#animal director latest interview

[belovedcelebrity]

Why Tripti Dimpri (Zoya) Ready to lick his (Ranbir Kapoor) Shoe in Animal

Tripti Dimri most popular Indian film actress and model got her fame after releasing just a week after her trending movie, Animal starrer with Bobby Deol and Ranbir Kapoor was born on February 23, 1994, in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Her Mother tongue is Hindi, and she follows Hinduism and holds Indian nationality. A Leo by zodiac sign. Her marital status is currently unmarried as of 2018, Tripti made…

[ladylooch]

Hi I accidentally sent this in before seeing that requests were closed but since they’re open, did you see my request of the reader losing her virginity to Nico?? And he’s so sweet and gentle🥹 ilysm

Flower Picking with Nico Hischier 

A/N: Oh sweet, sweet 🌸 anon. Here you finally are! I know it took awhile, but here it is in all its smutty, sweet, shiny glory. Also peep how I always write Jack 😂 Sassy but funny. That kid cracks me up (before anyone asks, no I still can’t write about him because I’m too old! 🫣)

Word Count: 2.9k

Warnings: SMUT 18+ Content, Loss of Virginity, Swearing. 

The lights on the red carpet are blinding. You can barely focus any which way as people call out to you and Nico, desperate for the perfect picture. Nico’s hand on the small of your back is grounding at least. He leans closer to your head, resting his mouth on it for a moment.

“You’re doing great, baby. Just a bit longer.” You squeeze his back in acknowledgement.

Being in the spotlight has never been comfortable for you, ever. But, you’re more than willing to do these uncomfortable things for your perfect boyfriend, especially on a night where he is nominated for a prestiges award. It all feels a bit like a formality because in your heart, he’s already a Selke winner.

Once the pictures are over, autographs and interviews are next. You stand proudly off to the side, watching him do his work with your hands laced in front of you. Nico checks in on you frequently, making sure you’re as comfortable as can be.

“I’m doing great, babe. Stop worrying about me and enjoy the night.” You assure him after the tenth time he’s wandered over. 

“You’re smothering her.” Jack rolls his eyes at his captain. “Chill.”

“Why don’t you go fix your hair or something? Looks like you just rolled out of bed.” Nico chips back at him. 

“I’m just living in the moment, man.” Jack shakes his head, internal groan showing on his face as he is shuffled to the next interview.

“Nico, you’re done.” The Devils PR director says, waving us into the arena. We wave goodbye to Jack and shuffle out of the oppressive Nashville heat.

“I’m sweaty.” You groan, waving at your face, praying your make up isn’t actually melting off like it feels.

“You look gorgeous though.”

“Yeah? I’m glistening?”

“Glowing.” He wiggles his wide brows suggestively. “I know a way we could get sweaty later.” 

You pause, feeling a little panicked that he has figured out your surprise. When you heard Nico was a finalist for the Selke months ago, you knew exactly what to give him: your virginity. Yes, you’re well into your mid-twenties and yes pretty much everyone you know has already experienced sex, but you’re different. And that’s perfectly okay with you and Nico. You’ve had extensive conversations together about why you have waited and what you need before giving that part of yourself to someone. 

Truthfully, you’ve known for a long time it’s Nico you want to give this too. He treats you so well. Tonight is just the latest example of how he cherishes and protects you. You know he will take this piece of you and honor it forever.

But then he doesn’t actually win the Selke.

And you’re a little bit pissed because you think he deserves it. He squeezes your hand, then brings it to his lips to kiss before clapping for Patrice Bergeron after his video acceptance speech.

“Should have been you.” You huff at Nico, watching his face intently.

“It’s an honor to even be nominated.” He reminds you what he has been saying, but you can sense his disappointment. You find out later from Twitter that he came in second in voting and that cheers you both up.

After the awards, you find yourself at a restaurant with Nico and his family. You’re struggling to participate in the small talk which Nico notices. Usually, you’re animated and chatty with his family. You love them; they love you, but you can’t focus on anything other than what you’re planning in your hotel room later tonight.

“You tired?” Nico asks with his arm around your shoulders. He pulls your temple to his lips, awaiting your answer.

“Yeah.” You turn to him, brown eyes meeting yours with an inquisitive look.

After another round of drinks and dessert, you and the Hischiers take off to the hotel by the arena. You say goodbye to his parents and siblings in the lobby, then walk hand in hand to the elevator. You’re sure Nico can feel the sweat beginning to build in your palm.

“Dang. I’m tired too.” Nico groans as you enter your shared room. He kicks off his shoes immediately while you toss your shoes and clutch onto the chair by the TV.

“You’ve had a long day.” You murmur, swaying back over to him. You wrap your arms around his neck, lacing your fingers there. You use them to bring his face to yours. Nico pulls you tighter to him with a hand on your ass, giving it a light squeeze as you make out. Your tongues touch, tangling together before sliding out of the way for softer kisses. You can feel Nico growing against your stomach. You savor the feeling of reciprocated need building between your thighs.

Butterflies forcefully flutter in your stomach as you ghost your hand over his zipper. Then you get bold, sliding his belt apart and dipping your hand to touch him bare. Nico groans into your mouth. You stroke along his shaft, feeling the rigid pulses as he grows. He bucks his hip into your hand a bit while his eyes drown in desire. He presses two more soft kisses to your mouth before stepping away from your touch.

“Need a sec.” He murmurs, giving your hand a squeeze and moving to the bathroom. The soft click of the door makes you bite your lip. He does this when the desire to pin you down and fuck you becomes too strong for him to resist. Tonight, he doesn’t need the space, but there is no need to ruin the surprise before it starts.

You make quick work of your dress, leaving it in a pile on the floor. You whip your underwear off next then climb onto the bed. You’re not sure how you should sit except that definitely not cross legged because what the fuck is that? Instead, you pull your knees up, then cross your feet for some modesty. You can’t help but bite down on your tongue nervously biting back the slight nausea from the butterflies swirling inside of you. Maybe you should have brought the lingerie you were debating on after all….

Nico emerges from the bathroom, working at the buttons of his shirt.  Your heart leaps into your throat when he comes into your line of sight. He freezes when he sees you.

“Hi.” You whisper, hoping it doesn’t sound as choked as it feels coming out of your mouth.

“Hi.” His smile is modest as his brown gaze strokes along your bare skin.

“I want to have sex.” You blurt quickly. Shit, that was not how you had planned it in your head.

“Are you sure?” He crosses the room instantly, hands gripping your ankles. “I don’t want you to feel pressured by the big night we’ve had.” Nico licks his lips hesitantly.

“I know. But I want to do this with you, right now. I’m so proud of you, Nico. I want us to share this moment together, on this amazing night for you…. For us.”

“I am dying for that. But I need you to be sure.”

“I’m so sure. Think of how many other nights I wasn’t.” He stares into your eyes, pausing for ten more seconds before he leans forward to kiss you. It’s touchingly tender, a sweet press that melts your body. You untangle your limbs, wrapping your arms around his neck to keep him close. “I’ll take care of you.” He mumbles, stroking the bare skin of your back. 

“I know, Neeks.” You smile against his mouth, tongue coming out to graze along his bottom lip.

“You kinda already did some of my favorite part though.”

“Oh.. Uh.” You stutter, breaking away. You begin wiggling over to the side of the bed where you dropped your dress to the floor. “I can put it-”

“Baby.” He chuckles, slapping your bare ass. “Stop. We’ll have plenty more moments where I can undress you.” You flip onto your back, his eyes take all of you in, circling around your breasts and then falling to the apex of your thighs. “I was right though, that dress looks better on the floor.” He slides his hand along your stomach, wrapping it around your hip to pull you closer to him. He leans over you. “You know you can back out at anytime?” 

“I do.” You confirm, staring back into his chocolate brown eyes.

“Okay.” 

You and Nico have fooled around plenty, so he knows your turn ons. He starts with your breasts, savoring the soft moans you speak into the air. His fingers stroke your nipples into pointy buds, perfect bullseyes for his mouth to find. His tongue caresses your skin gently causing cascading tingles to spread along your limbs. Then his hand moves down, nudging your thighs apart so he can stroke you. His fingers on your bare skin is a craving you never knew you needed indulged.

His fingerprints paint along your clit, building into a steady circle that has your muscles squeezing tight in your core. Nico kisses your mouth greedily, devouring your lips and tongue like he didn’t just feast at dinner. While he touches you, you grope for the buttons on his shirt to get him naked. He eventually pulls back from you to drag the shirt over his head. His pants go next. When he reaches for the band of his underwear, you stop him. You pull them down his hips and large thighs, groaning at the way his cock bounces free. It slaps against his abdomen then falls into your waiting hand. You wrap him in a tight grip, bringing your face to his throbbing head. 

You’ve never done this for him before, but you’ve imagined it. A lot. Your mouth opens, you swirl your tongue along his head then bob down his shaft until you can’t take him any deeper. Nico’s strangled groan fills your ears. He reaches to your chest, rolling your nipple as you begin to bounce up and down faster.

“Baby, baby, baby. Stop.” Nico begs. You pull off of him immediately, eyes turned downward with worry. “Hey, no, don’t be upset. That feels so fucking good. I’m not gonna make it if you keep going though.” He brings your mouth to his with his fingers under your chin. “Fuck. Couldn’t even tell that was your first time. You’re a pro.” He licks along your lips teasingly. You feel pride stretch your chest, flushing your cheeks with excitement.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for awhile.” You admit as you watch him walk over to his bag. He pulls out a box of condoms.

“Anytime, baby. Except right now because I’m dying to fuck you.” A small moan slips through your lips at the way he says fuck. “I just got tested not that long ago as part of my physical, but I think the first few times we should use condoms.”

“Okay. I’m on the pill.” You remind him.

“I know.” He kisses you, then rips open the box and pulls out a purple wrapper. “I’m not gonna lie, I brought these hoping this would happen.” You like that and reward him with a smooch.

He rips the wrapper open, tossing it onto the floor carelessly. You bite your lip, watching him roll the latex down. You feel like you should look away, but can’t. When he is fully suited, he comes between your knees, adjusting your legs wider t accommodate his body. He kisses you again and you wonder if he can hear the rapid beating of your heart as he adjusts you both for what is next.

“Tell me you’re sure?”

“So sure.” You repeat again. “Have me."

Nico laces your fingers together with his on either side of your head, then slowly begins to press forward. You close your eyes, taking in a measured breath as he gently nudges in, then right back out.

“Okay?” He asks. His breathing is heavy, nostrils flared as he checks on you.

“Yeah.” You nod too. 

He pushes in again, deeper now. This time it’s uncomfortable. He pauses there, leaning down to kiss along your breasts. His tongue slurps at your nipple, pooling warmth in your lower belly. He probes in further as your head falls back. Nico grins when he removes his face from your breast.

“I think you’re gonna like this, baby.” He chuckles, kissing along your jaw, then sucking at your throat as he pushes in to the hilt. Your hands unlace from his, instinctively going to his back. Your finger nails scratch softly at his skin.

“Me too.” You moan back to him. It feels exquisite. Slightly uncomfortable but also the best thing you’ve ever felt. Nico is doing everything to ease any discomfort or tightness. You’re so turned on and eager to feel what the next stage is like.

“Ready for more?” 

“Yeah.” You say back instantly. He smiles fully at you, then drags back so he can begin to leisurely pump in and out. Your breathing hitches again and he slows more, watching your face for any signs of further distress. They’re not there. “I’m good. More, Neeks.” You ask him. He closes his eyes in a long blink and quickens his pace, savoring the feeling of finally having you this way. Your mouth drops open but no sound comes out. You arch your back into his thrusts and he grips your hips, pressing his thumbs into them to pin you back down.

“Take it easy.” He laughs, leaning over you again. “Let me control the pace.”

“Then go faster.” You urge. 

“Why are you chirping me?” His smile presses into your neck.

“Because I want more of you.” You whisper, turning to capture his lips.

Nico begins to fuck you faster. It’s toe curling and intense. The sound of skin connecting fills the hotel room as you writhe beneath his toned body. His hips are perfect tempo setters. You clutch them with your fingers each time, feeling their power as he pumps into you. The whole things is overwhelmingly beautiful. And better than you even imagined it would be.

