#every writer and filmmaker and artist would be in jail.

[docmerlin]

"if someone doesn't respect a fictional characters' boundaries, imagine how they treat real people" are you guys like.......... ok

[mccarricks]

( brittany o’grady / demi woman ) WESLEY McCARRICK is 23 years old and is a SENIOR at thales university. SHE is majoring in FILM and is known for being THE MAVERICK as THEY can be HUMOROUS and OPEN-MINDED as well as DITZY and IMPULSIVE. every time i see HER/THEM, THEY remind me of PURPLE SKY IN THE DESERT, SKATING AS FAST AS YOU CAN TO FEEL THE WIND ON YOU, A JOKE TOLD WITH A TOOTHY GRIN.

hero’s back w character no. 2 and yet......

full name: wesley ‘wes’ elaine mccarrick

birthdate: february 2, 1997

age: 23

gender: demi woman

pronouns: she/her/they/them

zodiac: aquarius

nationality: american

ethnicity: black (louisiana creole) and white (irish)

hometown: santa fe, nm

languages: english, intermediate spanish

family:

theodore mccarrick, father

elaine barlow, mother

ruby mccarrick, older brother

delphine mccarrick, older sister

sherri barlow, maternal grandmother

many cousins

orientation: bisexual biromantic, pref. towards women/nb people but will date men

religion: agnostic

height: 5 ft 4 in

distinguishing features: eyebrows, hair, lips

character inspo: ilana wexler (broad city), harley quinn (dc comics), phoebe buffay (friends), prob more

𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃

TRIGGERS: divorce, mentions of crime, drug and alcohol use

the youngest child of ted and elaine mccarrick, wes was a kid who is full of life. she’s the kind of kid who did things to make you smile, and it usually worked. she was warm and inviting, a little naive, but she had a strong support system.

her parents divorce when she’s six, she doesn’t quite understand it but her dad moves out, and her grandma and multiple cousins move in. it’s a lively household, between her mom, who works as a nurse, and her siblings, and her cousins, it was never really quiet and there was never a lot of room.

despite the split, her parents maintain that their children have a relationship with both of them, and truthfully, wes is a daddy’s girl. she and her dad were cut from the same cloth, happy go lucky, fun loving, a bit silly, he’s the one who introduces her to movies. it’s their thing, watching and critiquing them together, and it’s not whatever is in theatres either. they went for all times of filmmaking, new wave, surrealist, and more.

it really stuck with wes, who herself had begun making movies, mostly horror/fantasy/scifi stuff with her friends-- she writes and directs and occasionally, she’ll don a costume and star in them. they’re silly little things, but her family always sat down for her “premieres.”

her formative years are marked with plenty of things, sports, deaths of distant family members, a cousin or two who gets caught in the wrong crowd and ends up in jail, and throughout this, wes remains a rock for her family.

she’s in high school, and she gets into the eclectic crowd, the outcasts, the weirdos, the ones who smoked under the bridge, and partied out in an abandoned trailer near the desert. these freaks were her freaks. they accepted her with open arms, as she them.  

she chooses thales because she always wants to see the east coast, and frankly, as much as she loves her family, she wants to be free of them. and they have a fantastic film program. so!

she meets steven in their first film class together, and they’re fast friends, despite her usual weariness of YET another film bro, steven proves to be a good egg. so she thinks. she finds out through him talking that he might not be the most faithful to his girlfriend, and as much as she doesn’t like meddling, she thinks it’s only right to let clarissa, who she doesn’t really know well, know. however, before there’s a chance, everything happens-- now she’s stuck wondering if she should reveal the truth, or let sleeping dogs lie.

nana is different, nana and her dated her sophomore year, nana’s freshman year. it wasn’t serious. but they were fond of each other. they eventually break up, but they stay friendly, waving to each other in the halls, chatting at parties.

both the disappearance and the murder is weird for wes, who by all accounts, isn’t great at dealing with bad shit. she prefers to laugh about things. laugh about everything. because if she doesn’t laugh, she’ll cry.

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘

wes is a mess, a free-spirit, a walking contradiction. she’s very independent minded, the kind of person who does things without thinking so much about the consequences, this leads her into trouble sometimes. like nicking something from a convenience store, or stealing a stop sign as a prank. she’s definitely the kind to goof off and not exactly dedicate her full attention to something. and while she’s in genuinely good spirits on most occasions, she has a staunch ‘no asshole’ policy. the type to defend the underdogs, and go after bullies. she’ll punch you with a smile on her face, and yet it ends up being more unnerving than you realize. she’s a bit of a ditz, as well, never the best at school, but can talk your ear off about the going ons of the world. she’s a lovable dumbass, for sure, and loyal to a tee once you get her as a friend.

