#beanie feldstein protect this kid

[thequeereview]

Daniella Carter & Sherry Cola on their support for GLAAD's "Protect This Kid" campaign

GLAAD—the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization—has partnered with international advertising, marketing, and PR agency Ogilvy to create the “Protect This Kid” campaign in support of LGBTQ youth. The launch comes as the ACLU is currently tracking 489 anti-LGBTQ bills in the United States, many of which target trans youth, during a highly consequential election year, and following the…

[octaviasdread]

any girls! dark academia movie recs? i really struggle to find anything not about a group of boys (as much as I love them)

SO MANY!!! This is probably a far more detailed answer than you were expecting but this is a popular question and I want to keep a list for myself and others.

Feel free to add to it/give opinions. I've tried to give a tw for anything I can remember

Girls! Dark Academia Movies/TV Shows

Mona Lisa Smile (2003)

1950s Women’s college

Art professor! Julia Roberts

She’s legit the female Mr Keating of the art & college world

Feminism vs. Tradition

Maggie Gyllenhall x Ginnifer Goodwin; their characters were more than friends. Fight me.

Does not end how you expect

Strike!/All I Wanna Do/The Hairy Bird (1998)

MY FAVOURITE!!!

Free on YouTube under one of its various names

Comedy

1960s all girls boarding school

Young Kirsten Dunst

Group of girls plot to sabotage a merger with a boys school less prestigious than their own

Secret attic clubhouse meetings of the D.A.R aka Daughters of the American Ravioli (eaten cold, ew)

girls get political & advocate for their rights using ANY elaborate and chaotic scheme

TW: eating disorder, vomiting & creepy male teacher but the girls plot against him too

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)

based on a short book I read for uni by Muriel Spark

1930s girls school in Edinburgh

Scottish teacher! Maggie Smith, controversial with a focus on romantic ideals

Spoiler alert, the liberal teacher is actually a fascist

Her group of fave students has cult- vibes and it’s fascinating

Picnic at Hanging Rock

1970s movie or 2018 mini series

Never watched either but I plan to

Wild Child (2008)

00s romcom every UK teen girl loves

Emma Roberts as the spoiled rich American teenager sent to a strict English boarding school

Plots to get herself expelled but oh no she’s making friends with the girls who help her

And the headmistress has a hot son, and he’s nice??? Double oh no

ICONIC SCENES

Everything! Goes! Wrong!

omg she burns the school down

Feel good, comfort, nostalgia

St Trinians (2007)

English girls boarding school

The kids are all criminals, no joke

So are the teachers

CHAOTIC

gay awakening for british girls

Art heist pulled off by school girls

Government tries to shut them down but oh no, the education minister & the headmistress are ex-lovers

Colin Firth x Rupert Everett in drag

Superior cast: Jodie Whittaker, Gemma Arterton, Juno Temple, Stephen Fry, Colin Firth, etc...

embodies the phrase 'problematic fave'

St Trinians 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold (2009)

Mystery, pirate ancestors, hidden treasure

omg Shakespeare was a woman

girls disguised as boys to infiltrate and rob the posh boys school

Villain! David Tennant in that ICONIC boat scene

Teen girls vs. ancient misogynist brotherhood

like the first film but MORE chaotic and BETTER!???

The Falling (2014)

1960s all girls school

best friends! but its unrequited love

Agoraphobic + distant mother aka mommy issues

Sudden death and the school suppresses/ignores the students grief, sparking mass hysteria & a fainting epidemic in the girls

Cast: Maisie Williams (GoT) & Florence Pugh (Little Women) & Joe Cole (Peaky Blinders)

TW: teen pregnancy, death, vomiting, underage s*x, sibling inc*st, past s*xual assault

READ THE PLOT SUMMARY FIRST

The Book Thief (2013)

Based on an amazing book by Markus Zusak

set in 1940s Nazi Germany

Daughter of a communist whose family were taken by the Nazis/died is fostered by an older couple who teach her to read & she paints a dictionary on the basement walls

Coming of age story about a compulsive book thief. No joke, this kid steals books from banned book burnings and breaks into the mayor's library through the window

Family hides the Jewish son of an old friend in their basement and he helps her to start writing about her experiences in the war

TW: death, bombings, WW2 anti-semitism

Mary Shelley (2017)

Overall good & roughly biographical

Pretty costumes and aesthetic

Modern feminist take on Mary Shelly in her own time period

So many INACCURACIES for the drama so don’t take it as truth

Percy Shelley slander and not all of it is justified

Cast: Elle Fanning, Douglas Booth, and Maisie Williams

The Secret Garden (1993)

Based on a fave childhood book

1901 colonial India & Yorkshire, England

Orphaned, spoilt & neglected girl sent to live with her reclusive Uncle in the English countryside

Gothic elements, mysteries, secret doors/passages/locked gardens

local boy with a flock of animals, magic, kids chanting around a fire and all around immaculate vibes

Happy ending!!!

