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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Summer Movie Preview: From Black Widow to The Suicide Squad and Beyond

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The summer movie season has returned. Finally. Once something we all just took for granted, like handshakes and indoor dining, a summertime season stuffed with pricy Hollywood blockbusters and cinematic escapism suddenly feels like a long lost friend. But, rest assured, the summer movie season is genuinely and truly here. It’s maybe a little later than normal, yet it’s still in time for Memorial Day in the States.

This is of course happy news since many of the big screen events of this year have been 12 months or more in the offing. A Quiet Place Part II was supposed to open two Marches ago, and In the Heights is opening almost an exact year to the day from its original release. They’re here now, as is an impressive assortment of new films. There are genre fans’ long lost superhero spectacles, with Black Widow and The Suicide Squad leading the pack (and Shang-Chi closing out the season unusually late in time for Labor Day weekend), and there are also horror movies like The Conjuring 3 and M. Night Shyamalan’s Old, aforementioned musicals, family adventures in Jungle Cruise, psychedelic Arthurian legends via The Green Knight, and a few legitimately original projects like Stillwater and Reminiscence. Imagine that!

So sit back, put your feet in the pool, or up by the grill pit, and toast with us the summer movie’s resurrection.

A Quiet Place Part II

May 28 (June 3 in the UK)

Fourteen months after its original release date, the first movie delayed by the pandemic is finally coming to theaters for Memorial Day weekend. And despite what some critics say (even our own), most of us would argue it’s worth the wait. As a movie about a family enduring after a global crisis that has left their lives in tatters, and marred by personal tragedy, A Quiet Place Part II hits differently in 2021 than it would have a year ago. And it’s undeniably optimistic view of humanity feels like a warm balm now.

But beyond the meta context, writer-director John Krasinski (flying solo as screenwriter this time) has engineered a series of intelligent and highly suspenseful set pieces which puts Millicent Simmonds’ Regan front and center. Also buoyed by subtle and affecting work by Emily Blunt and Cillian Murphy, here as a neighbor they knew a few years and a lifetime ago, this is one worth dipping your toe back into cinema for, especially if you liked the first movie.

Cruella

May 28

We’ll admit it, we had the same initial skepticism you’re probably feeling about a Cruella de Vil origin story set in punk rock’s 1970s London. But put your cynicism aside, Disney’s Cruella is a decadent blast and the rarest of things: a live-action Disney remake that both honors its source material and does something creative with it. Neither a soulless scene-by-scene remake of a better animated film, or a lazy Maleficent like re-imagining, Cruella more often than not rocks, thanks in large part to its lead performance by Emma Stone.

Also a producer on the picture, Stone takes on the role of Cruella de Vil like it’ll be on an awards reel and absolutely flaunts the character’s madness and devilish charm. She also finds an excellent sparring partner via Emma Thompson, young Cruella’s very own Miranda Priestly. Once these two start their verbal battle at the end of the first act, the movie is elevated into an electric period comedy (with plenty of heavy handed period music). It’s a pseudo-thriller for all ages, enjoying some very sharp elbows for a kids movie.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

June 4 (May 26 in the UK)

The latest big-screen adventure for real-life ghostbusters Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) sees the two drawn into the unusual case of the first ever U.S. murder trial where the defendant claimed he was innocent because he was possessed by a demon. This is the eighth movie in The Conjuring expanded universe—director Michael Chaves has already made a foray into this supernatural world with The Curse of La Llorona—and as with all the main Conjuring films, the hook is that it’s (very loosely) based on a true case that the Warrens were involved with.

Peter Safran and James Wan are back on board as producers, although with this being the first time Wan isn’t directing one of the main Ed and Lorraine investigations, we’re a little cautious about this return to the haunted museum.

In the Heights

June 11 (June 18 in the UK)

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first Tony award winning musical is getting the proper big screen treatment in In the Heights. A full-fledged movie musical—as opposed to a taped series of performances, a la Disney+’s Hamilton—In the Heights is like a sweet summer drink (or Piragua) and love letter to the Latino community of New York City’s Washington Heights neighborhood.

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Closer in spirit to the feel-good summertime joy of Grease than the narratively complex Hamilton, this is perfect multiplex escapism (which will also be on HBO Max if you’re so inclined). Directed by Crazy Rich Asians’ Jon M. Chu, In the Heights has a euphoric sense of movement and dance as it transfers Miranda’s hybrid blend of freestyle rap, salsa rhythm, and Caribbean musical cues to the actual city blocks the show was written about. On one of those corners lives Usnavi (Anthony Ramos), a bodega owner with big dreams. He’s about to have the summer of his life. You might too.

Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard

June 16 (June 21 in the UK)

You know Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is a throwback when even its trailer brings back the “trailer voice.” But then the appeal of the 2017 B-action comedy, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, was its very throwback nature: a violent, raunchy R-rated buddy comedy that starred Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds, who exchanged quips as much as bullets between some genuinely entertaining stunts.

Hopefully the sequel can also be as much lowbrow fun as it doubles down on the premise, with Reynolds’ Michael Bryce now guarding Samla Hayek’s Sonia, the wife of Jackson’s Darius. All three are on a road trip through Italy as they’re chased by Antonio Banderas in what is sure to be a series of bloody, explosive set pieces. Probably a few “motherf***ers” will be dropped too.

Luca

June 18

Pixar Studios’ hit rate is frankly incredible. With each new film seemingly comes a catchy song, an Oscar nomination, and a flood of tears from anyone with a heart—and there’s no reason to believe that its next offering will be any different. Luca is a coming-of-age tale set on the Italian Riviera about a pair of young lads who become best friends and have a terrific summer getting into adventures in the sun. The slight catch is that they’re both sea monsters.

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This is the feature directorial debut of Enrico Casarosa, who says the movie is a celebration of friendship with nods to the work of Federico Fellini and Hayao Miyazaki. The writers are Jesse Andrews and Mike Jones—Andrews is new to Pixar but has experience with coming-of-agers, having penned Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, while Jones co-wrote Soul. Jacob Tremblay and Jack Dylan Grazer voice the young boys (sea monsters)—13-year-old Luca and his older teenager friend Alberto—with Maya Rudolph as Luca’s sea monster mom. After a year of lockdown, this could be the summer movie we all need.

June 25

You better start firing up the grill, because the Fast and Furious crew is finally ready to have another summer barbecue. And this time, it’s not only the folks whom Dom Toretto calls “mi familia” in attendance. The big new addition to F9 is

John Cena as Jakob Toretto. As the long-lost little brother we didn’t know Vin Diesel’s Dom had, Jakob is revealed to be a superspy, assassin, and performance driver working for Dom’s arch-nemesis, Cypher (Charlize Theron). Everything the Family does together, Jakob does alone, as a one-man wrecking crew, and he’s coming in hot.

Fans will probably be happier, though, to see Sung Kang back as Han Seoul-Oh, the wheelman who was murdered in Fast & Furious 6, and then pretty much forgotten in The Fate of the Furious when his killer got invited to the cookout. It’s an injustice that brought veteran series director Justin Lin back to the franchise to resurrect the dead. So it’s safe to assume he won’t be asking Cypher to bring the potato salad.

The Forever Purge

July 2 (July 16 in the UK)

We know what you’re thinking: Didn’t The Purge: Election Year end the Purge forever? That or “are they really still making these?” The answer to both questions is yes. Nevertheless, here we are with The Forever Purge, a movie which asks what happens if Purgers just, you know, committed extravagant holiday crime on the other 364 days of the year? You get what is hopefully the grand finale of this increasingly tired concept.

The Tomorrow War

July 2

Hear me out: What if it’s like The Terminator but in reverse? That had to be the pitch for this one, right? In The Tomorrow War, instead of evil cyborgs time traveling to the past to kill our future savior, soldiers from the future time travel to the past to enlist our current best warrior and take him to a world on the brink 30 years from now.

It’s a crazy premise, and the kind of high-concept popcorn that one imagines Chris Pratt excels at. Hence Pratt’s casting as Dan, one of the best soldiers of the early 21st century who’ll go into the future to stop an alien invasion. The supporting cast, which includes Oscar winner J.K. Simmons and Yvonne Strahovski, Betty Gilpin, and Sam Richardson, is also nothing to sneeze at.

Black Widow

July 9

The idea of making a Black Widow movie has been around since long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe first lifted into the sky on Tony Stark’s repulsors. The character has been onscreen for more than a decade now, and Marvel Studios has for too long danced around making a solo Widow, at least in part due to the machinations of Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter.

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But the standalone Black Widow adventure is here at last, and it now serves as a sort-of coda to the story of Natasha Romanoff, since we already know her tragic fate in Avengers: Endgame. Directed by Cate Shortland (Berlin Syndrome, Lore), the movie will spell out how Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) kept herself busy between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, primarily with a trip home to Russia to clear some of that red from her ledger.

There, she will reunite with figures from her dark past, including fellow Red Room alumnus Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Russian would-be superhero Alexei Shostakov, aka the Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz), another survivor of the Black Widow program and a maternal figure to Natasha and Yelena.

It’s a chance to say goodbye to Nat and see Johansson as the beloved Avengers one more time. But this being Marvel, we suspect that the studio has a few tricks up its sleeve and in this movie about the future of Phase 4.

Space Jam: A New Legacy

July 16

In the annals of synergistic branding, Space Jam: A New Legacy might be one for the record books. A sequel to an older millennials’ 1990s touchstones—the thoroughly mediocre Michael Jordan meets Bugs Bunny movie, Space Jam—this sequel sees LeBron James now trapped in Looney Tunes world… but wait, there’s more! Instead of only charmingly interacting with WB’s classic stable of cartoon characters, King James will also be in the larger “WB universe” where the studio will resurrect from the dead every property they own the copyright to, from MGM’s classic 1939 The Wizard of Oz to, uh, the murderous rapists in A Clockwork Orange.

… yay for easter eggs?

Old

July 23

Though he might be accused of being a little bit hit-and-miss in the past, the release of a new M. Night Shyamalan movie should always be cause for celebration. Especially one with such a deeply creepy premise. Based on the graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters, Old sees a family on vacation discover that the beach they are on causes them to age extremely rapidly and live out their entire lives in a day.

This is surely perfect fodder for Shyamalan, who does high-concept horror like no one else. The cast is absolute quality, featuring Gael García Bernal, Hereditary’s Alex Wolff, Jo Jo Rabbit’s Thomasin McKenzie, Phantom Thread’s Vicky Krieps, Little Women’s Eliza Scanlen, and many more. The trailer is pleasingly disturbing too as children become teenagers, a young woman is suddenly full-term pregnant, and adults seem to be decaying in front of their own eyes. Harrowing in the best possible way.

Snake Eyes

July 23 (August 20 in the UK)

Snake Eyes will finally bring us the origin story of the G.I. Joe franchise’s most iconic and beloved member. Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) stars in the title role, with Warrior’s Andrew Koji as his nemesis—conflicted baddie (and similar fan fave) Storm Shadow. Expect a tale heavy on martial arts badassery, especially with The Raid’s Iko Uwais on board as the pair’s ninja master. Samara Weaving will play G.I. Joe staple Scarlett after her breakout a few years ago in Ready or Not, while Úrsula Corberó has been cast as Cobra’s Baroness. Robert Schwentke (The Time Traveler’s Wife, Red) directs.

Jungle Cruise

July 30

Jungle Cruise director Jaume Collet-Serra is best known for making slightly dodgy actioners starring Liam Neeson (Unknown, Non-Stop, Run All Night) and half-decent horror movies (Orphan, The Shallows), so exactly which direction this family adventure based on a theme park ride will take remains to be seen.

Borrowing a page and premise from Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen (1951), Jungle Cruise stars the ever-charismatic Dwayne Johnson as a riverboat captain taking Emily Blunt’s scientist and her brother (Jack Whitehall) to visit the fabled Tree of Life in the early 20th century. Like the ride, the gang will have to watch out for wild animals along the way.

Unlike the ride, they’re competing with a German expedition team who are heading for the same goal. A solid supporting cast (Jesse Plemons, Édgar Ramírez, Paul Giamatti, Andy Nyman) and a script with rewrites by Michael Green (Logan, Blade Runner 2049) might mean Disney has another hit on its hands. Either way, a lovely boat trip with The Rock should be diverting at worst.

The Green Knight

July 30 (August 6 in the UK)

There have been several major Hollywood reimaginings of Arthurian legends in the 21st century. And every one of them has been thoroughly rotten for one reason or another. Luckily, David Lowery’s The Green Knight looks poised to break the trend with a trippy, but twistedly faithful, interpretation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Dev Patel stars as Sir Gawain, a chivalrous knight in King Arthur’s court who takes up the challenge of the mysterious Green Knight (The Witch’s Ralph Ineson under mountains of makeup): He’ll swing a blow and risk receiving a returning strike in a year’s time. Gawain attempts to cheat the devil by cutting his head clean off, yet when the Green Knight lifts his severed head from Camelot’s floors, things start to get weird. As clearly one of A24’s biggest visual fever dreams to date, this is one we’re highly anticipating.

Stillwater

July 30 (August 6 in the UK)

The Oscar winning-writer director behind Spotlight, Tom McCarthy, returns to the big screen with a fictional story that feels awfully similar to real world events. In this film, Matt Damon plays Bill, a proud father who saw his daughter Allison (Abigail Breslin) go abroad to study in France. After she’s accused of murdering her roommate by local authorities, the deeply Southern and deeply Oklahoman father must travel to a foreign land to try and prove his daughter’s innocence.

It obviously has some parallels with the Amanda Knox story but it also looks like a potentially hard hitting original drama with a talented cast. Fingers crossed.

The Suicide Squad

August 6 (July 30 in the UK)

You might have seen a Suicide Squad movie in the past, but you’ve never seen James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. With a liberating R-rating and an old school vision from the Guardians of the Galaxy director—who likens this to 1960s war capers, such as The Dirty Dozen or Where Eagles Dare—this Suicide Squad is absolutely stacked with talented actors wallowing in DC weirdness. One of the key players in this is Polka-Dot Man, another is a walking, talking Great White Shark, voiced by Sylvester Stallone. The villain is a Godzilla-sized starfish from space!

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So like it’s namesake, there’s probably a lot of characters who aren’t going to pull through this one. Even so, we can rest easy knowing that Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn will be as winsome than ever, and the likes of Idris Elba and John Cena will add some dynamic gravitas to the eccentric DC Extended Universe.

Free Guy

August 13

Perhaps pitched as The Truman Show for the video game age, Free Guy stars Ryan Reynolds as an easygoing, happy-go-lucky “Guy” who discovers… he’s a video game NPC living inside the equivalent of a Grand Theft Auto video game. This might explain why the bank he works at keeps getting robbed all the time. But as a virtual sprite who’s developed sentiency, he just might be able to win over enough gamers to not shoot him, and make love not war.

It’s an amusing premise, and hopefully director Shawn Levy can bring to it the same level of charm he achieved with the very first Night at the Museum movie.

Respect

August 13 (September 10 in the UK)

Before her passing in 2018, Aretha Franklin gave her blessing to Jennifer Hudson to play the Queen of Soul. Now that musical biopic is here with Hudson hitting the same high notes of the legend who sang such standards as “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” “Think,” “I Say a Little Prayer,” and of course “Respect.”

The film comes with a lot of expectation and a lot of pedigree, with Forest Whitaker and Audra McDonald in the cast. Most of all though, it comes with that rich musical library, which will surely take center stage. And if movies like Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman have taught us anything, it’s that moviegoers love when you play the hits.

Reminiscence

August 20 (August 18 in the UK)

Lisa Joy is one of the most exciting voices on television today. One-half of the creative team behind Westworld, Joy steps into her own with her directorial debut (and as the solo writer) in Reminiscence, a science fiction film with a reliably knotty premise.

Hugh Jackman plays Nick Bannister, a man who lives in a dystopian future where the oceans have risen and the cities are crumbling. In a declining Miami, he sells a risky new technology that allows you to relive your past (and possibly change it, at least fancifully?). But when he discovers the lost love of his life (Rebecca Ferguson) is cropping up in other peoples’ memories, which seem to implicate her in a murder, well… things are bound to start getting weird. We don’t know a whole lot more, but we cannot wait to find out more.

Candyman

August 27

Announced back in 2018, this spiritual sequel to Bernard Rose’s 1992 original is one of the most exciting and anticipated movies on the calendar. Produced by Jordan Peele and directed by Nia DaCosta, the film takes place in the present day and about a decade after Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects have been torn down. Watchmen’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays an up-and-coming visual artist who moves to the now-gentrified area with his partner and is inspired by the legend of Candyman, an apparition with a hook for a hand, to create new work about the subject. But in doing so, he risks unleashing a dark history and a new wave of violence.

Tony Todd, the star of the original movie, will also reprise his role in a reboot that aims to inspire fear for only the right reasons.

