by Tomas to keep a hold on his husband while continuing to explore a new relationship. Or it could be all of those things.

Like the movie’s other sex scenes, it’s dramatically loaded, and although it’s shot in a single take with no artful draping of the sheets, it’s hardly graphic...

The prim attitude toward sex in American movies goes beyond MPA rulings to Hollywood itself. Sex and unapologetic sensuality have been all but banished from the mainstream since the heyday of erotic thrillers in the 1980s and early ‘90s — films like Dressed to Kill, American Gigolo, Body Heat, Basic Instinct, 9½ Weeks, The Last Seduction, Color of Night and Sliver. People onscreen were getting laid and loving it back then.

What happened to make American movies so desexualized? As the holdover artistic spirit of the emancipated ‘70s faded further into the distance, studios became increasingly corporate and less creative in their thinking. In order to be profitable, movies had to play not only across the U.S. — including conservative Red states and Bible Belt regions — but internationally, where many countries have rigidly imposed codes concerning sex and nudity.

The ascendance of the superhero movie has been another nail in the coffin of sensuality. In the Superman films of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, there was most definitely something cooking between Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder. But in the more recent wave of comic book-inspired action fare, the protagonists are so sexless they might as well be genital-free Kens and Barbies...

Where, in film, is the supposed sex-positive movement that has become part of the cultural conversation? Cable and streaming platforms have stepped into the breach with shows that don’t hold back on steamy content — think Girls, Insecure, P-Valley, Bridgerton, Game of Thrones, Euphoria and The White Lotus.

So is the dearth of grownup attitudes toward sex and sensuality on big screens a stagnant situation or a step backwards? Many would argue convincingly that it’s been that way since the late ‘90s. But it’s also conceivable that we’re in a unique perfect-storm moment, where far-right conservatism has converged with post-MeToo liberal timidity. On social media, some Gen-Z filmgoers have even questioned whether sex scenes have a place in movies. Seriously, kids, you need to get out more.

The presence of intimacy coordinators on set has no doubt helped to ensure an environment of increased safety and trust for actors, establishing essential boundaries of body autonomy. But unlike so many uninhibited European screen stars, the majority of major-name American performers remain shy about stripping down and going at it.

Witness Penn Badgley declaring his dislike of filming intimate scenes and his insistence on less sex and skin for his character in season 4 of Netflix’s You out of respect for his marriage. “That aspect of Hollywood has always been very disturbing to me,” said the actor in a Variety interview. But many of us who bemoan the shortage of full-blooded sensuality at the multiplex might wonder which Hollywood he’s talking about.'

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Céline Sciamma

Director and screenwriter Céline Sciamma was born in 1978 in Pontoise, France. Sciamma's debut feature, Water Lilies, was released in 2007 and won the Louis-Delluc Prize. She went on to direct Tomboy, a film that told the story of a gender nonconforming child and ignited controversy in Sciamma's home country. Sciamma's feature film Girlhood won best film at the 2014 Stockholm Film Festival. In 2019, her film Portrait of a Lady on Fire competed at the Cannes Film Festival, winning the Award for Best Screenplay. That same year, she won the Stockholm Visionary Award for Lifetime Achievement. Sciamma followed up Portrait of a Lady on Fire with Petite Maman in 2021, which received the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Film Not in the English Language.

[nnaalluuaa]

source

ΛΛ Λ Y Λ (2010) Booklet

Artist: M.I.A. Production: Blaqstarr, Rusko, Switch, Sugu Arulpragasam, John Hill, Diplo, Derek E. Miller, M.I.A. Label: N.E.E.T., XL, Interscope

❝ Songwriting and production for the album were primarily handled by M.I.A., Blaqstarr and Rusko. M.I.A.'s long-time associates Diplo, Switch and her brother Sugu Arulpragasam also worked on the album, which was mainly composed and recorded at M.I.A.'s house in Los Angeles. The album's tracks centre on the theme of information politics and are intended to evoke what M.I.A. called a "digital ruckus"; with the album, elements of industrial music were incorporated into M.I.A.'s sound for the first time. A deluxe edition was released simultaneously, featuring four bonus tracks. Critics' opinions of the album were generally favourable although divided, with both its musical style and lyrical content each attracting praise and criticism. (...) M.I.A. promoted the album by releasing a series of tracks online, including "XXXO", "It Takes a Muscle" and "Born Free", the latter of which was accompanied by a short film-music video, which generated controversy due to its graphic imagery. ❞ — wikipedia