“I love you.” You say to him. Is that cliche to say during sex? Especially your first time? You’re not sure but know you have to say it. He pauses his thrusting to cup your face, kissing your lips with delicate presses. It’s so intimate, him filling you completely while sliding his tongue along your lower lip.

“I love you too. So much.” He pulls away to look down into your face as his hands glide your legs to wrap around his waist. His hips begin to move again. Goosebumps of pleasure break out down your body at the change in position. 

“Oh… my god.” You moan, thrusting your fingers into his hair and tugging. You turn your face into his cheek, wet mouth sucking his skin. “D-don’t stop.” You quiver with each one of his pumps.

“Fuck, you feel so good.” He groans as he keeps the pace. You agree. And tell him so by squeezing him with your orgasm. He follows suit, filling the latex while buried deep inside of you.

Everything slows down after that. Your legs fall slightly from around his waist. Nico breathes heavily above you; your abdomens sticking together from sweat. A light breeze of bliss travels from the top of your head to the tips of your feet. Your heart swells in your chest, feeling so connected to Nico after sharing this moment with him.

“How are you doing?” He asks quietly, face still buried into your shoulder. His hair tickles your skin when he pulls away to see you.

“Good. Great actually.” You insist with a grin. He matches yours with one of his own. He grips the edge of the condom, then slides out of you. You feel empty when he is gone and wonder how quickly you can get him to do this all again. 

“I’ll be right back.” He kisses you, then gets off the bed to head to the bathroom. His bare butt is quite the sight as he walks away. When he returns, he has a washcloth. “This should help with any discomfort.” He lays it between your thighs and you realize it’s warm. You smile at him, reaching your arms up to bring him into your chest. His lips press against your breasts as he nuzzles his face into them. “You might be sore tomorrow.”

“Okay.” You murmur into his hair. He’s so worried about you, wanting to walk you through everything. “So when can we do that again?” Nico chuckles into your skin. He wraps his arms around your back, spinning you both so you’re on top of his chest, looking down at him. Your hair cascades along your shoulder blades and down your spine. His fingers tangle in it there, kind eyes meeting yours.

“Give me 15 minutes and we can go again.” You bite your lip to suppress the wicked grin forming.

Nico Hischier is going to turn you into a freak.

[mikyapixie]

Shinichiro Watanabe confirms in latest Interview that all his anime (Cowboy Bebop, Space Dandy, Samurai Champloo, Carole and Tuesday, Lazarus) takes place in the same universe!!!

"I've always thought my shows took place in the same universe."

Shinichiro Watanabe says he has been listening to Billie Eilish lately & is interested in collaborating with her!!! "Yesterday, I went & saw Billie Eilish in Madison Square Garden. It was very inspiring. If you can get us in contact, tell her I'm very interested in collaborating."

Shinichiro Watanabe first approached Chad Stahelski's team (the John Wick series director) only looking for Tips on how to create action scenes like them for "LAZARUS" to which Chad's response was:

"Leave it to us! We'll do the choreography for you!"

However Watanabe was worried about the Hollywood-level costs, to which Chad simply replied:

"Don't worry about the cost. Cowboy Bebop & Samurai Champloo have inspired me for years. Let me do this for you."

[rjzimmerman]

Environmental group calls for RFK Jr. to be investigated for reportedly sawing off whale head. (Washington Post)

First, kennedy told us that doctors discovered a parasitic worm in his brain. Later, we saw a photo posted on X showing him eating from the skeleton of a barbequed dog in Korea. (He claimed it was a goat, but veterinarians said it was a dog.) Then, we learned that he put the carcass of a bear cub in Central Park in NYC. Now we learn that he chopped off the head of a dead whale off the coast of Hyannis Port so he could take it to his New York home. "WTF" applies perfectly.

When RFK Jr. announced he was endorsing trump, trump said, "he's a great guy, respected by everybody." Tells us a lot about trump and this particular kennedy person.

Excerpt from this Washington Post story:

Former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is back in the headlines — not for suspending his campaign last week and endorsing Republican Donald Trump, nor for his recent admission that he was the one who had left a dead bear cub in Central Park as a joke a decade ago.

This time, the macabre spotlight is refocused on Kennedy, the 70-year-old nephew of the late 35th president, because of a resurfaced 2012 interview in which his daughter shared he had once used a chain saw to cut off a whale’s head to bring it home, reportedly to study.

According to Town & Country magazine, Kennedy once heard that a dead whale had washed up on Squaw Island in Hyannis Port and “ran down to the beach with a chainsaw, cut off the whale’s head, and then bungee-corded it to the roof of the family minivan for the five-hour haul back to Mount Kisco, New York.”

“Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kick Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy’s daughter, told the magazine then. “We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.”

Kennedy’s latest bizarre story involving a dead animal has prompted a push by one environmental group to look into whether Kennedy committed felonies if he did indeed saw off a whale’s head and strap it to the roof of his car.

In a letter Monday to government officials, the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund requested that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) open an investigation into whether Kennedy violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.

It is illegal to possess any part of an animal, dead or alive, protected under either statute, the group wrote, noting that several whale species in the Atlantic Ocean are included and that “continued possession of any whale skull” would represent an ongoing violation of the law.

“Furthermore, Mr. Kennedy’s apparent transport of the marine mammal skull from Massachusetts to New York, and therefore across state lines, also represented a felony violation of the Lacey Act, one of the earliest wildlife conservation laws enacted by United States in 1900,” Brett Hartl, national political director for the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, wrote in the letter.

[tilbageidanmark]

MOVIES I WATCHED THIS WEEK #207:

In a week full of many wonderful movies, India Donaldson's minimalist debut feature GOOD ONE was my most precious experience. I've seen all her previous shorts before, and I sensed this will be a 'good one'. And indeed it was. I hope she'll continue to tell super-realistic character studies like this for the rest of her career.

A middle-aged father, his perceptive 17-yo daughter, and another mess of a divorced buddy of his are going on a camping trip in the Catskills. That's the whole simple plot, but it's told with the maturity and eye-for-details of somebody who had intimately known all three. Not much is said, everything is subtle, quiet, and understated. The girl, Sam, got it all together, and the actress who plays her with such raw intelligence is a revelation. One of my best films of the year. 10/10. [*Female Director*]

🍿

2 INDIAN CLASSICS:

🍿 "Forgive me, my son"...

In HOTEL SALVATION (2016), a 77 year old man dreams that his time on earth came to an end, and he's about to die. He decides to go to the holy city of Varnasi, and his son is forced to set aside his office job, in order to accompany him on his last trip. It's a serene, spiritual story, with none of the big events shown on screen - they are all subtle, because they are peacefully inevitable. The director was 25 when he made his debut with this. 💯 score on Rotten Tomatoes.

🍿 DEVDAS (2002) is pure hokum. A classic big-budget Bollywood song-and-dance excess, larger than life soap opera, with 3 mega-stars at their peak: SRK, Aishwarya Rai and Madhuri Dixit. A silly romance defeated by society prejudices, but played in the foreground of elaborate and opulent sets. The music numbers (for example Dola Re Dola, Maar Dala, Silsila Ye Chahat Ka, Sheeshe Sa Sheesha Takraye) were spectacular, the budget for glycerine tears must have been huge, but the super-melodramatic plot was ridiculous.

🍿

For a while now I had planned to re-visit the work of 94-year-old documentarian Frederick Wiseman, but his usual grim subjects deterred me. His latest 4-hour (!) saga MENUS PLAISIRS - LES TROISGROS is a good refresher why this is my type of story telling: Captured footage that observes and don't propagate, and most importantly, no voice-over, no narration, no interviews, and NO FUCKING MUSIC in the background to drown everything you see.

The fact that it's a happy topic, light as a bird song, is a huge help. Like Ken Burns' recent documentary about Leonardo, this is Wiseman’s first outside of the USA. Both of them must have felt they ought to look elsewhere to Europe for shreds of sanity and coherence today.

It's an inside look into the French Troisgros restaurant "empire" in the Loire valley and "how it works". From their spacious kitchens, tomato and cheese suppliers, smokehouse, philosophy, beekeepers, vine cellars, taste making, goats, desserts and the three Michelin stars that they’ve earned for over 50 years. it's an absolute delight from start to finish - the anti-Netflix food-porn destination.

(When I was a chef, I collected about 400 cookbooks, and my two most valuable tomes were (Salvador Dalí: Les Diners De Gala, and) the big book by The Troisgrois Brothers...)

Another one with 💯 score on Rotten Tomatoes.

🍿

3 BY CZECH ANIMATOR MICHAELA PAVLÁTOVÁ:

🍿 Her ŘEČI, ŘEČI, ŘEČI ("Words, words, words") was nominated for an Oscar in 1991. A terrific wordless film about communication, very much in 'Yellow Submarine' style. In a busy cafe, speech bubbles float from people's mouths into others ears in a humorous musical patterns. 9/10.

🍿 Apparently, much of her work focuses on sex. REPETE (1995) open with the act, and then musically returns to it in many different repetitive forms. Uniquely erotic.

🍿 TRAM (2012) is perfect. A full bodied conductress drive her all-male passengers, and with every rhythmic vibration of the trolley, her fantasies gets hornier and she lets herself go. 10/10. (Full Film Above). [*Female Director*]

🍿

Another gen from ol' Czechoslovakia, THE DEATH OF STALINISM IN BOHEMIA, my 4th by mad surrealist Jan Švankmajer. A piece of modernistic agitprop about his country's history from 1948 to 1989. His most political satire, and as usual, full of bloody cut organs made out of exploding clay played to nonstop disgusting slurping, guttural sounds.

🍿

5 BY CROATIAN DAINA ONIUNAS-PUSIĆ:

🍿 In anticipation of her new, heralded A24 debut feature, 'Tuesday', I watched all her earlier shorts:

THE BEAST (2016), is a very odd look at familial abuse. A 75yo woman is angrily taking care of her invalid 100yo mother. Their relationship is uniquely cruel and unpredictable. That is before a mystical bat flies in and settles under the old woman's bed. Super weird!

🍿 WE FIGHT, BUT YOU'RE FABULOUS (2020) was made entirely of stock footage. A terrific pandemic story told only in voice over: A mother and her gay son keep bitching and complaining to each other.

🍿 RHONNA AND DONNA (2015) had an outrageous premise: One teenage sister plays Juliet in their Shakespeare school play, and her conjoined-twin doesn't want to... The mother, in this one, was just drinking wine while doing her yoga.

🍿 PRESS YOUR LIPS TOGETHER, (2011), her early film school work was also about a mother. This mother got bad news about her 13yo daughter. Slight and juvenile.

🍿 So finally, TUESDAY, another tortured saga of unusual mother and daughter relationship. First of all, it's chilly and ambitious, probably like the nightmare baby of Lynch's 'Eraserhead' [which I haven't seen yet] and 'Everything everywhere all at once'. For a young filmmaker making her debut, it's a bold 'Must see'. Mother Julia Louis-Dreyfus can't cope with the upcoming demise of Tuesday, her terminally-ill teenage daughter. A metaphorical Angel of Death, in the shape of mystical black macaw, visits her to help with her pain before he takes her away - and that in the middle of a zombie outbreak. Like 'Alice in Wonderland', their sizes changes, so they all grow and shrink all the time. Etc.

But it was too horror-like for me, and I couldn't connect. 3/10. [*Female Director*]

🍿

"Judicial errors don't exist."

'Somebody is killing the supreme court judges of Palermo, Sicily' in the 1976 ILLUSTRIOUS CORPSES. Tough guy police inspector Lino Ventura is sent from Rome to solve a series of high-profile assassinations, and uncovers collusions, political conspiracies, and corruption at the highest order of society. For me, it mostly evoked one of my favorite kinks, the leisurely sights and sounds of mid-70's Italy, as depicted on film: Dark piazzas, the half-empty alleyways, the paranoia of the communist movement...

(On a recommendation by my friend HootsMaguire.)

🍿

A WOMAN INTERVIEWED IN ONE CONTINUED SHOT X 2:

🍿 I never heard of the 1993 French masterpiece EMILIE MULLER, but as soon as I finished watching it, I had to watch it again, and then a third time! A young woman arrives for her first ever audition where she's asked to show the contents of her handbag. 10/10. It reminded me very much of another of my French favorites On S'Embrasse?