The Beatles: Get Back

August 27

Director Peter Jackson thinks folks have a poisoned idea about the Beatles in their final days. Often portrayed as divided and antagonistic toward one another during the recordings of their last albums, particularly Let It Be (which was their penultimate studio recording and final release), Jackson insists this misconception is influenced by Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 documentary named after the album.

So, after going through the reams of footage Lindsay-Hogg shot but didn’t use, Jackson has crafted this new documentary about the album’s recording which is intended to paint a fuller (and more feel-good) portrait of the band which changed the world. Plus, the music’s going to be great…

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

September 3

The greatest fighter in Marvel history finally hits the big screen with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Simu Liu (Kim’s Convenience) takes on the title role of a character destined for a bright future in the MCU. Marvel fans might note that the “Ten Rings” of the title is the same organization that first appeared all the way back in Iron Man, and Tony Leung will finally bring their villainous leader, The Mandarin, to life. Awkwafina of The Farewell and Crazy Rich Asians fame also stars. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12), this should deliver martial arts action unlike anything we’ve seen so far in the MCU.

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amillioninprizes · 5 years ago

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Some thoughts on Veronica Mars, fan service, and noir

I’ve been on winter break and at home with a nasty combo cold-ear infection-stomach virus the past couple of weeks, and as so often happens when I don’t have much going on, my thoughts have turned to ruminating over the steaming pile of excrement that was season 4 of Veronica Mars. Why yes, almost six months and one cancellation notice later and I’m still complaining about it--as I told someone on Twitter, it was so stupid that it’s going to take years to unpack.

This particular rant is brought to you by a common refrain seen in both professional critics’ and S4 supporters’ reviews of S4: the movie was schlocky fan service, while S4 is TRUE NOIR. I’m here to argue that neither of those things are true, and that in the grand scheme of things trying to definitively call Veronica Mars noir or not isn’t the best qualitative judgement of the series.

A note on “fanservice”

Something that’s been very strange to me in the critical discussion around S4 is that the fan-funded movie has been retconned as a fanservicey failure. This is weird because it did get a positive Rotten Tomatoes score, actually turned a profit despite the unorthodox distribution model, and was overall well-received by fans except for maybe the 5 Piz lovers out there (he absolutely did not deserve better you guys; he works at This American Life and lives in Brooklyn, he’ll be fine).

A lot of the things pointed to in the movie as fan service actually weren’t. In every interview about the movie and S4, RT and KB always talk about how they started with the image of Veronica punching Madison at the high school reunion and worked from there. The problem is that almost no one had been asking for that. If they had bothered to read any online discourse about the show (and we know RT definitely does), they would know that fans are actually somewhat sympathetic to Madison--after all, she was the intended recipient of the drugged drink Veronica received at Shelly Pomeroy’s party, plus growing up in a family that she wasn’t meant to be a member of must have negatively impacted her. When the preview scene of Veronica encountering Madison at the reunion welcome table was released, Veronica didn’t come off sympathetically. In a similar vein, as much as I liked Corny as a side character in the original series, I didn’t need him to come back for that random scene at the reunion. Nor was anyone asking for an out-of-nowhere James Franco cameo (which given what we know about him now is super gross in hindsight).

So why was the movie well-received by fans? Veronica was in character after an unevenly written and performed S3, and she was back in Neptune, doing what (and who; Ay-yo!) she was meant to do. So while the mystery was subpar (and what Rob Thomas mystery isn’t?), the character side of the story made sense and was satisfying. I wouldn’t call that fan service so much as good writing. Plus, what is even the point of wasting time, money, and effort on making a tv show or movie if it’s going to actively alienate the audience?

S4: more trauma porn than true noir

Admittedly, I’m not exactly the world’s foremost scholar on film noir (in my opinion, the height of cinema is teen romcoms c. 1995-2005), but I do feel I have enough pop cultural knowledge to have a working understanding of what film noir is, and as internet folk would say, S4 ain’t it chief. Sure, S4 was bleak subject matter wise, but that does not automatically equal noir. HappilyShanghaied, who does have a film studies background, wrote a pretty excellent post about why that is shortly after S4 dropped that I could not improve upon, so I will just leave it here.

In addition to this analysis, I would also point out that S4 was lacking in a unique visual style common to noir films, especially compared to the original television series and the movie. The original series made use of green, blue, and yellow filters to fulfill a high school version of the noir aesthetic (quick shoutout to Cheshirecatstrut’s color theory posts for more on what we thought this meant before it turned out that Rob Thomas did not actually intend to imbue meaning into any of this), while the movie adopted a more mature muted blue-grey palette. S4, however, was more or less shot like a conventional drama and was brightly lit, perhaps signifying Rob Thomas’s apparent plans to turn the show into a conventional procedural.

The movie: more than fan service

If anything, the movie was more noir than S4. Take Gia’s storyline for instance. While Veronica was off obtaining elite degrees, Gia spent 9 years in a virtual cage being forced into a sexual relationship without her total consent (because that’s the only storyline women can have on this show), and then set herself up to be murdered at the very moment she could potentially break free. That’s pretty fucking grim.

Then there is the whole police corruption storyline, which is a hallmark of noir fiction. The glimpses we get of the Neptune sheriff’s department point to a larger conspiracy at play than just crooked cops; Sachs lost his life trying to expose it and Keith was gravely injured. This was the story I was excited for future installments of Veronica Mars to address, especially given its relevance to today’s politics. Unfortunately, this thread was entirely dropped in S4, where the police department (because, as Rob Thomas revealed in interviews but not onscreen, Neptune has incorporated) is merely overwhelmed by the scope of the bombing case rather than outright corrupt. (Side note but Marcia Langdon was also a more complex and morally grey character when introduced in the second book than she was on screen in S4. Another wasted opportunity).

Noir is also marked by a sense of inevitability or doom as a result of greater forces at play. An example of this in the movie is Weevil’s storyline. After building a life and family for himself, he ultimately ends up rejoining the PCHer gang he left as a teenager due to a misunderstanding based on his race and appearance and the assumptions authority figures make about him because of those things. No matter what he does, he is still limited by an unjust and racist society. Contrast this with the final explosion in S4; it’s not inevitable, just based on Veronica’s incompetence. Rob Thomas claims that he tried to create a sense of doom to LoVe’s relationship between the OOC Leo storyline and the last minute barriers before the wedding, but those aspects just served to make the story unnecessarily convoluted.

What is noir anyway? Was Veronica Mars ever noir? Does it matter?

But this is all assuming there is a set template for noir anyway. This New Yorker essay points out that trying to definitively establish a set of rules for noir is difficult and that the classic noir films were more a product of midcentury artistic and political movements than a defined genre. The noir filmmakers working at the time would not have described their work as such. The kicker of this essay is the final sentence: “But the film noir is historically determined by particular circumstances; that’s why latter-day attempts at film noir, or so-called neo-noirs, almost all feel like exercises in nostalgia.” I found this particularly amusing because as Rob Thomas infamously proclaimed in his S4 era interviews, he wanted to completely dispense with nostalgia going forward. Rob Thomas and S4 supporters have said that Logan needed to die because noir protagonists can’t have stable relationships; but, if there isn’t a defined set of rules other than “an element of crime”, then was it strictly necessary? Hell, writing a hardboiled detective who does have a stable relationship and maybe even a family could have been an interesting subversion of genre expectations. Unfortunately, Rob Thomas isn’t that imaginative.

There’s also the issue that noir and hardboiled detective fiction aren’t interchangeable genres. This article lays out that idea that they aren’t the same because noir is ultimately about doomed losers; in contrast, detective fiction, while dark, contains a moral center and has an ending where a sense of justice is achieved. An interview with author Megan Abbott makes a similar argument; she states that in hardboiled detective fiction, “At the end, everything is a mess, people have died, but the hero has done the right thing or close to it, and order has, to a certain extent, been restored.” Based on the descriptions laid out here, I would argue that in its original format Veronica Mars far better fit the detective fiction model; while she wasn’t always right, she was never a loser, and she solved the mystery. S1-3 all had relatively hopeful, if not totally happy, endings, but you never see anyone complaining that they weren’t noir enough; if anything, they were more emotionally complex than the ending of S4, where Logan’s death is essentially meaningless. One could make the argument that S4 did push Veronica towards a more noir characterization by the definition of these articles by making her more incompetent and meaner than she was in previous installments, but that is a fundamental change in character, which is not coherent writing.

And that is ultimately why S4 was so poorly received by longtime fans and why there will be no more installments of Veronica Mars anytime soon (at least on Hulu). Even if S4 had been noir (or at least shot like one), the serious issues with plotting, characterization, and lack of adherence to prior canon that this season exhibited would still exist. Defending the poor writing choices made in S4 with “it’s noir!” does not mask them or automatically heighten the quality of the product. Perhaps ironically, in ineptly trying to be noir in S4, Rob Thomas likely prematurely ended Veronica Mars by failing his creation and fans with lazy storytelling.

#Veronica Mars #Burnt Marshmallow #Yeah I'm still angry what of it #If only RT had put as much effort into writing the show as I did into this post

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thesinglesjukebox · 5 years ago

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IDINA MENZEL & AURORA - INTO THE UNKNOWN

[5.83]

[Knock, knock, knock-knock, knock] Do you want to build a sequel?

Jessica Doyle: Given Disney's current reputation for nostalgic repetition, I was pleasantly surprised to find Frozen II full of ideas -- in fact so full of ideas that almost none of them actually get developed with any coherence. (Whose voice was it again? And why is Olaf suddenly obsessed with aging? And how was a troop of Arendellian soldiers going missing without a trace for three decades not an issue? Et cetera.) "Into the Unknown" is as good a preview of the incoherence as any, as the song makes no sense narratively, psychologically (having spent all but the last six months of her life being taught decorum and self-distrust to the point of pathology, Elsa is ready to flee Arendelle because she... hears a voice?), or musically: the build-up to the chorus is repeatedly off-puttingly paced, most clearly in the "How... do I... follow... YOUUUUU" climactic line. But then again, I can say all this with authority because my older daughter, who was well finished with the first movie, is insisting on playing the soundtrack on the way to school. Maybe stuffing your sequels full of ideas and not worrying too much about the implications is more profitable than Bob Iger is willing to admit. [4]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: It's impossible to discuss "Into the Unknown" without discussing the massive success of "Let It Go." "Let it Go" was the rare type of cultural touchstone whose power was almost universal: it sold 11 million copies the year after the movie came out, won an Academy Award and Grammy, reached top five on the Billboard Hot 100, was translated into 44 different languages, and arguably paved the way for Disney to release a second movie and Broadway musical. Winter 2013-2014 when the movie came out, I remember singing this song in French during French class; in 2020, I'm putting on a musical production of Frozen with my students in China and every one of them -- inexplicably, even the ones who really don't speak English -- knows the words to the chorus. This is all to say: expectations for the second Frozen soundtrack were sky-high, and thus, "Into the Unknown" has been sold as the new "Let It Go" almost since before the movie was even released. (I'd argue that "Show Yourself" is a better thematic follow-up, but never mind me.) So does "Into the Unknown" live up to the hype? Not exactly; but to no fault of its own. The song works perfectly well as a way to advance the character development of Elsa and is gorgeously sung. Idina Menzel sells trepidation, fear, and excitement convincingly, and harmonizes with Aurora beautifully. It pays tribute to its listeners too; if "Let it Go" is a child's anthem about becoming the person you have always been despite what others think, "Into the Unknown" is the adult version of that, a song about escaping the comfortable life you've built in hopes of finding something new about the world and yourself. The song is doomed to live in the shadow of its predecessor, but is still excellent in its own right. [8]

Jonathan Bradley: "Let It Go" was, for all its power, an introspective ballad that turned on the first Frozen's theme of the liberating wonder of self-discovery. Its successor, "Into the Unknown," is tasked with maneuvering great wedges of plot into position, meaning it has to be the film's showstopper as well as taking on narrative weight that "Love is an Open Door" and "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" bore first time around. (The piano flurries that form the intro deliberately invoke the latter.) Aurora's four-note motif, the sinuous call that leads Idina Menzel's Elsa out of a resolved story and the security of her home of Arendelle, is appropriately otherworldly, but the song needs far too much to be overwhelming to allow that delicate melody the space it needs to be as entrancing as it is supposed to be. But "Into the Unknown" does eventually manage to be more than stage-setting; "Are you someone out there who's a little bit like me/Who knows deep down I'm not where I'm meant to be" is a couplet that speaks to that deep-seated sense of strangeness Elsa sees within herself and which has made her movies more than a toddler-sized-blue-dress dissemination mechanism. Something else helps: Menzel's horizon-shattering wail when she hits "unknown." The voice that defied gravity on "Defying Gravity" has the heft to move these big wedges of plot to where they need to go. [7]

Katie Gill: Whereas "Let it Go" was "Defying Gravity" reskinned, "Into the Unknown" is every musical theater "I want" song reskinned. Elsa wants to see how far she'll go, she's gotta find her corner of the sky, and for once it might be grand to have someone understand. As such, it's something we've heard before. A decent re-interpretation of something we've heard before with downright beautiful harmonies near the end, but something we've heard before nonetheless. "Into the Unknown" also fails in the job it's supposed to do: be inoffensive and singable enough that five year olds or my drunk ass can sing it through all the way without disaster happening. That last "into the unKNOOO-OOOOO-OOO-OOOOOWN" is very nice and very powerful and is comprised of notes that six-year-old girls and my exceedingly alto range cannot hit. But, like "Let it Go" before it, this is a song that Disney has carefully crafted and reverse-engineered and is putting so much pressure to be an actual hit. Of course it's going to be decent. Not as amazing as "Let it Go," which is easily a [9] on a good day and a [10] when I'm drunk, but a solid song nonetheless and one that I won't mind hearing when Idina inevitably performs it at the Oscars or when my five-year-old second cousin starts happily talking to me about Frozen at the next family reunion. [7]

Jackie Powell: Although Elsa doesn't build an ice castle at the conclusion of this power ballad, "Into The Unknown" doesn't need to be accompanied by gigantic visuals for it to be a much more complex and fascinating song than its predecessor. This track soars and it uses a potent string section, predictable but equally fun percussive cymbal crashes and Aurora's eerie dies irae gregorian chant as a counter melody. There's a certainty in "Let It Go" and that must be one of the reasons why it caught on as much as it did. But the difference in "Into the Unknown" is its obvious ambiguity in subject matter and tone. It's not sure of itself, but I don't think that detracts from its quality. That's why I don't think it's really all that comparable to "Let It Go." Its goals and motives are different. It's more mature in lyrical plot and composition. "Into the Unknown" takes leaps and breaths just as Elsa does when she's contemplating her next move. That's the beauty of the track, which composers Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez have addressed. Each line in each chorus is symbolic. In every "Into the Unknown" within the refrain, Idina Menzel takes a leap sonically. First, she travels an octave higher, which is a relatively safe interval, but then that is followed by the much more difficult intervals as the chorus ends. Menzel's voice goes up a ninth followed by an eleventh. Vocally she's out of her comfort zone, which pushes Elsa to do the same. The melody is clearly a bit choppier. It also bounces especially on the couplet of alliterations: " I'm sorry, secret siren, but I'm blocking out your calls." Its dynamics are much more defined and that's credit to Menzel, who wanted to sell the track as more than a "Let It Go" B-side. The extended queer metaphor that Elsa represents is able to flourish under "Unknown." Although it really shows itself much more later in the soundtrack. [7]

Edward Okulicz: Yeah, look, Frozen II: Heterosexuality Reclaims the Throne of Arendelle gave me plenty of feels too, but I always preferred "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" to "Let It Go," so this wasn't one of the Primary Feels Sources. The use of Aurora's four note call as a leitmotif is pretty clever melodically, but forcing this song and its narrative pivot kicking and screaming into being an "I Want" song (subclassification: "I Must," which if it doesn't already exist, it, well... should) is unbecoming. The asides ("which I don't") feel unnatural away from the cinema, and while Menzel surely blasts with those notes I don't feel moved when I replay. [6]

Brad Shoup: It's quenching when, in the second half of the second verse, Menzel dips into some jump-blues phrasing. There was no way this thing was going to stay an Arctic tone poem, so I'm grateful for moments like that. Toss out the movie and have Menzel reel in the asides, and you'd have a fantastically mysterious piece of piano-pop. [7]

Thomas Inskeep: I've never seen either of the Frozen films, but I recall how annoying I found "Let It Go," from the first film. This is better (though still, of course, a big Broadway-style ballad); I appreciate how this song will likely speak to theatre kids who feel like the weirdos in their schools -- songwriters Kristin Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, obviously, have a knack for this kind of thing. Having Broadway queen Idina Menzel sing it helps, as does the clever move of having Norwegian singer Aurora sing the part of the siren. Judged for what it is, rather than as a basic pop record, this is solid. [6]