Hidden Figures (2016)

African-American women as mathematicians for NASA

1960s space project

Women balancing a career and family obligations

Deals with racial & gender discrimination

Loosely based on the lives of Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan who worked for NASA as engineers & mathematicians

Anne of Green Gables (1985) & sequel (1987)

Adaptation L.M. Montgomery’s ‘Anne of Green Gables’ books

Canada (late 1890s/early 1900s)

Highly imaginative & bookworm orphan is adopted by a reclusive elderly brother and sister duo

Small town & school years comedic drama

Unrequited Enemies -> Friends -> lovers

Inspiring new woman teacher

Girls re-enact Tennyson’s poem and nearly drown for the aesthetic™

Dramatic poetry reading with INTENSE 👀eye contact👀

Writer! Anne & English teacher! Anne dealing with unruly girls school antics

Collette (2018)

biographical drama on french writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Collette

Victorian & Edwardian era France

More talented than her husband so she ghostwrites for him

Fight for creative ownership of her wildly successful novels

Affairs with a woman called Georgie and also with Missy, born female but masculine presenting

Cast: Keira Knightly, Dominic West, Eleanor Tomlinson (Poldark)

Enola Holmes (2020)

Netflix book adaptation

Younger sister of Sherlock Holmes

Victorian era! feminism/suffragettes

Mother-daughter focus

Mystery, adventure, secret codes, teens running away & escaping from (and eventually fighting) assassins

Cast: Helena Bonham Carter, Henry Cavill, Sam Claflin, Fiona Shaw, Millie Bobby Brown

Ginger & Rosa (2012)

1960s England

best friends since literal birth navigating troubled teen years

poet & anti-nuclear activist! Ginger

off the rails but also catholic! Rosa

Shout out to Mark & Mark the gay godfathers we all want

family troubles 

TW: older man has an affair with a 17 yr old

Testament of Youth (2014)

based on WW1 memoir by Vera Brittain

young woman (writer & poetry lover) escapes traditional family & goes to study at Oxford University

abandons to become a war nurse

romance, tragedy and war trauma

Cast: Alicia Vikander, Kit Harrington (GoT), Taron Edgerton (Rocketman), Colin Morgan (Merlin)

Little Women (2019)

Writer! Jo & Artist! Amy

Mother/daughter focus and sister dynamics

the March sisters’ theatre club is *chefs kiss*

champagne problems edits of Jo x Laurie are a mood

Ambivalent ending perfectly captures Louisa May Alcott’s dilemma with the book the movie is based on

set in 1860s America

ALL STAR CAST and a Greta Gerwig masterpeice

Lady Bird (2017)

coming of age in early 2002/2003 Sacramento, California

all girls catholic school

writer! Christine aka Lady Bird wants to get outta town and start her life again at college 'in a city with culture'

Mother/daughter dynamics - so realistic!

I live for that Jesus car stunt & the nun's reaction

school theatre program

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Timothee Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein

Another Greta Gerwig gem

Beguiled (2017)

Virginia, civil war era

Girls school with only five students and two teachers left

Find an injured Union army soldier & bring him inside

Women & teenagers want his attention (v. problematic) before uniting against him

(tbh you'll either love it, hate it, or watch once & forget it)

Sofia Coppola film so its very feminine gaze

TW: violence, death, underage

Legally Blonde (2001)

No questions will be taken

Elle Woods was the blue print

TV series:

House of Anubis (2011-2013)

I know it’s a kids/young teen show but I still unironically love it

ANCIENT EGYPT!!!!

Modern day with Victorian era links to treasure hunters & Egyptian research expeditions (stealing from tombs)

Chosen one plot lines, curses, kidnapping, mysteries, secret tunnels under the school, elixir of life

Teens have investigate & protect themselves cus oh no the TEACHERS are involved in some shady stuff

new American kid at British boarding school is the actual premise not just a fanfic au

Nostalgic, light-hearted, funny, and kinda cheesy but I will accept no criticism

The Alienist (2018 -now)

Mid 1890s, New York

Woman’s private detective agency (Season 2)

Serial killer mystery

Woman secretary turns detective and teams up with a criminal psychiatrist and a newspaper editor to solve crime

TW: violence, child pr*stit*tion

Cast: Dakota Fanning, Luke Evans, Daniel Bruhl

The Queen’s Gambit (2020)

Woman chess prodigy

1950s & 1960s

TW: drug & alcohol abuse

Gentleman Jack (2019 - now)

Based on the diaries of Anne Lister

Victorian Yorkshire, England

Upper-class lesbians

Confident, suit wearing! Anne Lister x shy! Ann Walker

Business woman! Anne running the family mines

Cast: Suranne Jones (Doctor Foster) & Sophie Rundle (Peaky Blinders)

TW: violence

Gilmore Girls (2000-2007)

bubbly/ambitious single mom + intelligent daughter

bookworm! Rory Gilmore gets into a prestigious private school and then an Ivy League college

Small town drama is comedic gold

Fast dialogue packed with pop culture and literary references

Comforting & nostalgic

TEAM JESS

Anne with an E (2017-2019)

Loose adaptation of L.M. Montgomery’s ‘Anne of Green Gables’ books

they completely change the plot lines but it’s still very good content!

Orphan girl with trauma and a love of books/poetry is adopted by an elderly brother & sister duo, bringing light and fresh ideas to a rural community

Feminism, girls writing club, lgbtq safe spaces, girls eduction, black/indigenous representation

Miss Stacy as THAT inspiring teacher

Aunt Josephine’s lavish gay parties have my heart

TW: creepy male teacher tries to marry a student, racial discrimination, indigenous assimilation school

Victoria (2016-2019)

Adaption of Queen Victoria’s life

Victoria navigating her political, royal, and personal life

Albert’s involvement with The Great Exhibition, 1851 (on cultural + industrial innovations)

Alfred Paget x Edward Drummond is exquisite

Gorgeous costumes and aesthetics

TW: bury your gays trope

Derry Girls (2018-now)

