#Stargher's World

[filmjunky-99]

t h e c e l l, 2000 🎬 dir. tarsem singh

'My boy, my little one. His father took him from me. Have you seen him?' - mother 1

'My child is an abomination. He is damned. He has no soul.' - mother 2

'Me god me boy. Me god good son.' - mother 3

[brokehorrorfan]

The Cell will be released on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray on January 21 via Arrow Video. Peter Savieri designed the new cover art for the 2000 psychological horror film; the original poster is on the reverse side.

Tarsem Singh (Immortals, The Fall) directs from a script by Mark Protosevich (I Am Legend, Thor). Jennifer Lopez, Vince Vaughn, and Vincent D'Onofrio star with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Jake Weber, and Dylan Baker.

The theatrical and director's cuts have been newly restored in 4K, approved by Singh, with Dolby Vision. An alternate version of the theatrical cut created by director of photography Paul Laufer is also included.

Special features and limited edition contents are listed below, where you can also see more of the packaging.

Disc 1 - 4K UHD:

Theatrical cut (107 min)

Director's cut (109 min)

Audio commentary with film scholars Josh Nelson & Alexandra Heller-Nicholas (new)

Audio commentary with screenwriter Mark Protosevich & film critic Kay Lynch (new)

Audio commentary with director Tarsem Singh

Audio commentary with director of photography Paul Laufer, production designer Tom Foden, makeup supervisor Michèle Burke, costume designer April Napier, visual effects supervisor Kevin Tod Haug, and composer Howard Shore

Projection of the Mind’s Eye - Feature-length interview with director Tarsem Singh (new)

Between Two Worlds - Interview with director of photography Paul Laufer (new)

Disc 2 - Blu-ray:

Alternate version of theatrical cut - presented in 1.78:1 aspect ratio with alternate grading from a 2K master created by director of photography Paul Laufer (new)

Interview with director of photography Paul Laufer about the alternate version (new)

Art is Where You Find It - Visual essay by film scholar Alexandra Heller-Nicholas (new)

The Costuming Auteur - Visual essay by film critic Abby Bender (new)

Style as Substance: Reflections on Tarsem

8 deleted/extended scenes with optional commentary by Tarsem Singh

6 multi-angle visual effects vignettes

Theatrical trailers

Image gallery

Also included:

Collector’s book with new writing on the film by critics Heather Drain, Marc Edward Heuck, Josh Hurtado, and Virat Nehru

When serial murderer Carl Stargher (Vincent D’Onofrio) falls into a coma with his latest victim still trapped in an unknown location and waiting to die, the FBI turn to psychologist Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez) for help. Using an experimental technology she enters the dark dreamscape of Stargher’s mind, attempting to learn his secrets before it’s too late. But his unconscious is a twisted nightmare, a labyrinth that threatens to trap her inside his terrifying world forever. To save a life, she’ll have to risk her own.

Pre-order The Cell.

[krokodilsredimudil]

This is THE post. Behold...

The Cell (2000) | Stranger things

The Cell is not a movie but a fever dream, so I'll try to recap it as best as possible (it is a visual masterpiece though)

Why is this movie important, you ask? For one thing, it's on the inspo board for s4. For another, Kate Trefry admitted that the scene where El enters Billy's mind in s3 was inspired by the Cell (Crude Conversations podcast)

Let's get started!

The main character Catherine Deane is a psychologist who works with coma patients and tries to bring them back to reality by entering their minds.

This is the first patient of hers, a boy with schizophrenia who has an evil alter ego inside. His name is EDWARD Baines.

Edward and his 'evil self' in his mind. Catherine is there to help him

There's a ship imagery in his mind. Project Rainbow?

There's even a newspaper clip about Edward who lapsed into coma (sounds familiar?)

Catherine enters her patiens' minds via a special computer technology (Does it remind you of ... Nina?)

There are a lot of triggering images, so I'm not posting them here. Briefly, the main antagonist, Carl Stargher, aka a serial killer with a LOT of issues, likes to drown his victims in a glass cell, bleach them and then use hooks to suspend himself above the dead bodies and watch recorded videos of his victims' death. Yeah, no pictures here.

Police locate his house and want to arrest him but he *surprise* lapses into coma because he also has an unusual schizophrenia like Edward. Catherine has to enter his mind to know the location of his last victim. The interesting part begins!

His mind is of course a bad trip. But we learn a lot ...

Inside his mind he is an innocent boy (there's another him there, more evil and egocentric, this is a metaphor of his lost innocence and duality of self, I guess)

His victims are inside his mind, they never left !!!!!