Ashley Bardhan: As a recuperating former theater kid, I hoped this strange collaboration would be everything I wanted but couldn't admit. Unfortunately, it turned out to be nothing I wanted, which I feel comfortable admitting. I'm not sure what Aurora is meant to do on this track other than supply wordless, ghostly ooo-ing, which opens you to a sense of mysterious possibility that goes absolutely nowhere. Idina Menzel is a powerhouse and typically good at convincing us that we are in her character's world, but even she sounds bored at the incongruously triumphant swelling of orchestra during the chorus. She calls out from the overblown composition, "Into the unknown! Isn't it cool that I'm hitting this E-flat in chest voice?!" Yes, it is very cool, but less so that the last 40 seconds of this song is essentially musical theatre sacrilege. A money-maker high-note chorus into a painfully loud bridge that conveys absolutely no mood other than "me and Aurora are both singing right now," only to end with a very embarrassing, ham-fisted belted note? And they had the audacity to let Idina put a slide in there? No, no. No, no, no. No. [3]

Alfred Soto: No, no, I mean -- let me go. [3]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Even more than the first installment, Frozen II was lacking in songs that were memorable in and of themselves. "Lost in the Woods," for example, is really only notable for the animation that accompanied it: a montage riffing on '80s music videos that proved unexpectedly entertaining. "Into the Unknown" is the film's best song, but the music doesn't quite match what the lyrics are trying to convey: Why is the first chorus so bombastic when Elsa's not yet convinced to follow this siren's song? At least "Let It Go" knew how to accomplish a sensible narrative arc with its use of dynamic range. "Unknown" doesn't come together as neatly as "Let It Go" either, which found a lot of meaning in the evolving delivery of "the cold never bothered me anyway." The complaints could go on but at the end of the day, I can't really hate something that finds Aurora using kulning -- Scandinavian herding calls -- as a narrative tool. [5]

Tobi Tella: I was 13 when the first Frozen came out, and despite the fact that I probably should've been too old for Disney princess movies by the unspoken middle school social construct standards, I dragged my dad to see it in theaters. That probably should've been his first inkling that I was gay, and as clear as Disney's attempts to play on my emotions were as a shy insecure gay kid, the introverted, uncomfortable princess Elsa was the most accurate representation I had really found of myself in a kids movie. "Let It Go" was not only a cultural moment but a formative one and even though looking back as an adult I know that Frozen has flaws, I can't help but be empowered by it now. This song was set up to fail by its positioning it as "Let It Go II," and the seams of this one are far more clear; the chorus is literally just one phrase repeated and the lyrics are prime "leave nothing to the imagination or subtext and explain all your feelings." But I still feel an intense connection to this; maybe it's Menzel's strong and evocative vocal performance, maybe it's nostalgia, and maybe it's the feeling that even as a 19 year old my experience with my identity is not even close to over, the fact that there will always be unknowns which are horrifying yet intriguing (hello adult gay dating!). I'm not sure if this is a great song, or even a good one, but for a sequel with impossibly huge expectations it managed to evoke the same intense reaction that "Let It Go" did, so I guess Disney and their manipulations win this round. [7]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

#Idina Menzel #Aurora #Frozen II #Disney #pop #music #music review #movie

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abitterlifethroughcinema · 6 years ago

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WOKE! Film Reviews in BCN

The Summer 2019 Movie Season Kick-Off!

by Lucas Avram Cavazos

Cue DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince! When I was coming of age in the 90s and early millennium, there were moment of sheer relief, joy even, as June broke through with certain heat in tow, that the summer would be bringing with it a break from the reality of non-stop scholastic rigamarole, as well as, a load of blockbuster films and some hot dance jams of the summertime. It was also usually ushered in by the Entertainment Weekly annual summer movie preview, but who gets magazine subscriptions nowadays? What we do get is down to business, so let’s roll!

Men In Black International ##-1/2

The first MIB film was released just as I made that high school to uni transition, and over two decades later, we start the 2019 summer movie season with this fourth instalment of what may have easily been put out to pasture long ago, but why stop when there is profit to be had, right? The charming sense of wonder that was first introduced to us back in ’97 was even served up back then with a now no longer Fresh Prince, but instead a mediocre hip-pop Will Smith single…oh the 90s. The thing is, that first film came across as right on time. Remember, this was at the height of paranormal entertainment, as the X-Files ruled the telly waves, alien movies started being produced in spades and pretty much everything commenced a somewhat pre-millennium tension, so setting a comedy/action thriller based on the tracking and maintaining of aliens in modern NYC society was a perfect, cinematic fit. In 2019, we now get the “int’l” version of MIB, where Agents H and B come poised like action figures in the skins of Thor:Ragnarok alums Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson. They have been given the specific job of playing escorts to one of H’s old alien buddies who is a bigwig now and visiting Earth in search of a grand old time…cute. And then it becomes clear that old homeboy is also in possession of a diamond-sized weapon that could be a seismic shift to life as we know it and other evil forces want this for their possession too and la di da di da….It’s all been so overdone before, and I abhor seeing Miley Cyrus’ bro-in-law making such trite shite when, despite the obvious camaraderie between him and Lady Agent B, of which there is suspiciously mucho, when the script by three different writers is so obviously lacklustre, where is one to go from there? I digress but while it’s fun to see director F. Gary Gray do his attempt at dealing with alien life forms and shape-shifting cretins with a glossy sheen of comedy, if there is such real substance, how can you make a tired series shoot back to life? Answer: NOT LIKE THIS!

Aladdin ###-1/2

Disney’s consistent, modern renderings of animated classics into live-action, blockbuster behemoths continues with Guy Ritchie’s take on this undoubted classic from 1992 remade for #metoo 2019. While it may seem odd to not give the task to an Indian or Arab director, Ritchie takes on the task with aplomb that even gives this version a, dare I even say it, a woke feel to a story that truly should not be lily-white. Original Broadway star of Aladdin and TV’s Jack Ryan star Mena Massed nails it just as annoyingly as Robbie Benson did back in the day as the titular character, and although Indan-English actress Naomi Scott is a tad meh in her role, she also employs a fresh sense of independent woman ‘tude that vibrates through the celluloid and scenery despite the paint-by-numbers songs. But, let’s be frank, it’s beyond time that a production so perfectly timed and so immense in this modern time should and would have POC actors painting a picture of those times, so it comes to no surprise that Ritchie would want a big name star like Will Smith to embody the role left so perfectly-tinged with greatness like the cartoon original voiced by the late, great Robin Williams. Guess what? He does the role very fine justice…thankfully. And he does it in a classic, Fresh Prince vibe…smoothly and with easy aplomb. I also found the choices of lady-in-waiting Nasim Pedrad as Dahlia and Marwan Kenzari as the cruel Jafar as impeccably cast worthy…timely comic and story relief. Gone, however, is the annoyingly necessary voice of evil parrot sidekick Iago by Gilbert Gottfried and instead is a guy with a bird-like tone. Only time will tell if this particular film piece stands the test of time as I believe The Jungle Book and latter Beauty and the Beast will, but after the ho-hum taste of MIB Int’l, I’ll take this eye-spectacle anyway!

Godzilla: King of the Monsters ##-1/2

In this new addition to the decades-old franchise, our infamous title character gets to slug it against a foe out on the field at Fenway Park…fun! For years now, dino and/or Godzilla movies have consistently littered the summer movie theatres for more than a couple of decades now. Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a sequel to the last 2014 eyesore, which was released just before I began critiquing cinema, so right off the bat, the film commences with a throwback to the drama where the other film left us and we get paleo-biologist and mum Emma Russell (Vera Famiga of The Conjuring and Bates Motel fame) tethered to her adorable one Madison (Stranger Things star Mille Bobby Brown) as they gaze in awe at the apparent nascence of a larva named Mothra. This kaiju movie (entertainment that employs the use of oversized combative creatures) happens to present us with the fact that Godzilla is a supposed ringleader of the Titans, which are huge, dormant creatures ensconced beneath the earth…you know the ones, Rodan, the aforementioned Mothra, Monarch, something called Monster Zero…oh and don’t forget that Monster Zero is also called Ghidora, and if you’re not confused yet, let me give you another interesting summer movie fact…this film also stars Sally Hawkins of The Shape of Water and Blue Jasmine success and king of character actors and John Sayles movies David Strathairn as some admiral. My qualm comes down to this…if this is the shlocky summer stuff Hollywood is going to be throwing at us for the next three months, we’ve got a long way to go, and I’m going to have to apply some indie skills real fast because watching so many good actors put to mediocre use is not the way to start off the summer! Here’s to hoping.

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i-jus-wanna-writehappy · 7 years ago

Text

As Old As Time [2/?]

Pairing: teen!Richie Tozier x black!fem!Reader

Warnings: cursing, hateful act towards reader racially

Author's Note: I love writing this piece, and I can't wait to get further into the story. I hope you enjoy this addition :)

Part 1

Masterlist Black Girl Insert Series

* * * * *

Stan groans as he looks at his watch for the tenth time, "Richie, it's 1:45! She isn't coming, can we just go do what we had originally planned?" Richie throws his head back in a dramatic groan, "Fine! Fine, you guys go, I'm gonna catch up in a minute." Richie begins pushing his bike towards the main road with a scowl on his face.

"Where are you going now?" Ben asks, voicing what they were all thinking. Richie doesn't look back at them as he answers, "I'm gonna go ask Y/N who the hell she thinks she is."

You're shimmying to the music coming from your radio as you place more of your clothes in your wardrobe when your mom knocks on your bedroom door. Holding the pile in one arm, struggling to keep the clothes from hitting the floor, you pull the door open with your newly free hand. Before you can say anything though, your mom is speaking, "There's some boy I've never seen before pounding on our door and yelling your name."

Silently cursing Richie - it has to be Richie, unless that Stan guy is here to try and push you around - you set the clothes on your bed and grumble all the way to the door.

As soon as you pull the door open, you're face to face with an aggravated Richie Tozier. "What the hell, Y/N!" Before he can curse anymore, you push him back onto the porch and follow him out, closing the door to hide him from your parent's prying eyes.

Once you're safe from any eavesdropping, you remove your hand from Richie's chest and wrinkle your eyebrows at him in question, "What the hell, you! What did I do? And how do you even know where I live?"

Shaking his head, Richie crams his hands in his pockets, "Listen doll, you're gonna have to actually show up for our dates if you ever expect to get in my pants." Richie feels his stomach flutter a bit when you snort a harsh laugh at the line and mentally reminds himself to ask Eddie if he has any meds for fluttering stomachs, because surely it isn't natural. "Really though, no shit, we waited for over an hour."

You can't help but rub your face as you respond, "Richie, I told you I would try to come out. I just moved in yesterday, I'm still unpacking." Richie sighs dramatically, throwing his head back before looking at you again, "Well, have you gotten any unpacking done?"

When you nod, Richie smiles widely, "Great! You can come down to that awful parade with us and be back home in time to put the rest of your stuff away." Instead of letting you answer, Richie grabs your hand and begins pulling you off your porch, "Whoa, Tozier! Give me a second. I still have to tell my parents I'm leaving." The boy groans, but he releases your hand to let you run back up your porch.

"Fuck, that took forever. Can we go now?" Richie pressures as you return with your notebook and pen in hand. Shaking your head in amusement, you begin following Richie down the sidewalk, "And, just so you know, the next time you pop up at my house and don't want my parents to kill us both, introduce yourself and try not to yell fuck or shit while banging the door down. I almost got slapped on both our behalf."

Richie laughs, throwing his arm over your shoulder and pulling you close, "Well, baby doll, I can't make any promises until you stop standing me up."

You and Richie stay this way until you get to the cinema. All of his friends are standing outside, seemingly waiting for the two of you. Once you reach them, Richie jostles your body beneath his arm, "Y/N, these losers are the Losers. Losers, this is Y/N, the reason we all waited in fiery heat for two hours."

A tall boy with a handsome face shakes his head, "I'm Bill." Nudging Richie's arm from your shoulders, you hold your hand out to Bill, "I only told Richie I would try to make it." From there, everyone else introduces themselves, all with easy to remember names. And heaven knows that when you saw Mike it took everything in you to not throw your arms around him. You were positive that there were no other black people in Derry, so his rich brown skin is a welcome surprise.

Once everyone else has finished talking to you, Richie throws his arm around your shoulder, pulling you to his left side and with his other arm, he pulls Eddie into his right side, "Are you losers ready to see the coolest thing you will ever witness?" Breaking away from you, Richie starts screeching in Eddie's ear and clawing at him, "Jurassic Park!"

Eddie's arms flail as he attempts to push Richie away from him and the sight makes you laugh. Mike notices you writing quickly in your notebook as you look from the page to Richie and Eddie, "So, are you a writer?" He asks, making sure to stand across from you so he doesn't seem as if he's trying to invade your privacy, a luxury you haven't gotten im Richie's company alone.

You nod as you finish your note and put your pen back in your pocket, "I like to think so. Derry and the people here have already proved to be more than enough inspiration." Mike laughs as you sigh dramatically, "Hopefully nothing too bad. The quarry is beautiful, I would definitely recommend getting some inspiration from there, even if you don't go with us."

Richie notices you and Mike talking and inserts himself in the conversation immediately, "Alright then, Mike. Leave all flirtatious banter up to me, that's my role here." The comment makes you roll your eyes as you gesture to the Jurassic Park poster on the door to the cinema, "Sure, Richie. Are you all going to see Jurassic Park before the parade?"

Ben nods, but before he can ask if you want to watch it with them, Richie throws his arm back over your shoulder, "Why? Worried you'll get scared, baby doll? If that's the case, we could always just sit in the back and make out the whole time." With a snort, you move Richie's arm and turn to face him, your hand shielding your eyes from the sun, "No, I already saw it, I'm gonna watch The Good Son the room over."

The boys all stop, their eyebrows raised, "The one with Macaulay Culkin?" Ben asks you with his face scrunched up. You smile widely and nod, "Yeah. I've been wanting to watch it, I love those kinds of movies." Eddie just shakes his head quickly and reaches into his fanny pack for a piece of gum, "I don't know why. That looks creepy. I hope I never have to watch it."

Everybody seems to agree, so you just chuckle and make your way into the cinema, "Okay then. I guess I'll see you guys on the other side." Richie feels his fingers twitching anxiously before making his decision, "Fuck." He mutters, as he makes his way beside you at the ticket booth, "Make that two for The fucking Good Son."

You can't help the chuckle that passes your mouth when Richie groans at having his money taken and trudges behind you to the candy counter. Once you're equipped with Twizzlers, slushies, popcorn, and Milk Duds, you and Richie find two seats in the room together, his leg bouncing the entire time.

"Come on, Tozier," You whisper as the trailers start, "What's the big deal?" Richie doesn't appreciate your teasing tone, though, scoffing as he wipes a hand full of popcorn grease onto his shorts, "I just don't like the idea of seeing sweet little Kevin McCallister creeping people out and killing kids. Fucking sue me."

Sighing dramatically, you rearrange your snacks in your lap so you can lean closer to Richie, "Look, Rich, if you get too scared, you can hold my hand. I'll keep it free, just in case." This seems to snap Richie from his fearful sulking as he sits up in his seat and turns to you with a shit eating grin on his face, "Jesus, Y/N, if you wanted to hold my hand, you could have just asked. You didn't have to force me to watch this creepy ass movie with you."

Richie is satisfied with your silence at his line when he sees you pull out your pen and scribble in your notebook quickly.

For the rest of the trailers, you sit quietly. You are stuffing your face, watching the terrifying scenes intently, but Richie has decided to make staring at you his incredibly valid reason for not watching the scary previews to movies he'll pretend won't give him nightmares for months. Your braids are pulled into a ponytail today, probably for unpacking. He wants to ask a thousand questions about your hair, but knows that even for a guy that can't keep his fucking mouth shut, that's something he doesn't yet have the privilege to do.

His eyes wander from your ponytail to your neck. The brown skin there is tantalizing. Richie nearly falls into a trance thinking of burying his face there for days, hours, seconds, an eternity. His emotions are effecting him so strongly that Richie is suddenly hit with the wonder of how any of the girls in town can resist Mike. Surely, for his attention to be so solitary, so focused, just on the beauty of your skin, it has to be magic. And if you have this magic, then doesn't Mike?

Richie finds he is actually about to vocalize his question, but your excited squeal notifies him that the movie has indeed started, and Richie's bravery tucks itself safely into the salmon pocket of his Hawaiian shirt. "Hey, doll, you know, my offer to suck face and ditch the movie still stands." Richie says, quite unable to not watch the screen, despite his anxious nerves.

When you just snort softly and grab Richie's hand in yours, he's glad, not only for his awful job of hiding his fear, but also your observant nature. Yeah, Richie still crouches low in his seat, but if you let him tell it, he's pretending to still be creeped out so he can keep your hand in his.

By the time the movie is over, Richie is sniffling hard and his hand is squeezing yours tightly. "That was fucking intense." Richie says, still not standing from your seats. The movie wasn't scary, so you know his hand isn't shaking from horror, but maybe some different kind of fear. "You ready to go to the parade with your friends, Richie?" He nods at your question, but still doesn't move. Instead, Richie turns his head to you with a look so different from his usual boyish one that you have to remember to write about it once he lets your hand go, "Can we just sit here for a minute?"

