#director: riff studio

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Oooh! A great Gavin Finney (Good Omens Director of Photography) interview with Helen Parkinson for the British Cinematographer! :)

HEAVEN SENT

Gifted a vast creative landscape from two of fantasy’s foremost authors to play with, Gavin Finney BSC reveals how he crafted the otherworldly visuals for Good Omens 2.  

It started with a letter from beyond the grave. Following fantasy maestro Sir Terry Pratchett’s untimely death in 2015, Neil Gaiman decided he wouldn’t adapt their co-authored 1990 novel, Good Omens, without his collaborator. That was, until he was presented with a posthumous missive from Pratchett asking him to do just that.  

For Gaiman, it was a request that proved impossible to decline: he brought Good Omens season one to the screen in 2019, a careful homage to its source material. His writing, complemented by some inspired casting – David Tennant plays the irrepressible demon Crowley, alongside Michael Sheen as angel-slash-bookseller Aziraphale – and award-nominated visuals from Gavin Finney BSC, proved a potent combination for Prime Video viewers.  

Aziraphale’s bookshop was a set design triumph.

Season two departs from the faithful literary adaptation of its predecessor, instead imagining what comes next for Crowley and Aziraphale. Its storyline is built off a conversation that Pratchett and Gaiman shared during a jetlagged stay in Seattle for the 1989 World Fantasy Convention. Gaiman remembers: “The idea was always that we would tell the story that Terry and I came up with in 1989 in Seattle, but that we would do that in our own time and in our own way. So, once Good Omens (S1) was done, all I knew was that I really, really wanted to tell the rest of the story.” 

Telling that story visually may sound daunting, but cinematographer Finney is no stranger to the wonderfully idiosyncratic world of Pratchett and co. As well as lensing Good Omens’ first outing, he’s also shot three other Pratchett stories – TV mini series  Hogfather  (2006), and TV mini-series The Colour of Magic (2008) and Going Postal (2010). 

He relishes how the authors provide a vast creative landscape for him to riff off. “The great thing about Pratchett and Gaiman is that there’s no limit to what you can do creatively – everything is up for grabs,” he muses. “When we did the first Pratchett films and the first Good Omens, you couldn’t start by saying, ‘Okay, what should this look like?’, because nothing looks like Pratchett’s world. So, you’re starting from scratch, with no references, and that starting point can be anything you want it to be.”  

Season two saw the introduction of inside-outside sets for key locations including Aziraphale’s bookshop. 

From start to finish 

The sole DP on the six-episode season, Finney was pleased to team up again with returning director Douglas Mackinnon for the “immensely complicated” shoot, and the pair began eight weeks of prep in summer 2021. A big change was the production shifting the main soho set from Bovington airfield, near London, up to Edinburgh’s Pyramids Studio. Much of the action in Good Omens takes place on the Soho street that’s home to Aziraphale’s bookshop, which was built as an exterior set on the former airfield for season one. Season two, however, saw the introduction of inside-outside sets for key locations including the bookshop, record store and pub, to minimise reliance on green screen.  

Finney brought over many elements of his season one lensing, especially Mackinnon’s emphasis on keeping the camera moving, which involved lots of prep and testing. “We had a full-time Scorpio 45’ for the whole shoot (run by key grip Tim Critchell and his team), two Steadicam operators (A camera – Ed Clark and B camera Martin Newstead) all the way through, and in any one day we’d often go from Steadicam, to crane, to dolly and back again,” he says. “The camera is moving all the time, but it’s always driven by the story.” 

One key difference for season two, however, was the move to large-format visuals. Finney tested three large-format cameras and the winner was the Alexa LF (assisted by the Mini LF where conditions required), thanks to its look and flexibility.  

The minisodes were shot on Cooke anamorphics, giving Finney the ideal balance of anamorphic-style glares and characteristics without too much veiling flare.

A more complex decision was finding the right lenses for the job. “You hear about all these whizzy new lenses that are re-barrelled ancient Russian glass, but I needed at least two full sets for the main unit, then another set for the second unit, then maybe another set again for the VFX unit,” Finney explains. “If you only have one set of this exotic glass, it’s no good for the show.” 

He tested a vast array of lenses before settling on Zeiss Supremes, supplied by rental house Media Dog. These ticked all the boxes for the project: “They had a really nice look – they’re a modern design but not over sharp, which can look a bit electronic and a bit much, especially with faces. When you’re dealing with a lot of wigs and prosthetics, we didn’t want to go that sharp. The Supremes had a very nice colour palette and nice roll-off. They’re also much smaller than a lot of large-format glass, so that made it easy for Steadicam and remote cranes. They also provided additional metadata, which was very useful for the VFX department (VFX services were provided by Milk VFX).” 

The Supremes were paired with a selection of filters to characterise the show’s varied locations and characters. For example, Tiffen Bronze Glimmerglass were paired with bookshop scenes; Black Pro-Mist was used for Hell; and Black Diffusion FX for Crowley’s present-day storyline.  

Finney worked closely with the show’s DIT, Donald MacSween, and colourist, Gareth Spensley, to develop the look for the minisode.

Maximising minisodes 

Episodes two, three and four of season two each contain a ‘minisode’ – an extended flashback set in Biblical times, 1820s Edinburgh and wartime London respectively. “Douglas wanted the minisodes to have very strong identities and look as different from the present day as possible, so we’d instantly know we were in a minisode and not the present day,” Finney explains.  

One way to shape their distinctive look was through using Cooke anamorphic lenses. As Finney notes: “The Cookes had the right balance of controllable, anamorphic-style flares and characteristics without having so much veiling flare that they would be hard to use on green screens. They just struck the right balance of aesthetics, VFX requirements and availability.” The show adopted the anamorphic aspect ratio (2:39.1), an unusual move for a comedy, but one which offered them more interesting framing opportunities. 

Good Omens 2 was shot on the Alexa LF, paired with Zeiss Supremes for the present-day scenes.

The minisodes were also given various levels of film grain to set them apart from the present-day scenes. Finney first experimented with this with the show’s DIT Donald MacSween using the DaVinci Resolve plugin FilmConvert. Taking that as a starting point, the show’s colourist, Company 3’s Gareth Spensley, then crafted his own film emulation inspired by two-strip Technicolor. “There was a lot of testing in the grade to find the look for these minisodes, with different amounts of grain and different types of either Technicolor three-strip or two-strip,” Finney recalls. “Then we’d add grain and film weave on that, then on top we added film flares. In the Biblical scenes we added more dust and motes in the air.”  

Establishing the show’s lighting was a key part of Finney’s testing process, working closely with gaffer Scott Napier and drawing upon PKE Lighting’s inventory. Good Omens’ new Scottish location posed an initial challenge: as the studio was in an old warehouse rather than being purpose-built for filming, its ceilings weren’t as high as one would normally expect. This meant Finney and Napier had to work out a low-profile way of putting in a lot of fixtures. 

Inside Crowley’s treasured Bentley.

Their first task was to test various textiles, LED wash lights and different weight loadings, to establish what they were working with for the street exteriors. “We worked out that what was needed were 12 SkyPanels per 20’x20’ silk, so each one was a block of 20’x20’, then we scaled that up,” Finney recalls. “I wanted a very seamless sky, so I used full grid cloth which made it very, very smooth. That was important because we’ve got lots of cars constantly driving around the set and the sloped windscreens reflect the ceiling. So we had to have seamless textiles – PKE had to source around 12,000 feet of textiles so that we could put them together, so the reflections in the windscreens of the cars just showed white gridcloth rather than lots of stage lights. We then drove the car around the set to test it from different angles.”  

On the floor, they mostly worked with LEDs, providing huge energy and cost savings for the production. Astera’s Titan Tubes came in handy for a fun flashback scene with John Hamm’s character Gabriel. The DP remembers: “[Gabriel] was travelling down a 30-foot feather tunnel. We built a feather tunnel on the stage and wrapped it in a ring of Astera tubes, which were then programmed by dimmer op Jon Towler to animate, pulse and change different colours. Each part of Gabriel’s journey through his consciousness has a different colour to it.” 

Among the rigs built was a 20-strong Creamsource Vortex setup for the graveyard scene in the “Body Snatchers” minisode, shot in Stirling. “We took all the yokes off each light then put them on a custom-made aluminium rig so we could have them very close. We put them up on a big telehandler on a hill that gave me a soft mood light, which was very adjustable, windproof and rainproof.” 

Shooting on the VP stage for the birth of the universe scenes in episode one.

Sky’s the limit 

A lot of weather effects were done in camera – including lightning effects pulsed in that allowed both direct fork lightning and sheet lightning to spread down the streets. In the grade, colourist Spensley was also able to work his creative magic on the show’s skies. “Gareth is a very artistic colourist – he’s a genius at changing skies,” Finney says. “Often in the UK you get these very boring, flat skies, but he’s got a library of dramatic skies that you can drop in. That would usually be done by VFX, but he’s got the ability to do it in Baselight, so a flat sky suddenly becomes a glorious sunset.” 

Finney emphasises that the grade is a very involved process for a series like Good Omens, especially with its VFX-heavy nature. “This means VFX sequences often need extra work when it comes back into the timeline,” says the DP. “So, we often add camera movement or camera shake to crank the image up a bit. Having a colourist like Gareth is central to a big show like Good Omens, to bring all the different visual elements together and to make it seamless. It’s quite a long grade process but it’s worth its weight in gold.” 

Shooting in the VR cube for the blitz scenes .

Finney took advantage of virtual production (VP) technology for the driving scenes in Crowley’s classic Bentley. The volume was built on their Scottish set: a 4x7m cube with a roof that could go up and down on motorised winches as needed. “We pulled the cars in and out on skates – they went up on little jacks, which you could then rotate and move the car around within the volume,” he explains. “We had two floating screens that we could move around to fill in and use as additional source lighting. Then we had generated plates – either CGI or real location plates –projected 360º around the car. Sometimes we used the volume in-camera but if we needed to do more work downstream; we’d use a green screen frustum.” Universal Pixels collaborated with Finney to supply in-camera VFX expertise, crew and technical equipment for the in-vehicle driving sequences and rear projection for the crucial car shots. 

John Hamm was suspended in the middle of this lighting rig and superimposed into the feather tunnel.

Interestingly, while shooting at a VP stage in Leith, the team also used the volume as a huge, animated light source in its own right – a new technique for Finney. “We had the camera pointing away from [the volume] so the screen provided this massive, IMAX-sized light effect for the actors. We had a simple animation of the expanding universe projected onto the screen so the actors could actually see it, and it gave me the animated light back on the actors.”  

Bringing such esteemed authors’ imaginations to the screen is no small task, but Finney was proud to helped bring Crowley and Aziraphale’s adventures to life once again. He adds: “What’s nice about Good Omens, especially when there’s so much bad news in the world, is that it’s a good news show. It’s a very funny show. It’s also about good and evil, love and doing the right thing, people getting together irrespective of backgrounds. It’s a hopeful message, and I think that that’s what we all need.” 

Finney is no stranger to the idiosyncratic world of Sir Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

[korn-official]

The Kerrang! Challenge starring Jonathan Davis & Munky!

This weeks contestants are:

Name: Jonathan Davis and James 'Munky' Shaffer

Occupation: Tortured singer and guitar-mangler & Kerrang! stage headliners, KORN!

Specialist Subject: Clowns, blindness, and obscenities.

**

1. What is BSE most commonly known as?

James: "is it a European thing? Oh great."