❝ The art for this booklet was also done by M.I.A and long before she herself wrote the lyrics for the album. Kylie Anderson, who works at MTV described the artwork as 'typically choppy, traveling, disorienting work of art' (...) ❞ — encartespop

[shannendoherty-fans]

July 10, 2001 - Shannen Doherty & Julian McMahon during Television Critics Association Cable Tour in Los Angeles, California, United States.

They had acted together in the "Charmed" TV series and also in the supernatural film "Another Day", and they had an affair while filming these works and that summer.

[shewhoworshipscarlin]

Ernestine Wade

By Life Magazine via Google Images-Photographer Loomis Dean., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28885998

Ernestine Wade (August 7, 1906 – April 15, 1983) was an American actress. She was best known for playing the role of Sapphire Stevens on both the radio and TV versions of The Amos 'n' Andy Show.

Born in Jackson, Mississippi, Wade was trained as a singer and organist. Her family had a strong connection to the theater. Her mother, Hazel Wade, worked in vaudeville as a performer, while her maternal grandmother, Mrs. Johnson, worked for the Lincoln Theater in Baltimore, Maryland.

Ernestine grew up in Los Angeles and started her acting career at age four. In 1935, Ernestine was a member of the Four Hot Chocolates singing group. She appeared in bit parts in films and did the voice performance of a butterfly in the 1946 Walt Disney production Song of the South. Wade was a member of the choir organized by actress-singer Anne Brown for the filming of the George Gershwin biographical film Rhapsody in Blue (1945) and appeared in the film as one of the "Catfish Row" residents in the Porgy and Bess segment. She enjoyed the highest level of prominence on Amos 'n Andy by playing the shrewish, demanding and manipulative wife of George "Kingfish" Stevens. Wade, Johnny Lee, and Lillian Randolph, Amanda Randolph, Jester Hairston, Roy Glenn (and several others) were among the Amos 'n' Andy radio cast members to also appear in the TV series.

Ernestine began playing Sapphire Stevens in 1939, but originally came to the Amos 'n' Andy radio show in the role of Valada Green, a lady who believed she had married Andy. In her interview that is part of the documentary Amos 'n' Andy: Anatomy of a Controversy, Wade related how she got the job with the radio show. Initially there for a singing role, she was asked if she could "do lines". When the answer was yes, she was first asked to say "I do" and then to scream; the scream got her the role of Valada Green. Ernestine also played the radio roles of The Widow Armbruster, Sara Fletcher, and Mrs. Van Porter.

In a 1979 interview, Ernestine related that she would often be stopped by strangers who recognized her from the television show, saying "I know who you are and I want to ask you, is that your real husband?" At her home, she had framed signed photos from the members of the Amos 'n' Andy television show cast. Tim Moore, her TV husband, wrote the following on his photo: "My Best Wishes to My Darling Battle Ax from the Kingfish Tim Moore".

Wade defended her character against criticism of being a negative stereotype of African American women. In a 1973 interview, she stated "I know there were those who were offended by it, but I still have people stop me on the street to tell me how much they enjoyed it. And many of those people are black members of the NAACP." The documentary Amos 'n' Andy: Anatomy of a Controversy covered the history of the radio and television shows as well as interviews with surviving cast members. Ernestine was among them, and she continued her defense of the show and those with roles in it. She believed that the roles she and her colleagues played made it possible for African-American actors who came later to be cast in a wider variety of roles. She also considered the early typecast roles, where women most often were cast as maids, not to be damaging, seeing them in the sense of someone being either given the role of the hero or the part of the villain.

In later years, she continued as an actress, doing more voice work for radio and cartoons. After Amos 'n' Andy, Wade did voice work in television and radio commercials. Ernestine also did office work and played the organ.

She also appeared in a 1967 episode of TV's Family Affair as a maid working for a stage actress played by Joan Blondell.