Richie pulls himself together after two minutes and when he looks to you again, all traces of fear, all traces of internal crisis are erased. "Let's go see if the guys are out." Richie says, standing and tugging at your conjoined hands gently. If he can pretend nothing happened, then so can you, for now.

"You know, Richie, the scary movie is off now. You can let my hand go." When you say this, Richie just lets out a quick laugh and stops walking so he can push his face close to yours, "Oh no, on the contrary, Y/N. I watched that scary movie with you, so whenever I see you, I'll be scared all over again. I will need to hold onto you, it's all up to you if it's your hand I'm holding, baby girl."

The cheeky comment is one of many you've heard from Richie, so you just shake your head and push him back, "Your friends aren't out here, go see how much time they still have left of Jurassic Park." When you release Richie's hand, his eyebrows jump up, "Okay, and where are you going?" He reaches for your hand again, but you slap his before it can reach you, "Settle down, Richie. I'm just gonna start walking to the ice cream parlor, okay? Hurry up and meet me, then you can hold my hand all you'd like."

Richie chuckles and tells you to walk slowly before racing to the ticket booth. It's a beautiful day, so you pull out your pen and take a quick note of Richie's shift of behavior in the theater while you meander down the sidewalk. You don't make it very far before Richie steps out and spots you just down the way, head down in your notebook.

He's about to tell you that the rest of the Losers will be approximately 45 minutes, but then time seems to slow when the car beside you slows down. Richie sees you look up, and he grudgingly thinks that maybe you know the guys, but when one throws a cup of pop out of the window and the other calls you the n-word, that thought is dismissed and his grudge is a pit of fiery anger in his stomach.

The guys drive off, but not without Richie rushing after the car, "What the fuck!" He yells after the guys, his hands raised high so they can convey a similar message. Getting his wits about himself, Richie rushes over to you, "Holy shit, Y/N, are you okay? Did they hit you?"

Fortunately, the douche bag had awful aim, so you missed the brunt of the hit, the cup exploding at your feet and spraying pop onto your bare legs and light grey shoes. Sighing heavily, you nod, "Yeah, just a little - do people pull shit like that all the time?" Your anger is evident and growing the longer you look at the soda on the pavement. "Let's go get you cleaned up, okay? We can go get you cleaned up, we can get ice cream, we can forget all about those stupid fucks."

Before you can deny for the option of following those guys and kicking their asses, Richie grabs your hand and pulls it gently, "Come on. The guys have almost another hour, and now you'll have an excuse to sneak me into your bathroom while you get undressed."

Richie effectively takes your mind off your frustrations as you snort and let him tug you along.

#richie tozier #richie tozier imagine #richie tozier x reader #black!reader #black!fem!reader #black reader insert #bgis #black girl insert series #it 2017 imagine #it 2k17 #the losers club #bwwm imagine #losver

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free-martinis · 7 years ago

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Martin Freeman arrives at the Lucca Film Festival and the city moves to the premiere of Ghost Stories . The English horror, already revelation at home, will arrive in Italian theaters on April 19th with Adler Entertainment . Meanwhile, the festival pays homage to it with an exclusive preview, immediately sold out, and a spectacle-themed show (of which you can see some photos in the gallery that follows) Ghost: Art Noir . Despite the shy Freeman has repeatedly declared to detest selfies, autographs and all the rites of notoriety, the heat towards him is felt and he reciprocates with generosity giving himself to fans on a red carpet wet, but full of admirers.

After the passage to Rome, the star of Lo Hobbit and Sherlock discovers the wonders of a fascinating Tuscany, even if it is rainy. A slight disappointment for the actor who admits that he came to Italy above all "to escape the English climate" . Amused, Freeman comments his first time in the medieval town: "I had never been to Lucca, usually when I come to Italy I go south. Last night, while I was walking back to the hotel, I tried to convince myself how romantic the Italian rain was. I felt like you were Call me by your name, I also saw a couple of nice guys on the street, let me add that I'm joking, my press officer is going to have a heart attack . "

Psycho, or the discovery of cinema

A punctual movie lover, Martin Freeman proves to have the pulse of new trends. Despite numerous work commitments, does not give up to go to the movies and during the conversation shows he has seen many of the most interesting titles released in recent months. But the direct references of Ghost Stories are rooted in the past, to be exact in the world of British horror of the 50s and 60s, the legendary golden season of Hammer Films , so when we ask him what his favorite horror, Freeman admits it difficult to choose: "I am very attached to the British tradition of horror because I grew up, I saw them on TV dozens of times, at the time were already ancient. I loved Nightmares ,The five keys to terror and the fury of the Baskervilles . Among the recent horror, the best is undoubtedly Scappa - Get Out " .

Life always finds its way" . This is one of the most suggestive lines of Ghost Stories and is also the way Freeman comments on his choice to become an actor. "My first encounter with the cinema? I was seven when I saw the Psycho trailer on TV, and shortly after I gave the whole movie and my mother told me, 'It's a classic, you have to see it at all.' terrified for the next two years, but I loved him a lot. From there began my love for film and Hitchcock . another memory I have very clear dates back a few years later. One weekend I went to see Bugsy Maloneand Star Wars. On Monday we had to tell in a task what we did on the weekend, almost all of us talked about how Luke Skywalker blew up the spaceship . "

A few years passed from childhood to success. Years of a long apprenticeship culminated in the first incredible success, The Office , BBC series that launched the thirty year old Freeman in the Olympus. "I was lucky and at the time I spent ten hours a day on the set trying not to throw away the lines" . The comedy has remained in the DNA of the interpreter of Bilbo so much to push it to consider it an essential tool to sensitize the public towards important issues:"I do not think genre films are necessarily the best way to communicate, now we feel the need to categorize everything I wanted to be an actor because I wanted to tell stories, it's a human necessity I recently played in a comedy in London on last years of the Labor Party Laughter is one of the best ways to make people aware.Watch Dead Stalin, if he does another , he made us understand a series of historical events thanks to slapstick.A good comedy can communicate much more messages effective than any other format " .

A certain dose of British humor also permeates Ghost Stories , even if the film actually revolves around the supernatural. "I do not know if it exists or not, nobody knows, I try not to be dogmatic, everything is possible for me, I chose to make the film because the script scared me even when I read it early in the morning with a cup of coffee in front. moments made my heart beat, and then I knew the directors well, I knew that I would have fun with them on the set " . The scariest moment, during the processing of the film, however, is not due to the script, but it is the election of Trump."One morning I arrived on the set and the two directors had the goggle faces, none of us believed he could win, we shared the grief on the set and then decided to continue working in an alienating atmosphere . "

My model? Michael Caine

The amarcord moment comes when Martin Freeman recalls the experience on the New Zealand set of The Hobbit . "We were a gang, almost all of us, we often shared cramped spaces, but we never got to grips with testosterone, so there were some of the most important friendships in my life and Peter Jackson is a master," the actor points out. , as a man, his model of virility does not correspond to the standards of machismo. "I am attracted by men who are not afraid of showing their fragility, and when the public faces a hero without defects or weaknesses, he immediately understands that he is fake, I like to tell humanity".

Among the reference models, the principal is undoubtedly Michael Caine . "I discovered him in The Unuspecting and he struck me how he managed to be attractive and virile without being super sexy, he revolutionized acting, but I also love Al Pacino , Robert De Niro and Anthony Hopkins " . We do not know from whom Freeman has borrowed the loose talk, his trademark that also shows off in front of the public in Lucca, but he mocks: "It is not to bore the public, I do not want to put him to sleep". Before saying goodbye, Martin does not avoid a supernatural question. Asked if he would prefer to face a zombie, a ghost or Smaug, he asserts: "Smaug ... Seeing him, maybe I could think about it" .

An interesting article collecting chats and interviews Martin did while at the Lucca Film Festival. I found it fascinating to hear what recent films he saw, which he liked as a child or young man and what some of his acting role models are. (apologies for some strange grammar or wording - the original article is in italian and I pushed it through g**gle translate) - free-martinis

#Martin Freeman #Lucca Film Festival #article #link

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thedeaditeslayer · 6 years ago

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ART OF DARKNESS | An Interview with GRAHAM HUMPHREYS.

This interview from Starburst Magazine features a lot of coverage with Humphreys’ work on the Evil Dead trilogy.

Legendary poster artist GRAHAM HUMPHREYS talks horror, his long career, influences, the evils of Photoshop, and more!

STARBURST: One of your most celebrated earliest works was the iconic UK theatrical poster for Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead, a film which was soon to be dragged unfairly into the whole Video Nasty controversy. Do you think that the notoriety the film gained during this time helped or hindered your career?

Graham Humphreys: The Evil Dead got its UK distribution in 1983, two years before the Video Recordings Act came into law in September 1985. At the age of 23, two years seemed more like ten years at the time and I don’t recall any significant impact on my career during that period. This was for two main reasons, the first being that I was not particularly aware of most of the films that had become a target for the silly and hysterical tabloids, and thus oblivious to how their removal and savage editing might impact on choice or, indeed, the morality of an infantilised nation. Secondly, The Evil Dead had already been censored with a significant number of cuts for the theatrical, and therefore, simultaneous video, release. Mostly, these were simply to reduce the running time on particularly graphic scenes, although I think the eye gouging was almost entirely removed from the original version I’d been shown at a screening. So as far as I was aware, censorship was already in place for VHS. Of course I hadn’t really been introduced to the many European films and the rarely seen, contentious US art-house films that had begun to flood the shelves in the burgeoning VHS rental shops. As we know, many videos were pulled simply because of the titles themselves. It was enough that they sounded as if they might offend! My real introduction to, for instance, Argento and Fulci films came through Richard Stanley, whilst we storyboarded his first feature, Hardware. My film knowledge had been UK/US centric until that point, with the exception of televised European Cinema. If I had to identify any impact on my career, it will presumably have been positive. A Nightmare on Elm Street was released in the UK around the time of the Video Recordings Act coming into law. So if The Evil Dead gave me my first entry into horror marketing, Nightmare’cemented my position within the genre. It’s important to add that the majority of my freelance work at the time did not fit into the genre category. In order to earn a living I was working on a whole raft of other illustration commissions, completely non-horror related. It’s only in the last ten years that I’ve been working almost exclusively in the genre.

It’s heartening to see that you’ve routinely revisited the Evil Dead franchise many times over your career, including the recently sold out vinyl reissue of the original’s score, The Evil Dead – A Nightmare Reimagined; is there anything in particular about that series that inspires you to keep returning?

In truth, it’s not my decision. I am reliant on being commissioned for any job. Although I rarely turn down work, and only do so because of deadline or budget issues, it is always a thrill to return to an earlier title that has been so formative in my career. As with most artists, I perceive only the weaknesses in my work and each chance to make amends is welcome! I have to work within the limits of my ability and experience, returning to a title like The Evil Dead gives me a chance to experiment with ideas and techniques that I didn’t have at the time. The soundtrack you mentioned is an interesting example because the art is not promoting the film as such but rather an appendage, albeit an important one. My personal challenge involved not simply creating a cover for the film, but using it as visual resource. I wanted to use the four panels of the gatefold as a picture book. The cover is thus a rather restrained image compared to the blood drenched final panel within. The discovery of the taped recording is not an explosive gore-filled scene, but the moment where the horror begins, thus Ash is still looking clean and fresh faced. The tape reel is a direct reference to my original poster. A film poster has to capture the essence of a film in a single panel. The gatefold LP format is four such ‘posters’, two double spreads, each a separate chapter. My second version of the Evil Dead 2 poster, the licensed screenprint, was another chance to create a poster from scratch, as if seeing the film for the first time, yet also acknowledging that which had gone before. I suspect I’ll be returning to the woods again!

Speaking of that iconic Evil Dead 2 poster, how did it feel to see that piece so lovingly referenced by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg in the debut season of Spaced?

I didn’t see the original run of Spaced, so was unaware of the poster’s use. In fact, I think I was only made aware whilst preparing some ultimately unused concepts for a Shaun of the Dead cinema poster. Naturally, it was a thrill to finally see the series and how the poster was featured so prominently. When Tim inadvertently recreates the pose on the poster, it reminded me of how I’d photographed a friend posing in the exact same way to provide my reference for the original painting! I used a lot of Polaroid photographs in the eighties. Whenever you see a hand in a piece of my artwork, it’s usually mine. Even in the recent Blu-ray cover for Arrow films Blood and Black Lace, that’s me dressed in black! I used a camera on a 10 second timer!

Moving away from Raimi’s franchise, which other genre properties have been favourites to work on?

Aside from The Evil Dead, only A Nightmare on Elm Street provided a number of sequential commissions. I was a fan of the first film, after seeing a preview screening at London’s Scala Cinema. This was some months before being asked to illustrate the eventual UK poster campaign. I appreciated the risk Palace Pictures took by returning to my services. Nightmare’ was completely different to The Evil Dead and the last thing they required was the crude punk rock exploitation look of the 1983 artwork. Most clients pigeonhole artists’ work; I can’t imagine any other client would have had the foresight to make the decision. I then worked on each of the four sequels - the third was my work, though not an illustration - plus a number of Nightmare’ related jobs. Another film I’ve returned to - pun intended - is The Return of the Living Dead. I was unhappy with my original VHS cover, simply because I felt I didn’t have the skills to pull off what I’d intended - this despite the fact that people clearly liked the sleeve - so I recreated the art for a dedicated Blu-ray screening event, really as an experiment. Since then I’ve painted a book cover - Cult Screenings’ 245 Trioxin - and a Shout Factory US Blu-ray release. There was also a hybrid Re-Animator/Return of the Living Deadposter for the Cult Screenings Don Calfa event.

It’s probably safe to say that the vast majority of our readers miss the days of artwork posters and sleeves; why do you think that the studios and distributors moved away from the medium in the ’90s?

Easy answer - Photoshop! It wasn’t an available tool until then. Photocomposition was an expensive process prior to the ‘affordable’ introduction of the software. The skills involved in splicing large format transparencies, re-photographing them and retouching using bleaches and dyes to hide the joins, made it the work of highly skilled artists. Even the early version of computer ‘comping’ involved using specialised facilities, desktop computing was still unaffordable for most designers... the expense was enormous. But I realised very quickly that unlike the tradition of transparency retouching, new computer ‘comping was entirely technology-led and often lacked the artist’s eye. Unfortunately, this is still often the case. High definition has replaced suggestion. I also suspect that as film studios found their talent ever more demanding of obscenely large fees, the need to make full use of an expensive face took over from merely expressing the film’s subject matter. Photography took over. It is slightly disappointing that in a market awash with Photoshop portraiture, there is also a new visual illiteracy. The beautiful posters created by Saul Bass are a prime example of how film marketing moved away from his symbolism to a new literalism, becoming infantilised by Photoshop. As Quentin Tarantino observed, contemporary film posters look more like ‘Vogue covers’. Pouting, overpaid actors retouched in high definition. Painted images are a springboard of suggestion and imagination. A photograph, no matter how beautiful, is simply that.

Conversely, the rise of home video distributors specialising in cult & classic reissues like Arrow and Eureka has created a hunger for newly commissioned artwork. Do you feel that the trend may ever come full circle and return to the mainstream at all?

That’s doubtful. Illustrated images are mostly used for reissues, ancillary campaigns or independent films with limited distribution, but rarely first run releases. However, I think that’s fine. In many ways, there will always be more freedom of expression where the reductive, corporate needs of accountants, executives and moneyed interns are factored out. Modern film marketing is led by money people, not art directors. It may always have been a ‘business’, but it often seems there is little encouragement for true mavericks or creative outsiders right now. In the same way that major releases tend to be franchises, sequels or star vehicles, the campaigns are reflective of a homogenised business where risk is discouraged. But hey, never say never!

Which artists would you say have influenced your style and, or, career?

It’s a mix. I take inspiration wherever it arises. From my early childhood, visits to the local library - I was fascinated by religious depictions of demons and hell - all easily accessible images of horror! And of course, the Bible is full of gratuitously shocking imagery. I didn’t have a particularly religious upbringing, though like many of my generation, Sunday school was just one of those things that you went to as routine. The promise of Sunday school outings to the coast was the biggest draw. It’s curious to look back and see that I was ‘confirmed’ as a Christian in my early teens - before I really understood the contexts and realities of ‘faith’. I’m now atheist. As an amusing aside, my nose bled during the confirmation! I also served at the altar in the local church. I consider it an induction into the world of ‘gothic’! I then found myself becoming aware of book covers and film posters; the magical touchstone for many was Dennis Gifford’s A Pictorial History of Horror Movies. Tom Chantrell’s cover was easily the biggest catalyst for everything that followed. Some film posters stood out more than others, but many of the US posters seemed to be painted by jobbing artists with their own specialist areas - US civil war, cowboys, landscapes - and quite how they ended up providing some of the most memorable ‘disaster movie’ posters is something I’ve always thought was rather odd. I’ve named Chantrell, but in the UK, Vic Fair created some amazing work. From the US - Drew Struzan, Bob Peak, Richard Amsel and J.C. Leyendecker. The printed posters of Jules Cheret, Toulouse Lautrec and Alphonse Mucha. The new generation of British illustrators that emerged during my college years. The work of Saul Bass and graphic artists too numerous to catalogue... Sometimes it might only be one particular piece of work from an individual’s entire output. But I also take inspiration from the abstract and tribal... and a particular love of Tibetan sacred art.