1990s Northern Ireland during the troubles

Comedy, episodes 20-25 mins long

English boy sent to an all girls Catholic school with his cousin

✨Dead Poets Society parody episode ✨with a free-spirited female teacher

Sister Michael, the sarcastic nun who hates her job & reads the exorcist for giggles

Wee anxious lesbian! Clare Devlin (plus her friends wearing rainbow pins)

Badass with bad ideas! Michelle Mallon

Main Character! Erin Quinn

Lovable weirdo who would fight a polar bear! Orla McCool

Wee English fella & honorary Derry girl! James Maguire

Dickinson (2019-now)

Loose adaption of the poet Emily Dickinson’s life

Set in 19th century Massachusetts, US

Historical drama with modern dialogue & music that works SEAMLESSLY

gives a great understanding of Emily Dickinson’s poems

💕Vintage gays! Emily x Sue💕

Theatre club, writing, poetry, dressing as men to sneak into lectures, love letters, teen drama, feminism, and an underground abolitionist journal as a brief side plot in season 2

Wiz Khalifa plays death in a horse drawn carriage

TW: opium use

A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017-2019)

Based on great childhood books

Bookworm! brother, Inventor! sister, and baby sister with sharp teeth

Mystery, secret organisations, orphaned siblings figuring things out & fending for themselves against the villain after their fortune

Adults either cartoon evil, comedically incompetent, or SPIES

Boarding school, library owner, scientific researcher, and theatre episodes

Ambiguous time period which is really fun to try and pin point

Killing Eve (2018-now)

Classic detective who has homoerotic tension with the assassin she is tracking down

British Detective! Eve Polastri figures out the notorious assassin MI5 are investigating is a woman, is fired & then put on a secret MI6 case with a small team

Assassin! Villanelle, a psychopath with a tragic past and a mastery of both accents & fashion

Woman MI6 boss! Carolyn Martens, head of Russian section

Travel Europe following Villanelle’s killings and escaping the assassins sent by Villanelle’s organisation

‘You’re supposed to be my enemy and moral opposite but omg you’re the only one smart enough to get me and why am I obsessed with you????'

🚨 GO IN FOR A KISS AND THEN STAB YOUR ENEMY 🚨

Cable Girls/Las chicas del cable (2017-2020)

Spanish drama set in 1920s Madrid

Four young women at a telecommunications company form a group of friends and help navigate the difficult situations they are all in

Secret identities, dangerous pasts, murder, crime, lgbtq couple & throuple, trans man character, feminism/suffragists

girls commit crimes for humanitarian reasons and cover! it! up!

UNDERRATED SHOW!!!!

Gorgeous costumes and set

Haven’t finished it yet and I’m catching up

TW: abuse, violence, death

Outlander (2014 - now)

haven’t watched yet but plan to

Woman time travels to Scotland, 1743

Rebel highlanders, pirates, British colonies, American revolutionary war

Time jumps between 18th & 20th century

[letterboxd]

All the Cinephiles!

Talking films with filmmakers at TIFF 2019, including Bong Joon-ho, Beanie Feldstein and Daniel Radcliffe.

The 2019 Toronto International Film Festival brought pay-offs for the Letterboxd community from some heavily anticipated world premieres: Taika Waititi’s “anti-hate satire” Jojo Rabbit, Rian Johnson’s entertaining whodunnit, Knives Out, Marielle Heller’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Todd Phillips’ Joker, and the Canadian premieres of big-hitters like Palme d’Or winner Parasite, The Lighthouse, Bacurau and Marriage Story.

The following films also went over well with the Letterboxd members in attendance: Blood Quantum, Saint Maud, Color Out of Space, La belle époque, Waves, 37 Seconds, The Burnt Orange Heresy, About Endlessness, The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão, Uncut Gems, The Obituary of Tunde Johnson, Dolemite Is My Name, Just Mercy and documentaries The Australian Dream and Collective.

We took the chance to ask some of the many filmmakers on the ground in Toronto about films they love (and the films they were there to represent).

Choi Woo-shik, Bong Joon-ho and Song Kang-ho at the Toronto premiere of ‘Parasite’. / Photo courtesy of TIFF/Tommaso Boddi.

Parasite

“All the cinephiles, the film geeks!”

We had just one question for Bong Joon-ho: how does he feel about Parasite being not just our highest rated film this year, but this decade? “I’m so happy with that. All the cinephiles, the film geeks! Me, also the cinephile, so I’m very happy with that news, thank you!”

Choi Woo-shik, who plays Ki Woo, the son in Parasite’s poorer family, described what it’s like to be directed by the acclaimed filmmaker. “This is my second time working with director Bong. He gives very friendly but subtle, very descriptive direction to actors, so I think that gave us a lot of confidence to act better.”

His favorite scene to film? “It must be the scene where the whole family’s drinking together in our semi-basement, right before my friend comes from work and gives me the stone. It was really fun working with director Bong and Song Kang-ho as my father. It was perfect.”

‘Parasite’ opens in US cinemas on October 11.

Producers Debra Hayward and Alison Owen, actors Beanie Feldstein, Alfie Allen, writer Caitlin Moran and director Coky Giedroyc. / Photo courtesy of TIFF/Phil Faraone.

How to Build a Girl

“That’s someone who’s really enjoying writing.”

