#all credits go to miya cech

[natlacentral]

Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2 Officially Kicks Off Production

The war against the Fire Nation is far from over. Back in March, Netflix announced that Avatar: The Last Airbender has been renewed for Seasons 2 and 3, which will conclude this epic story. Now that process commences: production has begun on Season 2 — and Toph has been cast.

“We’re looking forward to working with all of our actors again and digging into the deeper, more complicated relationships that develop as their journey continues in Season 2,” executive producers Christine Boylan and Jabbar Raisani tell Tudum. “We are going to show the real-world versions of iconic scenes from the original, and explore some of the stories that the animation didn’t. Mainly — we’re looking forward to seeing our gang all together again.”

Keep reading below to find out everything you need to know about the second season of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

What is Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2 about?

The EPs are keeping details about Season 2 close to the vest, but they did tease that we will see more of the Earth Kingdom. 

“There’s no war in Ba Sing Se,” they explain, referencing a line from the original animated series. “For the Gaang, fans can expect more brilliant plans from Sokka [Ian Ousley], even more masterful bending from Katara [Kiawentiio], Appa and Momo to be as fluffy as ever, and Aang [Gordon Cormier] to learn a new bending form (or two).”

In general, Raisani and Boylan are excited about building on the strong foundation of Season 1. “We’re going to challenge our characters with more complex and nuanced obstacles as they navigate a more tactile world,” they continue. say Boylan and Raisani. “Just as the animated series matured and progressed, the live- action will also take these characters and worlds and grow them.” 

But with a new season comes the opportunity for fresh faces.

What new characters will be introduced in Season 2?

At Netflix’s Geeked Week 2024, it was announced that Miya Cech will join the cast as Toph, a master earthbender.

What happened in Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 1?

A live-action reimagining of the acclaimed Nickelodeon animated series, Avatar: The Last Airbender follows Aang, a young boy who’s the titular Avatar –– which means he’s the only one capable of mastering all four elements (air, water, fire, and earth). In Season 1, Aang wakes up after a 100-year slumber to discover he’s the only surviving Aairbender. The world is being threatened by the imperialistic Fire Nation, which wiped out every other airbender and is working to subjugate the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes. With the help of his newfound friends Katara, a waterbender, and her brother Sokka, Aang sets off on a journey to restore balance to this fractured world. 

Aang and his companions achieve a Pyrrhic victory in the Season 1 finale. Sure, they were able to stop the Fire Nation — led by Prince Zuko (Dallas Liu), his uncle Iroh (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee), and Commander Zhao (Ken Leung) — from destroying the Northern Water Tribe, but it was merely a distraction from the larger war. Miles away, Zuko’s sister, Princess Azula (Elizabeth Yu), conquered Omashu, one of the two Earth Kingdom cities that had managed to stave off the Fire Nation until now, and took King Bumi (Utkarsh Ambudkar) prisoner. As if that wasn’t devastating enough, a mid-credit scene reveals that Sozin’s Comet, a rare cosmic event, is on the horizon, which can’t mean anything good for our heroes.

“I thought it was really clever of the writers to end Season 1 in that way, because you want to get a sense that the universe of the show is expanding with every season,” Daniel Dae Kim, who plays Zuko and Azula’s ruthless father, Fire Lord Ozai, told Tudum in February. “And they really did a good job of that with that cliff-hanger and also created a sense of urgency and time.” 

“Always leave the audience wanting more,” Lee added. “I just had chills seeing Lizzy as Azula. You’ve got King Bumi in shackles, and it’s just like, ‘Oh, there’s so many cliff-hangers.’ I was like, ‘Oh, I want to shoot Season 2, 3 right now.’ ” 

Thankfully, he’s getting his wish. 

Keep checking back here for more information about what’s to come for the Aang gang. In the meantime, you can watch the cast’s adorable audition tapes below. 

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via Miya’s Instagram story (04/29/18) (all photo credits go to miyacech on Instagram)

[thecolestewart]

First Look: See the dangerously powerful kids in YA thriller The Darkest Minds

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The kids are labeled like terrorism threat levels.

Greens. Blues. Yellows. Oranges. Reds.

This is how youth are categorized in The Darkest Minds — all of them, although there aren’t many left to count. About 98 percent of children died in a plague that swept the entire world, and the ones who survived emerged from the illness … different.

They weren’t weakened. They became more powerful. Dangerously so.

That’s the premise of the new film, out Aug. 3, that’s based on the bestselling YA novel by Alexandra Bracken. Amandla Sternberg, the reigning YA movie queen after starring in last year’s Everything, Everything and the upcoming The Hate U Give, stars in this survival thriller as Ruby.