Many of our readers, and writers for that matter, will have grown up with at least one of your movie posters tacked to their bedroom walls; who or what adorned yours?

I should have added both Bruce Pennington and Roger Dean to that last answer. They both adorned mine! Now it’s almost all vintage posters - the Universal monster films, Corman’s Poe films and many of the Hammer Horror - there seems to be a lot of Christopher Lee and Vincent Price! But yes, back then I had a copy of Jaws, Earthquake and The Hindenburg as my first collected film posters.

How long would you say on average commission takes to complete?

Depending on the complexity, a painting might take anywhere between two and four days, maximum five. The fee often decides what time you can allow. If I spent two weeks on a job that was only covering the fee of one day, I’d be out of business pretty fast. The preliminary process - viewing a film, making grabs, the sketching etc. - can often be completed in a day. This time is generally not covered in the fee; I tend to quote on the painting process!

A studio or distributor gets in touch - can you walk us through the process of creating a piece?

It’s often been different in the past, but the process has been whittled down to a fairly simple set of stages. 1) The initial contact and acceptance of a job - once a budget and deadline has been mutually agreed. 2) Viewing the film, or materials, to get a measure of the subject and an understanding of how best to approach the project - the client will usually indicate upfront any particular requests... ie. required imagery or portraiture. 3) Selecting the imagery I feel works best, usually screen grabs, and sketching the various elements - portraiture is almost always traced from the photographic source using printouts - it’s the most efficient way of ensuring a likeness. Sometimes I’ll supplement the images with my own photography and web searches, or composite the grabs with other poses, or perhaps add a close-up to a wider body shot, to keep the best portrait reference. 4) Scan the pencil sketch elements into Photoshop and play around with compositions, exploring focal elements or key ‘moments’, always searching for the most impactful or meaningful combinations. 5) Email the layouts to the client and - all being well - agree on the preferred option. 6) Reintroduce the original photographic sources over my pencil layout, creating a crude photo-comp in Photoshop. 7) Print out the comp to the size I intend to paint. 8) Trace onto the paper - I generally use Bockingford 190gsm, ‘not’ surface - a pitted effect that allows for more texture when painting. 9) Use masking tape to secure the paper to a wooden board I use for the purpose. 10) Cover the paper surface in a wash of colours that will form the base of my colour theme, using splashes of additional colour or clear water to particular areas - always having a rough version of the finished item in my head. 11) During the previous process, the paper will buckle, forming ‘valleys’ where the paint will run into shapes and forms that will add a spontaneous look - the paper dries flat because of the taped edges - so once dry I’ll usually start by defining the darkest areas, the basic shadows and contours, almost a drawing rather than a painted image. 12) Then I’ll concentrate on the key portraiture, moving around the painting, most often from top left to bottom right, so as not to disturb the painted surface resting my hand as I paint, or using bits of clean paper to protect the surface. 13) Take constant breaks to keep reviewing with fresh eyes... one of the most important devices I also use, a piece of mirror that I constantly check the progress with. It has a two-fold purpose: to see the reflected painting as if for the first time, but also to keep in check the tendency to skew imagery. If you’re right-handed it’s easy to find a bias of angles from bottom left to top right, and in reverse if left-handed. Using a mirror to check this will quickly reveal the bias. 14) Complete the painting by ensuring important detail is included, portraits are as good as the paint will allow, and that there is a cohesion and balance to the overall layout. The addition of a few carefully administered splatters using a worn brush is the final stage. 15) A quick photo is often taken for the client to see the results and identify any glaring issues. Fortunately, these are rare. Then the final scan and any necessary final tweaks in Photoshop, usually adding a bit more extra bleed, but generally retaining the integrity of the original item. 16) Invoice and get paid!

It’s probably akin to picking a favourite child, but which piece are you most proud of?

Once a job is complete I tend to dislike it - it’s part of the natural process where you keep re-evaluating what you do, always striving to improve. Of course budgets and deadlines conspire against ideal results. For this reason it might take a year or two for me to regard a job as something I can feel comfortable with. I’m always trying to look through the eyes of a stranger, judging my work and finding fault... it’s the only way to move forward! So I can’t really identify favourites, just successes. My easy copout is always the same... the job I’m most proud of? I’ve not painted it yet!

If fans want to get their hands on your work, where can they point their wallets?

The best place they can spend that money is on the final product - Blu-ray, LP or whatever – that way I’m more likely to be recommissioned by the client! However, my website has a section which shows what folio prints are currently available. There is no online shop, but my email address is easily found on the site and I can respond with prices etc. Very easy! The large format book Drawing Blood, published by Proud Gallery, is still available, though I have no access to stock. The gallery - proudonline.co.uk - will sell you one, as will Amazon. It’s a bit pricey - sorry, out of my control - but it comes in a special box and with a limited edition giclée print. People seem to like it! And any convention where I’m a guest, I’ll always have prints, booklets and posters. As my work is paint on paper, rather than digital, I have originals that I’m also happy to sell. Prices are set according to the amount of work and subject matter.

Are you able to tell us about any upcoming projects that our readers should be excited about?

Not without compromising the confidentiality of the client! But there are some fun items I’m currently very excited about personally. Perhaps a favourite film, a favourite TV series... I’ll say no more!

For more on Graham Humphreys’ incredible work, be sure to visitwww.grahamhumphreys.com. To contact about prices and/or commissions, reach out using [email protected]

#Graham Humphreys #Evil Dead #Evil Dead II #Army of Darkness #The Evil Dead #artist

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warningsine · 1 year ago

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A prize-winning film sharply critical of the Polish government’s attitude to refugees has opened at cinemas across the country, after being attacked in the run-up to its release by members of the Polish government.

Green Border, a feature film by the celebrated director Agnieszka Holland, won the special jury prize in Venice last month. It tells the story of a Syrian family trying to get to Europe via the Belarus-Poland border in 2021, and the brutal treatment they receive at the hands of Polish border guards.

The justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, compared the film to a Nazi propaganda movie “showing Poles as bandits and murderers”, despite admitting he had not watched it. The deputy interior minister, Błażej Poboży, called the film a “disgusting libel” that is “harmful to the Polish state and Poles”.

In a telephone interview, Holland said the venom of the government reaction has taken her by surprise.

“I expected waves of hate and propaganda and denial, but instead of waves we have a tsunami. I didn’t expect that within a few days, three or four times, the ministers of justice, interior, president of the country and numerous others would be attacking me on such a level of hate and aggression,” she said.

Holland said she felt the issue of migration “is one of the most important challenges for the future of Europe and the world”, and she was motivated to make the film by anger over how the government responded to Poland becoming a migration route two years ago.

“I saw that the authorities tried to organise a laboratory of lies and violence, and take political advantage of the misery of people,” she said. She casted for the refugee characters in France and Belgium, among actors who had become refugees.

The film has become a key talking point in an increasingly vitriolic campaign ahead of a parliamentary elections next month. The nationalist ruling coalition, led by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, has focused its campaign on migration, and on the wall it constructed on the border with Belarus to keep out refugees.

Speaking of the film’s positive reception among some Poles, the prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said: “This red carpet is only a preview of the red carpet that PO [the main opposition party] is rolling out for illegal immigrants, a red carpet that threatens to destabilise our homeland.”

Holland said it was not deliberate that the film opened in the weeks before the election, but said she hoped that after watching it viewers would reconsider their views about people stranded at the border.

“It’s different you know, you see some interviews and documentary clips, and then if you see everything with your own eyes and identify with full characters,” she said.

Activist groups say at least 49 people have died and 200 are missing since the crisis began at the border in 2021, and people continue to die at the border even now.

One character in the film is a border guard who is horrified and traumatised by the things he is forced to do and attitudes of his colleagues. “I consider the border guards also as victims, they have been forced to break the law and do things they are not trained for,” said Holland.

Poboży said the government had commissioned “a specially prepared clip that shows the elements that were missing in this film”, praising the work of border guards, and would ask cinemas to show it before screenings of the film. It is not clear whether cinemas will comply with the request.

President Andrzej Duda also criticised the film, suggesting it would have been better to make a film about the Polish response to Russia’s war in Ukraine. He said: “Millions of Poles opened their hearts and welcomed Ukrainians into their homes. How do those people feel today when they see that a renowned director, instead of making a film about Poles opening their hearts … is making a film slandering Poles and Poland?”

The end of the film makes the explicit comparison between the two refugee crises, and the different receptions granted to Ukrainians and to the much smaller number of darker-skinned refugees from Africa and the Middle East received at the border.

The film shows the hellish reality of so-called “pushbacks” in the forest, where Belarusian soldiers force people to keep trying to get into Poland, and Polish border guards ignore their asylum applications and dump them back across the border into Belarus. The Belarusian dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, has been widely accused of facilitating the refugee route through his country in order to put pressure on Poland and the EU.

Green Border is not a subtle film, and it subjects the viewer to numerous scenes of violence that are shown in detail rather than merely implied.

“I decided not to be discreet and to make some kind of parabolic stylistic choices, I wanted people to experience what those people are experiencing who are going though it, both the victims and the soldiers,” said Holland.

#Agnieszka Holland #cinema #green border

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bloggerblagger · 6 years ago

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87) Blank space. (And the profound questions deriving therefrom.)

I was there. ______________________________________________________________________

I am looking for a film.

I have hunted high and low and I can’t find it.

I don’t mean a roll of film - who has those these days? Unless you’re living in the dark ages. Or in Hackney or Stokie or Lewisham and have a beard, tatts, nose ring, possibly a lip disc - and that’s just the girls, tee hee. (Sorry, I meant cis gender women.) (And trans women too of course.) (Maybe I shouldn’t have started this.)

Anyway, no, I do not mean that kind of film, I mean a film as in a movie, a flick, a picture, a cinematic experience. I have lost one - no. 45 to be precise - and being a bit anal about these things, I am quite disturbed.

To explain: a few weeks ago we had the London Film Festival. As a one time titan of the airwaves, and now the the author of this estimable blog, I am, in exchange for an ever increasing fee - forty five quid this year - able to blag a press pass.

And very grateful I am. What better way to fill a retiree’s days as the autumn chill begins to bite.

The trouble with joy

Ah! If only simple pleasure were enough for me. I am, as Woody Allenonce described himself, ‘anhedonic’. As I understand it, that means incapable of having a good time for the sake of it.

Something - somewhere inside my amygdala or frontal lobe or wherever such impulses lurk - insists that I must have an aim, a goal of some kind. It’s as though standing before the Eiger, it would not be enough for me to admire its magisterial beauty. I would feel an irresistible compulsion to grab some crampons and leg it up the North face. (Okay, possibly a slight overclaim there but you get the idea.)

And thus it is that, each year, my principal purpose at the festival really has nothing to do with appreciating the glories of world cinema. As with the mountain that must be climbed because it is there, I hear an irresistible call to a completely pointless course of action.

My personal Eiger (it really should be Everest but I’m stuck with the Eiger now) is to pay an average price of less than £1 per screening that I enter.

Rules of the game

And lest you think that’s dead easy - and that all I have to do is walk in, get the person with the BFI badge and the little hand held recording doobery to record my press pass number, and then walk straight out again - you are most seriously mistaken.

Rule 27 subsection b, clearly states that I have to see enough to be able to write some kind of review for each and every film.(See below.) (And further below.) (And much further below.) Furthermore, although I am permitted to walk out if I think the film is really shite, I have to stay for at least half an hour.

It is a feat that I have, for one reason and another - typically, violent vomiting brought about by a surfeit of Gallic pretentiousness or a crippling attack of wobblycamitis - never previously managed to accomplish. And inflation makes it an ever more daunting prospect. It’s like the Eiger growing another couple of thousand feet every year. At the 2018 price, it would mean I had to see at least forty six films.

Reaching for the stars

The one thing that gave me a tiny shred of hope was that this year I would be in London with a more or less empty diary for the entire period of press previews, beginning Sept 24th, and for the actual festival, which ended October 21st. Forty six films in twenty nine days. Obviously tough, but at one and three fifths a day, it did seem just about doable.

In fact, a bit like Mo Farah, who is happy to ease himself into the race and hang about at the back of the field for the first lap, I saw only one film a day for the first week and gradually stepped it up so that by the beginning of the final week I still had twenty three films to see. Yes, as the bell sounded for the last lap, I still had an immense amount of ground to make up.

But I was honed, oiled (a steady diet of oatmilk lattés) and up for the challenge. Saw four films a day Mon to Fri, except Wed when I saw five - my first ever 5 a day! Saw two on the Sat - but, as much as it stuck in my craw, paid - PAID! - for a ticket for one of them (will explain later) so only one counted. And then three more on the final Sunday. Meaning I had seen forty eight films overall with forty seven eligible - forty seven for the price of my forty five pounds press pass. Average cost: 95.744 pence.

NINETY FIVE POINT SEVEN FOUR FOUR PENCE!!!! Cue tumultuous applause, wild cheering, caps being hurled into the air, my modest, slightly sheepish acceptance of bouquets thrown at my feet, headlines in the dailies, in depth analyses in the Sundays, a billion tweets, Facebook breaking down through worldwide overload, invitations to appear on Breakfast TV, The One Show - rejected - Graham Norton - maybe - James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke - okay - and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon - accepted if whole show is devoted to me.

Let the naysayers nay

Of course, I knew there would be doubters. Small minded types consumed with envy - very possibly like yourself - and conspiracy theorists who would insist that, like the landing on the moon, seeing forty eight films (forty seven eligible) in twenty nine days was simply beyond the reach of humankind and that the whole enterprise was some kind of epic confidence trick.

So I knew I would need proof. And so I kept notes. Contemporaneously. Each film I saw, I noted down on the yellow notebook thingy on my i-phone. From one to forty eight (forty seven eligible) they went in and were consecutively numbered. And then, at the end, it was my intention to review them. (Too busy resting in my bivouac - aka the cafe in the PIcturehouse Central - to write them as I saw them.)

That was the plan and the plan was put into effect. All went swimmingly, if several tads slowly - at the time of bloglication it’s already the thick end of a month since the Festival finished - until I reached no 45.

And then - disaster.

YIkes!

44 was clear enough: ‘Ollie and Stan.’ And 46 was there: ‘Girl’’. But beside the number 45, there was nothing. Just blank space. (And though Blank Space could easily have been a film, perhaps based on the song Blank Space by Taylor Swift - ‘I’ve got a blank space baby, And I’ll write your name’ - and there was actually a film called Blank Spaces made in 2010, the blank space in question was just in fact, no more than that, a blank space.)

The reader - if there still is one - will be easily able to imagine how distraught I was. I was - and I remain - convinced that I had seen forty eight movies (forty seven eligible) but I could only identify forty seven ( and therefore only forty six eligible.)

How could this have happened, I wept and beseeched the God in whom I do not believe? As expected, no answer, but retracing my fingers I concluded that in writing the reviews beside the numbers, I had unwittingly deleted the name of the film that had been beside the number 45.

An absence of proof

I grabbed my dog-eared copy of the Festival Programme and cross-checked all the gazillions of titles with those on my list, to see if there was one that I recognised that might have been no.45. But when you are as anal/OCD/idiotic as I am, you have to be punctiliously - obsessively - honest and I have to confess that I couldn’t find anything. I delved into the settings of my i-phone’s yellow notepad thingy several times to see, if I had by any chance, inadvertently made a copy of the original entries before I began the review, but nada.

Eventually I had to accept that, like Shergar, the name of the film that should have been beside no.45, would never be found. My only consolation was that this fascinating tale would be the basis for a fantastic movie, which I shall, one day, star in, write, direct, and produce: ‘And the winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor/Writer/Director/Motion Picture goes to: Richard Phillips, Richard Phillips, Richard Phillips, Blank Space!’)

Other than that, I am left with nothing but a terrible quandary. Do I insist, despite the missing movie, that I saw forty eight films (forty seven eligible) and that the price of 95.744 per film stands? Or do I say, since I cannot name film no.45, that, for the official record, I shall accept, albeit grudgingly and bitterly, that only forty seven films (forty six films eligible) can be counted, which increases the average price to 97.827pence per film. Yes, still inside £1 but unarguably by a substantially narrower squeak.

But that is not proof of absence.

As you will imagine, I have, before sending this blog post off into the e-ther, fought an epic battle with my conscience. I have tossed and turned in the night, spent days in a monastic retreat - well, sitting on the loo, as good as - before deciding that, one missing title notwithstanding, I did indeed see forty eight films (forty seven eligible) and will claim, until the moment I have taken my last breath that the average price per film was 95.744p. Indeed, given the importance this has assumed in my life, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that these will be my actual last words - though hopefully not right now.