Beanie Feldstein, admired for her work in Booksmart and Lady Bird, hit the TIFF red carpet for famed feminist writer Caitlin Moran’s adaptation of her semi-autobiographical novel, How to Build a Girl. Feldstein is a riot as Wolverhampton teen Johanna Morrigan, who reinvents herself as “Dolly Wilde”, a rock critic and “lady-sex-pirate”. Feldstein promised Letterboxd that if Moran’s next two books about Morrigan, which have been optioned by the same producing team, are also adapted for the screen, she’s in for the trilogy. “Of course! I mean, she’s my girl! I feel so protective of Johanna and I love her so much.”

We asked the reigning queen of the coming-of-age genre about the films that she loved, growing up: “I grew up obsessed with Funny Girl. Fanny Brice is my idol! Bridesmaids, my senior year of high school, was, like, the best movie ever. It was the most memorable theater-going experience of my life.”

How to Build a Girl is Caitlin Moran’s first film screenplay. (Working with her sister, she has previously adapted their family life for the British sitcom Raised by Wolves.) We asked Moran which screenwriters she most admires. “Oh my gosh. Who do I really love? If you read the scripts of Bruce Robinson, who did Withnail and I and How to Get Ahead in Advertising, those scripts read beautifully. All the description is there; he describes the sky looking the color of burnt sugar. That’s someone who’s really enjoying writing and you feel that vivacity come through on the page and in the character of Withnail. I love Bruce Robinson’s scripts.

“Juno was my favorite film of the last ten years. The way that that story was told just made me incredibly happy. I just love Diablo Cody so much. Like, when you read her stuff you feel her heart, sometimes her groin, and her massively exploding soul! So that’s what I’m always looking for. I just want to see things on screen that look real, that someone went ‘I’m going to have to write this or bust’. I hate films that look like someone went, ‘Oh, we’d better make a film that looks like a film’. I want people to have sat down and done a list of things where they’re, like, ‘What would I like to see on screen that I’ve never seen before?’

“And that’s what we tried to do with How to Build a Girl. I just literally, when I was writing the book, just [had] a list of things that I’d never heard anybody talk about with girls.”

‘How to Build a Girl’ does not yet have a scheduled release date.

Willem Dafoe, Robert Eggers and Robert Pattinson. / Photo courtesy of TIFF/Tasos Katopodis.

The Lighthouse

“I think the fart jokes work.”

The Lighthouse, directed by Robert Eggers and co-written with his brother, Max, is a film that the word “bonkers” has been thrown around a lot to describe. Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson go head-to-head in the black-and-white, claustrophobic, psychedelic and disarmingly funny psychological horror.

Max told us: “I came up with the original conceit that, you know, the sort of horror-genre of a lighthouse, I’d never seen done. And then Rob needed a writing partner. Well, actually, he had said to me, ‘Do you mind if I steal this lighthouse idea?’ And I was like, ‘Sure, fine, whatever,’ not knowing where it would land me eventually!”

Writing as brothers, says Max, involved “a lot of turpentine being drank! That’ll make sense for people who see it later. No, I’m just joking. It was a perfect fit. We trust each other, and I think that’s the big thing about writing teams is you gotta trust each other. And brothers, you know, it’s easy. You’d hope it would be easy. Sometimes it’s not.”

When we suggested that the brotherly relationship likely influenced a lot of the flatulence comedy in The Lighthouse, Max agreed: “Yeah, again, it’s one of those things where we took risks. Comedy is about that. You’ve gotta be able to be honest and trust yourselves. We didn’t know how it was going to play but, thankfully, I think the fart jokes work.” (When asked at the TIFF Q&A whether those farts were real, Dafoe replied: “Half and half.”)

Robert, when asked about the film he remembers as inspiring him to think about filmmaking, immediately offered Star Wars, particularly because of the available behind-the-scenes coverage that aided the “discovery process”. Max couldn’t recall the first film that inspired him into a movie-making career, but “one that reaffirmed my work would be a film by Elem Klemov called Come and See, which is the greatest, one of the best films I’ve ever seen. Amazing film.”

‘The Lighthouse’ opens in US cinemas on October 18.

Taika Waititi at the TIFF premiere of ‘Jojo Rabbit’. / Photo courtesy of TIFF/George Pimentel.

Jojo Rabbit

“Adults are ridiculous.”

“To me, Kak was so visceral and real.” That’s Jojo Rabbit producer Chelsea Winstanley talking about her imaginary childhood friend, for whom her family would set a place at the table and open doors, at her instruction. Jojo Rabbit’s writer-director Taika Waititi is also Winstanley’s husband, so her producing role naturally started early in the process, when they would share stories at home about childhood imaginary friends. Waititi plays the title character’s imaginary confidante: a stupid, vain, petulant and badly-dressed version of Nazi despot Adolf Hitler. It’s a character not found in ‘Caging Skies’, the Christine Leunens novel from which the film was adapted.

“We talked a lot, shared stories like that, so I think it’s very clever that he introduced that,” Winstanley explains. “It’s almost like we want to have some kind of heroes in our lives but we don’t know if they’re good or bad. Jojo doesn’t know the actions of adults. We’re just ridiculous. Adults are ridiculous. So it’s a really incredible way to show this kid that [Hitler is] not such a great hero.”

Winstanley, a director herself, was last at TIFF with the female-directed anthology film Waru, and produced the acclaimed documentary Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen, which was picked up by Ava DuVernay’s Array Releasing and is currently available on Netflix. “It’s amazing how I get messages, emails from people around the world who have watched it, because they can, thanks to Ava DuVernay. She championed this film to get out there. I have a massive girl crush on her.”