𝐓𝐈𝐃𝐁𝐈𝐓𝐒

horror movie fan! her favorites are some of the oldies, like dracula and  the bride of frankenstein! and some new ones! big fan of jordan peele’s work, as well as ari aster’s! but mostly really advocates for women directors and directors of color!

also does roller derby! she picked this up her first year at thales and fell in love with it, i can’t think of a name for her yet, but she’s a blocker, won’t hesitate to elbow some dick at the bar

kinda a tomboy? she’s always been! she’s rough and tumble and not afraid to get down and dirty with someone, i.e. will join those football games on the quad or crawl through the mud for a scene to shoot

doesn’t know if she wants to be a director/writer or a cinematographer honestly.... she loves the technical aspects of film as much as the making the stories

definition of a bruh girl, says it a whole lot, but also just if you tell her you love her, she’ll just roll her eyes and be like you’re an idiot (which means she loves you too) she’ll be affectionate if she’s close to you

kinda a wh*re oops....... texts multiple girls at a time and doesn’t want to hurt any of their feelings she doesn’t know how she keeps ending up in these situations... also a bisexual disaster

a stoner as well..... always has a massive jar of weed

unclear whether she lives on campus or off campus but if she does live off campus she has a pet turtle named elsa lanchester after the bride of frankenstein actress

a drummer! she’s in a band (name tbd) she started drumming at a young age and found it was a good way to manage her aggression

doesn’t really do well with emotions, so she’ll either be like there, there, or try to make jokes.... she really said kids can you lighten up

walking meme... such a walking meme... doesn’t know so many things she’s like a cute puppy with no thoughts head empty but she’s so fun to be around

life of the party.... nana she came fr ur spot and she took it and she’s not sorry but she does miss u a lot

doesn’t rly feel like she’s allowed to be upset anyways bc some people have it...... way worse.... can u say Imposter syndrome

kind of an enabler...... will be that person to push u to try things but not in a peer pressurey way, more like if u are unsure abt sending a text she says do it

wears fun earrings and socks! think lollipops or gummy bears or found objects like she collects that shit it’s her lifeline

boxes! she’s been boxing since she was abt 12, courtesy of her older brother (who is now a doctor thx ruby) and it’s a good way to exercise and release stress

𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒

best friend -- two of a feather, cut from the same cloth, or complete opposites it doesnt matter to her (the abbi to her ilana)

roller derby friends -- she’s p close to the team, margs on her

makeup artist pal -- i think it would be neat fr someone to try and teach her makeup whether its normal or sfx bc she wants to look like a monster or smthn

she’s gullible, u take advantage of that -- u just tell her lies p much and she’s like yeah ok that sounds right

party friends

classmates

fwbs (f/m/nb) -- tbh she might have one or two of these but they literally are the def of pals who bone sometimes... like v good abt being like you good? u dont want more? cool me too

exes (f/m/nb) -- mostly dated women or nb people but def cld have had a guy

she smokes you out -- p much the only reason u hang out w her is bc she has good weed

someone she’s fought -- like fully decked in the face, prob said something that rubbed her the wrong way and it just devolved from there

people who dislike her -- she could definitely be seen as annoying bc shes loud and dorky and funny so ??

breaks someone out of their shell -- p self explanatory, pushes them to have fun, w everything happening shes rly like lifes too short to not take the opportunities around u

cousins! probably on her dad’s side! i figure she has some east coast fam 

anything? truly?

[bensolotags]

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS, BEST PRACTICES, AND TIPS FOR TWEETS

From @BenSoloTags

(Scroll down to see Best Practices and Tips)

Frequently Asked Questions

* How can I participate in a BenSoloTags campaign?

To participate in our hashtag campaigns, first, follow @BenSoloTags, our official twitter account to find out when they are planned. We suggest you turn on notifications for our account, so you can get notified whenever we tweet something official. You can do that by clicking the button with the alarm icon on it on our profile. We send out the official campaign notices from that account, including themes, time zones, best practices, and updates.

* Where can I suggest a hashtag idea for a future campaign?

Please send a tweet to @BenSoloTags if you have a campaign idea!

*How often do you do campaigns?

We try to do campaigns about once a month. 

* Why don’t we do more campaigns?

Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) see a LOT of tags, 24/7/365. We’re working to present unique monthly tags that are fun, positive, and creative. Disney and LFL will certainly notice when we trend a hashtag, even if it’s once a month. 