However, my rigid insistence on complete honesty demands that I confess that there is another reason for choosing the 95.744 option.

It is this: There is another rule - 39, clause iv - that has to be obeyed. And to explain that properly, I need to go out of order and begin my reviews with no.22

Ignorance is not always bliss.

Rule 39, clause iv, states that I must see every film ‘completely cold’ - by which I mean, knowing as little as conceivably possible about what I am about to see. I make a point/fetish of never reading the Festival programme blurb before I go in. When going to the cinema in the ordinary way, that is to say paying a proper price, I do everything I can to avoid seeing a trailer, usually by timing my entrance so I miss them, but if not, I cover my eyes and stick my fingers in my ears, and I would go ‘la la la la la’ except I would be bombarded by popcorn and soggy nachos.

And I never, ever so much as glance at a review until after I've seen the film, and not just because I think all reviewers - except me - are tossers. I want to make a judgement of my own, uninfluenced by the half baked opinions of others. I want to witness the story unfold exactly as the director intended that it should. Of course my determination to be so pure has its drawbacks occasionally, and never more so than in this case.

Thus:

22 Little Drummer Girl

I went in with high hopes as the director Park Chan Wook, who made the astonishing Korean and Korean-ised version of Sarah Waters’ fantastic (I thought) novel Fingersmith. (His film was called The Handmaiden, not to be confused with The Handmaid's Tale.)

TLDG started intriguingly and then, after about an hour, the end credits rolled, seemingly half way through the film. I sat there thinking, ‘how very odd’, but, given my admiration for this director’s previous film, I decided this must be some uber cool directorial device and carried on watching regardless. Then an hour later the same credits rolled again, this time, as it turned out, at the conclusion of the performance. Even odder, for there seemed to have been no clue - at least none that I’d picked up - as to why the credits had been run the first time.

So whatever uber cool trick the director was trying to bring off, it was clearly way too cool for me. Moreover the story was left completely unresolved. It seemed as though there was a lot more to be said and the audience had been left high and dry. The whole thing was completely baffling. Until, that is, I finally referred to the programme blurb and discovered this wasn’t a film at all but the first two episodes of a new BBC series. (Now showing.)

Why should this be shown at a Film Festival, especially when the TV series is to be broadcast only two weeks later? Answers on a postcard please.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.0* (Not a film.)

So, you can see the problem. This wasn’t strictly a film - as in a movie that you might see in a regular cinema - at all. So should it count? If the Rules Committee (me, myself and I) took a really strict view, they might not allow The Little Drummer Girl through even though I had thought it would be a proper film when I went in.

You can see where I am going with this. If I had not refused to back down on the missing no.45, I could have been in serious trouble. Because If I hadn’t and the Committee put their black caps on in regard to no.22, I would be down to forty six films viewed and only forty five eligible, meaning the average price of entry would be £1 exactly.

Still a formidable achievement but, whichever way you look at it, £1 cannot be simultaneously less than £1. I would my miss target for yet another year.

Agonisingly close but no cigar. And you can’t really plant the flag unless you’ve reached the summit.

Let the record show

As I have said, I am not a believer but sometimes one simply has to invoke the name of the so-called creator because it is the only word that will do. So thank God that after long, and sometimes hotly contested deliberations, the committee voted by a majority of two to one (myself and I for the motion, me dissenting) to take a lenient view and admit no 22. What’s more they didn’t even raise the subject of the missing no.45.

So, all’s well that ends well. Will 95.744p ever beaten? One never knows, but my guess this is a Bob Beamon Plus Plus Plus sort of record.

One final note before I get to the other forty six reviews. I am the reviewer who is absolutely, positively guaranteed never to give the game away. No plot spoilers, no tedious Kermodian descriptions of every tiny thing. In fact, sod all apart from the odd detail such as the title, occasionally who might be in it, its country of origin and the briefest reference to the skeleton of the story.

Reading one of my reviews you will never learn who dunnit. You won’t even know wot they dun.

The rest of the reviews:

1 Asako 1&2 (numbers are part of the title)

Japanese romance with a clever plot twist. Inoffensive, watchable - a slightly different slant (shamefully politically incorrect pun but impossible to resist) on familiar themes. 3*

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.3*

2 Petra

An incoherent Spanish film about a young woman and a small daughter in search of something or other. Complex plot which asked too much of this audience. (By which I mean me.) Tiresome.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.1.5*

3 The Guilty

Highly unusual and thought provoking thriller of sorts. Although nothing remotely like it, except in its ‘message’, it reminded me of the celebrated Guardian commercial - celebrated if you lived in the advertising bubble, that is - which showed one scene from different points of view, each one altering your assumptions about what was going on.

A lot of concentration required for ‘The Guilty’ - slightly more than I had. A few irritating plot flaws but worth your time.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.4*

4 Wildlife

Thanks to British Rail’s time honoured uselessness, I was 10 minutes late but I don’t think I missed anything crucial. This was the very first film I saw but I can still just about remember it which says quite a lot for it I suppose. Carey Mulligan who I usually don’t like is very good in this 50s Americanadrama. Ed Oxenbould as the teenage son in the midst of a family crisis is impressive.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.3.5*

5 Crystal Swan

The lesson to be learned here is that under no circumstances choose Belorussia for your next holiday unless unremitting bleakness turns you on. But the story of a rebellious young woman desperate to get a visa to America is intriguing and persuasive.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.3.5*

6 Shadow

Another of those Chinese warrior films which involves all sorts of leaping about and balletic sword twirling. Not my cup of Lapsang Souchong but if it’s yours, go for it.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.3*

7. Arctic.

Icelandic. Very snowy. A man lost and hungry and not a happy bunny (not that any bunny would be) in the eponymous frozen somewhere. In short, All Is Lost on Ice. (A brilliant line if I say so myself. If you haven’t seen All Is Lost, you should because it’s better and also because you will then appreciate the brilliance of the line which will otherwise be wasted on you )

On the other hand if you don’t see it, Arctic will probably seem more original and interesting than it did to me.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.3*

8 Jinn

Awful, unlikely story about a black Californian teenager who wants to shake her booty and her controlling TV weatherwoman mother who discovers Islam.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.1*

9 Manto

Worthy but tedious biopic about a famous writer caught up in the cross border chaos of Indian/Pakistani independence. I lasted for about 3/4 of it, then decided to get a sandwich instead.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.1*

10 After the Screaming Stops

Where else but at a press screening at the London film Festival would you find yourself watching a documentary about a Bros reunion? Interesting in that it showed what an incredible jerk Matt Goss is. And sometimes funny in the laughing-at as opposed to laughing-with sense.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.3*

11 May the Devil Take You

Walked out. Hated it. Apart from that I can’t remember anything.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.0.5*

12 Mandy

Never got all this cult film bollocks. Never liked Russ Meyer or got George Romero or John Waters and this film which appears to be in this ‘cult’ category was , as far, as I was concerned, simply unbearable. Left after an hour. Yes, I know it’s had fantastic reviews from all and sundry but then remember, fengshui proves that a billion Chinese can be wrong.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating. - (minus) 200*

13 Ash Is Purest White

A Chinese melodrama about low level gangster life centred on the life of the moll. (I mean morr- ha ha ha.) (Is it racist to make pathetically obvious jokes, if you can call them that, about Chinese/ Japanese pronunciation issues? Probably yes, so why do I keep doing it? Discuss.)

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.2.5*

14.Widows

The gushing reviews it seems to have received (judging by the number of stars on the posters on the underground) baffle me. It was nothing more than a highly polished turd. The original television serious was completely implausible and this film is no improvement. In the trailer that I advertently failed to miss, ‘12 Years a Slave’ director and, in another life, Turner prize winner, Steve McQueen - the new one not the dead one - appears himself to claim this is the film he always wanted to make.

Personally I think it might have been about the money.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.2*

15 Thunder Road

A curious piece, written and directed and starring the same person, all about the disintegrating life of an American policeman. Tonally it was partly black comedy and partly unalloyed tragedy. A tour de force of sorts creatively, but not quite sure what to make of it.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.3*

16 Border

A love story with knobs on - but not necessarily in the usual places - this is a quite brilliant piece of filmmaking which questions the very nature of attraction. ‘Border’ has a very contemporary story but one which is drawn, apparently, from Nordic mythology. One of the two or three best films I saw in the festival. Highly recommended.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.4.5*

17 Colette

I started by being irritated by Collette. Keira Knightley has had a bit too much onscreen rumps pumpy to be a convincing teenager in plaits skipping through the grass. And there was early dialogue referencing toothpaste and the top line on an optician’s charts. In 1892? Did they have those in 1892? (The answer it turns out is yes - toothpaste invented in the 1850s, Colgate producing it in jars in 1873 and in tubes in the 1890s, and opticians have been around since earlier than that - so one in the eye for me. And one in the mouth.)

But all this became quickly irrelevant anyway. Because I stopped being picky and submitted to the charm of this film, seduced by the bravura performance of Dominic West - who seemed made for his twinkly eyed, moustache twirling part and by the surprisingly nuanced Keira Knightley - never been a fan but I am now. As it turned out, after that first slightly jarring note, she was perfectly cast as the country school girl who goes on to be a revolutionary in the fin de siecle culture war in Paris.. But above all it was the astonishing, and very well told, story of Collette - nothing of which I knew - which fascinated. In short, a damn good night at the cinema.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.4.5*

18 Beautiful Boy

Film about parental angst over teenage son’s descent into drugs hell. I found it interesting, if for no other reason than it made me realise the blindingly obvious fact that each viewer sees a film through the prism of their own life experience and that must affect their appreciation of it. In this case, as a father I couldn’t help but see things from the father’s point of view but if you you were in the first flush of youth you would, I think see it from the son’s.

The casting of Timothy Hutton as the expert to whom we see Steve Carell talking caught my eye because he was, about 40 years ago, the Timothy Chalomet of his day - remember ‘Ordinary People’?- and then looked a little like him.

And here’s another curious little factoid about Timothy Hutton - perhaps something to thrill the table with if Christmas lunch is flagging. He also appeared in a 1996 film called Beautiful Girls.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.3.5*

19 Sometimes. Always.Never

Light, low budget British comedy with Bill Nighy; painstakingly made and clearly a labour of love. A little twee at times but very well played and with something semi-profound to say - though at a distance of a few days, having seen so many films since, I can’t remember exactly what it was.

It had a particular appeal for me because the hero had spent a life in the menswear business, as my father did, and the title refers to how one should button a three button jacket, from top button downwards - something I learned at an early age and have never forgotten.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.3.5*

20. Roma

I would say that Roma was a faultless recreation of 1970s Mexico City except that I wasn’t in Mexico City in the 1970s so how could I know? It did however ring completely true to me - apart from a shower head which looked suspiciously modern - pedantic? moi? - and demonstrated the astonishing versatility of the director, Adolpho Cuaron, who also made ‘Y Mama Tu Tambien’ 'Children of God' and ‘Gravity’ - that’s some CV - films which could not be more different to this. ‘Roma’ is a sort of upstairs downstairs story and has wonderful performances from all the actors but most particularly from the main character, the young servant girl.

If I have one caveat it is that it didn’t quite ‘speak to me’, apart from making me queasily guilty that I have a cleaning lady.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.4*

21 Non Fiction

One of those literary French films purporting to be profoundly intellectual (even if, in this case, also supposed to be ironically amusing.) All about writers and publishers and their existential angst in the digital world. But then aren’t all French films like this about existential angst - whatever it means? This is the sort of thing I viscerally loathe and after about half an hour, je sort, and gave ‘Non Fiction’, the General de Gaulle - ‘Non! Non! Non!’

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.1*

23 Life Itself

Not everybody loves this film; in fact, the reviews have generally had the whiff of a blocked drain, but I claim my right to vigorously demur - up to a point. Directed and written by Dan Fogelman (the guy who does ‘This Is Us’ on Netflix or somewhere) it begins with a story about familiar Noo Yorker angst but approaches it from a surprising angle - at least to me. ‘Life Itself’, comes in four labelled acts, something I don’t like in movies usually but the first three worked for me. The last seemed like a rather - make that very - tired cliché.

My main issue with the film was that, whereas with Roma I couldn’t quite understand what it was trying to say, here the message was triple underlined in upper case bold. Not yet quite at the stage of jibbering senescence where I need to be spoon-fed.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.3.5*

24 Wild Rose

Have to declare an interest here. The film’s star, Jessie Buckley, is someone I know a little, and whose career I have watched with interest since she was about 18 when she appeared on a TV talent show and after which I interviewed her. I am a massive fan. She is an astonishingly gifted singer and a damn good actor. (Brilliant in her earlier non-singing role in last year’s ‘Beast’, which I thought was an exceptional movie, better than this to be honest, and which may yet prove to be a bit of a sleeper.)

‘Wild Rose’ is about a single mother from the badlands of a Scottish estate who has a yen to be a Nashville diva. (A bit like Lady Gaga in ‘A Star is Born’. C&W seems all the rage at the mo.) ‘Wild Rose’ has a few credulity stretching moments but the feel good peaks make you want to ignore those. It will make the Saturday night popcorn go down with a tear and a cheer. And it is a wonderful showcase for Jesse, who, If there is any justice, is destined for Hollywood mega stardom.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.3.5*

25 Sunset

Lazló Némes, who made last year’s wincingly convincing Auschwitz film ‘Son of Saul’, now comes up with a wobbly cam evocation of verge-of-World War One Budapest called ‘Sunset’. By a complete but happy coincidence the person sitting next to me turned out to be an old pal, Saul Metzstein, who is a movie director himself.

I was gratified to learn that he was as mystified by this film as I was. No idea what the point of it was - went straight over my head. (Which, admittedly does not require much intellectual elevation.)

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.2*

26 Dogman

Loved this. One of my Festival top three or four and likely, I read, to be a runner in the Oscar Foreign Film race. It’s a modern tale of the little man in a hostile world and takes place in one of those seedy parts of Italy that you find everywhere if you stray very far from the tourist trail. It is already on release - in fact, by the time I get around to posting this blog, it may already be finished, but try to catch it if you can. (Beware of violence though, if that bothers you.)

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.4.5*

27 The Kindergarten Teacher

Never been much of a Maggie Gyllenhaal fan - always seems a bit cold and distant to me - but she is exceptional in this unusual contemporary New York drama about a thoroughly decent middle aged woman who, for reasons which may or may not be valid, finds herself out of step with those about her. Intriguing and thought provoking and better the more I think about it.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.4*

28 They Shall Not Grow Old

Everyone is raving about Peter Jackson’s colour and 3-D reincarnation of genuine old World War One footage but it left me pretty cold.

It may be - no doubt is - an astonishing technical feat but after so many books and plays and films and so much TV and radio devoted to the subject I am afraid to say that I have a touch of World War One fatigue and this didn’t relieve my symptoms.

Last year’s wonderful remake of RC Sherriff’s ‘Journey’s End’ packed far more emotional punch, for me at least. Yes, the colour pictures of corpses and lice and rats and trenchfoot were ghastly but I wasn’t shocked and I wasn’t surprised. Who doesn’t know that World War I was unspeakably awful? Or rather, who amongst those who might go to see a film like this, doesn’t know? (‘Venom’ fans, I would have thought, are unlikely customers.)

My biggest complaint, though, is about the soundtrack: I found the unrelenting stream of voices irritating and soon switched off and stopped listening to what they had to say. Easily the most powerful piece of sound in the film was, I thought, the accompaniment to the end title, the marching troops singing ‘Mademoiselle from Armentiers’. (Sung of course, as Ah-men-tears’.) Nothing seemed to me to sum up the pathos and suicidal naivety of the cannon fodder as much as this.

Perhaps more music of the same intensity and fewer quotes might have made them more memorable.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.2.5*

29 Rosie

An Irish version of a Ken Loachy sort of film about decent people caught in the poverty trap. Persuasive and faultlessly done. But I am not sure what it told me that I would prefer not to know but unfortunately do.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.3*

30 El Angel

A highly original and sometimes very funny, blood soaked, true story about a teenage boy with decent, law abiding parents and a head of blonde curls which is set in Argentina (where, typically, people are swarthy with black hair) in the 70s, and who determinedly but very merrily sets about pursuing his ambition to become a ruthless murdering gangster. If there seem to be a few contradictions there, that is the joy of this film.

Remember to search for it on Amazon or Netflix in a few months if it doesn’t get a release.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.4*

31 Florianopolis Dream

Was really struggling to remember anything at all about this film and, until I checked, I thought it was more of the seedy Italian seaside and the story of two women battling it out to claim maternal rights over a small child. But now I realise that was another film entirely, which was....

32, Daughter of Mine.

Okay but in the unlikely event of it ever getting a release, I wouldn’t worry about FOMO if you can’t manage to see it.

And, now that I do remember it, likewise Florianopolis Dream, a Brazilian effort about a family’s seaside holiday in a place where it seemed to be perpetually cloudy. (Just to be clear, the cloudiness was nothing to do with the plot, which was largely non-existent, but the obviously very low budget. I am sure the director would have preferred the sun but couldn’t afford to wait.)