Jonathan: "Mad Cow's Disease?"

James: "Yessss!!!! Good guess, man!”

Jonathan: "I'm a vegetarian now, and BSE was one of the reasons I stopped eating meat. It freaks me out. I don't want my fucking brains running out my nose."

2.On entering the EEC, how many cigarrettes can you bring with you?

Jonathan: "Oh, man, What the fuck is it? Three?"

James: "Remember being on the boat at Dover, and there were all these guys with cartons? I'm gonna say 30 cartons."

Jonathan: "We'll say five cartons."

Kerrang!: "It's 'chokey' for you, then."

3.How many installments of "Childern of the Corn" have there been?

Jonathan: "Three. The first one's the dopest, the second one was kind of cheesy, and the third one I didn't see. Bet it sucks."

4. Who won the Euro 96 competition?

James: "Nobody in the band's into sports"

Jonathan: "What is Euro 96?"

James: "Just pick one."

Jonathan: "Norway."

5.name Slayer's second album.

James: "There was Reign in Blood, then ...."

Jonathan: "Seasons in the Abyss, maybe.."

James: "We'll say South of Heaven"

Kerrang!: "It was Hell Awaits.”

(The duo scream with the embarrassment of it all.)

Jonathan: "Fuck, I knew that song. Play it backwards and it goes, "Join Us", I liked it."

James: "Sicko.”

6. Name Keanu Reeve's rock band.

James: "I saw them on The David Letterman Show.”

Jonathan: "Er, we’re gonna suck…”

Kerrang!: "not as badly as Dogstar."

7. Who plays Quentin Tarantino's brother in From Dusk Till Dawn?

Jonathan: "Haven't seen it. Bruce Willis?"

James: "Boris Karloff."

8. What was the first single from Bon Jovi's keep the faith album?

James: "Keep the faith, that was it. Oh fuckk, I should have got that wrong. Oh no..."

Jonathan: "You fucking rocker!”

9. What is maize more commonly known as?

Jonathan: "Corn, we use Maize as a dummy name when we do warm-up shows."

10. As a result of losing her royal title, how much money has princess Diana been given?

Jonathan: "Was it 43 million pounds?"

Kerrang!: "No, she's not that important."

Jonathan: "I heard a story that when Diana and Prince Charles went anywhere, people had to build a toilet. Then the toilet seat got sent back to the Royal Family, so no one could ever sit on it. The whole monarchy's fucked."

11. Who directed the Italian horror film "tenebrae"?

Jonathan: "Oh, Fellini?

Kerrang!: "No."

Jonathan: "Fellini is the only italian director we know."

12. What is 15 percent of 400?

James: "Oh, man, mathematics."

Jonathan: "Okay, 10 percent will be 40 bucks, is it 45?"

13. What colour is London's Central tube line?

James: "Lime green.“

Jonathan: "I wasn't down there. so I can't tell you. We suck. How many have we got - two?"

14. Which band's second album is named "Ignition"?

James: "Ah, Offspring."

Jonathan: "They're from Huntington Beach, where we started the band. They're cool, but I'm not into that music at all. Noodles is a really nice guy, although he seems to be full of himself."

15. Who played the photo-journalist in "Apocalypse Now"?

Jonathan: "Dennis Hopper. He is in my favourite movie, 'Blue Velvet'. I wish I could live 'Blue Velvet'."

16. Whereabouts would you find the human tragus?

Jonathan: "That's a hard one…I'd say the face. Fuck, it's the head. Is it a bone? The ear. Morturary College comes in handy again."

17. Which rap band sampled a riff from Slayer's Angel of Death?

James: "Public Enemy, 'She Watch Channel Zero?!'. When we were 18, we used to play that in the recording studio."

18. Name the four horeseman of the apocalypse.

James: "Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Dennis Hopper"

Jonathan: "There's the white horse, the brown one..."

19. Which comedian recorded a live album and vidoe called 'no cure for cancer'?

James: "Denis Leary. He's raw, man. He's hosting a new comedy over here, called 'London Underground' or something.”

20. What are the ingredients of a good bloody mary?

James: “Vodka, tomato juice, celery, tabasco, and a dash of pepper."

Jonathan: "Worcester sauce and maybe some long green beans. They're great for a hangover, and on a plane too. I don't know why, but God they're good."

21. What do the opposite sides of a dice total?

Jonathan: "Seven, I know that from shootin craps."

Kerrang!: "Isn't that a tad messy? Boom ching, I thank you."

22. Spell the word enema.

Jonathan: "E-N...There's a 'Y' in it. fuck it. E-N-Y-M-A."

23. if a Londoner said that they were going to "up the apples and pears", what would they mean they are doing?

Jonathan: "Fucking— drinking? We have no clue.“

Kerrang!: "Up the stairs."

Jonathan: "Okay, I've gotta remember that. 'I'm going up the apples and pears, man.'"

24. How many centimeters are there in a foot?

James: "A hundred?"

25. Which is the correct saying: the yolk of an egg is white, or the yolk of an egg are white?

Jonathan: "The yolk of an egg is white, no?"

Kerrang!: "It's yellow.”

James: "Oh, man. that's like 'which is heavier, a pound of rocks or a pound of feathers?'. That is cool."

[overnightoverthinking]

‘Saw’: A Modern Film classic.

To talk about the influence that the first ‘Saw’ movie had on movies as a whole quite an undertaking. Its immediate reach is

obvious but its influence can still be felt and seen to this day.

What's the last thing you remember?

To talk about ‘Saw’ as a milestone let's first talk about what came before it. We won’t go into the entire history of Horror movies (I could, don’t tempt me) but let’s go right before Saw released.

Wes Craven’s ‘Scream’ (1996) ushered in self-aware horror. It was a movie that drew focus to horror tropes while still being an incredible slasher movie. So many movies afterwards would riff on the idea of being a “wink and a nod” to moviegoers. It’s easy to forget that the movie which pioneered this on a big scale was ‘Scream’.

‘The Blair Witch Project’, released in 1999, opened the door for movies with an incredibly low budget to not only be seen as legitimate but as major motion picture worthy.

‘The Ring’, released 2 years earlier than Saw in 2002, proved that a very effective horror movie can exist while getting a rating of PG-13. You could do more with less. Although R-rated horror were still prevalent it certainly widened the horror playing field.

I want to play a game.

Saw was released in 2004 with a budget of around 1.2 million dollars. Calculating for inflation that brings the budget to a little over 2 million dollars in current currency. Putting that into perspective the average major studio movie budget is anywhere from 65 million on a low end to 100 million and above nowadays.

Something to keep in mind about Saw is that it did not look as polished as other big budget movies. Saw looked like a grungy indie movie instead of a big budget movie which audiences were used to at the time. Another factor is that with this movie, then first time director, James Wan’s skill was apparent.

Much like with ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ (1974), we don’t directly see a lot of the gore in Saw. We see bodies, quick camera cuts, shaking, and sped up footage but a lot of the direct violence is not on screen. What is implied takes root in your mind to make your imagination do a lot more of the work than the director could.

Let the game begin.

After ‘Saw’ there were a lot more dark and gritty horror movies that flourished like ‘Hostel’ and ‘The Strangers’. ‘Saw’’s insistence on following it’s characters and learning about their stories can also be seen in high concept horror like ‘It Follows’. It launched a subgenera of movies: “torture/gore porn”. I think those movies are an interesting and important commentaries on the time the exist in but they were spurred on by the success of ‘Saw’.

Let’s now step outside of movies entirely. You know what else sparked in popularity after ‘Saw’? Escape Rooms. I love Escape Rooms. They were certainly a thing before the ‘Saw’ movies but the popularity of them has gone up after. The original ‘Saw’ basically revolves it’s main plot around the idea of an escape room after all.

Live or die, make your choice.

I am biased. I love the ‘Saw’ franchise and think the original ‘Saw’ movie should be appreciated for the long reaching impact that it has. Hopefully in reading (or skimming) this you were also able to see some of that.

Take care everyone.

[freddiemercurylegendabovelegends]

Today, on April 22nd, 1989 - Queen Story!

Queen filmed promo video for “I Want It All” at Elstree Studios, Borehamwood, UK, director David Mallet

🔸Roger Taylor: Yes, it is our first studio album since 1986, I think that the reason for, for the delay, no, not the delay, for the long wait in between was that we wanted to sort of go away, and just recharge our batteries, quite logical really, and er, and just sort of generate some, some new energy and enthusiasm for, for being Queen

John Deacon: After we did the, the tour in 1986, which was a very big European tour, we were all absolutely exhausted, and shattered, and basically we didn't want to really work together or see each other for a while

Roger Taylor: To get into the whole cycle of er, just making an album, then going on tour, then coming back home and making an album again, we wanted to get out of that

Brian May: We said right, we'll take a little break, we're not, we're not going to split up, but we just er, we need some space for ourselves, and when the time is right, we'll make the album, rather than, you know, somebody says you've got to make one so we make one, so we waited, and we did some, did various other things, you know, Freddie and Roger both did solo projects, and I'm half way through one, and did a lot of producing

John Deacon: That took at least a year to a year and a half, and then towards the end of that second year, er, we sort of met up, and Freddie suggested, I think it was Freddie, perhaps we'd try a little time in the studio

Roger Taylor: So we went into the studio, saw what it was like, and we enjoyed it very much, and we still didn't have any material, so then we decided to go in for the long, for a long, longer time

John Deacon: You know, the third year was spent making the album, so the, in a way it was a two year gap to us, rather than three years, and er, and what was the, I've forgotten the second part of the question already

Interviewer: Did it help you to return to the studios feeling refreshed?

John Deacon: Yes (laughter) yes

The first few weeks of the recording we did a lot of live, er, material, a lot of songs um, ideas came up, some jamming, we had a few ideas that were already prepared, er, 'I Want It All' was one of the, one of the few songs that was actually, written before we went in

- From 'The Miracle' Interviews

Various and separate interviews recorded with Brian, Roger and John on the set of the 'Breakthru' promotional video, May 1989

👉"We were heading into the period where we decided to share the credit for all the songs, and John has said that [the song] was pretty much a finished song when we went into the studios – that's true, it was just this riff that I was obsessed with for months. The actual title was a favorite phrase of Anita's, a very ambitious girl: 'I want it all, and I want it now '... We were never able to perform this song live. It would have become something of the staple core of the Queen show, I'm sure, very participatory. It was designed for the audience to sing along to, very anthemic."

- Brian May, interview 2003, from Greatest Video Hits 2

[brokehorrorfan]

John Carpenter will release his fourth solo album, Lost Themes IV: Noir, on May 3 via Sacred Bones Records. The filmmaker/composer is, as always, accompanied by son Cody Carpenter on synthesizer and godson Daniel Davies on guitar.

The album is available to pre-order on vinyl in several colorways, each of which features a foil stamped jacket and comes with a 24x36 fold-out poster (pictured below):

Black ($20)

Red ($24)

Indie exclusive tan and black marble with bonus 7"

Sacred Bones exclusive red on clear splatter with bonus 7" ($30, limited to 1,000)

Rough Trade exclusive oxblood red and black splatter with bonus 7" ($33, limited to 300)

Shout Factory exclusive black and clear cloudy with bonus 7" ($32, limited to 500)

The album is also available on CD ($14) and cassette ($12). Watch the music video for a new song titled "My Name Is Death" below, where you can also read the press release.