🍿 In BETTY TELLS A STORY (1972) a woman remembers how she once bought an expensive dress that she couldn't effort and never got to wear, and then tells the same story again, but this time focusing on her feelings about the events she described. 8/10. A seminal feminist work. It was later selected for the National Film Registry. [*Female Director*]

🍿

2 ABOUT PAINFUL MUSLIM TRAUMAS:

🍿 BROTHERHOOD is a very powerful Tunisian short that was nominated for the 2020 Oscars. A simple goatherd family in some remote area experiences painful upheavals when the older son return from Syria with a Burka-clad young wife. 9/10.

The young director, Meryam Joobeur, expanded this story into her latest 'Who do I belong to'. [*Female Director*]

🍿 LISTEN (2014) is a terrifying story of spousal abuse. In a small interrogation room at a Copenhagen police station, a burka-covered woman is begging for help . Her husband had beaten her severely and is now threatens to kill her. Her desperate appeal is repeated again and again but is completely misunderstood, since she only speaks Arabic. 9/10, if you can manage to watch it.

It was made in Danish and Arabic by two directors; One Zambian-Welsh, and the other Finnish-Iranian...

🍿

For the biggest Beatles fan that I was 60 years ago, and the Beatles completist that I've became since, the new Disney documentary BEATLES ‘64 doesn't offer much new. A few unseen clips on-stage and off, David Lynch goes off about the power of music, an editing decision to connect JFK idealism and death to the joy that The Beatles "brought back" on their first US tour. One thing that is painfully obvious from all that old footage: The media blitz that fueled their rise at that time was "SO" shallow, the interviews so inane, the TV and radios just unintelligent.

I hope that they improved since. /s

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DIRECTED BY DANNY DEVITO X2:

🍿 Danny DeVito produced a bunch of movies (Erin Brockovich, Get Shorty, Gattaca), but he also directed 15 movies (including Hoffa, The war of the roses, Matilda, Throw momma from the train). The last one he finished, CURMUDGEONS, became the first ever Vimeo Stuff Pick in 2016. A wonderful surprise about a grumpy 80yo man in an assisted living facility. I had to see it twice in a row! Highly recommended! 8/10.

🍿 NEST OF VIPERS (2011) is another comedic gem with a twist, about old rich Tracey Walters on his death bed.

🍿

HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS (the original 1966 television special). My first watch, and because this photo of Boris Karloff made me curious. Directed by Chuck Jones, and very close to Dr. Seuss original book. A radiant, unironically-gorgeous canvas. Another with 💯 score on Rotten Tomatoes.

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MY FIRST 2 WITH FRENCH CLAUDE MILLER:

🍿 JULIET IN PARIS (1967) - A young student engages with a series of inexplicable and bizarre acts, including a mutilation of a kitten and drinking its blood. Godard-lite. 2/10.

🍿 In connection with the 100th anniversary of the Lumiere Brothers' first motion picture, 40 directors were each given the opportunity to shoot a 52 second film using the original hand-cranked Cinématographe camera. LUMIÈRE ET COMPAGNIE (1995) was the resulting gimmicky anthology, a curios, self-referential homage. The best usages of the limited format were 1. The recreation of the original 'Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station'. 2. A couple with Down Syndrome kiss. 3. Zhang Yimou's scene at the Great Wall of China. 4. A couple embrace to music, by Claude Lelouch. 5. An egg being fried by Abbas Kiarostami. 6. Spike Lee trying to get his baby daughter to say 'Daddy'. YMMV.

🍿

THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (1932) is HUNTING HUMANS! Sadistic count 'Zaroff' explains his perverted lust for killing humans as a prelude to having sex with their women. Very unusual and very much pre-code! With the same set-up and crew of the people who made King Kong a year later. 💯 score on Rotten Tomatoes. But only 2/10 from me.

🍿

AGAIN?!?!? - "Again!!"- IAIN RANNOCH X 2:

🍿 "Does that cover cakes?"...

Everything I repeated 8-10 times already about my favorite 'Black Mirror' episode, HATED IN THE NATION, (last time in January), still stands. It's one of the best dystopian police procedural I know about people being held responsible for their actions. And the only sequel I ever want is the one where DSI Karin Parke and her sidekick Blue Coulson team up again to solve futuristic high-tech mysteries. And that ominous soundtrack note, man! 10/10.

(I re-watched it mostly for the details of the "Hashtag Seeding" twist, which I want to use myself in my next move...)

🍿 'Black Mirror' was built as a loosely-connected universe, where details from one episode are often referred to in another. F.ex. Blue Coulson is the one who cracked Iain Rannoch's 'Souvenir file', which was the reason for her resigning from forensic. And Iain Rannoch was the child murderer in S2E2 WHITE BEAR episode. This one I saw only once before, for a good reason, and I regret seeing again. It's a sadistic torture-porn, a nasty horror story about a woman who's being punished for an unspeakable act. Mean, distressful nightmare of the very type I don't care for. 1/10. Re-watch for both ♻️.

🍿

A BUNCH OF SHORTS:

🍿 THEN COMES THE BODY tells of a Nigerian young man who taught himself how to dance ballet from watching YouTube tutorials and of the ballet school he started in the open-sewer slums of Lagos. It's the Instagram opposite of the Frederick Wiseman's Troisgros pure documentary style from above, but the subject matter is too powerful, so that the manipulation in this one is soon forgotten. You "will" cry! 7/10.

🍿 MILTON (1992) was the original sketch, part of Mike Judge's early, crude drawings which 7 years later he transformed into 'Office Space'. Every line in this short was used in the live-action version. 8/10.

🍿 COLOUR BOX (1935), a lovely abstract British experimental film, which the Nazi labeled 'degenerate'. Excellent Cuban music score.

🍿 WHO ARE YOU? (2019) by Chilean Julio Pot is a great little animation about a novelist with a writer block. Made in a delightful 'New Yorker' Cartoon style in black with red accents, but unfortunately it was dubbed into English, by voice actors that didn't match the story.

🍿 LIFT (2001) was a semi-pointless British documentary. The director installed himself in a narrow elevator of a typical tower block, and for a long period of time tried to engage in conversation with the ordinary folks who use it. A good concept, but it never got beyond random small talk.

🍿 HI-FI (2000), an early, wordless Sean Baker mood piece. 4 teens ride a sedan through New York at night, looking to score some hard drugs. M'eh.

🍿 MADAME TUTLI-PUTLI (2007), a weird Canadian Oscar-nominated stop motion puppetry nightmare. A creepy-looking 1920's flapper girl on a metaphysical night train is running away from something into unexplainable dreams.

🍿 Jack Stauber's 2020 OPAL, an even weirder, more unsettling mishmash of horrifying trops, done in an ugly, off-putting aesthetics. Low-rent Eraserhead.

🍿 FOUR WOMEN (1975), my first by Julie Dash. A choreographed modern dance interpenetrating the Nina Simon song. [*Female Director*]

🍿

THROW-BACK TO THE ADORA ART PROJECT:  

Adora loves to cook.

🍿

(ALL MY FILM REVIEWS - HERE).

[designidraws]

Sam and Max characters’ hygiene ranked from best to worst:

Sybil Pandemik: She is a career-woman and knows what she is doing. Sybil cares about her appearance and how she is perceived, she is the most likely to give a shit about her hygiene.

Myra Stump: She is a talk-show host on TV and has a large audience. She definitely cares a lot about her hygiene since she acts like a bossy mom.

Santa Claus or the elves: Smells like holiday cheer, one of the best scents.

Momma Bosco: Self-explanatory, she probably smells of 60’s perfume and definitely takes good care of her hygiene.

Agent Superball: He probably smells like a really good cologne and he takes himself extremely seriously.

Grandma Ruth: Ruth probably has that grandma perfume smell that is just extremely nostalgic. She definitely cares about her BO.

The Narrator: He is British and very sophisticated, he takes good care of “himself”.

Jurgen: He is very attention-seeking and cares how other people perceive him. He definitely collects the latest and most popular perfume.

Conroy Bumpus: Sure, he may be involved in animal cruelty, but he seems to care a lot about his appearance. He has a toupee on display with high-security soooooo…. he cares a lot.

The Director: She is a director known for being prestigious about acting and probably takes good care of her hygiene.

Darla "The Geek" Gugenheek: She definitely showers regularly.

Sam/Sameth: Sam definitely cares about his hygiene for the most part. He acts like a dad and probably smells like one and cares about how he is perceived.

Lee-Harvey: He is a henchman for Conroy Bumpus and looks well-kept.

Anyone in the toy mafia: These guys probably smell ok.

Satan: Weirdly I think Satan in this series probably smells alright. He always cares about whether his bald-spot is showing on camera during the interview in *The City That Dares Not Sleep*.

T.H.E.M.: They smell average.

Abraham Lincoln: Smells like stone? (Whatever that means)

The C.O.P.S.: The smell of machinery.

Roscoe Bosco: He probably smells average, maybe a little sweaty some days.

Sal: He is a cockroach but seems relatively well-kept.

Flint Paper: He probably showers, but cares more about cases rather than personal hygiene.

Lorne (the friend for life): He doesn’t shower as much as he should.

Mr. Featherly: He is a chicken, but he does seem to care about how he is seen and is very much an attention-seeker.

Sammun-Mak: He smells like dirt but like in a good way, like the nostalgic kind of way.

Trixie: Ehhh she smells well… like a giraffe with a layer of perfume overtop

Max/Maximus: We all know he is covered in so many germs, but Sam definitely tries to get him showered every once in a while.

Hubert Q. Tourist: He is a strange, strange fellow. I don’t know what it is about him, but he makes me uncomfortable and he probably doesn’t smell all that well.

Hugh Bliss: Bacteria

Bessie: She’s a cow…

General Skun-ka’pe or his minions: All I need to say is gorilla.

Bruno: He is a bigfoot, need anymore explaining?

Brady Culture: I don’t think I can explain why, but I think he just doesn’t smell good at all.

Anton Papierwaite: HE IS FRENCH! (Also his *secret* makes him smell worse probably)

Girl Stinky: She smells like really bad, but tries to haphazardly spray perfume to cover it up.

Charlie Ho-Tep: People don’t have the decency to wash their hands before playing with him.

Any sea creatures: I absolutely despise the smell of fish…

Any of the baby characters: Babies can smell really bad…

Jurgen’s Monster: He is basically Frankenstein’s Monster, so he probably doesn’t smell good.

The zombies: They are undead and *god* do the dead smell gross.

Eldritch horrors of any kind: They don’t smell very good.

Molemen or the Rats: These guys smell like shit and probably don’t care about showering. They live in the sewers.

Grandpa Stinky: It’s in the name, he smells absolutely rancid. He probably hasn’t showered in decades.

The Soda Poppers: THEY SMELL REALLY FUCKING BAD

[bokujou-monogatari]

do you mind explaining why you like island of happiness over sunshine islands and tree of tranq. over animal parade?

Disclaimer 1: this is not my full answer because I want to provide more than just my ramblings and have actual tangible evidence to my reasonings. Which, I do have, but my schedule has been very limited recently and I just haven't gotten around to digging things up.

Alright, it's about time I answered this, just because it's been sitting here in my inbox and I don't want to keep you waiting too long.

Disclaimer 2: I don't know what the hell happened in 2007 to 2010, but something tells me there was a Too Many Cooks situation in the dev/production line; may have been what contributed to the creative differences and why Wada was ushered to leave after the AQL Merger. But again, this is one thing I -don't- have the specific insight to.

Disclaimer 3: long post, I'm sorry 😭

Tree of Tranquility was created 2004 (preproduction) to 2005-2006 (production, commitment, release candidate) and released in 2007. The person spearheading direction was Yoshifumi Hashimoto, the acting director for many games after he was brought to the team when Victor merged with Marvelous in 2003. He was purely Marvelous staff at the time, and was not part of the initial team that came with Victor/Toy Box. He was given the role for Tree of Tranquility in order to innovate gameplay on the latest Nintendo system - the Nintendo Wii. He had support in the way of Yasuhiro Wada and Hikaru Nakano. To a degree, Nakano was more closely involved than Wada, who at the time, was more oversight than development.

Hashimoto wanted to use the success of A Wonderful Life to make a more intuitive, iterative title that followed similar successful principles while in a whole new setting. Thus, Tree of Tranquility did its best to be its own thing while still trying to be a knock on of the preceding console game.