BloggerBlagger Star Rating.

Florianopolis Dream 1.5*,

Daughter of Mine 2.5*

33 Capharnaum

A close second, that well might have been first had I not seen the winner afterwards in the race to be my top pick of the festival. Timing is everything.. This is the heartbreaking yet ultimately uplifting story of a boy of about twelve brought up in abject poverty in the slums of what I presume was Beirut.

The performance of the boy is magical and though a two hour journey through the world of the Lebanese dispossessed (or rather, the would’ve been dispossessed if they had ever possessed anything in the first place) may not sound like a fun Saturday night at the pictures, do not be put off. Whilst not so much pricking your conscience as repeatedly firing a Kalashnikov at it, it somehow manages to be a feel-good movie at the same time.

My only quibble was that the editing around the clever device upon which the plot is built, slightly confused me at the end. Oh, and also, what’s with the title? Could they have found anything more obscure? Or maybe there was a clue in the film but, if so, I didn’t pick it up.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating 4.5*

34 Birds of Passage

Think of this as a pre-prequel to Narcos. Drugs and grisly murders mixed in with a bit of ancient dream interpretation in Colombia in the sixties, when it was the Native Americans (or one of the 87 tribes of Pueblos lndigenas as they call them in Colombia - isn’t Google marvellous?) and not the Sicarios who were cashing in on the medical benefits of the local cash crop.

Judging by the gore in ‘Birds of Passage’, they could have taught Pablo Escobar a thing or two about effective persuasion - blowpipes were out and sub machine guns deffo in. Clear and solid storyline, good pace, convincing acting, and lots of ketchup - what’s not to like? Another probable Oscar Foreign Film contender.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating 4*

35 Carmen and Lola

Good late Sunday night on BBC4 type film in which two young gypsy women in modern day Spain confront the fixed ideas of their incurably misogynistic families. One fascinating side effect of seeing this film was noticing in the sub-titles that the Roma in Spain (who are not shown as travellers but living in permanent homes) refer to the wider Spanish community as white people.

To me, the man and woman in the Spanish Street and the Roma all looked pretty much the same - dark haired and sallow skinned, and hard to differentiate from each other. I mentioned this in the Q&A afterwards and Spanish members of the audience - and remember, film festival goers are usually predictably right-on - seemed a bit put out. Perhaps I was being tactless and/or naive. Prejudice runs deeper than you might think.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating 4*

36 The Quake

I correctly interpreted the title as heralding a thriller about an earthquake and looked forward to some light relief from the intense social commentaries that are the bread and butter of the festival. I have rarely seen a bad Norwegian film but I did this time. Ludicrous plot, wildly overdone CGI including a slowly toppling, and clearly named Radisson hotel - very odd product placement. Avoid.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating 1*

37 Girls of The Sun

A no punches pulled war film from a French woman director about Yazidi girls fighting in the Kurdish army in Iraq. Couldn’t help but be struck by the casting of far and away the prettiest girl as the group leader and main character. A curious - commercial? - decision in such a feminist piece.

A decent enough effort otherwise but I feel that Henry Naylor’s plays which have done so well at Edinburgh and in New York in recent years (Borders, Angel etc, a couple of which are on at the Arcola, Dec 4-22) and which deal with similar themes do so much more effectively. A rare case - for me- of the cinema being inferior to the theatre.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating 3*

38 The White Crow

Quite nteresting without being competely fascinating, watchable without being riveting, this is a tale of the early days of Nureyev directed by Ralph Fiennes, who also appears, thankfully not as Rudy, but as his teacher, giving a performance which I found somewhat distracting as he strongly reminded me of Paul Whitehouse. Nureyev Is portrayed as an unsympathetic character, driven and selfish, which could well have been true, so ‘The White Crow’ ticked the ‘seems authentic’ box, although his chilliness doesn’t help you love the film.

I would semi-enthusiastically recommend it, but I doubt it will be shown very widely since I can’t see it doing brilliantly at the box office - not sure that the world of ballet is a place the Saturday night popcorn crowd want to visit. And who under 50 will know much - or indeed anything - about Rudolph Nureyev and his place in the sixties zeitgeist? But then who cares? It wasn’t my money.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating 3.5*

39 Burning

There seemed to to be a bit of a buzz about this film amongst the so called press (aka the vast number of liggers who, like me, and with no less right, had managed to blag a press pass) but I have no idea why. It’s a strange story about the homecoming of a rather disorientated young Japanese chap with a father in gaol and another contrastingly self assured young fellow who is doing jolly nicely thankyou. Plus, for some reason, there are burning glasshouses. Utterly mystifying - to me at least - and so slow it made the average glacier seem like Usain Bolt.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating 2*

40 Yommedine

A road movie about an Egyptian leper and a runaway orphan. (One of the many surprisingly good things about this film is that there it unlikely to be a Hollywood remake.)

An astonishing achievement to have made such a simultaneously upbeat and yet deeply moving film about people one would normally think of as being at the very bottom of the heap if, that is, one gave them any thought to them at all. Brilliant performances that take us beneath the skin that so many are terrified to touch.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating 4*

41.Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Stands a pretty good chance of coming to a cinema near you and I don’t you think will begrudge the price of a ticket. Melissa McCarthy gives a masterful - if that’s the right word to use - performance in the true story of surly, lonely, habitually rude 51-year-old biographer and lesbian Lee Israel and her extraordinary and ingenious attempts to make money in 90s New York.

Richard E. Grant plays her camp hoppo with all the Richard E. Grantness that you’d expect and Dolly Wells does a nice little turn as a guileless bookshop owner. (To be frank I might not have mentioned her, but coincidentally her mother was my Airbnb guest on the day I went to see this film, so I thought it was only fair to give her a shout out, and I did think she was pretty good.) Amusing, touching and very watchable.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating 4*

42 The Hate U Give

Based on a ‘young adult novel, this is the story of a young black girl living in a rundown, violent, gang ridden district because her father, whilst allowing her to be sent to a private white school doesn’t want to make the move into a middle-class world. (Sounds fairly unlikely but on this occasion, I wasn’t in one of my usual hole picking moods so I went with it.)

A series of regrettable incidents force her to come to terms with the conflicting aspects of her identity. Not quite sure if this film was actually intended for my demographic group, but, despite it’s improbable plot turns, I thought it had something useful to say. And hear.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating 4*

42 The Sisters Brothers

Saw this on the day that I actually managed to attend five screenings. A notable achievement but knackering and while I was supposed to be watching this - I think it was my fourth of the day - I have to admit I nodded off more than once. I have a strong feeling it was probably rather good - featured Joaquin Pheonix, Jake Gylenhal, John C.Reilly, so a promising cast - but I’m not really sure. Anyway, it’s cowboy film with a slightly Coen Brothers tone of voice, but isn’t one of theirs.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating 3.5*

43 A Private War

Like Maggie Gyllenhaal - see The Kindergarten Teacher, above - Rosamond Pike has never been a favourite of mine. and for similar reasons. I’ve always found her ice queen manner slightly off putting. Here she is playing legendary war journalist Marie Colvin but I never believed her. Lots of actoring with cigarettes and an eyepatch and her unruly wig flapping about but it just seemed like dressing up to me. I kept wanting to scream at the screen, ‘Put a bloody helmet on!’.

For all that, I can’t deny that ‘A Private War’ held my attention and had the odd moment.The sort of thing that might not seem a complete waste of time when it makes its inevitable appearance on BBC2 late on some future Sunday night. Otherwise not really recommended.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating 2.5*

44 Stan and Ollie

As a child in the er ah ahem um er nineteen whatevers I use to love Laurel and Hardy and here John C. Reilly and the make up artists do a great job of recreating Oliver Hardy on screen and Steve Coogan is more than passable if less impressive as Stan laurel.

A fascinating story of their later years but for me, let down by the stagey, artificial representation of fifties England. Also very odd casting and playing of legendary impresario Bernard Delfont. Was Lew Grade’s brother really like that? No idea but not how I imagined the man who brought us Sunday Night At the London Palladium. Still, all in all, a pretty decent night out at the flicks.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating 3.5*

45. (As previously discussed.)

46 GIRL

On the final Saturday I went with some friends to see the announcement of the result and the screening of the film which had won the best first feature award and I had to pay so I could sit with my pals. A little bit of a gamble as there was a chance I had already seen the winning movie,.

The winner turned out to be Girl, a story about a Belgian boy of 15 who wanted to be a ballerina. (Note: Not another Billy Elliott - he wanted to be a real ballerina.) When the announcement of the award was made, the good news was that it was a film I hadn’t already seen but the bad, I glumly thought, was that I had consciously decided not to see it earlier in the week because, to be honest, I have grown a little weary of the entire LGBTQ I XYZ trans-gender, cis gender, gender fluidity, gender whatever, what? WTF!, what-do-THEY-do? thing.

Only it didn’t turn out to be bad news at all. Girl is an absolutely extraordinary film, deeply touching with an astonishing performance by the young boy playing the young boy who wanted to be a girl. Not only was it riveting viewing but it made me completely rethink my attitude to the whole transgender thing. Whereas previously my attitude might have been summed up as ‘all these boys wanting to be boys and girls wanting to be boys - perlease!’ I felt afterwards that I had at least a small but sympathetic understanding of the predicament that Victor/Lara and his family faced. And by extension, others like them. A really good film can do that - open your eyes and mind to a different world.

So, from being a movie that I hadn’t wanted to to see, Girl became my personal pick of the festival and recipient of the Palme d’bloggerblagger

BloggerBlagger Star Rating 5*

46 Blaze

Went to see this because I noticed that Ethan Hawke was the director and I am a bit of a fan of his work both as an actor and as a writer - he once wrote a very good novel, the name of which now escapes me. Unfortunately this film, a story, supposedly true, of a singer and songwriter in the sixties - I think - failed to stop me from making short but frequent visits to the land of nod.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating 2.5*

47 The Fight

The very last film I saw, A low budget British film about a fortyish woman in a racially mixed marriage with a bullied child and a dark secret and a bad relationship with her own mother and who, for some reason that I never quite got to grips with, takes up boxing. I might have appreciated this film more had my hearing been better. I discovered in post movie conversation (with one of the other members of the press/ liggers ) that I had mistaken the spoken number 30 for 13 and that had a significant bearing on my misunderstanding of the story, and consequent confusion and mild dissatisfaction.

BloggerBlagger Star Rating 2.5*

PS Anyone with so much time on their hands that they have waded through this nonsense until the end will have noticed, as I have only just done, that there were, in fact, two no 42s. Which I take to mean that, joy of joys, we have found the missing no 45. (Something obviously went awry with the numbering system in my i-phone’s yellow notebook thingie. Or possibly, though obviously improbably, it was my fault.)

Delighted to have been vindicated in my claim that I did indeed see 48 films (47 eligible.) Or, if there were an appeal against the present ‘Little Drummer Girl’ decision (unlikely but you never know) and it were to be upheld by the Rules Committee (even unlikelier) I would have seen 47 films (46 eligible.) And in even that remote eventuality I would still have officially reached the summit of my personal Eiger (Everest).

But it also means 80% of the first 1500 words of this post are completely redundant.

I could start again, I suppose. And I probably should. And yet….really?

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mikegranich87 · 3 years ago

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The Morning After: Will Facebook change its name?

So, will Facebook pull the trigger and change its name? Maybe it's an attempt to dominate the conversation around the, ugh, metaverse, which has been around for years, perhaps to follow Google’s own reorganization around Alphabet or to simply create some distance from all the negative publicity, sentiment and impressions that Facebook is now associated with.

If the change is metaverse related, it could be very important to the company’s unreleased social virtual reality world called Horizon Worlds.

The funniest take I’ve seen, from Time’s Alex Fitzpatrick, is that Facebook is doing it just to meddle with people that write about the company, like how we remind readers that Google is now just a facet of the bigger Alphabet entity, a bullet point that we sometimes have to mention.

— Mat Smith

Is Apple’s M1 Max really the fastest laptop chip ever?

Apple is making some big promises with its new Macbook Pro chips

Apple

This week’s Upscaled show is all about Apple’s promises with its newest chips. The new M1 Pro and M1 Max bump the core count to eight high-performance and two low-power cores and add 16, 24 or 32 GPU cores. With twice the high-performance CPUs and up to four times the GPU cores as the original M1, these chips should be incredibly fast. Could Apple offer a compelling laptop option for gamers?

Netflix CEO says he 'screwed up' on Dave Chappelle as employees stage walk out

But Ed Sarandos continues to stand by the Chappelle special.

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said he "screwed up" communication with employees following backlash over Dave Chappelle's The Closer, according to a report from Variety.

He also stood by the show, saying the company heavily values "artistic expression." His comments come just ahead of a planned walkout today organized by LGBTQ+ staffers, creatives and allies.

As part of the walkout, employees will reportedly have a list of demands for Netflix, and Sarandos has been meeting them to hear their views. He said that while the company is "deeply committed to inclusion," it's equally committed to "supporting artistic freedom with the creators who work at Netflix."

Some Windows 11 users can start testing Android apps

Only a handful of apps will be available at first.

Engadget

Microsoft has released an Insider Preview beta that enables the Amazon Appstore and support for running Android apps within Windows. Only 50 apps are available as part of the initial test (such as the Kindle app, Lords Mobile and Lego Duplo World), but Microsoft is promising more in the "coming months."

The aim, as before, is to make Android apps feel like they belong in Windows 11. You can multitask, check notifications and use Windows accessibility features. Mouse and keyboard input is available, but many apps will predictably benefit from a touchscreen.

DJI's new cinema camera has a built-in gimbal and LiDAR focus system

The LiDAR should offer 'sharper, faster and more reliable focusing.'

DJI

DJI has revealed the Ronin 4D, a new cinema camera system with a built-in 4-axis gimbal, 8K resolution and LiDAR rangefinder that promises "sharper, faster and more reliable focusing." With a price starting at $7,199, it's clearly aimed at the professionals, but we can all dream, right?

The Zenmuse X9 camera is exclusively for the Ronin 4D. It's available either in a 6K model that can handle 6K at 60 fps and 4K at 120 fps, and there’s the 8K 75 fps version. It can capture files in RAW, ProRes or H.264, allowing maximum flexibility in production. DJI claims 14 stops of dynamic range, and it should be good in low-light thanks to the dual-native 800/5000 ISO.

‘Cyberpunk 2077' PS5 and Xbox Series X/S upgrades delayed until 2022

CDPR also postponed its upgraded version of 'The Witcher 3.'

Despite CD Projekt Red insisting at the beginning of September it was still on track to release the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of Cyberpunk 2077 by the end of the year, that's no longer the case. The developer now plans to ship the console and PC upgrades for the same game in the first quarter of 2022 (i.e. by the end of March).

In its financial report for the first half of 2021, CDPR included a chart suggesting that around a third of its development staff was working on Cyberpunk 2077 support and the current-gen version as of June 30th.

The biggest news stories you might have missed

Netflix says 142 million households watched Korean series 'Squid Game'

'God of War' heads to PC on January 14th

Razer reveals new mics for pro and casual streamers

PayPal might buy Pinterest

The Talli Baby tracker is a one-touch system for logging kids’ activities

Engadget Deals: The 12.9-inch iPad Pro is $200 off at Amazon right now

Amazon adds 60 more stations to its Fire TV local news app

from Mike Granich https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-will-facebook-change-its-name-111537269.html?src=rss

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rbbox · 4 years ago

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2020 has been a bad year for the box office in India. But if all goes well, it’ll end on a high, courtesy Wonder Woman 1984. The Gal Gadot starrer will have paid previews from December 23, 5:00 pm onwards, and will have a full release from December 24. And unlike Suraj Pe Mangal Bhari where the studio took a while in reaching a consensus with the multiplexes over revenue sharing, in the case of Wonder Woman 1984, the terms have been amicably accepted by both the parties.

A source says, “The exact details have been kept confidential by both the parties. However, Warner Bros India had also released Tenet earlier this month. For that film, they settled for a lesser share in the first week than Suraj Pe Mangal Bhari since it was a bit of an old film. However, they had managed to get a higher share for themselves in Week 2 and Week 3 than normal. In case of Wonder Woman 1984, Warner Bros has managed to get a slightly higher share than what they got in Tenet. Not just that, they have also managed to secure more in Week 4 this time, too.”

The source adds, “Some single screen exhibitors had asked for a flat 50% share throughout the film’s run. Warner, however, has disagreed with this idea.” Nevertheless, the film will have a wider release. Both Tenet and Suraj Pe Mangal Bhari released in around 700-750 screens and Wonder Woman 1984’s screen count will go higher. The theatres which haven’t opened since March due to a dearth of exciting content will finally resume operations thanks to this flick. Hence, a 1000-screen release cannot be ruled out.