It’s been a decade since John Carpenter recorded the material that would become Lost Themes, his debut album of non-film music and the opening salvo in one of Hollywood’s great second acts. Those vibrant, synth-driven songs, made in collaboration with his son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies, kickstarted a musical renaissance for the pioneering composer and director. In the years since, Carpenter, Carpenter, and Davies have released close to a dozen musical projects, including a growing library of studio albums and the scores for David Gordon Green’s trilogy of Halloween reboots. With Lost Themes IV: Noir, they’ve struck gold again, this time mining the rich history of the film noir genre for inspiration. Since the first Lost Themes, John has referred to these compositions as “soundtracks for the movies in your mind.” On the fourth installment in the series, those movies are noirs. Like the film genre they were influenced by, what makes these songs “noirish” is sometimes slippery and hard to define, and not merely reducible to a collection of tropes. The scores for the great American noir pictures were largely orchestral, while the Carpenters and Davies work off a sturdy synth-and-guitar backbone. The noir quality, then, is something you understand instinctively when you hear it. “Some of the music is heavy guitar riffs, which is not in old noir films,” Davies notes. “But somehow, it’s connected in an emotional way.” The trio’s free-flowing chemistry means Lost Themes IV: Noir runs like a well-oiled machine—the 1951 Jaguar XK120 Roadster from Kiss Me Deadly, perhaps, or the 1958 Plymouth Fury from John’s own Christine. It’s a chemistry that’s helped power one of the most productive stretches of John’s creative life, and Noir proves that it’s nowhere near done yielding brilliant results. “This is who we are, I think,” John summarizes. “Daniel’s the adventurer. He pushes for new sounds, new directions. He tries things that I haven’t thought of. He’s a lot more daring than I am, and he enriches the whole thing. Cody’s the musician. He’s a savant at music. He understands music. We depend on him to rescue us.” And what about John’s contribution? With characteristic understatement, he concludes: “I’m the experience. I’ve done music for movies before.”

[grigori77]

2023 in Movies, My Top 30 Fave Movies (Part 3)

10.  NIMONA – we almost didn’t get 2023’s most socially important animated feature.  When Disney acquired Twentieth Century Fox and everything went tits up for its various affiliates, animation house Blue Sky Studios bit the dust just as this long-awaited adaptation of influential She-Ra & the Princesses of Power showrunner ND Stevenson’s beloved fantastical graphic novel from Spies In Disguise directors Nick Bruno and Troy Quaine was nearing completion, and it looked like it might never see the light of day … at least until Annapurna Pictures and Netflix swooped in to the rescue, snapping it up, funding its completion and getting it out on streaming to the delight of all of us who’d thought it was essentially LOST.  The end result is just about THE VERY BEST movie I’ve ever seen about the struggles of being non-binary and not conforming to any set gender norms in modern society, viewed through the fantasy prism of a shapeshifting “teenager” who effortlessly steals their own film.  Chloe Grace Moretz is perfectly cast as the voice of the titular misfit anarchist troublemaker supernatural being, who finds an opportunity for some fresh chaos by joining forces with Ballister Boldheart (Riz Ahmed), a newly-knighted commoner who becomes public enemy number one after being viciously framed for the murder of the queen of a futuristic medieval society (really!) built around chivalry and the righteous smiting of monsters.  Ballister’s determined to prove his innocence, while Nimona just wants to create havoc, while they’re both being hunted by his former fellow knights, led by his ex-boyfriend Ambrosius Goldenloin (Eugene Lee Yang of The Try Guys), a direct descendent of the Kingdom’s legendary original monster slaying heroine Gloreth.  It’s a gloriously original piece of work, the animation presented in a truly GORGEOUS brightly coloured 2-dimensional 3D graphic style that at once riffs on the ingenious visual inventiveness of the Spider-Verse movies while also creating something COMPLETELY NEW but simultaneously lovably reminiscent of the classic Blue Sky cartoony look, while the frequently chaotic action is just as infectiously anarchic as the lead character herself.  It’s also fiendishly brilliant in its subversive message and twisty logic, making the viewer question what being a monster REALLY means, and if what we SEE someone as REALLY IS their true identity.  Needless to say, Moretz runs away with the whole film, while the character of Nimona herself is a truly ENCHANTING and thoroughly inspiring creation who’s destined to become an iconic hero for non-binary and trans kids around the world, but Ahmed and Yang are clearly having a great time here too, as is Frances Conroy as the Director of the Kingdom’s knights, having a blast bringing icy menace to her deliciously duplicitous villainous turn.  It’s an incredibly FUN movie, shot through with a rich and rewardingly infectious sense of humour, taking classic fantasy tropes and turning them on their head in new and wonderfully inventive ways, but it knows JUST when to get serious too, and there are some powerful moments when it grabs hold of your heart and DESTROYS YOU emotionally, especially in the incredibly evocative climax.  Ultimately this ISN’T an overly faithful adaptation of Stevenson’s original graphic novel – he was in a darker place when he wrote and drew it, going through his own complicated struggle with his gender identity before finally making his personal transition in 2022 – but it certainly is rewardingly true to the book’s spirit and deep-down message of inclusion, positivity and being true to your core identity, which makes it one of the most important animated films to be made in a very long time.  I’m so happy it’s received the TRULY MASSIVE amount of attention and LOVE it’s garnered since its release, and I thank Netflix and everybody else who made the effort to get this movie out after all when Disney seemed so reluctant to take a chance on it.  This deserves to be seen, it NEEDS to be seen, and I urge you to check it out.

9.  RENFIELD – my horror movie of 2023 sits very comfortably in the genre’s sub-category that I’ve always loved best, a jet black comedy of particularly rare quality and gleeful abandon that made it one of the most entertaining viewing experiences I had this past year.  Yeah, like the best horror comedies it has enough genuine darkness that it CAN be genuinely scary when it wants to be, but given the sheer (literal) batshit craziness of its premise this is a BONKERS FILM, and so it wisely embraces its sheer lampoonery to full effect without reservation.  Not that it’s overly surprising – director Chris McKay cut his teeth helming The Lego Batman Movie before branching out into live action with Amazon’s criminally underrated time travelling alien invasion blockbuster The Tomorrow War, both of which were excellent vehicles for him to master the gloriously anarchic style that he finally unleashes fully formed for this brilliant alternative sequel to the classic Universal Dracula movie with Bela Lugosi.  That being said, the big box office draw here was always going to be Nicolas Cage, who pays loving tribute to Lugosi as the infamous Count, kicking into his typical “manic” setting to chew the scenery with ruthless abandon and, as a result, frequently steal the show right out from under Nicholas Hoult as his titular ghoul manservant, the long-suffering Robert Montague Renfield, who just wants the opportunity to finally find a real, simple life for himself and thinks he can pull it off in modern day New Orleans, only for his Master to himself become inspired by Renfield’s newfound ambition and set his sights on world domination with the help of the Lobos, a brutal local crime family.  Thankfully Hoult DOES manage to hold his own in his scenes with Cage, as always proving ADEPTLY talented enough to deliver another winningly endearing performance while playing perhaps the single most pathetic specimen of his career to date … meanwhile the thoroughly adorable Awkwafina once again proves she’s well on the way to becoming the PREMIER kooky goofball female comedic lead in Hollywood as Rebecca Quincy, the one truly honest cop in one of the most corrupt police forces in all of America, who winds up falling for Renfield’s hangdog charm and puppy-dog eyes as he inadvertently becomes the key to her quest to bring down the Lobos after they murdered her legendary detective father.  Shohreh Aghdashloo brings a much needed touch of class to proceedings as Bellafrancesca Lobo, the family’s seductively sly matriarch, while Space Force and Sonic the Hedgehog’s Ben Schwarz is a frequent non-PC laugh riot all on his own as her entitled constant disappointment of a son Teddy, and Ghosts’ Brandon Scott Jones is lovably flaky as the leader of Renfield’s endearingly pathetic support group for people trapped in toxic co-dependent relationships.  This genuinely is a DEEPLY FUNNY FILM, perfectly geared up for a maximum hit count with the one-liners, in-jokes and situations, but then there’s no surprise here since writer Ryan Ridley (adapting a pitch from The Walking Dead’s original creator Robert Kirkman) is a seasoned veteran of TV comedy, particularly well known as an alumnus of the similarly edgy and madcap Rick & Morty, and this carries a lot of the same twisted, anarchic charm as that rightly beloved series, just in a much more big budget live action form.  It’s also SPECTACULARLY bloodthirsty when it wants to be, the welcome reliance on what are clearly LARGELY physical effects meaning that this movie is another gore-hound’s wet dream, even if the film does mostly play the horror elements for laughs throughout, and it’s an impressively inventive and chaotic beast in THAT regard too, delivering some of the most gloriously OTT splatter-fuelled action sequences I’ve seen in a good while whenever Renfield eats a bug and gets an ultraviolent power boost.  Altogether this is definitely some of the most fun I had at the cinema this past year, and I’ll admit I wouldn’t mind a bit more of this if they DID fancy trying the sequel road after all …

8.  LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND – Mr Robot was one of THE all-time great TV revelations of the 2010s, creator/showrunner Sam Esmail becoming a genuinely challenging counter-culture voice responsible for hard-hitting, thought-provoking material which really shook up the status quo.  Shocking, then, that his only real notable foray onto the BIG screen was with the offbeat but ultimately overlooked romantic comedy fantasy Comet, but that balance has FINALLY been redressed almost a decade later with this powerhouse leftfield tour-de-force dystopian apocalyptic thriller from Netflix.  Adapting the already hard-hitting, critically acclaimed novel by Rumaan Alam, Esmail wastes no time in weaving a spell of subtly inexplicable unease as we follow a family of well-to-do New Yorkers who take the opportunity to get out of the city for a break on the coast after renting someone else’s house for a long weekend, only for the owners to suddenly return in the night with tales of a blackout and more bafflingly worrying events unfolding in the outside world, hoping they can stay too until they know more.  Feelings of distrust and paranoia immediately settle in and refuse to leave even as the two families warily get to know one another, but then things are getting WEIRD – the internet and TV are DOWN, drones are dropping indecipherable foreign propaganda from the skies and there are sudden bursts of head-splitting noise coming from SOMEWHERE … all too slowly it becomes clear that something truly terrible is happening, and that there’s more than just rumoured cyber-attacks at work here.  This really is CHILD’S PLAY for Esmail, who’s clearly having a wild old time crafting a twisting, unnervingly unsettling suspense thriller which sticks the knife in and keeps on twisting as things get more worryingly desperate, all while casting a deeply critical eye on the state of modern society, capitalism, pop culture and pervading racial and social divides.  Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke are both typically EXCELLENT as Amanda and Clay Sandford, the white liberal upper class couple who find their deep-seated preconceptions forming their perceptions as they’re forced to deal with the as always truly MAGNIFICENT Mahershala Ali’s cultured stockbroker G.H. Scott and his brash, opinionated daughter Ruth (Industry and Bodies Bodies Bodies’ Myha’la), while there’s a brief but unsurprisingly POTENT turn from Kevin Bacon as Danny, the exact kind of paranoid, doomsday prepping redneck who’s probably gonna survive this coming apocalypse JUST FINE.  There’s SO MUCH to unpack and explore in this film, it’s definitely one of those film’s that rewards repeat viewing with neat little twists, fascinatingly subtle hints and clues which lead to insidiously profound payoffs and more sneaky little easter eggs than you could EVER spot on a single viewing, leading to a truly HORRIFYING existential climax which will lead to many a sleepless night given the way this world seems to be heading.  Speculative science fiction or worryingly potent prophecy?  Only time will tell, I guess …