In this article I translated years ago (which frankly needs an update, but the general information is There), Wada was interviewed for the release of Animal Parade; he stated that when he finally took a look at the final product, Tree of Tranquility did not capture the feeling of being a true successor to A Wonderful Life, and that he was largely unhappy with how things turned out. As such, he ordered the team to create a turnaround version of the title which stripped characters down to bare stereotypes, rewrote original relationships and changed them, and changed functionality of gameplay systems - all within a 9 month period from the release of Tree of Tranquility to Animal Parade.

As to why I like Tree of Tranquility so much:

I am just not a fan of the antiquated rural ideals and stereotypes Wada mixes very well in all of his games.

He added those into Animal Parade, and also just pretty much turned Tree of Tranquility into a depressing hot mess with plotholes.

I had already been so used to the (then) complexity of the character narrative in Tree of Tranquility that coming to Animal Parade felt like the characters had been body snatched. I have a whole dissertation on my blog about the character narrative of Maya, and I could write about every single character of the game and the ways they stand out in ToT compared to AP. Between the two, for what the story was supposed to be, it also felt less impactful when playing Animal Parade, than when you literally got told how much of a difference you were making throughout the story of Tree of Tranquility.

(Of course, this isn't to say Tree of Tranquility doesn't have its own problems, it does! But you can't escape narrative bias in any media - it takes critical analysis.)

I think Animal Parade holds its own as a game, and I can see why so many people enjoy it. However, narrative wise I will always choose Tree of Tranquility.

Island of Happiness is also the same in this regard. Hikaru Nakano was not satisfied and felt that the game could be iterated on further, and thus Sunshine Islands was created. For me, Island of Happiness felt more tight knit but also diverse- what with the single community island, branching heart events instead of linear ones, and overall feel. I just couldn't attach myself to Sunshine Islands despite the fact it was supposed to have "enhanced" the story presented in that generation.

Feel free to hit me up about this more, I love talking about this topic specifically :)

[natlacentral]

Interview: Gordon Cormier on Bringing Aang to Life in ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’

Avatar: The Last Airbender kept viewers from all over the world on the edge of their seats when it premiered earlier this year, as an animated Nickelodeon classic made the jump to live-action thanks to Netflix. But the story of how Aang began to prepare for his destructive battle against Fire Lord Ozai (Daniel Dae Kim) couldn’t have been told without Gordon Cormier, the actor who stepped into the shoes of the titular hero. 

Awards Radar had the opportunity to interview Cormier, who was more than excited to talk about how the Netflix series was a challenge for him as a performer. With a combination of digital and practical effects, the team behind the streaming platform’s latest hit creatively gave new meaning to the bending performed by people from the Four Nations, as Aang continued to learn how to master his powers in order to save the world. 

Awards Radar: What was it like to see yourself in costume for the first time for Avatar: The Last Airbender?

Gordon Cormier: Seeing myself in costume for the first time was crazy. I was just bald! (laughs) It was awesome. I didn’t have the arrow at the time, so it wasn’t the full thing. 

AR: Did you picture it in your head?

GC: Yeah! (laughs) I was like: “That arrow will be on. Give it three more days!”

AR: Could you talk about the challenges related to the physicality of the role of Aang?

GC: All the fight scenes were really complicated. I remember when I watched action fight scenes when I was younger. I thought it looked super cool, but I never thought that it would’ve taken them five days of preparation. (laughs).

AR: The friendship between Aang, Katara and Sokka had a lot of chemistry on the screen. How did the performances from your co-stars affected yours?

GC: While shooting, we were all really close. We were basically family. Bringing our lives from outside of work to inside of work was actually really easy. It made my character, and everyone else’s, really real. 

AR: When Avatar: The Last Airbender is done, you’ll find yourself at a very different point of your career. What would you like to work on next?

GC: I heard Naruto was making a live-action, and I thought that would’ve been really sick. But I think they’re shooting somewhere around the time when we’ll be shooting. I’m not sure that’s something I’d be able to do. But I’ve been bingeing it lately, so if they ever want to delay it… (laughs). But doing two live-action animes would be pretty crazy. Starting with Avatar and then immediately jumping to Naruto would be fun. 

AR: I spoke to Jabbar Raisani (director and future co-showrunner of Avatar: The Last Airbender) recently, and he said that you’re a brillant kid and that you have tons of imagination to work with things that aren’t present on set, but will later be inserted as digital effects. Can you talk more about your experience working with such additions?

GC: First things first, thank you, Jabbar! As a twelve-year-old, I had a pretty big imagination. I almost thought about everything like it was real. It was interesting because things like Appa were a huge upper body portion of him. And we had the giant Volume, so it felt like I was flying on top of him. 

AR: What was your acting technique for the object that weren’t physically present on set?

GC: For some of the Momo scenes, we had a big green box. For others, we had a live-action doll of him. Interacting with those wasn’t really hard for me because we pictured the animated characters with the green dolls. 

AR: Have you read any scripts for the second season?

GC: Netflix has my mouth sealed. But I haven’t really gotten my hands on anything yet. Hopefully, I can do that soon. But, as of now, I’m just as in the dark as you are. 

AR: As a performer, what are your expectations for Aang’s emotional arc moving forward?

GC: This is all theoretical, because I don’t have any of the scripts yet. But I really want Aang to realize, from beginning to end, that he’s the Avatar. I want to see him taking care of his responsibilities. But who knows? The writers are very smart and creative, they might find something new to do. Or they might do exactly what I guessed. It’s all up in the air.

AR: This has been the biggest role of your career. What was it like for you to find out you were going to play Aang?

GC: It was huge because I was a little twelve-year-old. This was my first ever big role. To take on something so big with a beloved fan base was really interesting, life-changing and awesome because it’s a huge role to take on. I’m kind of just realizing that now. 

AR: Throw someone under the bus. Who was the smelliest person on set. Because those wear heavy outfits in hot temperatures outdoors and in the studio.

GC: I’ll tell you who smelled really good! (laughs) Almost everyone had amazing fragances. The first time that we did an event together was TUDUM, and my dad picked up on Dallas’ cologne, he immediately got it. And I think Ian was wearing something, I don’t know. But the whole crew and cast is crazy with their fragances, and they got me on it now. They recruited me. They got hooked on everything. Now I go to cologne stores sometimes (laughs). 

AR: After you got the role, how did you perfect all the mannerisms and ways of presenting yourself that became very tied to Aang in this series.

GC: It was a lot of stage directions. Because in the script, we have little thingies under our lines telling us what oiur characters do and how they’re reacting. I kind of went off of those a lot. But it was also some of my creativity depeding on what happened in the scenes. It was cool figuring it all out. 

AR: We all know how Aang’s love life goes in the animated series. But if you could ship him from any character from this world, who would it be and why?

GC: Oh! That’s gotta be a no comment! (laughs). I’m sorry, man! Netflix has my hands tied! 

AR: Have you played the Fortnite Avatar: The Last Airbender update?

GC: Actually, not yet! I had to stop gaming because, when I was really young, I was really obsesed with Fortnite. A lot of friends are telling me that they’re buying the Avatar skin, so it’s been really interesting!

AR: You were addicted to it, and now that you’re in it, you can’t play it?

GC: Yeah! It’s kind of those things, almost ironic, because I was so into it and I realized that I almost had a problem. Because I wasn’t submitting my homework. Now it’s the time when I should be playing, but I’m not playing Fortnite. 

AR: Do you think your interest in colognes is filling the void left by Fortnite?

GC: I’m not going to say anything specific, but yes, a little. (laughs).

AR: Can you talk about your impressions when it comes to the writing on Avatar: The Last Airbender? Do you rely more on the stage directions given to you by directors or on what’s written on the page?

GC: On the table reads, everyone gets together and we read the scripts while getting familiarized with the stage directions. But on set, the directors sometimes tell me if I misinterpreted something, ot if a creative decision isn’t going as well as I thought I would go in my head. 

AR: When you had scenes with Dallas, who plays Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender, what was that relationship like on set?

GC: Dallas told me his experience for this, because it was really funny. I remember that, on the day, he would just be giving me the cold shoulder. As a twelve-year-old, I didn’t know what it was. But it really helped him get into character. I was trying to talk to him and, at the same time, I was bringing out my Aang. I was trying to reach out while Zuko tries to shove Aang away. I think that worked out really well and it helped with our performances. 

AR: Netflix owns live sports now. You should settle your differences by wrestling. 

GC: (laughs) Dallas would crush me with his pinkie, I would walk in, extremely confident, after a six-week boot camp. And he’d say: “Hey, look over there!” Pow! (punches the air). I’d go out like a light.

[usagirotten]

Netflix Reveals “Ultraman: Rising” – A CG Animated Film Set to Soar!

In an electrifying announcement, Netflix has unveiled its latest cinematic gem: “Ultraman: Rising”, a thrilling CG animated film that promises to redefine the superhero genre. Based on the iconic Ultraman franchise from Tsuburaya Productions, this visually stunning movie is set to premiere on June 14, 2024.

A Fusion of Tradition and Innovation

“Ultraman: Rising” seamlessly blends traditional anime aesthetics with cutting-edge CG animation. The result? A mesmerizing visual spectacle that pays homage to the beloved Ultraman legacy while propelling it into the future. Imagine vibrant battles, cosmic mysteries, and heart-pounding heroics—all rendered with breathtaking detail.

The Plot Unveiled

Set against a backdrop of intergalactic conflict, “Ultraman: Rising” follows the journey of Shin Hayata, a young pilot who unexpectedly inherits the power of Ultraman. As Earth faces an otherworldly menace, Shin must rise to the occasion, donning the iconic suit to protect humanity. But the true battle lies within, as he grapples with his newfound responsibilities and the weight of destiny. Tsuburaya describes the film: Baseball superstar Ken Sato returns to his home country of Japan to pick up the mantle of Earth-defending superhero Ultraman, but quickly finds more than he bargained for when he's forced to raise the offspring of his greatest foe, a newborn Kaiju. Struggling to balance the roles of teammate and new father, Ken must confront his own ego, his estranged father, and the conniving Kaiju Defense Force to rise up and discover what it truly means to be Ultraman.

Stellar Cast and Creative Team

While casting details remain under wraps, Netflix has hinted at a star-studded ensemble. Expect a mix of Japanese and Western talent to breathe life into these iconic characters. The film’s directors, Kenji Kamiyama and Shinji Aramaki, both renowned for their work in the anime industry, ensure that “Ultraman: Rising” will resonate with fans worldwide.

A Glimpse Behind the Scenes

As we eagerly await the film’s release, let’s delve into the meta. “Ultraman: Rising” isn’t Netflix’s first foray into the Ultraman universe. The streaming giant previously treated viewers to an exhilarating Ultraman anime series spanning three seasons, with the final installment dropping in May 2023. Now, with the upcoming film, Netflix aims to elevate the Ultraman saga to new heights. So mark your calendars, fellow Ultraman enthusiasts! June 14, 2024, is the date when the cosmos collides with Earth, and heroes rise. Prepare for an adventure that transcends dimensions, fueled by courage, legacy, and the indomitable spirit of Ultraman. Stay tuned for exclusive interviews, behind-the-scenes glimpses, and more as we countdown to the premiere of “Ultraman: Rising.” And remember, when darkness threatens, the light of Ultraman shines brightest.    