Meanwhile, fans that were hoping to catch this action extravaganza in 3D might be disappointed. The source reveals, “Warner Bros has had a disagreement with prominent multiplex chains like PVR, Inox, Cinepolis etc. Warner wants a share of Rs. 30 which is charged for 3D glasses by the multiplexes. But the theatres have refused to do so since they argue that that they have invested in 3D technology and equipment and hence they deserve to keep the full amount. This problem has been going on since 2 years and hence, Warner Bros’ films like Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018), Aquaman (2018), Shazam (2019), Pokemon Detective Pikachu (2019), Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019) etc which were available in 3D globally released only in 2D in India. Wonder Woman 1984 would be no exception.”

However, this is not the only reason. The source continues, “3D glasses in these pandemic times can be risky. Though theatres have assured that they’ll use disposable glasses, one can’t be sure. In fact, even the multiplexes have agreed that a 3D release should be avoided as of now.” Fans, however, can enjoy an enhanced experience of the film in IMAX and 4D screens.

Before signing off, the source says, “The trade and industry are confident that Wonder Woman 1984 will be well received. After all, the international reviews have been very encouraging. As several critics are still afraid to visit cinemas, the makers have decided to not hold a press show here. Nevertheless, the series and the lead actress has a massive fan following and audiences are sure to visit in big numbers from day 1. Also, the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has not even played spoilsport this time!” The film was passed on December 7 with a U/A certification and zero cuts. The film’s final length is 151 minutes.

A trade expert says, “If Tenet, despite being confusing and having a niche appeal, is expected to collect around Rs. 10-11 crore in its lifetime, then Wonder Woman 1984 has the potential to earn three times more. Not just Bollywood, but even regional industries are keen to see how it performs at the box office. Its healthy performance at the ticket window would inspire many other filmmakers to release their films January 2021 onwards.”

Also Read: “We couldn’t do this movie without Chris Pine” – says Gal Gadot on Steve Trevor returning in Wonder Woman 1984

December 18, 2020 at 01:53PMWonder Woman 1984 to get widest screen count of the season; makers skip 3D release; gets higher share from multiplexes (DETAILS INSIDE) https://ift.tt/37xdbCJ

#tech news #bollywood #hollywood

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weekendwarriorblog · 5 years ago

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The Weekend Warrior Home Edition April 24, 2020 – BEASTIE BOYS STORY, TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG, EXTRACTION and More!

Welcome back to this week’s chapter of Ed is Going Crazy and Itching to Watch a Movie Anywhere BUT His Computer and Television. Since EIGCAITWAMABHCAT is way too long a title, I’ll just stick with “The Weekend Warrior” for now.

I hadn’t planned on attending this year’s Oxford Film Festival, which was scheduled to start in March, but I’m happy that after it was postponed, Executive Director Melanie Addington, decided to hold a virtual festival so others outside the Mississippi region can finally experience the wonderful programming that Addington and her programming team deliver every year. The series will run weekly beginning with Brandon Colvin’s A Dim Valley, which was part of the LGBTQ Narrative Features and will get a one-day exclusive U.S. preview on Friday. It’s about a curmudgeon biologist and his slack graduate assistants who encounter a trio of “mystical backpackers” while doing their summer research project in the Appalachian woods. I’m looking forward to the “McPhail Block” which will run from April 24 to May 1, celebrating Oxford’s version of Brangelina, the acting couple, Johnny and Susan McPhail, who you’re sure to have seen in any number of projects from HBO’s “True Detective” to last year’s The Peanut Butter Falcon. The block includes four shorts including the World Premiere of Brian Whisenant’s The Golden Years, starring the beloved local couple, and three other solid shorts including Thad Lee’s adaptation of Stephen King’s short story, All That You Love Will Be Carried Away. I may be biased, but I definitely recommend checking out the McPhail shorts, because you really get a sense of their personalities in these films even if they are acting and playing characters. Also premiering the first week is a pair of regional doc shorts, Getting to the Root and 70 Years of Blackness (another World Premiere), as well as a second block of doc shorts dubbed “Passion Projects,” comprised of five short films. It’s a well-curated festival, so there should be some good stuff across the board.

You can get tickets to most of the first few weeks’ programming at Eventlive.

Also, the virtual Tribeca Film Festival is underway, and honestly, I wish I could tell you more about it, but I haven’t had a chance to watch anything, as of this writing, and I’m not even sure what is involved in terms of pricing and access… but apparently, it will only run through this weekend? I really just have no idea. The lack of information is frustrating.

Also, it looks like Film at Lincoln Center is adding to their Virtual Cinema schedule, which currently includes Béla Starr’s Sátántangó, the Brazilian thriller Bacurau and more. Starting on Friday, you can also watch Cédric Klapisch’s Someone, Somewhere (Distrib Films), which was going to play the Rendezvous at French Cinema series that was abruptly cancelled, and that’s FilmLinc’s first-week NYC exclusive. Also, the Icelandic film A White, White Day (Film Movement) from Hlynur Pálmason will be available to watch starting this Friday. They’ll be available to rent for $12.00 and $2.00 off if you’re a member. You can learn more about these on the Film at Lincoln Center site.

I usually wouldn’t make a streaming film my “Featured Movie” of this column, but we’re living in different times, so there are no longer any “rules.” This week’s Feature Movie (and in line to be one of my favorites for the year) is BEASTIE BOYS STORY, which will debut on Apple TV+ this coming Friday.

Originally, the concert documentary (of sorts) was going to get a short IMAX run, which would have been brilliant since it was recorded by director Spike Jonze – yes, that one – at a series of live dates out at Brooklyn’s Kings Theater simply billed as “Beastie Boys Story.” The multimedia show had Beasties Michael “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “Ad Rock” Horovitz talking about the storied history of the group, their roots as a pretty lame punk act in a grungier New York, to achieving fame as the childish white rappers all over MTV… to growing as humans and losing their best friend Adam Yauch aka MCA to cancer.

When I moved to New York City in 1987, the Beasties were just exploding with “Licensed to Ill” but it still took me over a decade to take them seriously. I had a chance to do an interview with the guys when Oscilloscope released the concert movie and spoke to Yauch again when he directed a basketball documentary that was at Tribeca. It was pretty obvious that Yauch was the genius behind the band, and the other two guys confirm this during the show. The movie also has a good amount of sentimentality and regrets for some of the decisions, such as booting original drummer, Kate Schellenbach, and how badly they treated her (but still signing her new band, Luscious Jackson, to their label).

Now I get that not everyone is into the Beasties and maybe they only know them from those early days, but let me tell you that Beastie Boys Story does a great job dispelling any myths or misconceptions about the group. In other words, if you’re not a fan of the Beastie Boys before this movie, you most definitely will be the end. This is one of the few movies I could watch online in one sitting without being distracted by other things, and I would totally rewatch it in a second. It’s a bit of a bummer this won’t get a theatrical release even by something like Fathom Events since it would play beautifully with an audience. Hopefully, Oscilloscope, the indie involved with the production will try to give the movie some sort of theatrical release when theaters reopen, because not everyone has Apple TV+ at this point.

I’ve been looking forward to watch Justin Kurzel’s TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG (IFC Films) since I first heard the movie was getting made. I was such a big fan of the Heath Ledger-Orlando Bloom movie Ned Kelly, directed by Gregor Jordan and co-starring Geoffrey Rush and Naomi Watt. I mean, that wasn’t the greatest movie despite that exemplary cast, but I also thought it should have done a lot better than the way it was dumped and forgotten by Focus Features. It’s just such a great story and a piece of Australian lore and culture that deserved a better movie.

If you haven’t heard of Ned Kelly or the Kelly Gang, they were Australia’s most notorious bank robbers, whose myth and legend grew as big in that country as that of Al Capone or others became here in the States. During the late 19th Century, the Kelly Gang famously wore plated armor and even dresses to throw off the authorities who were constantly in pursuit of them.

Unlike Ned Kelly, this begins more of an origin with Ned as a child, as played by Orlando Schwert, dealing with a father in prison and a mother (Essie Davis from The Babadook) who is trading sexual favors with his jailer, a sergeant played by Charlie Hunnam. After Ned’s father is executed, Russell Crowe’s Harry Power enters the picture as his mother’s new suitor, and he soon takes the teenage Ned under his wing to show him his ropes. Ned also learns that his mother sold him to Harry Power as someone to groom to be part of his gang. The story eventually shifts to the older Ned (played by George MacKay from 1917) who returns home to find that his mother has taken another suitor in Sean Keenan’s Joe Byrne, and he eventually gets Ned on board to conduct a number of elaborate robberies.

Okay, that’s the basic premise, and Kurzel has put together another great cast for a movie that works far better than his take on Macbeth and (shudder) Assassin’s Creed, both starring Michael Fassbender. (Granted, I’d probably give both of these a rewatch after seeing Kurzel’s Kelly Gang movie.) Although from the very beginning, it’s said that the film’s title of being a “True History” is a bit of a misnomer as a lot of it feels like hearsay from a quite deranged older Ned to an English teacher who claims the story as his own. That said, it is an interesting dive into Kelly’s backstory and what turned him into the violent criminal he became. Oh, I should also mention his relationship with Mary (played by the wonderful Thomasin McKenzie), a single mother living in a brothel who Ned bonds with. There’s a lot to enjoy in the movie including Russell Crowe’s rousing ditty about what Harry Power thinks about the authorities. (It’s not safe for work, if you can’t guess.)

It’s tough to watch at times, similar to last year’s The Nightingale – Australia in those days was not a particularly nice place – but this is by far Kurzel’s best film to date, and it’s a shame that so few will have a chance to see it on the big screen, because it’s definitely a big screen movie. A fine film by Kurzel and one that will make me rethink his previous movies and intrigued in what he does next.

It will be available On Demand, Digitally and in exactly two Drive-Ins, the Mission Tiki 4 Drive-In in Montclair, California and another in Ocala, Florida. If you’re in Orlando, it might be worth the hour trip to see it. Otherwise – and I’m not sure if you’ve heard this advice any time in the last month – but STAY HOME! (Since you can watch it that way, too.)

Martha Stephens’ period coming of age drama, TO THE STARS (Samuel Goldwyn), stars Kara Hayward as Iris Dearborn, a shy farmer’s daughter in 1960s Oklahoma who befriends Liana Liberato’s worldly Maggie Richmond, a city girl who tends to embellish the truth. The two of them navigate the local high school run by a number of snobbish bullying girls, while dealing with some of the real-life drama of growing up in a small town. I was hoping I’d like To the Stars more since I heard good things about it out of Sundance, where it was screened in black and white. It’s generally decent, although it definitely hits some rough and almost unnecessary patches as it builds toward a somewhat obvious climax and dark ending. The script doesn’t really offer that much that’s new or original from other small-town tales set during this period, but Stephens does a decent job getting solid performances out of most of the cast including Tony Hale and Malin Akerman in somewhat rare dramatic roles, Jordana Spiro and Shea Whigham. There are just some of the other younger characters who were annoyingly obvious clichés and the mostly bad Southern accents started getting to me after a while. I also hear lots of raves about the movie’s cinematography, but in color, it didn’t really do much to warrant such praise, and it was hard to even tell what was happening in a few of the darker scenes, one of the bummers about watching movies on a laptop. I’m sure some might like this movie more than I did, and those who enjoy films like this will be able to watch To the Stars on Digital this Friday.

Now playing on Digital and Demand is the first of a three-part documentary, called Time Warp: The Greatest Cult Films of All-Time (Quiver Distribution), the first volume being subtitled: “Midnight Madness.” Directed by Danny Wolf and hosted by Joe Dante, John Waters, Ileana Douglas and Kevin Polack, the first chapter includes a pretty impressive array of talent, including Jeff Bridges, Pam Grier, Rob Reiner, Barry Bostwick, Michael McKean, John Turturro, Gary Busey, Jeff Goldblum, Fran Drescher, Penelope Spheeris and Peter Bogdanovich. It covers everything from The Rocky Horror Picture Show to The Big Lebowski in a deep dive of 105 minutes. Now I’ve never been the biggest midnight movie guy when going to festivals, because to be honest, I just can’t stay up that late. I’m an old man. But I do love genre and cult films, the weirder the better, and while I’m not sure I’d consider Lebowski a “midnight movie,” the movie is pretty thorough in covering all but the most esoteric films. The first volume is a lot of fun with Jack Hill, Pam Grier and the late Sid Haig talking Coffey and similar “mini-docs” on so many great movies. Other great films covered include David Lynch’s Eraserhead, Tod Browning’s Freaks, and of course, Waters was gonna talk about Pink Flamingos. I’ve seen most of the movies, and I knew quite a bit about them, but the film is still a great entry into cult movies, and I definitely recommend it whether you’re already a fan of this movie subgenre or not.

Volume 2 (available May 19) is about Horror and Scifi, while Volume 3 (available June 23) is Comedy and Camp, and I’ll cover those more fully in the weeks they’re available.

I was vaguely intrigued by ROBERT THE BRUCE (ScreenMedia), which as you might imagine from the title (words that are said almost every five minutes but one of a dozen characters), it’s meant as a thematic sequel to Mel Gibson’s Braveheart. Actor Angus Macfadyen, who played the title character in Gibson’s movie, cowrote and stars in this movie set in the early 14th century (1306, to be precise) where it sort of follows his character. Robert the Bruce has crowned himself King of Scotland after the death of William Wallace, and he takes over Wallace’s mission to win Scotland’s freedom and immediately puts a target and price on his head as his army is dispersed. He’s discovered by an 11-year-old boy, the son of one of his soldiers, who along with his mother and two orphans help nurse Robert the Bruce back to health.

This movie makes you wonder how long Macfadyen must have waited for Gibson or anyone involved with Braveheart to give him his own movie before he gave up and made it himself. Doing some quick math: he waited 25 years, and clearly, that’s just been too long, because even as a fan of those historical battle epics, I was just so effin’ bored by Robert the Bruce, especially after seeing True History of the Kelly Gang. Macfadyen has a decent cast around him, including Jarred Harris and Patrick Fugit, but I’m not sure I’ve ever been more bored watching a movie as I was watching this one.

Robert the Bruce will be on Digital and On Demand in conjunction with the 700th anniversary of Robert the Bruce’s Declaration of Arbroath, declaring Scotland a free land.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Premiering on Netflix this Friday is the new Chris Hemsworth crime thriller, EXTRACTION, produced by the Russos (Avengers: Endgame) and directed by Sam Hargrave, the Russos’ stunt coordinator making his feature directorial debut. In the movie, Hesworth plays Tyler Rake, a black market mercenary hired to rescue the kidnapped son of an international crime lord who has been jailed, as he gets involved in the underworld of weapons dealers and drug traffickers trying to save the boy.

This wasn’t a bad action movie really, and nothing like the loads of bad action movies made in the ‘80s, ‘90s and ‘00s, compared to the actually decent and memorable ones like Die Hard, Aliens, the early films of Luc Besson, etc. This is a pretty simple premise, but Hemsworth has clearly found his stride as an action hero when not playing Thor, and this has all the momentum and kinetic violence of a Bourne movie, as Hemsworth wisely plays Tyler Rake more as the strong and mostly silent type with his young liege, played by Rudhraksh Jaiswal, the two being a strong combo that keeps you entertained throughout. I definitely like Hemsworth more as an actor than others who may have played this sort of role, such as Bruce Willis or Jason Statham, etc. There’s also a great supporting role for Golshifteh Farahani, who you may remember from her role in Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson or The Pear Tree, and David Harbour has a great, very physical fight with Hemsworth in one scene. I’m really liking the way that Netflix is exploring international cinema not just from the hit foreign language films regularly on the streaming network but also a worldly action-thriller like Extraction. Like True History of The Kelly Gang, I would have loved to see this on the big screen, even if it was a press screening at Netflix’s newly-managed Paris Theater. It’s just so much more fun seeing movies like this one with an audience. This may be a running and recurring theme in this column over the next few months, by the way.

Also this week, the new improvised comedy special Middleditch & Schwartz (as in Thomas and Ben) will premiere on Tuesday on Netflix – heard about this on Josh Horowitz’s “Happy Sad Confused” podcast and I’m intrigued – as well as the animated feature, The Willoughbys, featuring the voices of Will Forte, Maya Rudolph and Ricky Gervais, will debut on Wednesday. The latter is about four kids with selfish parents and their plans to get rid of them. Also, the second season of After Life and third seasons of The House Of Flowers, neither show which I’ve seen, begin this week, so if you’re a fan, there’s those to watch, too.

Also, Lionsgate will include its series of free movies with this Friday night’s offering being the ‘80s classic, Dirty Dancing.

It looks like the exceptional Maysles Cinema up in Harlem has started some virtual programming and Friday, it will launch its “Made in Harlem” programming with Looking for Langston. You can go to the Maysles’ websiteto learn more about the program.

Next week, more movies not in theaters!

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

#TheWeekendWarrior #BeastieBoysStory #TrueHistoryOfTheKellyGang #Extraction #RobertTheBruce #Movies #Reviews #ToTheStars

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