7.  SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE – the animated feature that completely CHANGED THE GAME at the end of the last DECADE getting a sequel was pretty much a no-brainer, but it didn’t make the wait any easier, and after COVID put a dent in so many of the big releases coming forward this was definitely one of the most painful delays for me.  Finally getting to see it was, therefore, ONE HELL of a cathartic release of tension, so much that even later discovering that not everything was exactly GOOD in the production studios at the time (namely the animators being crunched LIKE CRAZY by the ever-shifting nature of the vision they were being asked to realise, leading to a toxic working environment for many, which is NEVER cool) still didn’t dent my truly AWED appreciation for the finished film.  Seriously, this is THE BEST animated feature we saw this past year, and ALREADY a strong candidate for best animated feature of THIS DECADE (although that’s likely to change if the incoming sequel turns out to be as good, if not BETTER, which it probability WILL).  Honestly, I could end the review right here just with that recommendation, it’s GENUINELY THAT GOOD, people.  But I still got a job to do here, so … once again, Miles Morales (Dope’s Shameik Moore), the new Spider-Man in his world, is at the centre of a whirlwind of narrative chaos as a new arch-nemesis he never knew he had emerges to hold him to account for what he did when he destroyed the Kingpin’s interdimensionally destructive supercollider in the first film – the Spot (Jason Schwartzman), a former scientist at Alchemax who got turned into a walking mass of unstable wormholes when he got hit with the full brunt of all that quantum energy.  As he embarks on his quest to take his misguided revenge on Miles, his interdimensional spree of carnage leads our Spider-Man to become connected with a Multiverse-spanning cadre of Spider-People, led by the spectacularly stern Spider-Man of Earth 2099, Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac), who police the various Earths in order to combat and remove “anomalies” that arise to threaten them … and

the Spot is a BIG ONE of those.  Oh, and Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), the Spider-Woman Miles most definitely fell for in the first film, has started working with them too after her own father, police Captain George Stacy (Shea Wigham), who’s had it in for their Spider-Woman after she was mistakenly framed for the death of their Earth’s Peter Parker, discovered her secret identity and made her run from her own dimension as a result …yeah, it sounds pretty complicated, but this whole twisted labyrinth is, nonetheless, unveiled in the exact same super-slick, viewer-friendly way the first film pulled off its own exposition, which just makes more room for all the FUN as we get to follow our old favourites and a whole host of fascinating NEW incarnations of our favourite arachnid-themed superhero on their various insane adventures.  This is JUST AS SPECTACULAR in terms of action, character work, pure invention and sheer, unrivalled SPECTACLE as its predecessor, in many places upping the wow factor SIGNIFICANTLY (particularly during a particularly colourful visit to the distinctly Indian-flavoured alternative version of New York called Mumbattan, which is the stomping ground of one of the film’s most memorable new Spider-folk, the irrepressibly chipper Pavitr Prabhakar, voiced by Deadpool’s thoroughly brilliant Karan Soni).  Indeed, the most fun we have throughout this movie is definitely getting to hang out not only with our old friends but all these newcomers too, with Pavitr being joined by the fascinating likes of the very coolest Spider-Woman after Gwen, Jess Drew (Awkward Black Girl’s Issa Rae), digital avatar Margo Kess/Spider-Byte (The Hunger Games’ Amandla Stenberg), overly-angsty living Todd McFarlane comic panel Ben Reily/Scarlet Spider (the incomparable Andy Samberg) and even Mayday Parker, the impossibly adorable new baby daughter of Jake Johnson’s welcome returning fan-favourite OG Peter Parker (and, of course, Miles’ original mentor from the first movie), who’s ALREADY got her spider-powers, while Miguel is a FANTASTIC character, brooding like a champ and sometimes proving to be as much of an EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE villain in the story as the Spot, especially once his beef

with Miles is revealed … but at the end of the day, ALL of these new arrivals thoroughly PALE in comparison to one of this film’s BEST secret weapons, Hobie Brown/Spider Punk (Daniel Kaluuya getting to use his normal accent for once), a misfit non-conformist anarchist JOY with one hell of a problem with authority (Miguel’s IN PARTICULAR) who effortlessly steals our hearts just as much as EVERY SINGLE SCENE he’s in.  That being said, it really is SO GREAT having our old crew back – Miles and Gwen are SO SWEET, their chemistry is just OFF THE BLOODY CHARTS without them even trying, and I adore every single scene of them together, never mind their own individual storylines (it’s PARTICULARLY great getting to see Gwen herself get a SIGNIFICANTLY enlarged narrative presence this time round, becoming JUST as important in this story as Miles himself), while any time we get to spend with Johnson’s Peter is pure gold, and we get to spend even more time with Miles’ wonderful, loving, hard-working parents Jeff and Rio Morales (Brian Tyree Henry and Lauren Velez), which is ALWAYS a plus.  Needless to say, this is a whole LOAD of fun, shot through with the same classic winning humour, wild invention, visionary experimentation, thematic resonance and pure geeky in-joke easter egg-packing FAN SERVICE that made the first film such a winner, but it also comes through BIG TIME with more of those wicked FEELS, this time ramping things up FAR MORE with the serious emotional HEFT as we’re presented with some truly DEVASTATING character arcs whose after effects are gonna be felt for A VERY LONG TIME after.  The fact that this is just the first half of a two-part SAGA, with Beyond the Spider-Verse currently in the works, means that we can look forward to PLENTY MORE, although here’s hoping that this time they give their animators a little more BREATHING ROOM to get it done right WITHOUT having to break their backs in the process, yeah?  Then again, with the writers’ AND actors’ strike barely over, the likelihood of THAT is pretty strong …

6.  OPPENHEIMER – really, is there ANY SURPRISE over this placing so high?  You know what a MASSIVE Christopher Nolan fan I am, and him making a proper EPIC historical biopic examining the career and achievements of the father of nuclear power was GUARANTEED to not only grab my attention but also thoroughly please the serious high-brow cinema appreciator buried inside me over all that action junkie, superhero fanboy and sci-fi-nut stuff … but yeah, this was ALWAYS gonna be a fucking amazing film, wasn’t it?  Nolan’s most regular acting collaborator (outside of Michael Caine, anyway), Cillian Murphy, stars as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist who spearheaded the Manhattan Project which led to the creation of the very first viable nuclear weapons which were then used by the American military to destroy the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and end the Second World War.  On the surface he seems like a driven, visionary man with a real fascination for the science he’s pioneering, but also a cool pragmatism which makes him the ideal man to usher in this astounding technological achievement, but as the film unfolds in Nolan’s typical non-linear narrative fashion we discover a far more complex man than we first supposed, Murphy unveiling Oppenheimer’s deep-seeded fears about the frighteningly real dangers his Project could give birth to.  After all, he may have been the father of the Modern World, but this particular creation also gave rise to a century of technological horrors and a whole new, long lasting Cold War.   Anyway, this is UNDENIABLY the greatest performance of Murphy’s career, if he doesn’t at least get an Oscar nod for this there’s no justice in the world, while, in typical Nolan fashion, the rest of the rich ensemble cast is a genuine embarrassment of riches, from Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer’s long-suffering wife Kitty and Florence Pugh as his ill-fated Communist mistress Jean Tatlock to Matt Damon as his nominal “boss”, Gen. Leslie Groves, Kenneth Brannagh as his mentor and idol Niels Bohr, the mighty Tom Conti as the even MORE awesome Albert Einstein and even Robert Downey Jr. in a particularly KEY role as Oppenheimer’s one-time colleague and later rival, Atomic Energy commissioner Lewis Strauss, who dominates the parallel narrative throughline presented over the course of the film as his own efforts to discredit and destroy the great man ultimately end up coming back to bite his own political ambitions.  To a man, they’re all as MAGNIFICENT as the rest of the film, which is a fascinating journey into the dark heart of one of the greatest but also most historically and socially destructive scientific achievements in the history of the world, the man who ushered it in, and the hell he then went through afterwards when he then tried to make sure we didn’t make it SO MUCH WORSE once we had the power to destroy ourselves.  It’s a film that raises extremely tough questions, and what answers we ARE able to come to are every bit as terrifying as any of the consequences that are either seen or merely suggested here.  Nolan is, as always, A MASTER in the director’s chair as much as in the screenwriter’s corner, bringing his usual visionary flair and artistic brilliance to craft yet more of his trademark IMAX-rocking BEAUTY and opulence, while his sneaky, snaky narrative shenanigans once again frame things in ingenious, challenging and sometimes emotionally DEVASTATING ways before we’re brought to the bittersweet denouement.  Tenet composer Ludwig Goransson’s expansive, evocative score is, ultimately, just the icing on the cake, making an already amazing film even more noteworthy.  If this ain’t the toast of the Awards Season they really didn’t pay attention …

5.  THE CREATOR – if ever there could be a film that would decry the state of the modern blockbuster blueprint, it’s this one.  Seriously, that fact that something THIS fresh and original could flop in a market so saturated with cookie-cutter franchises and exhausted expanded-universe IPs just says it all, doesn’t it?  Writer-director Gareth Edwards (along with screenwriter Chris Weitz, who previously worked with him on Rogue One) has had a look at our encroaching terror at the pervading rise of AI, taken a step back and looked at what COULD potentially happen if we actually end up OVERREACTING and blaming it for something which is actually entirely our fault … cue a troubling delve into a dystopian future where, after the accidental nuking of Los Angeles due to defence-Ai programming human error, the West has uniformly turned again artificial intelligence and set about waging an uncompromising war against it and the sentient androids it’s spawned.  These survivors have fled to the more sympathetic nations of New Asia, but the oppressive machinations of the Western coalition and their obsessive hunt for the AI’s creator, Nimata, have given birth to a terrifying weapon, the deadly orbital weapons platform NOMAD.  John David Washington is Joshua Taylor, a US Army sergeant who lost an arm and a leg in the LA blast, and then what innocence he had left in a subsequent ill-fated infiltration mission in New Asia, who’s drawn back into the fight by his former commanders when evidence emerges that his supposedly dead wife, Maya (an enjoyably complex turn from Gemma Chan), the daughter of Nimata he met and fell in love with on that mission, is still alive and in possession of a devastating weapon which they need to get hold of before it can be used to destroy the West.  Going in with a special forces team, Joshua discovers that this so-called weapon is actually Alphie, an android child (newcomer Madeleine Yuna) with the power to control electronic devices, and he finds that the truth is nothing like what was led to believe … Edwards and Weitz have created a spellbinding science-fiction MASTERPIECE here, a breathlessly thrilling and expansively EPIC science fiction war saga which takes some challenging and thought-provoking ideas and heavy themes and takes a very interesting direction in their interpretation while posing profound questions about the nature of humanity, morality and love, all while delivering a truly intoxicating masterclass in peerless world-building, brought to astonishing living, breathing reality through some of the most seamlessly engineered visual effects I have EVER seen in a feature film (then again, Edwards DID start out as a visual effects artist, so he knows the game INSIDE AND OUT).  Washington is an unusually complex, multi-layered hero as Joshua, fallible and driven by selfish desires but ultimately finding something much bigger than himself to believe in, while Yuna is a revelation, a sweet and inspiring little light in the darkness, while mighty support from the likes of Alison Janney, Ken Watanabe, Marc Manchaca (Ozark, The Outsider, No One Gets Out Alive) and Ralph Ineson rounds things out nicely.  Powerful, inventive, affecting and endlessly thought-provoking, this deserves to be remembered not only as one of the most rewardingly original and genuinely brilliant movies of 2023, but of the entire decade, and I think it’s a genuine crime it wasn’t a massive hit like it deserved to be.  Audiences really did SLEEP on this one …