He was traumatized by his baptism ceremony and his abusive father. He has water trauma, so he drowns his victims in baths and glass cells. At one point, he also mercy-killed a bird (drowned it)

The evil King Self Stargher torments Catherine until she forgets that that world is not real. While she's in Stargher's mindscape, her real body can be harmed as well. She becomes trapped in his twisted mindscape.

The other main character, the detective, helps her to break free. After having learnt about the abuse he was subjected to, Catherine becomes sympathetic to Stargher (his younger self at least)

Just like El is sympathetic to Billy in s3 and like Nancy might be sympathetic to young Henry, not Vecna (depends on what exactly she saw)

Catherine decides to break the rules and pull Stargher into her own mindscape.

But his evil self follows as well. Catherine fights the King Self but killing the King Self kills the Younger Self. So Catherine mercy-kills Stargher in water (like the bird). Beautiful.

What does it all mean?

A LOT!!!

Billy's mindscape? The Cell. Vecna's mindscape? The Cell. Victims inside? The Cell! Nina? Fringe and the Cell. No water in the UD? Water trauma? The Cell? Dying in the mindscape leads to dying in the real world? The Cell!! Humanized antagonists who are actually scared boys? The Cell! Edward Creel? The Cell!

I wonder if Vecna's going to be Catherine'd by El or Will in s5, we'll see

[ST screencaps added (KissThemGoodbye), newspaper screencaps and Edward Creel lore from @aemiron-main posts]

[godblooded]

catherine deane takes her job very seriously and while she should often wonder if it’s good for her health, she ignores that in favor of her particular talent to communicate with children or troubled individuals who can’t be helped by anyone else or, in the case of her job, individuals who can’t interact because of comatose states etc.

catherine is a child psychologist, and the work she does with the Neurological Cartography and Synaptic Transfer System allows her to enter the mind of a comatose patient and interact with their headscape in order to hopefully awaken them. she’s told many times that she ‘despite being the least qualified, was chosen because she has an extremely unique gift with the interactions’. ‘mr. e’ aka edward baines, a young boy suffering the effects of a viral schizophrenic illness that attacked his brain and left him comatose, is her first patient. catherine is eventually capable of reverse engineering the technology to bring him into her mind. his parents are the ones funding the entire experimental treatments.

she’s brought a serial killer by the fbi— carl stargher— a man who has been direly abused and grown up to inflict different methods of murder on his victims. he’s given to her because he also suffers from the same aggressive infection mr. e does, and catherine has a specialty in this. her first instinct is to try to get to know him and nurture his childhood self, and to fearlessly try to face his world of nightmares built by severe abuse. the end result with stargher was death— catherine drowning his childhood self as a merciful act once he’d forgotten there was an outside world beyond their mindscapes. catherine has never truly put stargher out of her head, and while she doesn’t blame herself or feel guilt about his death (and her having caused it), she feels for him on a regular basis. she’ll light a candle for him in church, and she’ll think about him all the time. she carries him in her heart, in spite of herself. she carries everyone she treats. she sees the sides of people others don’t— literally and figuratively— and knows exactly how to take both as they are, the ugly and the beautiful.

and that’s catherine deane.

[spacetimewraithwrites-archive]

11-11-11

rules: answer 11 questions, ask 11 questions, tag 11 people

I was tagged by @capricious-writes, thanks for that! hopefully I did this right yikes (under the cut b/c I don’t wanna clog up anyone’s dashboards lol)

1. What’s you favorite OC?

At the moment it’s a toss-up between Warren and Thrive. Warren is super-relatable because I wrote him to have a lot of the mental illnesses that I’ve got (write what you know, right???) and there are times where I imagine something I’ve written him doing and I’m just like o shit waddup tho

Thrive is a stunner, in every sense of the word. I’m just head-over-heels in love with him and it uhhhh shows in the writing sometimes. under the guise of it being Warren’s POV. lmfao. who am I actually

2. What’s your favorite POV?

Hmm...I’m partial to first-person because the story can really develop a distinct voice, but honestly the biggest drawback for me is that it’s so limited. I’ve written first person before with little issue but I like having that freedom of possibly showing what’s going on outside of the narrator’s field of awareness.

3. What’s one food that just doesn’t exist in your wip. You’re a petty god - what’s that one ‘delicacy’ that you erased from all history, and that will never ever be mentioned in your story? Why?