  Read the full article

[funkymbtifiction]

hi! i had a few questions because i’m trying to type an actress who’s currently stumping me a bit. on pdb she’s typed as infp 9w1 sx/so 927 but so many artists are typed as infp 4s or 9s on there and i’m not sure i agree with the consensus, but i can’t pinpoint why. so a few things:

in interviews, she states not being too interested in plot when selecting projects, but finding the most pleasure in deeply exploring a character. her process is to become the character, so she can know them inside out, feel what they feel, and embody that on screen. she had said that some characters stay with her forever and that all of them are her, to some degree, either dialed up or dialed down, and has expressed that acting is a safe way to explore different and more unhinged parts of herself - that in real life she second guesses herself a lot more and is more reserved. on her latest film, she said she went out to practice for her role by talking to men to see how she would seduce them, and it was important to her to know how SHE would go about it. she said throws herself into roles so completely that once she finishes a project, it feels like she’ll never work again. i don’t really buy into visual typing beyond extroverts being more animated and MAYBE fe using expressions, smiles, etc to signal and mirror - but in interviews i did notice a general lack of expressiveness (she def seems introverted and doesn’t appear to mirror anyone else or use her face to communicate much, only smiling when she seems to find something personally amusing)

now that all DOES seem like potential fi dom, but she has said a few times that on set, her body has better ideas than her mind and she often improvises based on her body. she also says that she’s not eager to work on a new project soon after finishing one because she thinks it’s important to go out and live life for a while, accumulate experiences and fill up your well of emotions, and that being too eager to jump on a new project would mean she didn’t do enough with the last one. she says that she knows she wants to act, perfect her craft and be good and she doesn’t have much interest in dabbling in things like producing. she co-wrote a previous film she was in and enjoyed it (and used a stream of consciousness process to write as her character) but is certain about acting being her future. she mentioned divine timing and thinking that certain roles come to you when you need them the most. i wonder if this points to se-ni, and if she may be an isfp instead?

in terms of her enneagram, at first i could see 9 in how she merges with her characters, and in the way she acts from her body/gut - but then i saw recently she said in an interview that everything she does in life, all her motivations are to feel safe and that acting presented a unique challenge because it’s not such a secure career. she said she enjoys challenges, and wanted to be an actress despite that, but that was the main thing that gave her pause about her career, the lack of security. she also mentioned that, when picking a project, the top priority (even above character) is director - that she must trust who’s leading the ship, or else nothing worthwhile can be made. she stated that she doesn’t like to be micromanaged, likes to have some say in decisions about the character and what they might do and that the set is not always going to be a positive place, and that’s okay, because some conflict and friction can produce even better results sometimes. could this be 6, maybe with a 9 fix, or at least 6 in her tritype instead of 7? i’m also not sure i see her as sp blind, as she’s mentioned a few times the importance to her of health and caring for her body so i feel like that would sort of rule out sp blind.

thanks!!

Wanting to live life to the fullest and have adventures can also be sp, since sp is the most aware of how "short" life is and possess a desire to enjoy themselves. But yes, you give a strong argument for sp/so 6w7 SFP. Living in the moment, trusting your body, seeing acting as secondary to having experiences (devaluing fantasy for reality) is extremely Se.

People are too quick to label actresses sx if they are "sexy" or "interesting." They forget that sx is about a magnetic/repulsive hook and living a lifestyle that shows an sx tendency to infuse, use up, and then abandon something or someone once the spark dies (sx/so Elizabeth Taylor was married eight times, for example...).

[canmom]

Animation Night 142: Shells & Dragons

Hi everyone! It’s another Thursday and thus another Animation Night. [for newcomers: Animation Night is a night where I stream animated films (short and long) on Twitch.]

It’s awards season right now, and while awards are mostly not all that important, awards shortlists tend to be a great way to find stuff you might have overlooked. For example, the shortlist for Best Animated Feature - Independent at the Annies brings us a couple of fascinating films.

First up we have Marcel the Shell With Shoes On. It’s a stop motion/live action hybrid about, well, a shell with shoes on. A guy discovers a charming sapient seashell living in an AirBnB, and decides to make videos about him on the internet. This leads to a cascade of consequences as Marcel hopes to use this new platform to reconnect with his shell family, but the newfound fame bears a heavy toll on Marcel’s grandmother shell Connie.

Does something seem familiar about that animation style? Maybe this will help...

That’s right, this is the Kirsten Lepore movie - or to be precise, the Dean Fleischer Camp movie with Lepore serving as animation director. Lepore, if you’re not familiar, is a fascinating independent animator whose works include Story from North America, in which she provides the surreal imagery to a father giving a lesson in nonviolence...

You can see Lepore’s channel here on youtube. Definitely take a look at Move Mountain. She’s got a very disarming style which I’m excited to see at length.

Anyway, Dean Fleischer Camp. He’s been on the Marcel thing for like... 12 years at this point! The earliest iteration of the idea was a series of mockumentaries in 2010-14 - you can watch the first one here, second here and third here.

In the shorts, cowritten with actress Jenny Slate who plays Marcel, the childlike shell relates various aspects of his life in a high-pitched, anxious voice, while the interviewer responds in a strangely disinterested voice. These videos made enough of a splash to get featured in newspapers, there was even a line of children’s books, and in 2014, a project to make a Marcel film was announced by Camp and Slate... finally dropping a good seven years later, to near unanimous praise.

The film, then, seems to be aiming to flesh out the comedy characters into a more substantial story of Marcel encountering the wider world.

Alongside that, we have My Father’s Dragon, the latest from Cartoon Saloon, the Irish studio that’s the darling of the small-studio animation world - and naturally has featured on Animation Night on #14 and #49.

Incredibly exciting, right? Unfortunately, there is a wrinkle in that news for me. This film’s directed by Nora Twomey, whose previous work was the disappointing The Breadwinner, which presented quite a shallow and even imperialist narrative about a precocious girl too good for sinful Afghanistan. (Having American bombs appear as a liberating force is a choice, Nora!) Cartoon Saloon are untouchable when they stick to Irish history and mythology, but that was definitely their weaker entry, missing all the subtlety and grace of an earlier film like Persepolis ten years earlier that comes from actually living somewhere.

But Twomey also worked on all of Cartoon Saloon’s other wonderful films (she co-directed Secret of Kells) and this time, they’re adapting a children’s book from 1948 by Ruth Stiles Gannett and illustrated by her stepmother Ruth Chrisman Gannett. (Not the only adaptation, incidentally, there’s also an anime film from 1997.) The book tells the story of a young boy - referred to throughout as ‘my father’ - who travels to a place called Wild Island in search of a baby dragon. You can read the full text, with low res scans of the illustrations, right here.

Cartoon Saloon’s version goes for a styling not entirely the same as the original illustrations, but recognisably a ‘children’s book’ style, and as lush as all of their projects. The book’s story seems to just be the first act of a much longer story which sees Elmer and the Dragon attempting to find a way to save the island.

This is definitely pitched younger than Cartoon Saloon’s previous movies, but I’m hoping that the animation alone will be plenty of reason to watch this.

(If you’re wondering about the other films in the category, by the way - there’s Masaaki Yuasa’s god-tier film Inu-Oh, which I cannot wait to screen and will write about at enormous length when I do; there is Charlotte, a biopic about German painter Charlotte Salomon ‘coming of age on the eve of WWII’, which follows the European co-production model, bringing together studios in Canada, France and Belgium; and there is Little Nicholas, Happy As Can Be about a centimetres-tall boy growing up on a desktop world. Also French, of course. We may well get to the other two down the line. Big year for bildungsroman huh.)

If these movies sound fun, please make your way to twitch.tv/canmom where we will be starting in about 15 minutes at 8pm UK time! We’ll be watching Dragon first, then Marcel, since I think that will be the more impactful order. And at the end we might just tuck in the latest episode of Yao - Chinese Folktales. Hope to see ya there~

[onenettvchannel]

OneNETnews EXCLUSIVE: Marinette Dupain-Cheng promotes latest French-animated film 'Miraculous Ladybug: The Movie' and potentially becomes an M6 Info reporter

PARIS, FRANCE -- Marinette Dupain-Cheng, the talented young actress behind the iconic character Ladybug in the globally beloved animated series "Miraculous Ladybug", sat down for an exclusive interview with Xavier de Moulins from M6 Info's Le 19.45 to discuss the highly anticipated release of the film adaptation, 'Miraculous Ladybug: The Movie'. The interview offered fans a glimpse into Marinette's life behind the scenes and hinted at possible future career aspirations.

(Le 19.45 via M6 Info / Screengrab Courtesy: Metropole 6 TV)

During the interview, Marinette expressed her excitement about the film's release in cinemas across France. "Miraculous Ladybug: The Movie" continues the thrilling adventures of Ladybug and Cat Noir as they safeguard Paris against supervillains. The actress shared her gratitude for the overwhelming support from fans, emphasizing how their passion and dedication have made the film possible.

Marinette, known for her infectious enthusiasm, showcased her versatility throughout the interview, discussing the challenges of bringing a beloved animated character to the big screen. She revealed that the film pushed boundaries, offering fans a deeper understanding of Ladybug's backstory and her powerful bond with the enigmatic Cat Noir (Adrien Agreste).

The interview also sheds light on the collaboration between Marinette and the film's creative team, including directors named Jeremy Zag and Thomas Astruc. Their collective goal was to create an immersive cinematic experience that would resonate with fans while also capturing the essence of the beloved series. With its stunning animation and gripping storyline, 'Miraculous Ladybug: The Movie' promises to captivate audiences young and old.

As the interview unfolded, fans couldn't help but wonder about Marinette Dupain-Cheng's future career aspirations. The young actress has garnered praise for her skillful portrayal of Ladybug, leading some to speculate whether she could potentially pursue a career in the entertainment or news industry.

Despite her undeniable talent on screen, Marinette remains grounded and open to various opportunities. While she hasn't explicitly expressed her desire to transition into a career as an entertainment or news reporter, fans and industry insiders alike are intrigued by the possibility.

Once she graduates from a local school in Paris, Marinette could leverage her charisma, poise and natural charm to excel in the field of journalism. Her experience as Ladybug, protecting and inspiring Parisians, perfectly aligns with the values and impact that a news reporter strives to achieve.

While the future remains uncertain, one thing is clear: Marinette's dedication to her craft and her undeniable talent will undoubtedly open doors for her in the entertainment arena. Whether she chooses to continue her acting career or transition into journalism, fans will eagerly anticipate witnessing her future endeavors.

Miraculous Ladybug: The Movie is set to hit theaters across France on July 5th, 2023. Brace yourself for an action-packed and visually stunning adventure that will leave audiences on the edge of their seats, eagerly awaiting the return of their favorite superheroes!

SCREENGRAB COURTESY: MLBFanFR via YT Video

SOURCE: *https://www.huffingtonpost.fr/divertissement/article/miraculous-le-film-ladybug-interviewee-par-xavier-de-moulins-dans-le-journal-televise-de-m6_220235.html [Referenced News Article via Huffington Post France] *https://tvmag.lefigaro.fr/programme-tv/actu-tele/le-duplex-insolite-de-xavier-de-moulins-avec-ladybug-sur-m6-pour-la-sortie-du-film-miraculous-20230705 [Referenced News Article via Le Figaro] *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwMI0qas__k [Referenced YT Video via Miraculous_French] *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqQzUkyBRg4 [Referenced YT Video via M6 Info] *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfEV1V-h41A [Referenced YT Video via MLBFanFR] *https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_1945 *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xavier_de_Moulins and *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladybug_%26_Cat_Noir:_The_Movie

-- OneNETnews Team

[back-and-totheleft]

Oliver Stone Wants To Atone For Hollywood’s Sins Against Nuclear Energy

When Oliver Stone’s 1986 Vietnam War movie “Platoon” showed the gore and mental toll of combat, veterans accused the director of portraying soldiers in an ugly light. When 1991’s “The Doors” depicted Jim Morrison’s battle with addiction, the rock star’s bandmate said Stone had “assassinated” the singer’s reputation. When Stone interviewed Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Russian President Vladimir Putin for documentaries meant to provoke Americans with starkly different perspectives on U.S. foreign policy, critics panned the Oscar winner as a stooge for strongmen and an “unrepentant contrarian,” aging gracelessly into a “loony conspiracy”-peddling septuagenarian.

Nuclear energy, the subject of his latest film, is no less of a lightning rod. Perhaps that’s why “Nuclear Now” feels like watching a Gonzo “60 Minutes” special. Stone admits that he, like many people, once registered atomic power as indistinguishable from images of menacing mushrooms clouds and hazmat horrors. To Stone, a clear-eyed review of the facts alone in an age of climate chaos seemed provoking enough on its own.

Over the next hour and 45 minutes, Stone goes on a journey familiar to many who have wondered whether atomic energy and radioactive waste pose a more urgent threat than global warming. “Nuclear Now” answers the question with a clear no, offers a compelling explanation for how atomic energy went into decline and makes a well-researched case for why the world needs a reactor-building renaissance.

Stone takes us through the history of fission from the European scientists who discovered radiation to the United States’ attempt to sell the world on nuclear energy less than a decade after dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In his telling, cribbing an eyebrow-raising discovery from the nuclear engineer and consultant (and interviewee in the film) Rod Adams, powerful monied interests had it out for nuclear energy from the start. Just months after President Dwight Eisenhower delivered his famous “atoms for peace” speech, vowing to unite humanity with abundant nuclear energy, the Rockefeller Foundation asked the National Academy of Sciences to study the health effects of radiation.