4.  MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING, PART ONE – really, there should be NO SURPRISE that this topped off my list for the summer.  I may have grown up with James Bond, and I LOVE the Jason Bourne movies too, but the Tom Cruise-starring cinematic adaptation of the classic TV spy show has been MY ABSOLUTELY FAVOURITE espionage-based film franchise since JJ Abrams established the tried-and-tested formula for the series with 2006’s seminal classic third entry.  That being said, the franchise didn’t find its strongest voice until Cruise brought Jack Reacher writer-director Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects, The Way of the Gun) on board for the dynamite fifth instalment, Rogue Nation, which was so fucking brilliant and well received by both critics AND audiences that Paramount saw fit to retain his services on the EVEN BETTER follow-up, Fallout, which came DAMN CLOSE to equalling the heights of Sam Mendes’ Bond masterpiece Skyfall … so of course it was a NO-BRAINER for him to return once again for this two-part intended send-off for Cruise’s seemingly immortal superspy, Ethan Hunt, as he not only faces his deadliest foes to date, but also a very dark ghost from his own past.  As with its predecessor, this is another spy flick where knowing as little as possible going in works best for your enjoyment, suffice to say that this time Ethan and his loyal friends, master hacker Luther Stickel (the legendary Ving Rhames), tech wizard Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and former MI6 spook Ilsa Faust (Dune’s Rebecca Ferguson), really have their work cut out for them when they’re forced to go rogue yet again in order to track down and deactivate a supermassive AI program known as the Entity which has become fully self-aware, broken free of its constraints and is now wreaking havoc throughout the internet and beyond. 

Unfortunately this seemingly unstoppable digital force has enlisted the aid of a particularly dangerous “avatar” to represent its concerns in the real world, a mysterious terrorist known as Gabriel (Ozark’s Esai Morales) who seems to be following a dark agenda of his own.  The ensuing race against time takes in a grand tour of impressively picturesque locales, a collection of winningly well-written characters and a series of knuckle-whitening, visually arresting action sequences that have long since proven to be McQuarrie’s bread-and-butter just as much as his ingeniously twisty labyrinthine plots and sparky, sharp-witted quickfire dialogue, again showing that he really is THE VERY BEST filmmaker that Paramount could EVER have found for this franchise.  Needless to say, Cruise is as spectacular as ever in what really has become the very best role he’s EVER HAD, by this point basically just INHABITING Ethan’s easy charm, admirably solid, unswerving moral principles and truly INCREDIBLE physical prowess, delivering equally well in the truly insane stunt-work which WE KNOW FULL WELL IS ALL HIM as he does in the acting stakes; meanwhile Rhames, Pegg and Ferguson once again shine bright in their now comfortably well-established roles while still managing to bring fresh depths and interesting new arcs to their well-worn characters, we get a lot more of The Crown’s Vanessa Kirby’s intriguing notorious second-generation arms dealer Alanna Mitsopoulis/the White Widow, and it’s an IMMENSE pleasure to finally welcome back the first film’s prickly yet verbose antagonist Eugene Kitteridge (Henry Czerny), Ethan and Luther’s former boss in the IMF, in a far much expansive role this time round.  Meanwhile the franchise newcomers all impress as well, Morales easily proving to be the series’ VERY BEST VILLAIN to date as he menaces, seduces and murders his way through the story, brutally tearing our heroes’ lives apart as he pursues his mysterious master’s nefarious ends, while we get a brand new series heroine in the form of Grace (the MCU’s own Peggy Carter, Hayley Atwell), a sly and duplicitous professional thief who essentially stumbles into the thick of the action before becoming Ethan’s EXTREMELY unwilling accomplice; meanwhile there’s strong support from Shea Wigham and Greg Tarzan Davis (who previously worked with Cruise on Top Gun: Maverick) as Briggs and Degas, a pair of US Intelligence agents sent to chase down the rogue IMF crew, and Cary Elwes as Denlinger, a particularly duplicitous US Director of National Intelligence.  And then there’s Paris … ah Paris, my sweet, psychotic demon child.  Guardians of the Galaxy’s Pom Klementieff actually gets to be FRENCH again as Gabriel’s unpredictably lethal pet killer, and she’s an absolute JOY throughout, so delightfully unhinged that she makes every second of her screentime an undeniable pleasure, and as a result she’s BY FAR my favourite character in this.  Altogether, this is about as perfect as spy cinema gets, McQuarrie and his cast and crew working tirelessly to deliver not only the very best film in the series to date, but also the best film I saw all summer, very nearly my action cinema highlight of the whole year, and one of the VERY BEST spy movies I have EVER SEEN.  Given the shake-up from the Strikes it’s not clear if we’re REALLY gonna get to see Dead Reckoning Part Two in May 2025 like it’s been slated since getting pushed back from its summer ’24 release,but whenever it DOES finally arrive, I KNOW it’ll be worth the wait … it just has to be bloody INCREDIBLE to be better than THIS ONE …

3.  JOHN WICK CHAPTER 4 – and so, it has come to this … honestly, who’d have thunk it, back in 2014 when the first movie came out and (rightly) became a surprise sleeper hit that went a long way to revitalising Keanu Reeves’ career for a SECOND TIME as he found THE GREATEST ROLE HE’S EVER HAD, that almost a decade later it would’ve blown up into something THIS BIG?!!!  I mean sure, back then it definitely was The Little Movie That Could, but still … well, after two increasingly BIG sequels which each maintained a surprisingly impressive level of quality throughout, the fourth and final John Wick chapter is finally here, and GODS is it good.  I mean it’s FUCKING BRILLIANT.  It just might be THE BEST ONE YET.  Certainly it’s proving to be the most well received, landing BY FAR the best rating on Rotten Tomatoes and it genuinely seems like almost nobody has ANYTHING bad to say about this movie, even the CRITICS largely seem to LIKE this one.  And it deserves every lick of love it’s been getting, this is definitely both the pinnacle of the series AND a perfect swansong for the greatest assassin in cinema history.  I don’t wanna give too much away about the plot, even those who HAVE seen what’s come before shouldn’t be spoiled, even if these movies have never exactly been SHAKESPEARE in their construction they do still frequently leave you guessing in the best ways as to how they’ll turn out, and this one is definitely no exception.  I’ll just say that, after all the killing John’s done to get to this point, his one-man-war with the international criminal network’s High Table has finally reached its zenith as Winston (the great Ian McShane), the Manager of the newly-demolished Manhattan Continental Hotel, gives him the means to finally find a way to get out and find peace while he’s still alive – namely by challenging the Marquis Vincent de Gramont (Bill Skarsgard), a high-ranking Table member who’s taken it upon himself to rid the criminal underworld of the “cancer” that John and his constant disrespect have wrought, to single combat in a ritualistic duel in order to take his place at The Table should he win.  The

subsequent battle that ensues as John sets about facilitating this duel and the fallout that follows as he fights his way to that final, fateful meeting fuels the film in HIGH STYLE, so that even though this movie’s almost THREE HOURS LONG it never feels overlong or outstays its welcome.  Once again the cast are all ON FIRE, Reeves once again proving that he is just about THE BEST LOOKING and most interesting action star working in Hollywood today when he’s mowing down endless bad guys with a stoic expression and the odd deadpan response, the role once again VERY MUCH playing to his strengths, while McShane and Laurence Fishburne (returning once again as the dethroned Bowery King) are both on fine form throughout, and it’s both a pleasure and privilege but also a genuine heartbreaking SHAME to watch the late Lance Reddick deliver one of his very last performances as Charon, the noble and quietly charismatic Concierge of the Manhattan Continental (at least he also shot one more turn as the character for the upcoming Ana de Armas-starring spinoff feature Ballerina, so it’s not QUITE the end); meanwhile the newcomers all serve admirably as well, with Skarsgard particularly impressing as one of the franchise’s best villains to date, slimy, entitled and exquisitely arrogant, the kind of Big Bad you just LOVE to hate, Wynnona Earp’s Shamier Anderson is a delightful revelation as Mr Nobody, a precocious up-and-coming hitman talent who certainly has a whole lot of potential for a possible future spinoff franchise of his own within this larger universe, Donnie Yen excels as usual as Cain, a former friend of John’s that the Marquis brings out of forced retirement in order to take the unkillable Baba Yaga out (clearly the filmmakers saw his blind badass take in Rogue One and they were like yeah, let’s have a whole lot more of THAT), Hiroyuki Sanada once more delivers effortless class and cool gravitas as Koji, the honourable and principled Manager of the Osaka Continental, and Scott Adkins is viciously impressive but also thoroughly surprising in an almost unrecognisable prosthetic getup as Killa Harkan, the brutish Head of the High Table in Berlin.  In the end, though, we’re once again here primarily to MARVEL at all the action exploits on display while wallowing in some of the richest and most well-crafted world-building there’s EVER BEEN on the big screen – this is a thoroughly fascinating universe, realised with

exquisite precision with so many cool little winks and nods and in-jokes to make the geeks among us grin and chuckle with sheer joy over the immense bounty on display, while veteran stuntman-turned-director Chad Stahelski once again wrangles some of the VERY BEST cinematic action EVER COMMITTED TO FILM in a series of astonishing and punishing set-pieces bravely executed with nary a visual effect in sight.  There are almost TOO MANY cool action beats in this movie to count, although the final BIG sequence, in which John fights his way up the spectacular but infamously punishing Stairs of Montmartre in Paris against an endless onslaught of thugs all determined to not let him reach the top, which includes one of the BIGGEST belly laughs I have EVER HAD at the cinema in my life, as much just over the joke’s sheer, ingenious AUDACITY, has to be the film’s undeniable highlight (closely followed by a genuinely INSANE run/gun/drive chase/shootout/fight sequence through the sheer chaos of the traffic around the Arc de Triomphe – every single one of these sequences is thrilling, they’re adrenaline fuelled and each crafted with such precision but also brilliantly varied inventiveness that it NEVER leads to vicarious battle fatigue.  Best of all, though, as with the previous film’s there’s a surprising amount of soul and heart and heft to the film too, which ultimately leads to a climax which is both immensely satisfying but also pretty devastating in its emotional power.  Altogether then, this was EASILY my action movie of the year, a fitting climax to an franchise which has come to SET THE BENCHMARK for this entire genre, and, honestly, just a damn fine movie in its own right.