Ernestine Wade is buried in Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Because she had no headstone, the West Adams Heritage Association marked her grave with a plaque

[randomluck-ofthe-universe]

~Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, January 13th 2018.~

Timothée Chalamet won Best Actor Award for Call me by your name.

Luca Guadagnino won Best Director Award.

Call me by your name won Best Picture Award.

.. the first person he mentions in his acceptance speech..

#the heart wants what the heart wants ♥️

[amagnificentobsession]

Throughout history there have been moments of madness. Some worse than others.

The one thing all the madness has in common is:

Fear.

Which causes a reticence to speak your truth.

To look around and see that your opinion will at minimum get you ostracized, at worst will get you killed.

It was this kind of thinking that resulted in breaks with churches, with kingdoms, with communities.

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." Edmond Burke 1770

In Burkes time, men were the only voices allowed to speak, to be heard. Women have fought long and hard for a voice. Still we are still considered second class citizens in areas of the world. But we are not alone:

Second class citizen is defined by the Oxford dictionary as follows:

1. A person belonging to a social or political group whose rights and opportunities are inferior to those of the dominant group in a society.

2. A person who is not accorded a fair share of respect, recognition, or consideration.

Watching this happen in our fandom should instill fear in all our hearts. Seeing others belittled, berated and bullied for speaking their beliefs. For being an advocate for fair and equal innocence until proven otherwise.

Demanding fair and equal treatment MUST go both ways. Whether or not you believe in a persons innocence or guilt.

For centuries whites have been believed above blacks just on their word. Black men have died at the hands of a mob because of the statement of a white. Have we transcended this? Watch films from Selma, Alabama, from Los Angeles, from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and answer that question yourself.

The internet, social media, and the anonymity it offers, allows some to push their ideas, beliefs, and opinions upon others without regard or concern for rebuttal or criticism because they hide behind a screen. “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”

There is strength in numbers both good and bad.

A. Strength that allows the grouping of wronged people to speak out in defense of themselves, and to seek justice in a lawful way.

B. Strength that allows the grouping of like minded people to shout down, belittle and quiet a faction that they do not want to hear or acknowledge.

Respect isn’t freely given, it must be earned.

Worship of any kind of human, will never end well.

Immediate assumption of guilt without a fair trial is the death of democracy.

If you question the right of a free and unencumbered trial, look at the Menendez Brothers.

The were tried twice. The first time ending in a hung jury.

The second time Murder and Life without the possibility of parole. Because of the suppression of evidence, AND because of a statement by the prosecution that MEN CANNOT BE RAPED BECAUSE THEY DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT EQUIPMENT.

We now look at this statement and are appalled. Worse, this statement was made less than 35 years ago. Not centuries but less than half a century.

The brothers have been granted by the DA, a retrial. But their truth is still held within the hands of a judge and parole board that has to overcome any prejudice they may have to explore the possibility that justice was not completely served.

If they find in their favor and the brothers are paroled, justice was still twisted, distorted and perverted by the media and popular opinion.

What does this rambling all boil down to? It boils down to the fact that we have accusers and the accused. We have a system that we have to trust to find the truth of both sides. Of both peoples. Then the accused has the choice of a jury of their peers or to put it all in one judges hands.

Then there is Us. Those who have an opinion. Our opinion is valid. Our opinion is important.

The difference is our opinion isn’t law.

Our opinion and the opinion of others is a gathering point.

A space that should be safe for all to vocalize without fear of retaliation because our opinion is different.

Because our beliefs are different. It should be a space for a safe and sane debate of our feelings.

People have left this fandom because of bullying, because of hate, because of fear.

This beautiful space, welcoming, loving, accepting, feels like it has become a gauntlet that you have to arm yourself to get through.

I don’t want to run a gauntlet. I will if I have to.

“Be kind to one another.”

“It takes a great deal of courage to stand alone.” Juror #9

@docdust ♥️

[film-classics]

Myrna Loy - The Queen of Hollywood

Myrna Loy (born Myrna Adele Williams in Helena, Montana on August 2, 1905 ) was an American actress who reigned as one of America’s leading movie stars in the 1930s and the 1940s. Millions of fans idolized her as ‘the perfect wife,’ a paragon of charm, sophistication and intelligence, earning her the title as "The Queen of Hollywood."