The government research body, whose president served on the oil tycoon family foundation’s board, put out a dire and later discredited report on the risks of radiation a few years later. The New York Times, whose publisher also served on the Rockefeller Foundation’s board, reported the findings on its front page under the headline: “Scientists Term Radiation A Peril To Future Of Man.” Environmentalists, in Stone’s view, became eager pawns as left-wing activists merged the fight against atomic weapons with that against nuclear power.

The narration is aided by abundant visual charts that help viewers understand why few experts believe solar panels and wind turbines can replace fossil fuels alone, illustrating how much less land nuclear uses and how much more often reactors generate power.

In the movie’s second half, Stone digs into the intricacies of different nuclear technologies, walking the audience through the differences between today’s giant water-cooled reactors and the sodium-cooled “microreactors” startups are attempting to commercialize. He also highlights efforts by the Asian, African and Latin American countries whose energy sources will determine the planet’s future temperature to build their first nuclear reactors, even as Germany and the U.S. decommission perfectly good atomic power stations.

The movie doesn’t shy away from the fact that Russia is the primary vendor for nuclear technology, constructing most of the world’s new reactors outside of China. But Stone grapples only in passing with the reality that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine last year supercharged the growing interest in nuclear energy and continues to animate efforts in the U.S. and Europe to reverse atomic decline. It’s a glaring omission from an auteur whose cozy relationship with the Russian leader has made many question Stone’s judgment and credibility.

Even so, “Nuclear Now” is a comprehensive and credible corrective to decades of atomic mythmaking — less timely than badly overdue. But then again, I’m a reporter who writes about nuclear energy, so don’t take it from me.

The New York Times’ one complaint was that the film’s wonky dive into new reactor technologies “veers somewhat into the weeds.” While The Wrap’s review found the 105-minute movie “dull,” the writer couldn’t help but applaud the “undeniably informative” film as “commendable.” Variety flat-out called it a “vital and grounded movie that demands to be seen.”

Last week, a few hours before seeing “Nuclear Now” at a premiere screening in Manhattan’s East Village, I spoke to Stone and his collaborator Joshua Goldstein, whose book with Swedish nuclear scientist Staffan Qvist, “A Bright Future,” inspired the movie.

We discussed a range of issues, from how radiation works to why Hollywood is responsible for a widespread misunderstanding of the risks associated with nuclear power.

Stone called out actor Jane Fonda for opposing nuclear energy after her 1979 film “The China Syndrome,” depicting a disaster cover-up at a nuclear power plant, came out coincidentally just days before the Three Mile Island accident. He said Ralph Nader’s effort to close nuclear stations was such a historic mistake it may end up overshadowing the consumer-advocate-turned-presidential-candidate’s other accomplishments in future history books. We spoke over Zoom for about 35 minutes.

Why make a film on nuclear energy?

Oliver Stone: I’ve done 20 feature films and 10 documentaries. To me, this is the most important subject I could address. There’s nothing that looms over us as much as climate change. I’ve been very aware of it since the Al Gore film. In 2019, I ran across Josh Goldstein’s book, “A Bright Future.” It’s a nice title. But I think “Nuclear Now” is more urgent. The book is very well laid out, thoughtful, reasoned, makes sense and elemental in the sense that it doesn’t get stuck on the stuff that was confusing to me, which is all the negatives about nuclear. I’ve learned a lot since then.

It seems to me as an outsider that we lost our mind with fear in the 1970s. If you look at my films, you know there were a lot of lies. And over time it turned into this massive lie about nuclear energy that is really evident if you think it through.

Josh gives a very reasonable explanation of radiation. That it’s there. It’s part of our lives. We live with low-level radiation. Yet somehow, with the Rockefeller Foundation’s influence, we were derailed from a very hopeful start in the 1960s and ’70s. Dwight Eisenhower had the right idea. John Kennedy had the right idea. We should have kept going with nuclear. We’d have had a nuclearized society by the 2000s. In my opinion, we wouldn’t even be talking about this climate change bullshit because the world would have followed. Instead, we completely diverted.

So, in your view, why did nuclear go into decline in the U.S.?

Stone: The worst accident was Chernobyl. We discuss that in the film. We go to Russia. We talk to scientists who were involved and we show what Chernobyl was really about, what happened to the 15 front-line rescue workers who died of radiation poisoning that they were not equipped to deal with. It was badly done through the whole thing, from the top down. The containment structure [for the reactor, which all modern nuclear plants have] was not there. Radiation leaked. And the World Health Organization and the United Nations estimated that 4,000 people died from the impact over time. But that’s nothing compared to what you keep hearing about being this huge disaster.

We live with the consequences of radiation. The Earth is filled with radiation. That’s what people don’t understand. They’re frightened because of the concept that it’s contamination and that any amount can hurt you. That’s not true if you look at the DNA studies that were done on the body’s ability to replicate itself. We have to go by science, not faith.

Three Mile Island was a complete joke. It was a big disruption of work. Nobody died. Yet it was made into this massive hysteria by the film “The China Syndrome.”

You referred to the Rockefeller Foundation’s money. What powerful forces do you see behind the anti-nuclear movement?

Stone: You’re going to take me into conspiracy. But you could also say it’s a business competition.

The oil companies were obviously never excited about nuclear. At the origin point of going that way, when Eisenhower declared his atoms for peace program, the Rockefeller Foundation tipped the scales on a report — it was their scientists — and they said on the front page of the New York Times that any amount, any amount, of radiation is dangerous to the body. Which is bullshit! And we know it now. It has to be called out. That kind of thinking permeated and gave birth to this idea that radiation is a complete horror.

Also, look at the horror films of the 1950s. My business, the film business, did no favors to nuclear at all. You saw monsters everywhere. People get these crazy ideas. This is what fear does to a society. It ruins progress. As a result, now we’re in a hole. Still, people won’t face the truth. We need nuclear in a massive way in order to solve this climate change problem. Will we go there? It’s still very doubtful because people are resistant to the idea. Older people are. The younger generation I find is very open to it. Our movie is part of that thrust.

What are the limits you see to renewables on one side and carbon capture technology on the other?

Stone: They’re overrated. Tell him.

Joshua Goldstein: We like all attempts to decarbonize, be it with sun, wind, hydropower, carbon capture and sequestration, batteries. All that’s good. The trouble is that when you run your whole grid on that, it gets very expensive and very difficult to do. The grid has to handle the heaviest demand date of the year, when everybody wants air conditioning to turn on at once. You don’t want the grid to go down. So if it happens to not be a sunny day or a windy day, you have a huge hole to fill.

Right now, that’s being done with natural gas, which is a fossil fuel and puts carbon into the atmosphere. Natural gas is methane, which leaks out along the way and is a very potent natural gas, much worse than carbon dioxide, although much shorter lived. But for the next few decades, it’s adding a lot to the problem. So this idea of wind and solar backed up with natural gas is not really getting us to a solution.

Hydroelectricity is great from a climate change point of view because you can let the water out of the dam when you need electricity and actually produce it when you need it. The trouble is that, if you’re an environmentalist, hydroelectricity is damming up valleys and ecosystems.

A large array of solar panels photographed one hour north of Los Angeles in Kern County on Nov. 15, 2022, near Mojave, California. Due to demand, there are now dozens of solar power photovoltaic farms in the Mojave Desert, supplying power to California's electricity grid. Well, plus it’s sensitive to droughts.

Goldstein: Yes, it’s sensitive to drought. But before you even get to drought, you have the Mekong River watershed just being devastated by all the hydro being built upstream in Southeast Asia. If there is a way to get the electricity when you need it cleanly and without carbon emissions, that’s better. And that’s nuclear energy.

All the countries that have managed to decarbonize and get rid of fossil fuels have done it either with nuclear alone, like France, or nuclear with hydroelectricity, like Sweden. Or a few lucky countries like New Zealand, Norway and Brazil have a lot of hydro. But if you’re Germany, you can’t do a lot of hydro. So then you have to try to do it with a combination of batteries, which are still way too expensive, and natural gas. Except in Germany’s case, it’s coal that’s backing up the renewables.

Then you have things like biomass in Finland and the United Kingdom.

Goldstein: Biomass is very bad for the atmosphere. It’s as bad as coal. And they’re cutting down mature forests to burn the trees, then calling it “green” because it’s so-called renewable because someday the trees will grow back. Nuclear, because it’s so concentrated, that’s what makes it environmentally friendly. You can do it with such a small plant. The mining and transportation is so much smaller and the waste is so much easier to handle than, say, coal waste that goes out in the atmosphere, kills people with particulate matter, and leaves behind coal tailings.

Oliver, you’ve obviously been to Russia many times. You’ve interviewed President Putin. And you’ve been asked plenty of times about your views on the war in Ukraine. I’d like to come at this another way.

Russia has steadily been expanding its fleet of nuclear reactors. It’s been exporting its technologies across Asia and Africa ― I’ve heard stories from analysts about how Moscow’s state-owned nuclear company Rosatom wines and dines energy officials from developing countries, in stark contrast to the U.S. To boot, Russia has a monopoly on certain types of nuclear fuel like HALEU and offers services that the U.S. doesn’t, like recycling. What has the Kremlin understood about nuclear energy that we haven’t, and what does it mean for the U.S. going forward?

Stone: I look at it as positive. What Russia does to help the world, providing these reactors and fuels, is good. That’s a good thing! We have to expand the whole network. I wish there was more of it. The Chinese are also very advanced. Of course, they have their own problems at home with coal. They have to get rid of coal. But they are designing very promising new reactors.

I’m sure most Americans at this stage see the enmity between these two countries. I don’t. There’s no place in this climate race for survival for war. There’s no place for this competition, hatred and ideology.

Goldstein: You mentioned Russian fuel. That started with a good thing. The United States took a lot of Soviet nuclear weapons and downgraded them into what could be used for reactor fuel. Every light switch you turned on in the United States for 15 years was powered 10% by Soviet nuclear weapons dismantled after the Cold War. That was great. When that ran out, we got out of the habit of producing nuclear fuel.

We started buying from Russia because it was cheaper. We don’t need to get HALEU — which is high-assay low-enriched uranium, and is more potent than what we get for our plants — from Russia. There’s plenty of uranium in Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia. You name it. The Russians, because they were doing this cheaply, we got into the habit of buying from them, sort of like how the Germans got into the habit of buying natural gas from Russia. What could go wrong? Now we’re in a fix to try to source this fuel, but that will be worked out in a couple of years.

How do you see the war in Ukraine affecting the politics of nuclear energy now? Part of the initial pitch for atomic power was that it provided a degree of energy sovereignty that oil and gas supply chains don’t, as the rush to get off Russian gas has reminded us.

Goldstein: It opened up a lot of support for nuclear in Europe. Maybe not in Germany, per se. But elsewhere, especially in Eastern Europe. This is the same thing that happened in France in the 1970s when the oil supply was cut off [during the OPEC oil embargo]. They were dependent on it and realized some foreign country could bring their economy to its knees. France developed nuclear energy to control its own destiny.

Stone: Unfortunately, Germany is so stupid that their economy is now really in jeopardy. The EU is not going to be what it once was. Germany is taking this whole anti-nuclear position that really threatens its economy.

Are you similarly concerned about Taiwan’s nuclear phaseout?

Stone: No, not particularly. America is concerned and makes big noise about Taiwan. A lot of my friends come back from Taiwan and say that the Taiwanese people don’t feel the same way as our newspapers.

The chances of a Chinese invasion are certainly debatable, but energy blockades are not, and Taiwan is shutting down its last nuclear reactors by 2025.

Goldstein: They may yet come to their senses. South Korea had a very good nuclear program. They just finished building these reactors in the United Arab Emirates on time and on budget. But there was a film called “Pandora” five or six years ago that scared everyone. It helped get an anti-nuclear government elected. Now there’s a pro-nuclear government. The same thing happened in Sweden, where there was an anti-nuclear government replaced by a nuclear-friendly administration.

If you go anti-nuclear and it’s a threat to a country’s stability, economy, jobs and having the lights turn on when you flip the switch, then people will vote in a new government. I’m not saying anything about the politics of Taiwan and which government should be in. But as lots of people reconsider phasing out nuclear, maybe Taiwan will as well.