2.  NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU – the scariest movie I saw in 2023 is a very strange beast indeed, a genuinely original and very leftfield piece of work despite tackling one of the most classic movie plot tropes out there – the alien invasion of a small American town.  What makes this such a noteworthy piece of work is that this film plays almost ENTIRELY without dialogue … SERIOUSLY, throughout the entire film’s run there’s only a SINGLE line of actual spoken dialogue delivered by its lead, the rest of the film relies entirely on sound effects and Joseph Trapanese’s atmospheric score alongside visual storytelling cues to gets its narrative across.  It’s an incredibly brave prospect and one which I’ll admit I wasn’t even EXPECTING when I first sat down to watch Hulu’s most blindingly successful offering of the past year, it kind of snuck up on me realising that nobody was actually SAYING anything, but I still knew EXACTLY what was happening.  This is because there’s ONE HELL of a writer-director at the helm of this project – I’ve been a big fan of Brian Duffield for a while now, having really loved his screenplay work in The Babysitter, Underwater and Love & Monsters, so when he dropped his actual FEATURE DIRECTING DEBUT in the middle of the Pandemic with 2020’s ingenious jet black teen comedy horror Spontaneous I was already onboard and in the aftermath simply COULD NOT WAIT to see what he’d do once he got his hands on a budget decent enough to actually deliver the kind of films he’d already been WRITING.  But even so, this one STILL left me shocked by just HOW FUCKING AMAZING it actually is, seriously, this is almost certainly THE MOST IMPRESSIVE movie I’ve seen in the past year, and DEFINITELY its most important from a filmmaking standpoint.  The story itself revolves almost EXCLUSIVELY around a slightly odd young woman named Brynn (Booksmart and Dopesick’s Kaitlyn Dever) living a seemingly idyllic but ultimately lonely life in her isolated home on the outskirts of a small town which seems to have universally shunned her for some initially unknown past crime … which means that she knows full well that there will, indeed, be NO ONE coming to her rescue when, one night, an alien walks into her home and starts tearing the place up using devastating telekinetic powers.  She

manages to escape after accidentally killing the creature, but this simply makes things worse as, when morning comes, she discovers that the whole town is in the middle of a subtle but TERRIFYING alien invasion and that they seem to have marked her as a particular threat.  From this beautifully simple starting point, Duffield has crafted a simply PERFECT scary movie, exquisitely paced and relentlessly driven as we hit the ground running the moment night falls after that initial time taken to establish Brynn’s place in the story, and he never lets off the brakes again until we reach the end.  This is a genuinely TERRIFYING piece of sci-fi horror, with the varied creatures in particular presented in impressively near flawless standards of CGI which really should be used as a major benchmark moving forward with the artform, while the frequent and substantial knuckle-whitening set-pieces are executed with a precision that verges on the simply RUTHLESS throughout.  It all plays out with a surprising denouement which feels cathartically PERFECT for everything that came before once you think about it a little, and the whole endeavour is aided ENORMOUSLY by the MASSIVE contribution of the film’s star herself – this is essentially a one woman show, and Dever easily proves the equal of the task, delivering an immensely potent performance that makes the striking lack of dialogue an ultimate significant VIRTUE since she’s able to convey SO MUCH with just a look, no matter the scene, so you find yourself latching onto her in the first ten minutes, meaning that when it goes from bad to worse to truly NIGHTMARISH you’re thoroughly invested in her desperate fight for survival.  This really is a star-making role, and I don’t doubt she’s due for a MAJOR raise in her profile moving forward … altogether this is a genuine MASTERPIECE, easily one of the undeniable HIGHLIGHTS of the past cinematic year and a great sign of things to come, one would hope, should the rest of Hollywood take notice.  Only time will tell … in the meantime take my advice, check it out and experience something TRULY SPECIAL …

1.  DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOUR AMONG THIEVES – so what, then, could POSSIBLY have beaten such astounding fare to the top spot this time round?  If you’d asked me that at the year’s start I DEFINITELY wouldn’t have thought it could be THIS … I mean SURE, I love D&D as much as the next geek, but even so this felt like SUCH a shameless cinematic cash-grab from Wizards of the Coast and Disney (producing through Paramount) that I felt there was NO WAY it could REALLY be an actual GOOD FILM.  At best I was expecting to be mildly entertained by a serviceable guilty pleasure, something that’s good for a Saturday night-in with a pizza and a six pack, not a genuine MASTERPIECE of cinematic adaptation.  And yet, it turns out that’s EXACTLY what we got – this film has ONE HUNDRED PERCENT clearly been made with the utmost love and respect for the source material because the only possible interpretation for the way they wrote this was by taking Player’s and Dungeon Master’s handbooks, a Monster Manual, some character sheets and a few dice bags and just turning the mini-campaign that ensued into a two-hour screenplay.  It’s clear that they are heavily steeped in respect and knowledge of the game itself, or were at least CONSTANTLY advised by experts who are, because this movie is AT EVERY STEP a pretty much PERFECT representation of the Forgotten Realms setting, the bestiary and even the game mechanics themselves IN ACTION, and it EVEN colours the way that the plot is laid out, how the characters interact and how some of the action sequences go.  (Seriously – a perfectly executed knockout on a knife-wielding hostage taker with a hurled potato?  That’s the Barbarian’s player landing a Natural 20 Critical Hit on their Attack Roll.  It love it.)  Sure, the results are likely to INFURIATE some people who think a little too highly about how FORMALLY WRITTEN their cinema should be, but for most folk this actually makes for a refreshingly honest and pretty unique piece of cinematic storytelling that actually works DAMN NEAR PERFECTLY from start to finish.  It also helps that the writer-director duo in

charge here are a pair of stalwart comedy movie veterans, namely Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daly of Horrible Bosses, Vacation and Spider-Man: Homecoming fame, whose extremely enjoyable previous directorial collab Game Night actually likely provided a useful throughline for them to get into tackling this one.  The main cast of dysfunctional heroes we follow through the story are even put together like a typical motley band of player characters – Chris Pine once again proves that he’s at his best when he’s doing broad comedy, thoroughly delightful as self-centred, opportunistic roguish Bard Edgin Darvis who, along with his platonic partner, tough-but-fair and sweetly naïve Barbarian warrior Holga Kilgore (played to absolute PERFECTION by Michelle Rodriguez in what’s UNDOUBTEDLY the best role she’s ever had, and definitely my FAVOURITE character here), enlists the help of bumbling, neuroses-riddled half-elf Sorcerer Simon Aumar (Pokémon Detective Pikachu’s Justice Smith, twitchy, unsure of himself and UTTERLY adorable) and shape-shifting Tiefling Druid Doric (It’s Sophia Lillis, forthright, dependable and immediately done with all of Edgin’s shit) to help them knock over the accumulated fortune of their one-time colleague, Rogue-turned-nobleman Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant once again expertly bringing home the scheming sleaze persona he’s perfected in more recent years now he’s finally said goodbye to his earlier days as an upper class heartthrob) and foil the dastardly machinations of the monstrous undead Red Wizard Sofina (a genuinely chilling and unsettling turn from Shadow & Bone’s Daisy Head); meanwhile there’s a top-notch supporting cast of “DM-controlled NPCs” that help the story flow and breathe as effortlessly as the main stars, from Bridgerton’s Rege-Jean Page as deliciously dry Paladin Xenk Yendar, the obviously-overpowered PC from another campaign that the DM brings in to help the party out when things go COMPLETELY WRONG for them, and Chloe Coleman (Gunpowder Milkshake) as Edgin’s estranged young daughter Kira, to Bradley Cooper in a truly INSPIRED and genuinely hilarious cameo as Holga’s decidedly diminutive ex-husband Marlamin.  Every single one of these is a well-rounded, living-and-breathing vital person in their own right, and the writers have crafted them and their misadventures with proper precision throughout, while the world has been realised with genuine skill and clear loving attention to detail, as well as a welcome reliance on real sets and locations and good old fashioned physical make-up and animatronics over pure digital effects wherever possible.  There are some pretty spectacular action sequences on offer here (the Underdark sequence with a decidedly overweight dragon is a particular highlight, although my personal favourite has to be the scene in which Doric has to pull off an unexpected escape by Wildshaping between different animal forms, all unfolding in a spectacular unbroken “single” take), but in the end this film is, first and foremost, a COMEDY, and while there’s plenty of heart and pathos on offer, as well as more than a little genuine DARKNESS here and there, ultimately almost everything is VERY MUCH played for laughs, and the end result is definitely the funniest film I encountered this past year.  It’s also just about the most effortlessly ENDEARING film I’ve come across in a very long time, and I have to admit I am SO GLAD that it managed to defy my low expectations SO MUCH, I feel VERY HAPPILY HUMBLED that I was proved SO WRONG this time round.  I’m genuinely hopeful that we get LOADS MORE of this going forward, I’d love a whole campaign’s worth of movies to grow out of this humble one-shot.  Best get those D20s rolling again, guys!

[srorgana1]

Into the Reverb (Kylo Ren/Reader)

Chapter One

Your day started as any other. Coffee run for the staff. Scheduling meeting at 8:30 with D'Acy, Chewie and Phasma. Recordings review with DeeDee and Rae at 9:45am. There have been issues with two bands you were assigned to but you were also getting set up with a new one. Sand Scavengers were way behind schedule and Ochi has skipped his last two recording sessions. Ugh.

You always took it personally when stuff like this happened. You feared Phasma would see it as you not meeting your potential and letting Chewie down. He was the reason you were here. He saw your potential. You lived and breathed music, often spending way more than your allotted work hours at the studio to make sure everything was perfect.

You sulked into studio room #3 and place your headphones on. You called Ochi and of course had to leave a voicemail. Typical. You also called Bala of the Sand Scavengers to let them know of open studio time and to reiterate their contract obligations.

This was the part of your job you hated. The nit picky shit. You definitely didn’t get paid enough for the stress it gave you. Your therapist agreed as well but it was easier said than done to “just do your job description”. You could not think of that now, you got shit to do.

You were in your element. You were on the second to last recording when you heard the door open. You assumed it was Rae or Chewie so you ignored it. Then came an annoyed “Y/N?”

Fuck, it's Phasma. You turn slowly and take off your headphones. But she wasn’t alone; next to her were six burly men covered in tattoos. Oh this was the new band that was scheduled to start today. “Sorry, yes Phasma? Sorry I was working on that mix for The Sand Scavengers you requested”.

"This is the Knights of Ren or KOR, they will be one of our new contracts. Guys, this is Y/N, your new lead sound director. She will be your primary while you’re here" she says, giving you a sharp look.

You wave shyly at them as they introduce themselves to you. Cardo, Vic, Ushar, Trudgen and Kuruk. Your gaze landed on the man standing most to the left. He hadn’t introduced himself yet but he’s staring at you like you murdered his cat.

You gave him a soft look when Vic said “by the way, Y/N this is Kylo. Don’t mind him, he's an asshole”. Great, why is the hot one always the asshole? He grunts out a Hi. Oh well, at least the other five are personable. You smile and say “if you're up for it the studio is open, let's get to work.”

—

Kylo takes a deep breath in as he follows his mates into the studio space. He can do this. He can be around you without acting like a mess. He’s a professional damn it.

He has performed for thousands of people at a time. He is Kylo fucking Ren, lead guitarist and co-vocalist of the Grammy winning Knights of Ren. He can’t be and shouldn’t be undone by a pair of pretty eyes. He and his mates have skyrocketed up the charts since dropping their sophomore album two years ago, gaining themselves multiple awards. But after their Grammy, and a less than stellar breakup with First Order Records, they are here. At D’kar Studios, ready for a fresh start and more creative freedom.

There is something about you. He doesn’t know what. He can feel your bright creative energy radiating off you. It also does not help that you look so damn adorable and have curves to kill.

He tries to clear his head as he picks up the Blue Fender guitar. It's not his baby but it’ll do. He runs his tattooed fingers over the frets, feeling a sense of comfort. He looks over the other men fiddling with their instruments. It's always this impending feeling when they work on new stuff. But this feels different - a strange feeling of rightness.

He moves his hand across the strings and the amp lets out a riff. Ushar looks over to him and smirks. Vic gives Y/N a thumbs up. You set the headphones on that pretty little head of yours and flip on the record light.