Mayonnaise cuz seriously FUCK mayonnaise

4. Is there a tpe of setting you tend to write stories in?

I haven’t particularly had one type up until now. I think from this point forward I might have a type because I’m going to try to stick to sci-fi for the most part

5. What was the last show you finished?

Ooh, the last one I finished??? Hmm...jeez, I have no idea. I’ve just kinda been watching things that are either still going and/or have had a bit of time between seasons. uuhhhh god, um...the second time I watched Frasier all the way through a couple years ago?? lordt I’ll come back to this if it suddenly comes to me lol

6. If you had to completely change the medium of your wip what would it be and why and/or what would change?

I’m probably not gonna answer this the way you expected so forgive me if I’m wildly incorrect, but I would make it into a graphic novel because honestly I would love to see an artist’s depiction of my characters and worlds. I wouldn’t have them change too much tbh. Possibly nothing at all, actually. I’d have to hire someone to do it for me since I can’t draw for shit oops

7. What’s your ideal villain?

I could literally talk about this for hours. My ideal villain is my ideal serial killer, and this is going to sound really suspicious and weird but hear me out. Take like, all of the fictional media portrayals of serial killers, add a tablespoon of the Joker and four cups of, like, Ted Bundy or something. Just a guy who is completely unhinged with the way he goes about his bullshit and has no remorse whatsoever, but also has no reason for being the way he is. That’s the best kind of serial killer—just some random dude with no psychological answers for his behavior, barely even a sociopath, but he’s smart. He’s been doing this for maybe ten, twenty years. Leaving little whispers of a trail, not enough to get a good lead.

Like...if Stargher from The Cell had a gross baby with Hannibal or something like that, idk.

8. What’s one recent aspect of writing you’ve been trying to implement/improve?

Showing and not telling. Maybe a big chunk of it is my own insecurities lying to me but I never feel like I do enough to really put a scenario into a reader’s mind. Then again my own sister told me somewhere around book 1 draft 4 that I over-describe, so, big shrug man

9. If your MC had sudden access to a time travel wrist watch (fixed points time travel), what would they do with it? Alternatively, if you have time travel already, could your story exist without it, and how?

This is a complex one. My story kinda has time-travel, but only sorta, cuz it’s just like...for one person. I don’t think my story could exist without it tbh, I’d have to completely gut the whole thing and rework it. But if Warren had time-travel...he would probably use it to spend more time with his parents.

10. What’s one joke, or funny trope that gets you every time?

In general? I don’t really know exactly what to call it but there’s this moment in season one of Narcos where Peña and Murphy are staking out La Catedral for carrier pigeons, and they gotta shoot one of ‘em down and Peña keeps trying to shotgun this damn bird out of the sky and Murphy’s like “gimme the gun” and shoots it down in one go, and he walks away like “ain’t you ever been duck hunting before” or something and Peña’s like, “No?? You fuckin’ hillbilly??” and I just lose it every time hahahaha

11. If you could say one sentence of dialogue, as yourself, in your current wip, what, where or to whom would it be, and why?

I would literally just apologize to everyone for what I’m about to put them through and it would be immediately the first line of dialogue in the entire series lmao

—My questions to you:

1. If you could have free reign to rope anyone on Earth into portraying your characters on the screen be it big or small, who would they be? Any particular reason why?

2. Additionally, if you could get any artists to do the original soundtrack, who would they be and why?

3. If you could entirely rehaul a WIP from years ago, be it childhood or whenever, which one would it be? What would you change?

4. Who is your least favorite OC and why? Doesn’t mean you have to dislike them! ...But bonus points if you do.

5. What’s a line of dialogue/narration from your WIP that you’re SUPER proud of, for any reason you can come up with?

6. What’s something you hate about your favorite OC?

7. If you have romantic relationships in your WIP, who would pair them up with besides their current partner(s)? If you don’t have romantic relationships, who would you pair up if you did?

8. Badly describe the plot of your WIP (i.e. for The Empire Strikes Back: talking frog tells petulant child to murder his father)

9. Which person, living or dead, would you want the most to read your WIP?

10. Does your main character have any hobbies? Do the hobbies help them throughout the course of your story?

11. Have you based any characters off of people you know in real life?

I don’t really know 11 blogs to tag, so I tag @starlitesymphony, @brigidglass, and @foxesfatewriting. Absolutely not mandatory!

[doomonfilm]

Thoughts : The Cell (2000)

Back in the early days of this blog, I briefly mentioned The Cell in passing while sharing my thoughts on Fantastic Planet.  This brief mention, however, does not do my feelings towards this film justice... from my initial viewing in theaters up through my recent re-watch in preparation for this blog entry, my enjoyment, devotion and fascination to this film continues to grow.