Contrary to her name, she’s actually an “orange.” The colors indicate the individual’s danger level.

“The first one is green, where they show heightened intelligence, they’re super smart. Basically savants,” says director Jennifer Yuh Nelson, previously an animation director known for DreamWorks’ Kung Fu Panda 2 and 3.

“Then you have blues that are able to move things telekinetically,” she adds. “Then there are yellows, which are able to basically short out anything that’s electric. So they’re not good to have around your appliances. Then there are the oranges that are able to control people’s minds. And then the reds …”

Fire starters.

In another story, these might be superhero powers, but in the world of The Darkest Minds, kids are rounded up and put into camps to isolate them from the adult population that fears their abilities.

Although the abilities are considered a curse, the ones who wield them don’t see it that way. “We try and make every one of the powers something that if you had them, it’d be cool to have,” the filmmaker says.

A first trailer for the film will be debuting soon, but before that we have these images of the four main characters from the movie. Led by Ruby, they’ve escaped their camp. And now they’re on the run, with a human hunter named Lady Jane (Brienne of Tarth and Captain Phasma herself, Gwendoline Christie) in relentless pursuit.

The Darkest Minds is produced by Shawn Levy and Dan Levine, who worked together on Stranger Things, and also Dan Cohen, whose credits with them include Arrival.

Not all of the adults in the story are necessarily hostile. Mandy Moore costars as Cate, a doctor at detention Camp Thurmond, who has a sympathetic streak, and realizes that Ruby has potential beyond what the other physicians and researchers see.

“Ruby’s a pretty normal kid before the plague hits. She has a very loving relationship with both of her parents. But, when it hits, something happens at her own hands that greatly changes her life,” Stenberg says. “Like all of the other kids, she is placed in a camp. And, she’s placed in Camp Thurmond, where the kids are forced to mundane activities like make boots and are just really mistreated.”

Then she gets her chance to escape. “Everything changes once she’s broken out of the camp. But when she’s out in the world, it has changed so much since she was 6 years old.”

That’s the last time that she was actually free, a normal person.

“She meets this group of kids who completely change her life. They figure out how to survive in this world together,” Stenberg says. “It activates an independence and she finds a sense of family. That’s something that she’s wanted so badly, to be close to people.”

Here is that family, as seen with “Blue Betty,” the van that takes them on their life-or-death road trip as they flee the camp. (Named after the cleaning lady sign on the side, the vehicle was known as “Black Betty” in the book.)

Ruby’s survivor friends include Liam (Harris Dickinson, arms crossed), Chubs (Skylan Brooks, in red) and Zu (Miya Cech.)

“Liam is the romantic interest from the book,” Yuh Nelson says. “He’s a blue, so Liam can move things around with his mind. Ruby is an orange, where she can basically go into people’s minds.”

That makes their tentative relationship especially tricky. Imagine being able to literally pick into the brain of your crush. Trust is one thing that they’ll need in order to stay ahead of their pursuers, but it’s easily broken.

“Those four kids are gonna be in this journey together, trying to find safety together, and growing closer together and protecting each other in this sort of very dangerous situation,” the filmmaker says.

Chubs is their strategist. He’s a green. “So he’s incredibly smart,” Yuh Nelson says. ” Zu is a yellow, which is basically able to short things out or control electricity.” (Hence the rubber gloves.)

The world in general has not fared well after the death of nearly every young person. The scorn and fear toward the powerful survivors has only exacerbated the crisis.

Here we see the crew venturing into an abandoned mall, where nature has already begun to reclaim it. The cause of the plague that caused this catastrophe is one of the film’s mysteries.

“Why does it take out kids? What is this thing? How do you cure it?” Yuh Nelson says. “How do you fight it? Do you want to fight it? All these things are, I think, a metaphor in many ways for how kids can feel, or even adults can feel, like outsiders in their own selves. They don’t know how to find a place in the world. How to find a self-acceptance.

“There may be things about themselves that they just don’t feel like they belong,” she adds. “.And I think that was one of the great things in the book Despite basically not liking aspects of yourself, you can find people who accept you and people that can actually be a family. To sort of love each other, despite everything.”

[ourdallasvideofestthings]

Bart Chat 2/1/2021

Hello all,

I‘ve been working on a unique project called Firebones, which will be coming out in mid-February. As we get closer to the launch date, I will tell you more, but in the meantime, here is a trailer for the series.

We are beginning work on DocuFest for fall, which we hope to hold live and in-person and a celebration of gathering together. It will be joyous.