* Are you the only people doing campaigns?

No. There are other groups out there working to bring Ben Solo back to Star Wars. We’ll try to share information about specific campaigns and the accounts/groups promoting them, along with our own monthly hashtag campaigns.

Twitter contacts for some of the other groups include: 

@kiara_solo

@KarolV14070769

@solosaberx

* Why do you list different time zones on your campaign schedule?

The way to get attention for our cause is to “trend” on Twitter. The easiest and best way to trend is to have the most people possible tweet the same hashtag at once. Fans all over the world want to take part in the campaigns, so we try to accommodate as many of them as possible. So, for example, people in Los Angeles are tweeting at noon local time, which is 3:00 pm in New York, 8:00 pm in London, 11:00 pm in Germany, etc. 

* How do you decide which tag to use?

We have spoken with some social media experts who have experience with how corporations read social media. According to our sources, corporations like positive hashtags and public engagement. Companies tend to “tune out” what they consider “negative” hashtags, or even categorize them as spam so they remain unseen.

Therefore, using hashtags like #YouKilledMyFavoriteCharacter would not bring us closer to our goal of bringing Ben Solo back alive to the Star Wars universe. 

Longer hashtags mean fewer characters to tweet with, so those would be limiting. 

We try to make it fun as well as send a message to Disney/LFL. We had so much fun before TROS came out, and we’ve been so bummed since, that we want to promote enjoying each other’s content.

* Is every tag featured on the Ben Solo Tags twitter account sponsored by BST?

No. We try to let people know about campaigns hosted by other accounts, as well as the monthly BST tag. Anything that isn’t our campaign will have “FYI” at the beginning and links to find more information (where possible).

* Why don’t you use the same hashtag every time? One that everyone can remember?

According to “15 Shortcuts to Get Your Hashtag Trending on Twitter:” 

“...if a trend goes on too long, it ceases to be a trend. Twitter prefers trends to last for a day or two at a maximum, and trends that go on for too long are no longer spikes in traffic; they’re a new baseline. There are hashtags with 5,000 tweets in a day, while other tags are getting 50,000.

“If your tag hasn’t trended within the first day of using it, it’s probably not going to reach that spike without some exceptional circumstances. It’s better to abandon it and try to get something else trending than it is to try to get an old tag to trend again later.”

Source: https://follows.com/blog/2017/04/shortcuts-hashtag-trending-twitter

* Why don’t you campaign for other characters besides Ben? Rey (Rose, etc.) deserves some love too! 

As much as we feel all the sequel trilogy characters were given a hard shake by TRoS, Ben is the only major sequel trilogy character that died. So even if Rey and other characters suffered, they still have a (hopefully better-written) future. However, unless we can garner support to bring Ben back to life, his story ends where TRoS ends.

In light of this, our campaigns focus exclusively on Ben, or Ben as a part of Reylo, but we would love to support and help spread information about campaigns to celebrate other characters. Just let us know how we can help at @BenSoloTags.

* Why aren’t we allowed to use any art we find? If it’s on Pinterest, it’s fair game, right?

Well, no. Most artists don’t appreciate your re-posting their work without permission. The best way to share an artist’s images in a way that acknowledges their work is to retweet the artist’s original tweet from their account whenever possible. A direct tweet is better than a quote tweet. If you can’t find the original tweet, you can try asking the artist to repost their work so you can share it, or ask them to grant you the permission to repost it.

* Where are you on social media?

Twitter @BenSoloTags

Facebook Ben Solo Tags

Instagram BenSoloTags

Best Practices

Feel free to amplify the signal and RT the BenSoloTags tweet about the campaign with your own followers.

If possible, use ONE hashtag per tweet (two maximum), so the Twitter algorithm won’t filter out your tweet as “spam.”

Try to tweet during the time zone recommended for your country, but if that doesn’t work for you, participate when you can the day of the campaign. Do not use third-party services or bots to tweet for you. 

Retweeting other hashtag tweets helps the tag trend, but don’t go crazy. If you retweet too fast, you will get put in Twitter retweet “jail” for up to 72 hours for “suspicious activity.”

Never tweet the hashtag alone. Made sure to add some text or a picture to your tweet. Otherwise, it will be filtered out as “spam.”

Tweets with a visual component work especially well and get retweeted more often. You can include your own artwork or semi-official/official photos from the movies or of the actors. 

Only share fan art from the artist’s original post or with their permission. 