One place that seems to exemplify the promise of nuclear energy is Finland, where I was around this time last year. I not only saw the world’s first permanent repository for nuclear waste, I saw Western Europe’s first new reactor in 15 years ― 25, if you don’t count Czechia as part of that region.

After visiting the site, I spent a few hours walking around the nearby town of Rauma, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Every single person I talked to on the street supported nuclear power and had total faith in the engineers at the plant to keep everyone safe. Now, this is a highly educated, ethnically and religiously homogeneous country with comparatively low levels of inequality. It’s hard to imagine that kind of civic trust in the U.S., where plummeting faith in institutions has correlated with the rise of conspiracy theories.

Can we have a nuclear renaissance in a country with as little public trust as we have here?

Goldstein: We’re trying to build two new reactors in Georgia and they’re just coming online. They’ll be the first reactors ever built under the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC has been around almost 50 years, and it’s clearly been very efficient at stopping us from building new reactors.

Stone: It’s not about safety. The FDA is supposed to be about safety. It’s about restriction.

Goldstein: When the FDA regulates a new medicine, they’re weighing the benefits and risk and deciding what’s the benefit to society. But the NRC is only concerned about the risks. Safety is their mandate. And when they stop us from building nuclear plants and we build coal and gas plants instead, that’s not their problem. It’s like I had a doctor once tell me, ‘My job is to make sure you die of someone else’s disease.’

In a place like Finland, there is more trust in the government. Those places, like Finland and Sweden, have been better for nuclear energy. But also, the places that understand nuclear better like it more. If you do the polling, people who live close to a nuclear plant versus people who live far from it, or people who understand it well [versus] those who say they couldn’t tell you much about it. Those who understand support it more. Finland, they’ve been living on nuclear energy for quite a while. They’re building a repository for spent fuel quite successfully. People understand it and they’re not afraid of it, which is one of the big themes of the film.

But what can be done to build more public trust? Let me put this in real terms.

Just last night, I was at the decommissioning board hearing for the Indian Point nuclear plant in Cortlandt, New York. I listened to people express a lot of fear over the release of tritium-laced cooling water from the plant into the Hudson River. They perhaps didn’t fully understand that such releases have been happening for decades, and that it’s occurring at levels far below the natural amounts of this radioactive isotope already found naturally in the environment. But they’re learning about a radioactive waste product being pumped into their river as something new. And they see a company with a profit motive to release the tritiated water because it’s the cheaper option than storing it for the decades it’d take to decay.

These people hear that the levels of tritium released are far below the drinking water limits set by the Environmental Protection Agency. But then they see that, well, just a few years ago, the EPA revised its drinking water limits for PFAS, the so-called forever chemicals used in Teflon, from more than 400% higher than what the agency now says is safe.

Goldstein: Antinuclear people are very afraid, and they look for things to justify their fears. This tritium thing has come up in Japan at Fukushima, in Indian Point, and in Massachusetts where I live at the decommissioned Pilgrim plant. You hear about how they’re going to put quote-unquote “radioactive water” into the Hudson River, Cape Cod Bay or the Pacific Ocean. And there’s no sense of scale about it.

The amount of radioactivity in tritium is very tiny, short-lived, and not biologically accumulating. It’s about the most harmless thing you can think of. And the quantities of it are just tiny. There’s tritium in exit signs. I’m looking at one right out the window here. I think the total amount of tritium they want to release from Indian Point is the same as one exit sign if you dumped the exit sign in the Hudson River.

It gets absurd at this point. We live with background radiation that’s much higher than that. This whole idea that any level of radiation is going to have a bad health effect, it’s all based on a study from 70, 80 years ago when some scientists said DNA can’t repair itself. Well, we just had a Nobel Prize for DNA repair. We know we can repair it. And of course we can, because we live on a planet filled with radiation. The idea that we’re so vulnerable to that tiny amount of tritium, of all things, that its little weak electrons are going to mess us up for life, is kind of crazy. But as long as people are afraid, that’s what you’re going to get.

The power of a film like this is to get people at a more emotional level than a book can do or a newspaper can do and try to get at that fear at a more visceral level where people say, oh, now I understand and I’m less afraid.

Was there a moment like that for you, Oliver, where the magnitude of what this technology could do really sank in?

Stone: There was this moment with Rod Adams [a nuclear engineer interviewed in the film] was holding up his pinky. And he said in this tiny pinky’s worth of uranium would be equivalent to one ton of coal. It would cost less than a buck, and the coal would cost $100.

You think about Marie Curie and Albert Einstein. They’re not dumb. They saw this potential. Obviously, World War II fucked up the timing of it, right? It came along, and people got it into making bombs. But people still conflate making bombs with nuclear energy, and it’s a huge problem. We have to get back to the origins of making this movie, which is to answer the basics: What is it? What is nuclear energy?

It takes time. But we have to clear up the details of the past. We have this chance. Historically, it will be noted that [retreating from nuclear] was a disastrous decision. Ralph Nader is not going to come out well in history. I believe in his car seatbelt thing, and Jane Fonda was great on Vietnam. But sometimes, you’re wrong. The guy who founded Greenpeace said himself that we did a lot of good things with Greenpeace, but we got one thing wrong: nuclear energy.

Broadly speaking, one of the bright spots for nuclear power is that both parties in the U.S. support it. But then you have Democrats who haven’t really taken responsibility for kiboshing the permanent storage site at Yucca Mountain or changing the law to make it so the government can explore an option beyond that site in Nevada. And Republicans are trying to repeal a bunch of clean energy subsidies that nuclear reactors could benefit from. How big are the hurdles in our current politics to doing new nuclear, and which party remains the bigger obstacle?

Goldstein: There is bipartisan support. You have [Sens.] Cory Booker and Sheldon Whitehouse on the left wing of the Democratic Party as big supporters of nuclear energy, and on the right wing of the Republican Party, [former Sen.] Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma for instance, there are very strong supporters of nuclear. They’ve gotten bills going through Congress. The NRC has been slow to respond to those. The Biden administration is pro-nuclear but could be stronger. The Trump administration was pro-nuclear. So it’s not a partisan divide. But the left wing of the Democratic Party needs to rally around Cory Booker a little more and a little less around the Elizabeth Warren types who are still anti-nuclear. In an age of divisiveness and gridlock, if you have something like nuclear, that’s a place to push for some progress.

Stone: When push comes to shove, necessity is the mother of invention. Where are we going to go? It’s going to get worse. It hasn’t gotten better. There’s more carbon. It gets worse and worse and worse. Someday, we’ll have to say, ‘Oh, let’s build some nuclear.’ And it’ll be late. But better late than never. You have these environmentalists waking up. They’re dreaming. They have this idealism in their head about renewables, that the only answer is more and more solar panels and more and more wind turbines. It’s just bizarre. It’s a strange death wish. There’s always a death wish in the world. It’s always been there, but it’s been growing.

Hopefully, if we get lucky, this film will help change the current and it’ll solve itself because people don’t want to kill themselves.

Two more quick questions. First, nuclear fusion — viable commercial breakthrough in our lifetimes or a distraction from deploying more fission?

Goldstein: I’m all for it. It could be the power source of the second half of the century. There are companies that think they can do it faster, and more power to them. I’m all for trying, but I don’t want to bet my grandchild’s future on breakthroughs. The beauty of fission is it’s a proven source. We know from France and Sweden it can be done quickly. The world can follow that example. In the 1970s when all the anti-nuclear stuff got started, it was a new energy source, so who knew if it was going to be safe? After 70 years, we know it works. I’m all for fusion unless people say we don’t need fission because of fusion.

Stone: I totally agree. I can’t see it breaking through. If it does, great.

I apologize for this final one, Oliver. My editor said I had to ask you this. RFK Jr. running for president. What do you think?

Stone: I’m for it! All for it. I think he’s a hero. He’s really in the spirit of the Kennedys and spirit of reform. Out with the old, in with the new.

Would he be a champion of nuclear?

Stone: He will be when I talk to him.

Goldstein: We, uh, don’t necessarily agree on presidential politics, but that’s not what we’re here to talk about today.

Stone [laughing]: Josh is the old Democratic Party.

-Alexander C. Kaufman, The Huffington Post, May 7 2023 [x]

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MOVIES I WATCHED THIS WEEK #205:

HANA-BI ("FIREWORKS") (1997), my 4th film by actor-director Takeshi "Beat" Kitano. Always unexpected moods from him, with unmistakable score by Joe Hisaishi [one of the greatest modern composers]. A crime story about a violent cop causing bloody mayhem, who's actually a taciturn, meditative and melancholic husband, coming to grips with his dying wife, their recently dead daughter, his suicidal partner, and the fact that life in general is slipping away.

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Four years into this project, and after seeing upward of 4,000 movies, also reading about numerous others, I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about "Cinema" by now. Imagine my surprise this morning when I came upon a lovely analyses of my favorite Nils Malmros coming-of-age drama, 'Tree of knowledge'. And as I scroll through the portfolio of this random Letterboxd reviewer named Lawrence Garcia, his recommendations, lists, and whatnot, I'm flabbergasted: I never ever heard of 70% or more of all the films that he's talking about!

So now I'm left with a new, giant depository of unfamiliar films to watch, and when will I have the time? Skimming through his recommendations, I picked a trial one for size, British John Smith's 1987 THE BLACK TOWER. An unseen man narrates in impassioned voice how he finds himself haunted by a mysterious structure that seems to be following him wherever he goes. (Screenshot Above). Like a figure in a Kafka story, he's losing it. Is it symbolic, is it depression? Madness? It’s definitely unique. 8/10.

And what next? Just this John Smith alone made over 60 movies like this one that are probably worth checking out!

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4 MORE WITH MICHEL GONDRY:

🍿 IS THE MAN WHO IS TALL HAPPY? (2013) is my 8th film by distinct filmmaker Michel Gondry. It's an unusual, creative documentary. Gondry sat with progressive linguist Noam Chomsky for a series of interviews, and animated their conversations in his unique, whimsical style. 2 Fascinating intellectuals talking about philosophy, Cognitive science and activism. Chomsky opens up a bit about his personal history (F. ex. as a child he wanted to become a taxidermist), and the whole experience is inspiring and engaging.

🍿 ONE DAY (2003): Now, this is "different". 3 years before directing 'Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind', Gondry directed David Cross as his own human-size turd, who keeps following him in the streets of NYC, and claims to be his child. It's as weird and gross as it sounds. I always felt that David Cross comes across as a piece of shit, so that works double here. Spoiler alert! At the end, the turd turns into a Nazi [Wait, what?] and he's not the worse for it!

🍿 THE LETTER, a sweet, early (1998) short, that takes place on 12/21/1999, ten days before the millennium, about a childhood crush.

🍿 The very last film I saw this week was actually the most enjoyable (even though as a documentary it was pretty pedestrian): MICHEL GONDRY, DO IT YOURSELF (2023) follows the eccentric creator from his early days as a drummer in a punk band, first music video artist for Bjork and Daft punk to his current status as world famous inspiration.

Meanwhile, I'm waiting for his latest animated film, Maya, give me a title.

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Somehow similar to Gondry: My frequent, favorite re-watch ♻️: Jean-Pierre Jeunet's 1989 FOUTAISES (finally with English subtitles!), where Dominique Pinon talks about "things he likes and things he doesn't": Bibi Fricotin, Razibu Zouzou and Little Cerebos... Richard Widmark's laughter..." 10/10.

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ANDREJ MUNK X 3:

🍿 New discovery: Andrej Munk, an influential postwar artist of the 'Polish Film School' of the 1950's.

MAN ON THE TRACKS (1957) tells of an old, stubborn train engineer whose death is suspected to be a sabotage. A Rashomon-like investigation reconstructs his tumultuous relationships with the other railway workers, and the clash between the old and new socialist systems of the time. A movie for old-time train enthusiasts.

🍿 A WALK IN THE OLD CITY OF WARSAW (1958) is a gorgeous travelogue, a colorful portrait of a city rebuilding itself a decade after the war. A pretty girl is leaving her school on the way to a violin lesson and wanders all over the old town. Similar to 'The Red Balloon' in style and feeling. 8/10.