On the topic of inspiring women, Roman Griffin Davis, who has been gaining notice for his title role, praised his acting coach, New Zealand actor Rachel House: “She’s properly amazing. She’s a great actress and she’s very good at teaching acting. She kind of taught me how to act. Apart from my mother as well!” Fun fact: House is a long-time collaborator of Waititi’s (and voices Gramma Tala in Moana).

At the Jojo Rabbit Q&A, actor Stephen Merchant revealed the inspiration for his Nazi Gestapo officer: “I don’t think it’s going to come as a shock to anyone that I obviously watched Raiders of the Lost Ark. The great Ronald Lacey performance as the Nazi Gestapo officer… he’s very scary and terrifying so that to me seemed like a great guide; you can be comic but every so often you just turn on that chill factor.”

Meanwhile, Jojo Rabbit production designer Ra Vincent told us that the film Life is Beautiful—and the personal interests of filmmaker Sir Peter Jackson—were his key influences for the film’s design. “I’ve had quite a long relationship working with Peter Jackson and being around his interests, which are First World War memorabilia and stories. So I’ve had an opportunity to see how close to people’s hearts these stories are, and how it’s important to protect them.”

As for the films that made him want to be a filmmaker, Vincent, who began his movie career as a model maker, replied: “I think Star Wars did it to me. And also, oddly enough, Medusa [Ray Harryhausen’s work in Clash of the Titans], because of the claymation aspect to it. That’s my background.” Vincent is already working with Waititi on his next project, “a very nice little feel-good film about the American Samoa soccer team of 2011. It’s exciting to do a job at the beach!” (Michael Fassbender is reportedly in talks to play the team’s coach.)

‘Jojo Rabbit’ opens in the US on October 18.

Rhys Darby, Daniel Radcliffe and Samara Weaving. / Photo courtesy of TIFF/Phil Faraone.

Guns Akimbo

“Life’s too short to work with assholes.”

Daniel Radcliffe hit the red carpet this year for New Zealand director Jason Lei Howden’s Guns Akimbo, the follow-up to his micro-budget, metal-horror, splatter-fest Deathgasm. Also starring Samara Weaving and Rhys Darby, Guns Akimbo finds Radcliffe drawn into a live-streamed game in which guns have been bolted to his hands. It’s a far cry from Harry Potter and, looking over his recent output, we couldn’t help but comment that he must be having the time of his life picking roles as far from the boy-wizard as possible.

“I mean, I’m looking to be happy and live a nice life,” Radcliffe replied. “I’m very fortunate to be in a position where I can really pick and choose what I wanna do. No actor is in that position. That’s such a gift, so I’m very lucky to just get to work on stuff that I love and is maybe, I am told, weird, but I love it. And, yeah, also life’s too short to work with assholes, so I generally love to work with lovely people like Samara and Rhys and Jason. It’s very nice.”

Getting Radcliffe to name the film that made him want to work in movies is a tricky ask, since he started out so young. “That’s what’s weird about me is that I feel like most actors get into it by becoming a fan of film and then, like, ‘I wanna be an actor,’ whereas I was on film sets already by the time I realized I liked film. And I love film sets. I love being here. I feel like that’s what I fell in love with, was actually the experience of making things on set.” When pushed, he ponied up: “The first films I remember falling in love with are, like, Toy Story. Those are the first films that I remember seeing and going, ‘Oh, this is amazing’.”

Rhys Darby, who plays a down-and-out character named Glenjamin in Guns Akimbo, had been at the premiere of his friend Taika Waititi’s film the night before (Darby played Psycho Sam in Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople). “There’s nothing like it,” he said of Jojo Rabbit. “He manages every time to cast these fantastically comic-driven, gifted children, and [to] have so much pathos and heart. It was a triumph. I’m just jealous I wasn’t in it!”

Asked what the film was that made him want to get into the entertainment business, Darby responded: “Wow, that’s a good question. To be honest, I’ve always been a James Bond fan. I grew up watching the Roger Moore James Bonds, and it was the epic-ness of those 1980s films, which are ridiculous. The Roger Moore ones, there’s a lot of humor in them, there’s gadgets, and there’s these great locations, and I kind of dreamed of the idea of maybe being part of that world. It just seemed so ridiculous that it would never happen to a kid from Pakuranga, but it’s kinda happening!”

Darby recently achieved a dream of visiting Bond creator Ian Fleming’s home. “I actually went to Goldeneye! Yeah! Who would have thought that I’d get to go to Ian Fleming’s resort in Jamaica, and sit on his chair, where he wrote these novels? That was really special to me.”

‘Guns Akimbo’ does not yet have a scheduled release date.

[ournewoverlords]

Booksmart slaps. It’s just a huge amount of fun to watch - the key word here for me is “good-natured”. This is a good-natured movie that teases and pokes fun at a lot of people - a lot of *kinds* of people, from the queer drama kids to the dopey jocks to the Gen Z overachieving feminist types who have pictures of Michelle Obama on their wall and can quote Susan B Anthony from memory - without ever making fun of anyone in a mean-spirited way, and highlighting that no one is ever “just” their tribe. The ending ties the story up neatly with a feel-good bow about how no one is really what they seem on the surface, especially not in high school, when everyone’s trying so hard to be invulnerable… which also means they can’t be *seen*. There’s a lot of great character work here that I think could’ve been fleshed out even more (the 1 hour 45 min runtime feels shockingly short in the day and age of Endgame) but still feels natural and sincere, and the huge array of secondary characters - real characters, not just insert-famous-cameos - gives this movie not just humor but so much life and buoyancy.