Spotify playlist coming soon

A big shoutout and thanks to my girls @asnackdriver, @punk-in-docs, @wayward-rose, @ladyzimmerman and @thepilotanon for all your continued love and support ❤️❤️❤️

[burlveneer-music]

John Carpenter - Lost Themes IV: Noir - inspiration from film noir rather than horror yields few surprises, but if it ain't broke...

It’s been a decade since John Carpenter recorded the material that would become Lost Themes, his debut album of non-film music and the opening salvo in one of Hollywood’s great second acts. Those vibrant, synth-driven songs, made in collaboration with his son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies, kickstarted a musical renaissance for the pioneering composer and director. In the years since, Carpenter, Carpenter, and Davies have released close to a dozen musical projects, including a growing library of studio albums and the scores for David Gordon Green’s trilogy of Halloween reboots. With Lost Themes IV: Noir, they’ve struck gold again, this time mining the rich history of the film noir genre for inspiration. Since the first Lost Themes, John has referred to these compositions as “soundtracks for the movies in your mind.” On the fourth installment in the series, those movies are noirs. Like the film genre they were influenced by, what makes these songs “noirish” is sometimes slippery and hard to define, and not merely reducible to a collection of tropes. The scores for the great American noir pictures were largely orchestral, while the Carpenters and Davies work off a sturdy synth-and-guitar backbone. The noir quality, then, is something you understand instinctively when you hear it. “Some of the music is heavy guitar riffs, which is not in old noir films,” Davies notes. “But somehow, it’s connected in an emotional way.” The trio’s free-flowing chemistry means Lost Themes IV: Noir runs like a well-oiled machine—the 1951 Jaguar XK120 Roadster from Kiss Me Deadly, perhaps, or the 1958 Plymouth Fury from John’s own Christine. It’s a chemistry that’s helped power one of the most productive stretches of John’s creative life, and Noir proves that it’s nowhere near done yielding brilliant results. “This is who we are, I think,” John summarizes. “Daniel’s the adventurer. He pushes for new sounds, new directions. He tries things that I haven’t thought of. He’s a lot more daring than I am, and he enriches the whole thing. Cody’s the musician. He’s a savant at music. He understands music. We depend on him to rescue us.” And what about John’s contribution? With characteristic understatement, he concludes: “I’m the experience. I’ve done music for movies before.” 

[moochilatv]

Noir Reva presents: Svartur

It's an instrumental power track with shoegaze, punch riffs and a potent drummer

Post-Rock Band from Germany for your ears.

The band are:

Guitar: @rob.reva Drums: @lucas.monashee Bass: @marius.noir Guitar: @pete.reva

Official Music Video of 'SVARTUR' from the upcoming split EP by Germany based Post-Rock groups, NOIR REVA and There's A Light.

Music Video by:

Production: Vestra Visuals www.vestra-visuals.de

Director, DOP,

Editing: Robby Krings www.instagram.com/rob.reva

Actor: Michael Lämmchen

Location: Iceland

Recorded, Produced, Mixed & Mastered by: Daniel Jung (Lindburg Studios) www.lindburgstudios.com

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

Maxxxine

Although the weakest of the three films, Ti West’s MAXXXINE (2024, Max) is a mostly creditable conclusion to his “X trilogy.” which started with X and PEARL (both 2022). Like the other two pictures, it riffs on the influence of film on people’s lives, this time capturing the effects of the video explosion of the 1980s. The leading character, Maxine Minx (Mia Goth), has become a star thanks to the rising fame of porn films and is about to break through to the mainstream in “The Puritan II,” a horror sequel made possible because the original film became a hit on home video. Like the rest of the trilogy, it also uses the classic American horror film device of making repression within the family unit the source of the monstrous (which is all I can say without getting into major spoilers).

Goth’s career transition is threatened by a mysterious stalker who has evidence of her involvement in the events depicted in X, jokingly referred to as “The Texas Pornstar Massacre.” The man is also systematically killing those close to her, attempting to pass off some of the murders as the work of the Hillside Strangler, who was also stalking the Los Angeles area during the film’s period.

The plot has a few holes in it. Though Maxine might face some problems because she fled the scene of the murders in X, it’s rather hard to believe, as her stalker and his private detective (the wonderful Kevin Bacon) suggest, that she could face prison time. And the film seems to end twice, with the second ending adding nothing new. But West, as in the other two films, makes creative use of the period (there are some great 1980s songs on the soundtrack) and the characters’ styling is dead on. He also borrows techniques from 1980s films, including wipes during scene transitions and montages. And he’s once again assembled a strong ensemble, with Goth incandescent as the tough, ambitious young actress. The film opens with her horror film audition, and she’s so empathetic you dread her blowing it. But she doesn’t. It’s splendid work, and you can understand her getting the role. Elizabeth Debicki is very funny as her tough director, while along with Bacon there’s also good work from Giancarlo Esposito as Goth’s agent, Bobby Cannavale and Michelle Monaghan as police detectives and singers Moses Sumney and Halsey as two of Goth’s friends. For the film buffs, there are references to classics and exploitation flicks throughout the picture, including multiple callbacks to X and PEARL and a chase through a studio backlot featuring sets from BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985) and, most notably, PSYCHO (1960).

[myramglina]

Porter Robinson - Cheerleader from Hugh Mulhern on Vimeo.

PRODUCTION Production Company: Riff Raff Director: Hugh Mulhern EP/Producer: Precious Mahaga EP: Natalie Arnett Director's Representation: Hands Executive Producer: Porter Robinson Executive Producer: Slush Management (Aaron Greene, Neal O'Connor, Amar Pathak, Samuel Luria, Valerie Maybaum, Ryan Glatt) Creative Director: Pablo Jones Soler

BTS/DIGITAL Paul Mauer

SERVICE COMPANY Solent Film MD: Alex Momchev Solent Film MP: Magdalena Staneva Solent Film Service Producer: Tihomira Temelkova Assistant Producer: Elena Doroshenko Production Manager: Mitko Milushev Production Coordinator: Teodora Naydenova Production Assistants: Eva Taneva, Simona Atanasova, Serafima Deyanova, Dimitar Borisov

CASTING DIRECTOR Veselina Georgieva

AD'S 1st AD: Antony Tanev 2nd AD: Margarita Aneva 3rd AD: Damyan Tanev

CAMERA DOP: Nikita Popkov 1st AC: Vladislav Mateev 2nd AC A camera: Ivaylo Yovchev 2nd AC B camera: Luciano Ivanov Video Control: Borislav Stoyanov Drone Operator: Nikolay Georgiev - Tanera Data Manager: Delyan Kaloyanov

LIGHTING Gaffer: Alexander Trenev Electricians: Vasil Vasilev, Georgi Tsanev, Dimitar Yanev, Boris Vasilev Dimmer Board Operator: Philip Georgiev

GRIP Key Grip: Tsvetan Kostov Grips: Albert Nikolinski, Dimitar Dimitrov, Yulian Gotchev, Mihail Gotsov, Emil Ivelinov Head Technician: Borislav Tanev Crane Technician: Stanimir Vatsov

SOUND Playback: Kostadin Separevski

ART Production Designer: Elena Isolini Production Designer Assistant: Theresa Bates Art Directors: Momchil Tasev, Aleksandar Yanev Construction Manager: Minko Krustev Props Master: Ada Paunova On-Set Dressers: Nedelcho Hazarbasanov, Yavor Milanov Set Dressers: Kostadin Dervenski, Evtim Evtimov

LOCATION Location Manager: Anita Miletieva Assistants: Elena Karadusheva, Lidiya Aleksandrova

STUNTS Stunt Coordinator: Ivan Vodenicharov Stunt Dept. Coordinator: Aneta Ivanova Stunts: Marina Yordanova, Desislava Slavova, Tea Markova, Mariela Kostadinova, Ventsislav Hristov

CHOREOGRAPHY Kosta Karakashyan

SFX Supervisor: Nikolay Fartunkov Senior Technician: Ivan Kazakov Technicians: Vladimir Mitov, Blagoslav Zhenkov

HAIR/MAKE-UP Hair Cut & Color: Miyuki Goto Artist's Hair & Make-up Artist: Yesol Choi Artist's Hair & Make-up Artist Assistant: Gohun Kim Head of Make Up: Gergana Batanova Head of Hair: Veselka Tsekina Hair Stylists: Bilyana Borisova, Gergana Ivanova, Nataliya Kamenova, Gratziela Dimitrova

COSTUME Artist's Stylist: Luca Wowczyna Luca's Assistant: Elliott Lane Assistant Stylists: Maria Petrova, Teodora Marinova, Nadya Dobrikova, Yoana Kusheva, Emiliyan Bonev Tailor: Marieta Duncheva Mask Design: Audrey Mai

ORGANIZATION Set Manager: Georgi Asenov PAs: Lyubomir Tabakov, Ivaylo Tabakov, Vulcho Monkov

STOP MOTION: THE JUNKS Stop Motion Supervisor: Zlatin Radev Animator: Boris Wolf Assistant Animator / Puppet Doctor: Diliana Valcheva Rigger / Assistant Animator: Teodor Ralev Set Dressers: Alex Suninski, Marin Nalbantov

EDITING: TRIM EDITING Editor: Joseph Taylor Edit Assistant: Anders Mills Producer: Noreen Khan

POST PRODUCTION VFX Supervisor: Vasil Galabov VFX: The Mill EP: Saskia Delius Producer: Sam Ashby 2D Lead: Ben Gallagher 2D Assists: Henry Claud N’guetta, Jane Williams, Muhaddissa Hasham Associate Producer: Rushikesh Shelar Production Coordinator: Karishma Verma Compositor Supervisor: Nanda P V Compositor Lead: Ragesh Ramachandran Rotoscoping Supervisor: Kunal Bendke Prep Lead: Jalander Madishetty GABHA Studios: Dafydd Upsdell, Daniel Morris Grade: Andrew Francis Add’l Post Production: Andrzej, Nina Muro, Nick Lane CGI: Alex (chippy) Futtersak, Dom Harwood VFX Artists: David Ochoa

TRANSPORT Coordinator: Vladimir Mashinata Blagoev Prod Vans: Svetoslav Yordanov, Ivo Radkov, Iliya Iliev, Georgi Evstatiev

CATERING Cherry Craft & Catering Manager: Mariela Manolova Cherry Craft & Catering: Petya Kovacheva, Ivan Nalbatski, Borislav Parvanov

SUNWEAVER CREATIVE Shawn Chapman: Producer - Creative Jacqueline Adorni: Producer Garrett Robles: 3D / Previs Lauren Sperling: Project Coordinator Matthew Hunt: Production Assistant

WARDROBE / COSTUME: VENIA Christine Ko: Key Costumer Keeter Ly: Key Costumer

WARDROBE / COSTUME: SUNWEAVER Cybal Hall: Costume Supervisor Annabelle Gerke: Key Costumer Christopher Hall: Costumer (Silkscreening) Daniel Rose: Lead Wig Designer Kieran Smith: Wig Stylist Samantha Michael: Wig Stylist

ART DEPARTMENT Kigarumi Sensei Taiki Nishikawa: Key Artist Paul Nishikawa: Artist

Creative Character Engineering Andrew Clement: Lead Artist Lesley Becerra: Head of Production Brad Palmer: Sr. Project Manager Cory Fisher: 3D print/fabrication Alex Dill: Fabrication Mike Ross: Fabrication

Special Thanks - Venia

[freddiemercurylegendabovelegends]

Late April, 1989 - Queen Story!