Of Welsh, Scottish, and Swedish ancestry, Loy moved to Culver City in her early teens. She first attended the exclusive Westlake School for Girls. When her teachers objected to her extracurricular participation in theater, her mother enrolled her in Venice High School.

To help the family, she wroked at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, where she performed in prologues, musical sequences that served as preliminary entertainment before the feature film. This led to work as an extra in Hollywood productions in 1925 and then a contract with Warner Bros. in 1926.

With the advent of sound films, she then became associated with musicals, and when they began to lose popularity, her career slumped. In 1934, after Loy's move to MGM, John Dillinger was shot to death after leaving a screening of her film Manhattan Melodrama (1934). She received widespread publicity, with some newspapers reporting that she had been Dillinger's favorite actress.

Loy gained further fame from the box office hit, The Thin Man (1934), which spawned five sequels. This marked a turning point in her career, and she was cast in more important pictures and became one of Hollywood's busiest and highest-paid actresses,

With the outbreak of World War II, Loy focused on the war effort, becoming an active member of the Hollywood Chapter of 'Bundles for Bluejackets,' helping run a Naval Auxiliary Canteen, going on fundraising tours, and volunteering for the Red Cross.

In the coming decades, she continued acting alongside her activism work. She organized opposition to the House Unamerican Activities Committee in Hollywood through radio broadcasts and petitions, worked with the federal government, and served in UNESCO.

In 1975, Loy was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent two mastectomies. She kept her diagnosis and subsequent treatment from the public. This resulted in her progressive retirement from acting; her last film performance was in 1980 and her last acting role on TV in 1982.

In failing health, Loy died at age 88 in a Manhattan hospital during surgery following a long, unspecified illness.

Legacy:

Received an Honorary Academy Award in 1991 in recognition of her life's work both onscreen and off

Bears the likeness of the 7-foot statue outside Venice High School, titled 'Inspiration," created in 1922 and has since become a symbol of the school and the community

Has a building named after her at Sony Pictures Studios, formerly MGM Studios, built in 1935

Named Queen of the Movies in a 1936 national poll by New York Daily News

Honored with a block in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theatre in 1936

Listed by the Motion Picture Herald as one of America’s top-10 box office draws in 1937 and 1938

Served as the full-time assistant to the director of military and naval welfare for the Red Cross from 1941 to 1945

Became a member-at-large of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO from 1949 to 1954, the first Hollywood celebrity to do so

Has been the namesake of Venice High School's annual speech and drama awards, the 'Myrnas' since 1953

Served as Co-Chair of the Advisory Council of the National Committee against Discrimination in Housing from 1961 to 1962

Became a founding board member of The American Place Theatre in 1963

Commemorated with a cast of her handprint and her signature in front of Theatre 80, on St. Mark's Place in New York City in 1971

Appeared in John Springer's "Legendary Ladies" series at The Town Hall in 1973

Presented with the 1979 Career Achievement Award by the National Board Review

Honored by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards in 1983 with the Career Achievement Award

Published an autobiography, Myrna Loy: Being and Becoming, in 1987

Was the winner of the 1988 Kennedy Center Honors

Honored by the Steel Pole Bath Tub with a song on their 1991 album Tulip that is both named after Loy and samples dialogue from one her film, The Thin Man Goes Home (1945).

Named by The Guardian named her one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination in 1991

Has been the namesake for The Myrna Loy Center for the Performing and Media Arts in downtown Helena since 1991

Honored as Turner Classic Movies Star of the Month for December 2016

Has a song named after her in Josh Ritter's 2017 album Gathering

Has a star on the  Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6685 Hollywood Boulevard for motion picture

[dweemeister]

July 10, 2024

By Tim Grieving

Before John Williams believed in himself as a conductor, the general manager of the Los Angeles Philharmonic believed in him.

Ernest Fleischmann was a savvy and powerful impresario, born in Germany in 1924, raised in South Africa to escape the Nazis, a frustrated conductor and journalist who managed the London Symphony Orchestra for eight years and ran the European classical division of CBS Records before coming to Los Angeles in 1969 and transforming a “provincial second-rank orchestra,” as L.A. Times critic Mark Swed wrote, “into one of the world’s best.”...