Dr. Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez) is a child psychologist who practices a controversial and forward thinking form of therapy where she neurologically links with her comatose patients in hopes of helping them regain consciousness.  Deane’s latest patient, a young boy named Edward (Colton James) who is suffering from a rare form of viral infection-based schizophrenia, presents a challenge to her and her team, fellow doctors Henry West (Dylan Baker) and Miriam Kent (Mariannne Jean-Baptiste).  The pressure is multiplied by Edward’s parents, who are funding the project, due to their demands for results and threats of pulling Edward from the project.  Meanwhile, a serial killer named Carl Rudolph Stargher (Vince D’Onofrio) is leading Special Agent Peter Novak (Vince Vaughn) and his team on a frustratingly wild goose chase, having just disposed of his sixth victim and kidnapped Julia Hickson (Tara Subkoff), his potential seventh, in rapid succession.  Novak and his team catch a break by recovering paint samples and dog hairs from the scene of the sixth victim’s disposal, but by the time they reach Stargher, he has fallen victim to the very same schizophrenic-based coma that Edward suffers from.  In an act of desperation, Stargher is taken to Dr. Deane’s laboratory with the hopes that her neurological linking treatment can uncover the location of Hickson before she becomes the latest victim, but the process quickly turns into a psycho-surreal nightmare for Deane, Novak and all parties involved.

As someone who is not only fascinated with the complexity of the human mind, but fascinated with true crime as well, a film like The Cell is a perfect intersection of these two elements.  The depravity of Stargher’s twisted methods are still shocking 20 years later, and immediately put the viewer in the shoes of our multiple protagonists by giving us a fly on the wall perspective to his sick madness.  Focusing in on the psychological and physiological quandaries of being unable to differentiate imagination from reality, as well as the theoretical dangers of inviting the unknown into your mind, are grounds for high drama and tension.  Tarsem Singh’s ability to include symbolism that alludes to both the human psyche and other films also play well, not to mention the warped representations of key clues that mirror reality.

For anyone who appreciates production design, this film is a playground of powerful visual elements.  From the ‘fileted body’ suits used to house those taking place in the process, to the transition from reality into the mind, even down to Stargher’s home and dungeon, there is rarely a dull visual environment presented to the viewer.  I do think that the case could have been solved prior to Novak diving into Stargher’s psyche, as it seemed that seeing the company logo in Stargher’s head suddenly reminded him that you could track down purchase histories, but honestly that’s just me splitting hairs... and it would’ve robbed us of some classic Vince Vaughn being Vince Vaughn moments while he is on Stargher’s operating table.  In all honesty, you could mute this film and be blown away by the set design, costuming and emotion that radiates off of the faces of the actors.  The visual representation of Stargher’s victims that Dr. Deane encounters on her first trip into his mind will forever haunt me.

Jennifer Lopez did a good job of balancing her character between mother/protector and professional therapist, and really allowed her thought process to resonate through her facial expressions.  Vincent D’Onofrio’s performance is minimal in terms of dialogue, but he puts on a true masterclass in terms of movement and blocking, especially as the idealized Godlike version of himself that inhabits the dream world.  Vince Vaughn allows himself room for a grounded and nuanced performance, specifically by using the comedic edge he normally exudes as inner turmoil and frustration that guides his devoted passion to catch Stargher.  Dylan Baker and Marianne Jean-Baptiste not only play well off of one another in their role as a medical team, but allow their concerns and fears to stand in as surrogate for that of the audience.  Vaughn is surrounded by star character actors that completely engulf themselves in their special agent roles, especially Jake Weber and Dean Norris, while James Gammon plays the grizzled veteran without falling into trope territory.  Jake Thomas is surprisingly confident for such a young actor placed in such fantastic realms, and it’s the way that he owns his space but shows his fear that endears him with the viewing audience.  Tara Subkoff also does a lot with a little, with her role as the captive easily setting her up for a one-note performance, but her acting choices bucking against that and making the audience buy into her danger.  Appearances by Catheriene Sutherland, Colton James, Musetta Vander, Patrick Bauchau, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Lauri Johnson, Kim Chizevsky-Nicholls and Gareth Williams round out the cast.

For those unfamiliar with this film, or for fans of films like Inception, The Cell is a mind-bending punch in the gut in all the most enjoyable ways.  The ideas that are presented and executed provide discussion topics that last long after the film has ended, and the visuals burn themselves into the memory quite easily.