Queen filmed promo video for “I Want It All” at Elstree Studios, Borehamwood, UK, director David Mallet

"We were heading into the period where we decided to share the credit for all the songs, and John has said that [the song] was pretty much a finished song when we went into the studios – that's true, it was just this riff that I was obsessed with for months. The actual title was a favorite phrase of Anita's, a very ambitious girl: 'I want it all, and I want it now '... We were never able to perform this song live. It would have become something of the staple core of the Queen show, I'm sure, very participatory. It was designed for the audience to sing along to, very anthemic."

- Brian May, interview 2003, from Greatest Video Hits 2

[marwantarek-blog]

Lojy - Karim Osama x Riff from Marwan Tarek on Vimeo.

Director: Marwan Tarek 1st Assistant Director: Michael Gamil 2nd Assistant director: Youssef Ashraf, Bisho Kamel, Jayda Ahmed Executive Producer: Amira Salah Producer: Ahmed Zayan DOP: Mostafa Medhat Colorist : Ahmed Ali “Magic” Art Director: Nour El Masry Stylist: Ayatallah Mohamed Camera Man : Mohamed Tamer Focus Puller : Dawood Dawood Gaffer: Ahmed Fathy Key Grip: Seif El Nesr Editing: Khaled Othman BTS photography: Mostafa Adry Production House: Ogz studios K3A Studio WRST Studios

[heavenboy09]

Happy Birthday 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊 To You

The Astounding & Most Favoriteable Black 👩🏿🤎🖤 American Singer, Songwriter,  Actress & Model Of The 90's

Brandy Rayana Norwood was born on February 11, 1979, in McComb, Mississippi, the daughter of Willie Norwood, a gospel singer and choir director, and Sonja Norwood (née Bates), a district manager for H&R Block.

She is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and model. Her sound is characterized by heavy voice-layering and riffs. As of 2024, she has sold over 40 million records worldwide, with approximately 8.62 million albums sold in the United States. Her work has earned her numerous awards and accolades, including a Grammy Award and an American Music Award.

Born in McComb, Mississippi and raised in Carson, California, Norwood beginning her career as a backing vocalist for various teen pop groups. After signing with Atlantic Records in 1993, she released her self-titled debut album the following year at the age of fifteen—which included her first hit song "I Wanna Be Down"—selling six million copies worldwide. Norwood ventured into acting with the UPN sitcom Moesha (1996–2001), which won her an NAACP Image Award, followed by roles such as the titular character in the television film Cinderella (1997), and Karla Wilson in the slasher film I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998). Her musical breakthrough came with her 1998 single "The Boy Is Mine" (with Monica), which became one of the best selling female duets of all time and won her the Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. The song preceded Norwood's second studio album, Never Say Never (1998), which saw further acclaim and peaked at number two on the Billboard 200. It has sold over 16 million copies worldwide, making it Norwood's best selling album to date. Her third and fourth albums, Full Moon (2002) and Afrodisiac (2004), were released to continued success and positive reception, while her fifth album, Human (2008) saw a commercial decline. Her sixth album, Two Eleven (2012) saw an improvement before she independently released her seventh album, B7 (2020). In 2022, Norwood signed with Motown to release her eighth studio album, Christmas with Brandy in November of the following year.

PLEASE WISH THIS ASTOUNDING & FAVORITEABLE BLACK 👩🏿🤎🖤 AMERICAN SINGER,  SONGWRITER,  ACTRESS & MODEL OF THE 90'S. A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊

YOU BETTER KNOW HER

YOU GOTTA LOVE HER MUSIC 🎶

& WHATEVER FORM OF ENTERTAINMENT SHE DOES. SHE DOES IT OH SO NATURALLY ❤

THE 1 & ONLY

MS. BRANDY RAYANA NORWOOD👩🏿🤎🖤 AKA BRANDY AKA MOESHA

HAPPY 45TH BIRTHDAY 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊 TO YOU BRANDY👩🏿🤎🖤 & HERE'S TO MANY MORE YEARS TO COME

#Brandy #Moesha #Cinderella #IStillKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer #Queens

[whileiamdying]

DVD of the Week: The Wind Will Carry Us

Richard Brody February 22, 2010

Watching a movie made in a place that subjects movies to censorship invokes a particular way of viewing. Whether the censorship is of the kind exerted by the studios here under the Hays Code in Hollywood’s classic age or the kind exerted by the Chinese government, it teaches the sharpest filmmakers ways to get their ideas and emotions out in forms that elude official scrutiny, and viewers attuned to such filmmakers become adept in symbology.

One of the masters of the modern cinema, the Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, combines a patient and loving attention to characters drawn from daily life and to their landscapes with a precise, canny, and fierce distillation of concrete phenomena into brilliant, vertiginous, and liberating abstractions. (Last year, I wrote about his recent short film “Where Is My Romeo?,” which carries the practice to a stunning extreme.) In his 1999 feature, “The Wind Will Carry Us,” which I discuss in the clip above, Kiarostami reflects on the practice of his own art by means of a protagonist who is a filmmaker from Tehran en route to a remote village to document an obscure local funeral rite; the anticipated death is that of a colleague’s relative, an elderly and moribund woman who greatly inconveniences the filmmaker and his crew by not dying on time. But if the subject of their art is death, the subject of their visit turns out to be life—and, in particular, its creation. From the director’s first encounter there, with a young boy, to his meeting with the mother of nine children, the movie takes on—indirectly but unmistakably—the making of babies. One strikingly scene features an elderly café owner, a woman, who talks of woman’s three jobs, one of which is her “night work.” And, later on, Kiarostami proves exactly what he means, with a cut from a daytime delight in sensual reality to a view of the village at night, leaving us to imagine exactly what kind of “work” is being done behind closed doors.

Another comic riff features the unseen digger of a ditch (for a planned antenna) atop a mountain (one that the filmmaker needs to visit whenever his cell phone rings, in order to hear the caller) and his literally underground visitor, a woman. Modern means of communication, Kiarostami suggests, are providing ever-new subterfuges for those who would love in defiance of authority. And the cinema, of course, is one such device; for Kiarostami, its practice as well as its results offer the promise of personal liberation. The exuberant declamation heard at the end of the clip above offers a shiver of exultation, a moment of true happiness, that’s rare in the cinema.

P.S. Daringly, Kiarostami offers a scene, between the filmmaker and a local schoolteacher, in which the ritual to be filmed—one of women’s scarification—is revealed to be the subject of abuse by secular officials.

[trastornadosrevista]

Salto Petricolor presenta "blau.", su primer álbum

El talentoso músico y artista chileno, Salto Petricolor (@saltopetricolor) presenta con entusiasmo su primer álbum, titulado "blau." Esta obra captura la esencia de un viaje personal de transformación y reflexión, impregnado de matices azules que tejen un hilo conductor a lo largo de la experiencia auditiva.

“Patio del colegio” - Un viaje lírico a las emociones iniciales del enamoramiento

El segundo track, "Patio del colegio", sirve como puerta de entrada lírica al álbum, explorando las sensaciones iniciales al conocer a alguien, la confusión del enamoramiento y las complejidades de las relaciones adolescentes. La música, con sus riffs de guitarra juveniles, potentes baterías y pasajes ambientales, encapsula la intensidad y el vaivén de emociones propias de esta etapa.

Un viaje a través del dolor y la renovación

"blau." se inspira en el uso del color azul como símbolo de dolor, melancolía, soledad y desesperanza, similar a la influencia que tuvo el azul en la obra de Picasso durante sus períodos de duelo. Para Salto Petricolor, este álbum representa una nueva perspectiva sobre las relaciones románticas, acompañada del luto tras el quiebre, compartiendo experiencias con quienes han atravesado procesos similares.

Una melodiosa colisión de influencias musicales

La riqueza sonora de "blau." se ha nutrido de una ecléctica gama de influencias, desde Devin Townsend y Opeth hasta Violeta Parra y Rosalía, pasando por Tenemos Explosivos y Rauw Alejandro. El artista ha fusionado estas inspiraciones, creando una experiencia auditiva única que atraviesa los cinco sentidos y las diversas emociones humanas.

Producción y colaboración artística

El álbum fue completamente desarrollado por Salto Petricolor en su home studio, con la colaboración de Javier Romero, quien aportó voces y relatos en algunas canciones. El reconocido guitarrista de Overtoun y productor Matías Bahamondes participó en el stem mastering y la finalización de las programaciones de batería en sus estudios en María Pinto.

Arte visual que acompaña la experiencia sonora

Tomás, además de ser el músico principal, es el pintor de las obras que acompañan al álbum, inspirándose en la técnica de manchas de color de Jackson Pollock. El lanzamiento incluye un Lyric Video/Visualizer que complementa la experiencia artística de "blau."

Sobre Salto Petricolor:

Salto Petricolor es el nombre del proyecto solista del compositor y multi instrumentista Tomás Cortez, caracterizado por ser un lugar de convergencia de géneros extremadamente diversos como el progresivo, el metal, el pop, la electrónica, el ambient, el folk y el jazz. Originario de Puente Alto, Tomás es quién ejerce como productor y ejecutor total de toda su obra, contando en algunas ocasiones con colaboraciones destacadas para obtener nuevos colores en las piezas.

Caracterizado por pasar por momentos de gran calma y estructuras familiares, hasta piezas de pasajes extendidos, virtuosos y potentes, el proyecto tiene varias similitudes de fondo con otros artistas con una paleta de sonidos variada, enriquecida por la profundización del proceso de hacer música en sí.

Tomás empezó su camino en la música desde pequeño, comenzando con el piano y voz a los 5 años, ampliando durante la adolescencia a la guitarra, la batería y el bajo. Usando estos conocimientos como instrumentista y de producción, Tomás se ha desempeñado también como sesionista, director musical y productor de otros artistas como Leen, Martorell, La Román BigBang, Alejandro Kiroz, entre otros.

Tomás empieza su camino como solista en 2017 presentándose en formato acústico ó acompañado del piano; con el tiempo, la propuesta en vivo evolucionó para incorporar una banda completa y elementos visuales en sus intensas e inmersivas actuaciones.

Tomás tiene un historial de lanzamientos, incluyendo el EP "Cybersyn" (2019, re-editado el 2022), que exploró géneros como el metal electrónico, la psicodelia y el trap tomando como base el proyecto cibernético de la Unidad Popular, y que fue lanzado en un concierto el año 2021 en Espacio del Ángel, Santiago de Chile; cuyo cierre de ciclo se realizó el 2023 en Sala SCD Egaña, de la misma ciudad.

Paralelamente, lanzó el sencillo "En Medida de lo Posible”, creación del año 2018, junto con una reversión de la icónica canción "Estar Solo" de Los Prisioneros durante el año 2020.

Así también, Salto Petricolor se ha desarrollado en el área de las bandas sonoras, realizando la música original para el cortometraje “El Raco”, del director Diego Arancibia, presentado en conjunto en los conciertos de “Cybersyn”.

En la actualidad, Salto Petricolor se encuentra promocionando su primer larga duración, "blau." Para cerrar la etapa anterior, y dar paso a un nuevo camino estilístico, este nuevo proyecto profundiza la exploración musical, incluyendo elementos como la guitarra solista, el metal, el reggaetón, la décima y el ambient, todo bajo un enfoque progresivo y electrónico, desde un motivo tremendamente emocional y personal.