... When Fleischmann saw Star Wars with his kids on opening weekend in the summer of 1977, he thought to himself: God, this score! “It’s really the score and the sound effects that have made that movie what it was,” he later said. “It was almost Wagnerian.” The LA Phil was scheduled to tour Japan that fall, but the tour was canceled at the last minute when the promoter went bankrupt. With his orchestra suddenly freed up, and Star Wars totally consuming the culture, Fleischmann saw a plum opportunity; he paid a visit to John Williams’ Brentwood home and asked the composer if the LA Phil could perform music from Star Wars in a concert of space-themed music. Williams said “Fantastic,” and created a special 28-minute suite from his already super-famous, record-breaking score.

The resulting concert on November 20th, 1977 at the Hollywood Bowl—the iconic outdoor summer home of the LA Phil—was a galactic party designed for young families, complete with a laser light show and readings by William Shatner. The sold-out audience went crazy for it, but the event also highlighted the deep tension between anointed priests of “high culture” and the hoi polloi. “We were criticized very heavily,” recalled Zubin Mehta, the LA Phil’s music director who conducted that night. “Our critics and colleagues said that we had sold our souls to Hollywood. It was really a children’s concert.” The grumpy L.A. Times critic Martin Bernheimer called it “artistic prostitution.”

Fleischmann didn’t care. He had the LA Phil repeat the “Music from Outer Space” program at the California Angels’ baseball stadium in nearby Anaheim, and he commissioned an album of the Star Wars suite and Williams’ new Close Encounters suite, recorded at UCLA’s Royce Hall in December 1977 by Mehta and the orchestra. According to veteran classical music broadcaster Jim Svejda, it was the first time a major American orchestra treated film music “in a very serious way. I think it made a very dramatic statement.”

[thejewofkansas]

Awards Season 2022-23: Awards Round-Up 12/16

Awards Season 2022-23: Awards Round-Up 12/16

I can’t blame them. Winning 33 awards from 9 separate groups must be exhausting. Here’s the drill: it obviously would take too long to put together separate posts for every awards group that announces. But I like to cover and discuss as many groups as possible. What I did last year, and am doing this year, is listing off the categories and listing who gave which film what award. Usually, these…

[scarletwitchie2]

mydearesthumans.tumblr

Actress/director Angelina Jolie & actress Gena Rowlands pose for a portrait at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards January 10, 2015 at the Intercontinental Hotel in Century City, California. Angie presented an award to Gena

[fearsmagazine]

Academy Award-Winning "THE BOY AND THE HERON" Returns to Theaters Nationwide March 22nd, 2024.

In celebration of the Academy Award win for Best Animated Feature for Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli’s latest feature, THE BOY AND THE HERON, GKIDS, the North American distributor for the Studio Ghibli library of films, is proud to bring the critically acclaimed and award winning feature back into theaters nationwide, beginning March 22nd. Bring back screenings will include exclusive bonus content featuring an introduction from the film’s composer Joe Hisaishi, who received a Golden Globe nod for his work on the film, and a recorded drawing session with supervising animator Takeshi Honda, who was honored at this year’s Annie Awards with a win for Best Character Animation.

Bring back screenings will be in both the original Japanese language, as well as the English-language version, which features the voices of Christian Bale, Dave Bautista, Gemma Chan, Willem Dafoe, Karen Fukuhara, Mark Hamill, Robert Pattinson and Florence Pugh.

The weekend’s achievement at the Academy Awards marked a second Oscar for legendary director Hayao Miyazaki, who earned four previous nominations and won his first Oscar for Spirited Away (released in 2002). He was also recognized at the 2014 Governors Awards with the Academy’s Honorary Award for his exceptional contributions to cinema. Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away and THE BOY AND THE HERON are the only two hand-drawn films to win in the history of this category, which was established by the Academy in 2002. It was additionally the first Oscar win for producer Toshio Suzuki, who previously earned three nominations. The win continued Studio Ghibli’s extraordinary Oscar run, which includes 7 total nominations, with 2 wins. The win also marked the first as a company for GKIDS after 13 nominations in the Best Animated Feature category.