🍿 Munk died in a car crash in 1961, while he was filming PASSENGER, so this last film was released uncompleted two years later. It's a tough call: Fifteen years after the end of World War 2 on a luxury liner returning to Europe, a former concentration camp SS officer runs into a woman who was her prisoner, and with whom she had an unexplained infatuation. Filmed partially in Auschwitz itself, and recreating some actual footage from the camp, it's a grim and desperate drama about the ultimate abuse. The reversal of power (since the survivor can now expose the ex-Nazi) causes the oppressor to recall their story in flashbacks. But because it was very much not finished, the dynamics between victim and oppressor remained murky. What stayed are the hellish scenes from the concentration camp, some of which look harrowing enough, but some are not.

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SOBIBOR, OCTOBER 14, 1943, 4PM is another of French holocaust documentarian Claude Lanzmann. It's actually just footage of a one-man interview which was cut out of his 'Shoah' (as it would otherwise made it 11 hours long). A Jewish survivor of the 'Sobibor Uprising' describes how the rebellion in the death camp came about.

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TANGERINES (2013), my first Georgian-Estonian award-winning war movie (which unfortunately, I could only find in a dubbed French version on YouTube, but hey - free streaming is still free...) It tells of an elderly farmer in a small village, at the intersection of Abkhazia, Georgia, Estonia and Chechnya, an area in the North Caucasus, that is far from the minds and hearts of most people who are not from there. It looks like it is full of masculine, unshaven, aggressive males (there are zero woman in this film neither), who's been fighting with and killing each other for centuries. This film is a very simple, maybe simplistic, tale of two wounded fighters from the opposite sides stuck together in a farm house, who have to survive together.

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2 NOIR'S:

🍿 NEVER OPEN THAT DOOR (1952) is another film considered to be one of the greatest Argentinian Noir's of all time. It's actually two separate stories, based on unrelated crime novels by the same writer of 'Rear Window' and 'Phantom Lady'. Exceptional black and white cinematography of menacing shadows and wrongful killings.

🍿 "You are not very tall, are you?..."

Re-watch ♻️: Howard Hawks' THE BIG SLEEP, a simple re-viewing delight with a convoluted plot. Faulkner! Chandler! cigarettes! Blackmail, murder and (hidden) pornographers! Robert Towne’s script for 'Chinatown' re-constructed many of the dynamics and structures of this one (with its tragic ending being the major exception). Standing out were the independent women's roles; Some were forthcoming and sexy (especially the bookstore owner, Dorothy Malone, and the cab driver, Carmen the little sister, and all threw themselves 's at Bogart's Private Dick!

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I was looking for political dramas about anarchism (not too many of them!) and discovered UNREST, an unusual minimalist Swiss story from 2022, about Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin. It interprets his 1872 visit to a small Swiss town, where he helped the female workers in the watchmaking factory to organize into an anarchist union. But it does so, in the oddest, off-kilter, way. Too restrained and intricate and subtle, it isn't your grandpa's historical period piece (Like 'Reds' or '1900'). Time is the great underlining theme here, as well as the transformative powers of new technologies and capitalism's evil politeness.

I need a second viewing to completely fall in love with this film's unique aesthetics. Recommended!

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2 RARELY-SEEN FILMS BY JACQUES TATI (PLUS 'TRAFIC'):

🍿 Being a competist, these are the last two films of his that I haven't seen before: FORZA BASTIA (1978) was his last, unfinished film, which was thought lost, until his daughter completed it years later. It's the only documentary he made. Like a humorous 'Triumph of the Will' but about a rain-soaked soccer match in Corsica instead. It focuses on the excited fans more than the waterlogged game itself.

🍿 FUN SUNDAY on the other hand, was one of his earlier films (1935) when he was just starting out. A primitive, unremarkable Laurel and Hardy type slapstick number directed by somebody else. 1/10.

🍿 So, I had to watch TRAFIC (1971) once again, because why not? Monsieur Hulot is driving a test camper from Paris to Amsterdam but cannot get there on time for the auto show. And this in the shadow of the Apollo moon landing! Also, it was co-directed with Dutch Bert Haanstra! Re-watch♻️

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MARC MARON X 3:

🍿 FROM BLEAK TO DARK (2023) was worth watching again ♻️. "At some point, those plague babies are gonna want answers". Also, the end bit about committing suicide with a bat... A lot of pain which is distilled into laughter, like the Jewish Auschwitz Joke Book... Well delivered. 8/10. "Selfie?..."

🍿 END TIMES FUN (2020) was directed by his girlfriend, Lynn Shelton, who died of Covid, and of whom he talked in 'Bleak to dark'. The fucked up finale with gay Mike pence and the end of the world was dark. "The lizard portal is open." [*Female Director*]

🍿 CALL ME LUCKY is a 2015 documentary about a (new to me, and now dead) stand-up comedian named Barry Crimmins, who had big influence on early generation comedians in the Boston area and elsewhere. The first half was the usual gab-fest by fellow funnymen (including Maron, Steven Wright, etc.) of how great, radical, political and genuine his comedy was, which was kind of a bore. But the second part took a radical turn and dealt with his childhood trauma of being raped as a little boy. How it shaped his angry views on life, and how, by publicly disclosing it, it molded his lifelong and fierce activism for justice.

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GAB-TOOTHED WOMEN (1987), another documentary by Les Blank, about women with a space between their front teeth. It's a very narrow topic, but is done with a focus on this single premise exceptionally well.

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"No further questions, your honor..."

JUROR NO# 2 is the latest product from 94-year-old Clint Eastwood. Good for him for continuing to be active. However, this Lifetime Television legal drama version of '12 Angry Men' was amateurish on every level. To pretend that the American justice system, the courts, society still functions with the same coherence as it did in the 1980's is cynical and questionable. The main actor (Nicholas Hoult?, who was dreadful in 'The Menu'), can't act here either, and definitely cannot carry the whole movie on his narrow shoulders. 1/10.

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THE SHORTS:

🍿 In COPS (1922) Buster Keaton inadvertently throws a bomb at a parade of policemen, and is being chased by hundreds of cops.

🍿 PEACE ON EARTH is an unusual pacifist cartoon, which was nominated for the Oscars in 1939. It was done in Disney's 'Snow White' style, using similar-looking squirrels as well as Mel Blanc as the voice of their grandpa. It started all Christmas'y cute, but quickly turns post-apocalyptic after the all humans killed themselves off in endless wars, and animals have inherited the earth. An anti-war message film released three months after Germany invaded Poland - Wow!

🍿 MULTIPLE SIDOSIS (1970) is another ODD film, which opened on Christmas 1965, where a 60-something suburban husband is getting a Akai M-8 / Roberts 770x recorder and decides to record himself playing a tune on 11 different instruments. It took 5 years to make, and predated YouTube by 46 years. It was also absolutely spectacular, and was later selected as one of the few amateur films to inclusion in the National Film Registry. 9/10 - Will watch again.

🍿 YUCK! (2024, France), a very cute film about a group of kids at a summer camp resort, who are getting grossed out by watching grown-ups lock lips. 8/10.

🍿 SENTIMENTAL STROLL (2020, France). A woman emerges out of a pond, and start dancing to a Paul Verlaine verse, in front of a group of frogs. [*Female Director*]

🍿 GRANDS CANONS (2018, France): Thousands of meticulously-sketched household objects dance together.

🍿 SPRING ROLL DREAMS (2022, UK). A Vietnamese-American single mother deals with cultural issues when her Vietnamese father insists on cooking. [*Female Director*]. (Via)

🍿 UNFINISHED (2021), a sad story in Czech about a brother and sister who has to say goodbye at the breakfast table, because they are being split up between their divorcing parents. I found it because the director, Dailey Moore, had left a scathing review of a documentary I considered watching.

🍿 GRATEFUL DEAD, a 9-minute "photofilm" directed by Paul McCartney in 1995, created from photos of the Grateful Dead taken by Linda McCartney in Central Park (5/5/68) and at 710 Ashbury in SF (12/1/67). But not very good. (Via)

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(ALL MY FILM REVIEWS - HERE).

[themovieblogonline]

If you thought Marvel was done surprising us, think again! Enter Kraven the Hunter, the latest standalone origin story hitting theaters December 13, and Marvel’s first R-rated action-packed entry into the Spider-Man villain catalog. Aaron Taylor-Johnson steps into the shoes (or rather, the hunting boots) of Kraven, a brutal anti-hero who takes “daddy issues” to the next level. With gritty realism, complex characters, and enough intense action to keep you gripping your popcorn, this film promises a fierce new villain whose family drama rivals a mobster saga. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z9cjuLfkuE In case you missed it, the new vignette, The Making of a Villain, gives us an inside look at Kraven’s journey from a conflicted young man to one of Marvel’s most feared hunters. Let’s dive into what makes Kraven the Hunter a must-see for Marvel fans and thrill-seekers alike. A Family Affair…with Fangs Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Kraven isn’t just any hunter; he’s a man with a bone to pick, and his father, Nikolai Kravinoff (played by Russell Crowe), isn’t exactly winning any father-of-the-year awards. Crowe, stepping into a rugged mob-boss role, plays a gangster who influences Kraven’s journey to becoming a bloodthirsty, justice-driven anti-hero. And we’re not talking the “loving, misunderstood” dad type here; Nikolai is ruthless, and Kraven’s complex relationship with him adds the kind of emotional depth that superhero flicks sometimes miss. The family tension at the heart of Kraven the Hunter sets it apart from the usual superhero vs. villain showdown. Think of it as The Godfather with claws and some serious daddy drama. It’s a unique setup that gives audiences a reason to root for—or at least understand—Kraven’s relentless quest. The Gritty Realism Behind the Madness Marvel took a fresh approach with Kraven the Hunter, leaning heavily into practical effects, which gives the film an immersive, raw feel. Even with a CGI jaguar (because no Marvel origin story is complete without a majestic animal), the emphasis on realism makes every punch, kick, and roar feel that much closer. Director J.C. Chandor and the production team chose to prioritize practical action over CGI spectacles, giving Kraven a unique edge. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, in a recent interview, shared that the raw, hands-on nature of the action sequences was a standout for him, saying, “The audience will feel every hit, every bruise. It’s intense, but it’s what Kraven is all about.” Meet the Fearsome Cast of Kraven the Hunter Alongside Taylor-Johnson and Crowe, Kraven the Hunter brings an impressive lineup. Ariana DeBose, known for her powerhouse performances, steps in as Calypso, a voodoo priestess with a mystical flair and an undeniable connection to Kraven. It’s always a pleasure to see DeBose on screen, and her role adds an extra layer of intrigue to the plot. Fred Hechinger joins the cast as Dmitri Smerdyakov, the Chameleon—a character that Marvel fans will know has plenty of tricks up his sleeve. This lineup of talent, combined with a villain-first storyline, makes Kraven a refreshing addition to the Marvel world. Hechinger’s portrayal of the Chameleon introduces a new element of deception, keeping us guessing who’s on Kraven’s side and who’s waiting to betray him. Why Kraven Is Marvel’s Grittiest Tale Yet What sets Kraven the Hunter apart is its unapologetically raw and visceral style. The film’s R-rating isn’t just for show; it dives into brutal violence, language, and some intense scenes that push it beyond Marvel’s usual family-friendly boundaries. Kraven’s character is complex, and his fight scenes are designed to make us feel the weight of every decision he makes and every blow he delivers. Director J.C. Chandor’s vision brings out the rugged edges of Kraven’s world, from the muddy forests to the backroom confrontations. This isn’t your average Marvel flick, and it doesn’t want to be. Kraven the Hunter is designed to break the mold, giving audiences a darker, more intense look at what motivates a man to become one of the world’s most feared hunters. Final Verdict: Kraven the Hunter Is a Wild Ride Worth Watching Whether you’re a die-hard Marvel fan or just in the mood for an action-thriller with some serious bite, Kraven the Hunter delivers. With a talented cast, a brutal yet relatable backstory, and intense visuals that hit home, this movie promises to be one of the most exciting releases this December. Kraven the Hunter isn’t just a villain origin story; it’s a family feud wrapped in vengeance and blood, a wild ride that shows us the making of a villain we’ll both love and fear. So, mark your calendars and get ready for Kraven the Hunter when it premieres in theaters on December 13. This isn’t your typical superhero flick; it’s a brutal, complex, and unforgettable look into the life of a man on the edge.