Cinematic Conversations

This week we will be having a lively discussion about MANK, which you can see on Netflix.  If you have time, I might recommend you can watch Citizen Kane before our Thursday night discussion (7:30 CST). You can find Kane on HBO MAX and TCM, and hey, it’s always good to watch Kane.  MANK has references to Upton Sinclair's race for the Governor of California. If someone would volunteer to do a bit of research on that to add to the discussion, that would be helpful. <extra credit="" or="" a="" video="" fest="" t-shirt=""></extra>

Our guest hosts this week (yes, we have 2) are:

Tom Schatz has taught film studies at UT Austin for 40 years and has written four books about Hollywood films and filmmaking. These include Hollywood Genres, now widely considered the standard academic text on that subject; The Genius of the System, a highly acclaimed book about the "studio system" during Hollywood's so-called classical era; and most recently Boom and Bust: American Cinema in the 1940's.

Joseph McBride teaches film at San Francisco State. He has written numerous books, including biographies of notable film directors, a book on screenwriting, an investigative journalism book on the JFK assassination, and a memoir of the dark years in his life. Most important for our discussion is the book Orson Welles: Actor and Director and What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career

Last week Sam Pollard had an issue with his phone and missed our conversation, but he will indeed join us at the end of February.

What to watch this week:

The Sundance film festival continues for a few more days. You can see some films at The Texas Theater. Some are inside if you want to risk it (I will not), but there is one screening at their drive-in and an on-line panel.

Prime Time

Speaking of Sundance, one of the titles I’ve heard some buzz about is the Sparks Brothers documentary by Edgar Wright. That’s right, a  documentary! I remember Sparks Brothers from the On the Air video bar days with songs like “All You Ever Think About is Sex,” but I thought I would go back and see what I was missing and there are some good tracks there. What really caught my attention was a rock opera called The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman, which is worth a listen.

2/1/21 3:45 PM in the theater. In 1999 Sebastian locks himself in a TV studio. He has two hostages, a gun, and an important message for the world.

JOCKEY Online Discussion

2/2/21 6:00 PM Director Clint Bentley and writer/producer Greg Kwedar of US Narrative Competition selection Jockey (and previously the SXSW Audience Award winner Transpecos) sit down with Sailor Bear's Toby Halbrooks (A Ghost Story, Pete's Dragon) to talk about making independent work from the growing film community of North Texas. Jockey was the 2020 recipient of the AFS Grant Pioneer Film Fund Award, in partnership with Sailor Bear Entertainment and the Oak Cliff Film Festival. Moderated by Dallas International Film Festival Artistic Director, James Faust.

Marvelous and the Black Hole

2/2 8:30 Drive-in

A teenage delinquent (Miya Cech) teams up with a surly children’s party magician (Rhea Perlman) to navigate her dysfunctional family and inner demons.

Theatre and Dance Organizations

Arts groups around town have some very inspiring work for you to see, including

Undermain Theater, Soul Rep, Teatro Dallas, and Bruce Wood Dance Company. All of these are both great experiences and worthy of your support.

[give-emhell-darlin]

miyacech: Flashin' it back a little to long days on set with talented co-stars like the incomparable @mandymooremm 😍. Who else is crazy excited to see #TheDarkestMinds in #IMAX 3D?🙋🏻#zu #cate

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miyacech: Memories! Just cuz I miss these faces! 💞 #darkestminds #atl

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miyacech: Another one of my favorite Scorpios! Happy 19th bday @amandlastenberg ! Hope your day is as wonderful as you! Xoxo #mimi #mando#memories

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miyacech: When one of your favorite people (& creator of your alter ego) is in town signing her awesome new book! @alexbracken #favoriteauthor #bookworm 📔🐛

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miyacech: #waybackwednesday to Day1 in Atl. The jet lagged California kids. 😉 I sure gained some amazing big brothers (and a big sis!) while filming #TDM. #bettycrew#missthem

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miyacech: Past our bedtimes 😉😴 #funfunfun #disneyland

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miyacech: Happy birthday to my one and only avocado and big brother! 😜🥑I miss you tons @harrisdickinson, and am sending you long distance hugs! 💛💙

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miyacech: Trade winds in my hair & sand at my feet. Ψ 💨🏝 #islandgirl #zuzu@darkestminds #darkestminds

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@miyacech: Lol- the things u find while going thru months of phone pics. Wish I could share more but most will have 2 wait. 😉🎬  [x]

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@miyacech: When you get a lil giddy at #barnesandnoble! Eeeeep! #tdm @alexbracken [x]

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miyacech: Finding the perfect places in my room to store precious memories ⚡️💛💕📷 #tdm #unpacking

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via miyacech’s Instagram story 07/13/17