(Warning: light spoilers beneath cut)

What keeps it from reaching the top tier for me, though, is that it somehow still feels like something I’ve seen before, even though the window dressing is so different. It’s definitely rare to see female best-friendship displayed so frankly, genuinely, and *hilariously* on the big screen, and I can’t remember another movie where the nerdy valedictorian is a boss and knows it, not to mention one where one of them is a lesbian (my young baby lesbian Amy!! protect that cinnamon roll), but the story of two blood-sworn, childhood-, everything-friends reaching the last chapter of their adolescence together in fun and games and boozy celebration, all while the fear of how they’ll face the great unknown without the other is this silent undercurrent churning beneath… that feels familiar to me? That doesn’t keep me from loving this particular theme, because it IS a great one, I just mean it’s not as original as Ladybird, so it lends itself to comparison more easily. 

Superbad, for instance. I actually kinda hate how every review (including the one linked here, which is totally in line with my sentiments) keeps calling this “the female Superbad”. Yes, it’s a coming-of-age comedy about two friends at the end of the senior year trying to go out with a bang together, and yes, it’s a little raunchy, and yes, it really is all about the friendship between the two main characters at its core… but the whole texture, color, and point of Booksmart are completely different. 

By texture, I mean that even as the two girls are the “heroes” of this quest, it’s still interested in the characters outside them, such that you really get the sense that they are their own people, with their own lives and inner life. In the briefest of screentimes you grasp instantly why someone like Molly would be attracted to easygoing jock Nick (but then connects to the hopelessly-messy-but-sweet Jared), and why Amy likes the skatergirl with the big toothy grin. The other kids and love interests aren’t just vessels for Molly and Amy’s own awakenings. In fact, some of them have their own troubles, and they’re all really pretty good kids.

It’s interested in the way that the two mains are, in their own way, not the most perfect people. How the world’s really not out to get them; in fact, they’re the ones who have to learn to fit into it. I talk more about this below, but this was the part I liked the most, because it feels particularly true to life in a way that I don’t think I’ve seen in many other coming-of-age narratives, much less light-hearted comedies.

Speaking of light-hearted, the whole tone of the humor is waay different from Superbad’s too. It’s funny as hell, which is probably the most important thing at the end of the day — there were a few scenes that had me and my entire theater howling — but amazingly for a coming-of-age comedy, I remember very few of the jokes being gross-out or sexual, or even all that cringe. Booksmart mines a lot of physical humor just in their sheer facial expressions (if a picture is a thousand words, Beanie Feldstein’s face does the work of a thousand punchlines), but it’s mostly the little throw-away lines and hilarious sketches (the attempted robbery in the car! Amy’s overly-well-meaning parents! everything GiGi and Jared do) that string everything together and carry the day. That’s not to say that there aren’t serious moments that are given due weight too — Amy under the water, submerged in that song is just an absolutely beautiful shot. 

It reminds me a little of Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade, which I think is a more interesting comparison than Superbad here. Booksmart tries to capture some of that raw realness that Eighth Grade had, underneath all the silliness and humor; it is, in many ways, about how hard it is to be vulnerable to someone else, even (especially) the people you love. It pulls at a lot of strands and among them are the idea that this is what high school is really like, that to be honest all these boys (and girls!) who hold your heart in their clumsy, sweaty fingers will be like leaves in the wind years from now, that standing on the entrance to adulthood isn’t a physical change, it’s not about booze, or losing your virginity, or getting accepted by your peers. Becoming an adult is inner work, alright, but it’s also not work you can do on your own. Because it’s about how you treat yourself, but it’s about how you treat other people too. 

But I think where Eighth Grade really succeeds is this it has this kind of specificity to it — it really, really is about this awkward girl, and her lonely existence, and about being a girl who is becoming a woman in a certain context. And that specificity gives it a kind of honesty that rings painfully true to me. Booksmart — probably because it is trying to avoid stereotypes and do something entirely new here, which is totally commendable — almost feels a little too universal. It feels like you could replace Molly and Amy here with dudes, and it wouldn’t be a huge change in dynamics outside the pussy hats and Malalia worship, because these two are defined more by their identities as “overachieving party-pooping best-friend NERDS” than by being girls per se. These are two whipsmart dorks who are best friends, and happen to be female, rather than a portrayal of female best friendship per se. And the other kids treat them that way too: no one gives a shit Molly’s chubby or Amy’s a lesbian, they give a shit that they’re exasperating know-it-alls.

Which is REALLY refreshing. I’m being unfair here — it’s *because* it’s so rare to see female friendships or just girls in general depicted this way on screen that I think it doesn’t quite “fit” my own intuitions about real life. But I’m a weird case of someone who really struggled in high school, and definitely didn’t have friends much less deep ones like theirs, and I bet other women would recognize themselves in these two and their relationship much more. The frank vagina talk and the fact that Molly and Amy are actually really self-assured and even pretty damn well-liked are just super freakin’ cool anyways. In particular I LOVE the way they’re still dorky, in a way I so rarely see female characters allowed to be because female characters written by dudes tend to be so poised and “above” the main male protagonist (probably because the screenwriters are thinking back to their own high-school crushes, who must’ve seemed so mature and unattainable to a nerdy teenage boy). 

It goes back to what I said about this being an affectionate, feel-good movie where everyone turns out to be pretty decent in the end. It doesn’t set out to be much more than that, and I’m not sure if I wanted it to be, but I think it’s that fact they didn’t go all out that keeps it from being a 10/10 for me. It’s just very sweet and knowing and funny and always making sure to laugh with these oddball kids, but that same gentleness keeps it from being something great; it’s like you need some claws to expose something “real”.