[thewolfmancometh]

The Cell (2000) [REVIEW]

Imagine, if you will, a time and place where there was no hotter actress than Jennifer Lopez, a leading man no more charming than Vince Vaughn, and an actor no more fear-inducing than Vincent D’Onofrio. The time, ladies and gentlemen, was the year 2000, and the place was, well, movie world, I guess? Planet earth? Regardless, the cast of The Cell had it poised to become an enormous hit full of groundbreaking visuals cooked up in the mind of Tarsem Singh. I saw this film in theaters when it came out and some sequences really disturbed me, but since I hadn’t seen it since then, and it was on HBO Go, I decided to see how the film held up. Note: if you remember this movie being good, I do not recommend questioning that perception by watching it in 2017.

Not pictured is the scene where J. Lo arbitrarily smoked weed in her apartment wearing a thong and you kind of see her butt when she opens the refrigerator. Even more popular in 2000 than J. Lo was the mere concept of her big ol’ butt.

Catherine (Lopez) is a psychologist who uses cutting edge technology that allows a manifestation of herself to enter the mental landscape of her patients, allowing her to interact with them in a way like no other. When authorities realize that a serial killer, known for capturing and torturing his victims for days, has selected his next victim, Peter Novak (Vaughn) begins his hunt for Stargher  (D’Onofrio). A seizure leaves the killer in a coma, so Novak taps Catherine to enter his mind in hopes of gaining information about where his next victim is being held. Entering the mind of a serial killer obviously results in some horrifying landscapes, which Catherine ultimately falls victim to. Novak must enter Stargher’s mind to recover Catherine and the two aim to turn the tables on Stargher before it’s too late for his victim. Will they do it? Probably! Does it matter? Not at all!

“Hey, Vince, we know you’re wearing a garish gold outfit, but we’re nervous that your performance might be a little too subtle.”

I’ve complained about other films that are “psychological thrillers” that ultimately take place in one character’s mind and how that makes the whole film feel like there’s no actual stakes. Luckily for The Cell, the entire conceit of the film isn’t the physical dangers that the characters are faced with, but rather focuses on the mental impact, so this film doesn’t suffer the fate of other shitty “it was all in my head!” movies. Another advantage this film has is that, instead of something like Identity which is about imagined characters turning on one another at a motel, some of Singh’s set pieces are truly breathtaking, both with their surrealism and their originality. Multiple shots and sequences are gorgeous and I would have gladly watched some of those sequences without dialogue. Singh’s imagination is on full display in The Cell and it’s obvious why he would go on to tackle incredibly imaginative films after this one.

This is totally a thing a person would do if they were weird.

Sadly, that’s where the film’s strengths basically end. Although some of the set pieces are astounding, many sequences feel like they were cut from a Marilyn Manson or Nine Inch Nails video. Granted, in the early to mid-’90s, those two musicians gave us some incredibly disturbing pieces, but it makes The Cell sometimes feel too little, too late. Lopez and Vaughn mostly just exist in the film, walking and talking and saying their lines, but there’s not much chemistry between them. I should point out that little is done to establish a romantic relationship between the two characters, so it’s good to see the film avoid those cinematic tropes, but it also makes you less invested in either character. D’Onofrio’s terrifying at times, laughable at other times. He will thoroughly convince you that he is a “weird guy,” thanks to a scene where he is suspended from hooks connected to piercings in his back that allow him to hang over his victims and jerk off onto them, but as if reading what I just wrote didn’t make it clear, the film had a tendency to go a little too obvious. By the time we see him in his third garish outfit and delivering contrived dialogue, we very much get that he’s supposed to be a weird guy. Despite the quality of the film not holding up from how you remember it to be, there’s still some decent ideas in there and I wish we got to see Tarsem go even further with his visuals, but perhaps a reinterpretation of the source material at some point in the future could capitalize more effectively on that potential.

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[filmjunky-99]

t h e c e l l, 2000 🎬 dir. tarsem singh

'He wants us to follow. The little boy...' - catherine

'Little boy?! That's him!' - novak

'He brought you to me, didn't he? If you want Julia to live, trust me. Trust him.' - catherine

[filmjunky-99]

t h e c e l l, 2000 🎬 dir. tarsem singh

'Not real...' - novak

[filmjunky-99]

t h e c e l l, 2000 🎬 dir. tarsem singh

'My world, my rules.' - catherine

'Don't hurt him!... He didn't mean it. I was bad. He teached me a lesson. I deserved it.' - young stargher

'No one deserves it, Carl. No one.' - catherine