THE BOY AND THE HERON is GKIDS’ highest-grossing release of its 16-year history and Studio Ghibli’s highest-grossing film in North America. To date, it has earned over $46 million at the North American box office, also hitting the milestone of highest-grossing original Japanese animated film of all time, domestically.

GKIDS released THE BOY AND THE HERON in cinemas and IMAX nationwide on December 8, 2023, marking the first title in the Studio Ghibli catalog to be released in IMAX premium formats and opening at No. 1. The film was released in the U.S. in its original Japanese with English subtitles, as well as in a new English-language version featuring the voices of Christian Bale, Dave Bautista, Gemma Chan, Willem Dafoe, Karen Fukuhara, Mark Hamill, Robert Pattinson and Florence Pugh.

THE BOY AND THE HERON made its international premiere at the Opening Night Gala of the 48th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Tickets to all five TIFF screenings sold out in record time and the film received glowing reviews, placing in the top three for the TIFF People’s Choice Awards. For Best Animated Feature, THE BOY AND THE HERON has won the BAFTA Award, the Golden Globe and several prestigious critics awards including the New York Film Critics Circle and Los Angeles Film Critics Association honors. It was also recognized by the National Board of Review as a Top Film for 2023 and won two Annie Awards in 2024. In addition, THE BOY AND THE HERON Composer Joe Hisaishi garnered Best Score nominations from the Golden Globes and the Society of Composers and Lyricists, and was celebrated at this year’s Annie Awards with the Winsor McCay Lifetime Achievement Award.

About “THE BOY AND THE HERON” After losing his mother during the war, young Mahito moves to his family’s estate in the countryside. There, a series of mysterious events lead him to a secluded and ancient tower, home to a mischievous gray heron. When Mahito’s new stepmother disappears, he follows the gray heron into the tower, and enters a fantastic world shared by the living and the dead. As he embarks on an epic journey with the heron as his guide, Mahito must uncover the secrets of this world, and the truth about himself.

[world-cinema-research]

A Review of Blue Velvet (1986) with shared similarities to Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai (1999)  

By Cris Nyne

Blue Velvet is a film noir murder mystery that is both polarizing and captivating. The film is a product of surreal storyteller David Lynch and it begins in almost a dream sequence from the heart of the American dream that churns into the dirt within the first two minutes of it’s opening. Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) is home from college after his father has a stroke. While walking through a field, he finds a severed human ear that he brings to the home of detective John Williams. Jeffrey then strikes up a relationship with detective Williams’ daughter Sandy (Laura Dern). After some inside information from Sandy, Jeffrey begins to stalk jazz singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) who is seemingly connected to the ear. Soon thereafter, he finds himself caught in the tumultuous world of a drug-fueled psychopathic sadomasochist gangster, Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), who potentially has Dorothy’s husband and son.

The film is edgy, with lots of tense interactions and scenes filmed at night. The sexual violence perpetrated towards Dorothy from Frank made a lot of viewers uncomfortable and made for a very divisive film. Roger Ebert initially gave the film a one-star review, then followed that review with another take titled, “My Problem with Blue Velvet.”

“I am not one of the film's admirers. Or perhaps I should say, I admire its craftsmanship but am not one of its defenders. I believe Lynch is a talented director, and that in "Blue Velvet" he has used his talent in an unworthy way. The movie is powerful, challenging and made with great skill, and yet it made me feel pity for the actors who worked in it and anger at the director for taking liberties with them.” -Roger Ebert, “My Problem with Blue Velvet” October 1986

Isabella Rossellini defended her role and David Lynch in an interview with IndieWire. “I try not to read reviews. They’re always depressing. There’s always something that, even if [the review is] good, there is always one sentence that is negative and stays inside you forever. But I remember I was told that Roger Ebert said that [Lynch] exploited me, and I was surprised, because I was an adult. I was 31 or 32. I chose to play the character.” -Rossellini March 2024

During the release of Blue Velvet, many important historical events took place during 1986, including the largest man-made disaster in history with the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown. Ronald Reagan also confessed to illegal arms sale to Iran in what is now known as "The Iran-Contra Scandal."