It’s a little strange to me, for example, that the movie dishes out a lot of high-school tropes — all the kids are playful representatives of some stereotype — but doesn’t seem to have any real bullies, and happily accepts the two not-very-outcasted outcasts at the party with open arms. And the girls each get their heart crushed, but only for like five minutes before they (tbqh) each get an upgrade. Every Gen Z tribe gets represented — from the failing stoner who actually has an offer from Google to the misunderstood school slut to poor Jared, my sweet beautiful mess of an unloved richboy — in this kind of Glee grab-bag kinda way, but without Glee’s sense that what ties us all together is this fucking shared suffering called high school; Booksmart’s high school is more like a utopia where everyone wears what they want and gets to be quirky and different and much cooler than you think in their own individualistic way. (They even have Jessica Williams as a teacher! UGH, so jelly.)

There’s something that’s actually really subversive about this, because 1) no one’s a villain and 2) to the extent that Molly and Amy are unpopular, it’s kinda brought on by themselves. *They* were the ones who chose never to hang out with the other kids, because studying was more important. *They* are the ones who have to learn something. Molly was the one who judged everyone by the school they got into, even as the others never gave a shit about it. Amy came out two years ago, but the reason she’s never had a kiss isn’t so much because she’s a lesbian, but because she’s too timid and unassertive as a person. Molly’s character arc is discovering that she’s too freaking judgey and she needs to stop assuming she knows everything from the cover, Amy’s is to realize herself as her own person outside of the (admittedly powerful) centrifugal force of her best friend. 

Those are GREAT ideas for arcs, it’s just that the execution of them didn’t completely land for me — maybe because the jokes were competing so much with the serious bits for screentime, it had to scramble at the end for the moment of character growth. So it didn’t feel fully “earned” to me, even as it worked on the thematic level of truly seeing people when you aren’t blinded by your own assumptions. 

Still, it’s a really satisfying movie with a different take on a common trope, and packed with killer lines and secondary characters like Jared that are just so great (he’s one that feels especially on-point to me because I recognize one of my old classmates in him — a great kid, just… swimming through life in a different lane). The cameos by the adult actors — Jessica Williams, Lisa Kudrow, Jason Sudeikis, Will Forte — were predictably fantastic. In fact all the acting and casting was SO GOOD (I found out later that the casting director was the one who did Freaks and Geeks!). I’m impressed by Olivia Wilde in her directorial debut here, it’s clear that she has an ear for comedic beats and some of the shots were wonderful — in a lot of comedies the camera is just kinda static and it’s all talking heads, but here the angles, the POV shots, the longer takes that move in and out of sound add so much dynamism. Excited for what she does next.

[disappointingyet]

Booksmart

Director Olivia Wilde Stars Beanie Feldstein, Kaitlyn Dever, Billie Lourd, Jason Sudeikis USA 2019 Language English, a tiny bit of Mandarin 1hr 42mins Colour 

Triumphant end-of-high-school comedy 

It takes real skill to make the correct use a great scene-stealing supporting performance: a director doesn’t want to skimp on the magic, short-change herself and the audience on something great. On the other hand, they don’t want to unbalance the film, and have people going, ‘Yeah, but when’s the funny dude coming back?’ while the leads are on screen. And nor should they overdo that sprinkling of something special so that it becomes wearying. 

Gigi in full effect

Gigi may be the best thing (among a whole heap of good things) about Booksmart – a spoilt teenage rich girl who is wise, sad, wildly capricious, with self-destructive instincts but with luck that protects her, armed with a vast supply of strange substances, possibly omniscient. She’s brought perfectly to life by Billie Lourd, who, as true Hollywood royalty – daughter of Carrie Fisher and thus granddaughter of Debbie Reynolds – might be unusually qualified to play this role. And director Olivia Wilde has rationed Gigi’s appearances precisely, so each of our few moments with her is a joy.

But the rest of the movie maintains that standard, or is close to it, too. Our main characters are Molly (Beanie Feldstein) and Amy (Kaitlyn Dever, who was soooo good in the TV backwoods crime saga Justified), who have a terrible eve-of-high-school-graduation revelation: while their no-fun hard work has assured them of the Ivy League places they dreamt of, their hedonistic classmates are also bound for elite colleges despite their slacker demeanours. So Molly resolves that for their final night as high school kids, they are going to have big fun – and Amy, slightly reluctantly, buys in.

What follows is the stuff of classic teen comedies, with variants of scenes you’ve definitely seen before. But Molly and Amy are a hugely endearing pair with a believable friendship. And Wilde and her cast are able make the familiar fresh again. For instance, yes, you’ve seen scenes where kids who have never done drugs before (accidentally) take drugs, but I can’t think of one as good as the one in Booksmart.

There are some elements that do belong to the progressive side of 2019: Amy is a lesbian, two characters discuss the distinction between gender performance and sexual orientation, it’s a diverse cast. But a few people talking about the film have made a little too much of this, with a lazily patronising attitude to the past: it is (thankfully) no novelty to have a teen comedy with female protagonists or gay characters or a female director. 

Maybe the main difference of emphasis from most teen movies is that although there are sexual/romantic elements to the girls’ quest on their long night out, those are very much side issues for them and the film. This is all about Amy and Molly, and Molly and Amy. (A lot of male-centred teen movies also come to the conclusion it’s all about your mates really, but that realisation is often harder won.)

Comedies in particular can suffer from their best jokes being given away in the trailers. I ended up seeing the trailer for Booksmart a lot, but had no feeling of diminished returns watching the movie itself – it’s got funny moments, as well as great characters and spot-on instincts to spare. A blinder.

**Which in fairness to American Pie and a 104 other movies, is a/the central concern for most teenagers. One of the things I’ve realised getting older is quite how many people only endured parties and nightclubs for the prospect of hooking up, and feel blissfully liberated to be able to spend every Friday evening for the rest of their lives on the sofa at home watching TV.

[tabloidtoc]

Us, August 5

Cover: Sandra Bullock and Jennifer Aniston -- joy, pain and friendship 

Page 1: First Look -- Jenna Dewan 

Page 2: Red Carpet -- florals -- Kelsea Ballerini, Lily Collins, Camilla Belle, Lana Condor 

Page 3: Tina Fey, Letitia Wright, Beanie Feldstein, Becca Tobin

Page 4: Who Wore It Best? Sofia Vergara vs. Brooke Burke, Lucy Liu vs. Chanel Iman, Hailey Bieber vs. Kendall Jenner 

Page 6: Loose Talk -- Joel McHale, Laura Dern, Dr. Phil, Julia Roberts, John Mayer 

Page 8: Contents

Page 10: Hot Pics -- Prince George turns 6

Page 11: Tom Holland and Olivia Bolton, Miranda Lambert, Sofia Vergara and Joe Manganiello 

Page 12: Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton, Wendy Williams, Ricky Martin 

Page 13: Comic-Con San Diego -- Natalie Portman, Lili Reinhart and Cole Sprouse, Angelina Jolie, Maisie Williams, Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson 

Page 14: Jenny McCarthy 

Page 15: Chance the Rapper and Jimmy Fallon, Paris Hilton 

Page 16: Cardi B, Jared Haibon and Ashley Iaconetti, Vanessa Hudgens and Austin Butler 

Page 18: Stars play with FaceApp -- Derek Hough, Sara Foster, Arie and Lauren Luyendyk, Pauly D and Vinny Guadagnino 

Page 19: Carrie Underwood and Mike Fisher, Miley Cyrus, Busy Philipps, Tyrese and Ludacris 

Page 22: Stars They’re Just Like Us -- Rachel Bilson, Brenda Song 

Page 23: Audrina Patridge, Kacey Musgraves 

Page 24: Vacation Goals -- Ciara, Julianne Hough and Brooks Laich, The Honeymooners -- Katharine McPhee and David Foster, Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas 

Page 26: Kidding Around -- Beyonce and Blue Ivy, Sean Lowe and son Isaiah, Alicia Silverstone and son Bear, Hilary Duff and Matthew Koma and kids Luca and Banks 

Page 28: Celebs fan-girl in band tees -- Sophie Turner in AC/DC, Kim Kardashian in Michael Jackson and Prince, Larsa Pippen in Tupac, Lady Gaga in Green Day, Kaia Gerber in The Doors, Lily Collins and Josh Smith at a Spice Girls concert 

Page 30: Hollywood Dads -- Nate Berkus on his kids Poppy and Oskar with husband Jeremiah Brent 

Page 31: Taye Diggs on son Walker, Dwyane Wade on daughter Kaavia, Jamie Bell’s son with ex Evan Rachel Wood is very protective of his new daughter with Kate Mara 

Page 32: Love Lives -- Sarah Hyland and Wells Adams engaged 

Page 33: KJ Apa and Britt Robertson get cozy at Comic-Con, Nikki Bella calls Artem Chigvintsev her boyfriend, Scott Disick’s girlfriend Sofia Richie has been hanging out with Kylie Jenner and Scott is thrilled 

Page 34: Demi Lovato’s recovery one year later 

Page 35: Duchess Meghan Markle’s life as a mom, Lindsay Lohan is making new music, Lisa Vanderpump doesn’t miss RHOBH 

Page 36: Amber Portwood is trying to make healthy changes, A$AP Rocky in jail in Sweden, celebs with side-hustles -- Jessica Lange, Sutton Foster, Justin Theroux, Erykah Badu, Nick Offerman 

Page 37: J.D. Scott suffers from mystery disease so brothers Jonathan and Drew Scott finished his house for him, VIP Scene -- John Legend, Amy Poehler, Miranda Lambert and Brendan McLoughlin, Halsey and Yungblud, Adam Levine, Sean Lennon, Shakira and Gerard Pique, Sofia Vergara and Joe Manganiello, Andy Cohen 

Page 38: What’s in My Bag? Dascha Polanco 

Page 39: Kylie Jenner wants people to know she’s human, Aubrey O’Day 

Page 40: Cover Story -- In a town filled with fair-weather friends Sandra Bullock and Jennifer Aniston are the real deal 

Page 44: Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara are engaged 

Page 46: The Bachelorette Hannah Brown’s final 3 guys 

Page 48: Jennifer Lopez turns 50 

Page 50: Style -- Skai Jackson, Ashley Benson

Page 51: Joan Smalls 

Page 52: Olivia Culpo’s getaway goods 

Page 54: Us Musts -- Once Upon a Time in Hollywood 

Page 56: Denise Richards on Drop Dead Gorgeous

Page 58: Fashion Police -- Rita Ora, Odell Beckham Jr., Chloe Kim 

Page 59: Brooklyn Beckham, Lily Allen, Nastia Liukin 

Page 60: 25 Things You Don’t Know About Me -- Vanessa Williams