Although the original reviews were mixed, today Blue Velvet has obtained cult status and is regarded as one of Lynch’s most important films. American Film institute lists the film at number eight in it’s all-time top ten mystery films. Lynch was nominated for an Oscar for Best Director. Blue Velvet was named Best Film at by Boston Society of Film Critics, Sitges (Catalonian Film Festival), Los Angeles Film Critics Association, New York Film Critics Circle Awards, and the National Society of Film Critics Awards. Dennis Hopper also pulled in numerous Best Supporting Actor awards, including the Montreal World Film Festival. Rotten Tomatoes gives Blue Velvet a 95% rating with critics and an 88% score with over 50,000 audience members. Blue Velvet had a budget of six million dollars and generated more than ten million at the box office. Although Lynch was becoming a well-known director with films like Eraserhead and Dune, the smaller budget, independent release and challenging storyline made the film more unconventional than mainstream.

Speaking of unconventional films, my choice for week seven was Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai (1999), featuring Forest Whitaker. Whitaker as Ghost Dog is a modern-day samurai who quotes Hagakure (a spiritual guide for warriors, first published in 1716), has a best friend that only speaks French- which he doesn’t understand a word of, and lives on a rooftop with his pigeons in a fictional city. Both movies take place in fictional locations. Blue Velvet is set in “Lumberton”, a cozy suburban logging town, but it was filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina, which is about 80 miles southeast of Lumberton, NC. They are not related. Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai was primarily filmed in Jersey City, New Jersey, but the location is never mentioned in the film. Ghost Dog seems to be an amalgamation of cities from the northeast United States.

The main characters in both films are male, and their adversaries are gangsters. In Blue Velvet, Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan) finds himself in the grasp of psychonaut/psychopath Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), the leader of a pack of misfits and miscreants. Their main objective is unclear, but drugs and violence are involved. Frank has the air of an extremely malevolent drug-fueled mob boss. In his role as Ghost Dog, Forest Whitaker is a hired hitman for Louie, an arm of a mob family. After a hired hit from Ghost Dog doesn’t go as planned due to an unexpected witness, the mob wants Louie to have Ghost Dog killed. Both main characters find themselves in the crosshairs of people whose business is violence.

Blue Velvet and Ghost Dog both were released by independent production companies (DeLaurentis and JVC, Le Studio Canal+, and BAC Films, respectively). I found it amusing that Lynch was born January 20th and Jarmusch January 22nd, seven years apart, but both auteurs were born under the artistic/philosopher sign of Aquarius. Both directors share the same contemporaneous timeline and have very distinctive styles. Although the film’s differences were noticeable, the similarities also reverberated throughout the film. Finding the similarities between two different genres of film has been an interesting lesson in critical thought. I would suggest both films for anyone not versed in the worlds of Lynch and Jarmusch.

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Movie poster.

There Will Be Blood is a 2007 American epic period drama film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, loosely based on the 1927 novel Oil! by Upton Sinclair.[4] It stars Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, a silver miner turned oilman on a ruthless quest for wealth during Southern California's oil boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Paul Dano, Kevin J. O'Connor, Ciarán Hinds, and Dillon Freasier co-star.

The film was produced by Ghoulardi Film Company and distributed by Paramount Vantage and Miramax Films. At the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival, it won the Silver Bear Award for Best Director and a Special Artistic Contribution Award for Jonny Greenwood's score. It grossed $76.2 million worldwide on a $25 million budget.

There Will Be Blood received acclaim for its cinematography, direction, screenplay, score, and the performances of Day-Lewis and Dano. Day-Lewis won the Academy Award, BAFTA, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, NYFCC and IFTA Best Leading Actor awards for the role. It has been widely regarded by critics as one of the greatest films of the 21st century,[5][6] and it appeared on many critics' "top ten" lists for 2007, including the American Film Institute,[7] the National Society of Film Critics, the National Board of Review, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. At the 80th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for eight Oscars (tying with another Miramax/Paramount Vantage co-production No Country for Old Men). The nominations included Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Anderson. Along with Day-Lewis' Oscar for Best Actor, Robert Elswit won the award for Best Cinematography. Source: Wikipedia