Tips for Tweeting with the Current Hashtag

Here are just a few ideas for creative, fun campaign hashtag posts:

Post photos of yourself with friends and family. 

Fanfic writers - share a sample of your work or a URL of one of your stories.

Create memes and/or photo manipulations.  

Create and share photos with appropriate quotes and/or poetry (your own or your favorite poet’s). 

Share pictures of your own Ben Solo/Star Wars cosplay.

Express what you love about Ben Solo or how you feel about him. 

If you’ve written a letter to an actor or one of the filmmakers, you could share it or a sample of it. 

Edit your favorite Ben Solo film scene, or create a Ben Solo-themed music video; post it or a link to it. 

Take a photo of yourself or a friend with a Rey-inspired hairstyle or a Kylo inspired pose...or vice-versa!

Please Do NOT tag official Disney or Lucas Film accounts or those of their employees.

PLEASE - DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS! Do not engage with them. Your replies count as negative discourse and may be used to invalidate the tag by the algorithms. 

Please be respectful of others.

And most importantly, have fun sharing your love and enthusiasm for Ben Solo.  

Never tweet the hashtag alone. Made sure to add some text or a picture to your tweet. Otherwise, it will be filtered out as “spam.”

Tweets with a visual component work especially well and get retweeted more often. You can include your own artwork or semi-official/official photos from the movies or of the actors. 

Only share fan art from the artist’s original post or with their permission.

Please Do NOT tag official Disney or Lucas Film accounts or those of their employees.

PLEASE - DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS! Do not engage with them. Your replies count as negative discourse and may be used to invalidate the tag by the algorithms. 

Please be respectful of others.

And most importantly, have fun sharing your love and enthusiasm for Ben Solo.

[momo-de-avis]

RIO DE JANEIRO — “Brazil is not for beginners,” Antonio Carlos Jobim used to say. Mr. Jobim, who wrote “The Girl From Ipanema,” was one of Brazil’s most important musicians, one whom we can thank for the fact that music lovers everywhere have to think twice before pigeonholing Brazilian pop as “world music.”

When I told an American friend about the maestro’s line, he retorted, “No country is.” My American friend had a point. In some ways, perhaps Brazil isn’t so special.

Right now, my country is proving it’s a nation among others. Like other countries around the world, Brazil is facing a threat from the far right, a storm of populist conservatism. Our new political phenomenon, Jair Bolsonaro, who is expected to win the presidential election on Sunday, is a former army captain who admires Donald Trump but seems more like Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines’ strongman. Mr. Bolsonaro champions the unrestricted sale of firearms, proposes a presumption of self-defense if a policeman kills a “suspect” and declares that a dead son is preferable to a gay one.

If Mr. Bolsonaro wins the election, Brazilians can expect a wave of fear and hatred. Indeed, we’ve already seen blood. On Oct. 7, a Bolsonaro supporter stabbed my friend Moa do Katendê, a musician and capoeira master, over a political disagreement in the state of Bahia. His death left the city of Salvador in mourning and indignation.

Recently, I’ve found myself thinking about the 1980s. I was making records and playing to sold-out crowds, but I knew what needed to change in my country. Back then, we Brazilians were fighting for free elections after some 20 years of military dictatorship. If someone had told me then that some day we would elect to the presidency people like Fernando Henrique Cardoso and then Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, it would have sounded like wishful thinking. Then it happened. Mr. Cardoso’s election in 1994 and then Mr. da Silva’s in 2002 carried huge symbolic weight. They showed that we were a democracy, and they changed the shape of our society by helping millions escape poverty. Brazilian society gained more self-respect.

But despite all the progress and the country’s apparent maturity, Brazil, the fourth-largest democracy in the world, is far from solid. Dark forces, from within and from without, now seem to be forcing us backward and down.

Political life here has been in decline for a while — starting with an economic slump, then a series of protests in 2013, the impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff in 2016 and a huge corruption scandal that put many politicians, including Mr. da Silva, in jail. Mr. Cardoso’s and Mr. da Silva’s parties were seriously wounded, and the far right found an opportunity.

Many artists, musicians, filmmakers and thinkers saw themselves in an environment where reactionary ideologues, who — through books, websites and news articles — have been denigrating any attempt to overcome inequality by linking socially progressive policies to a Venezuelan-type of nightmare, generating fear that minorities’ rights will erode religious and moral principles, or simply by indoctrinating people in brutality through the systematic use of derogatory language. The rise of Mr. Bolsonaro as a mythical figure fulfills the expectations created by that kind of intellectual attack. It’s not an exchange of arguments: Those who don’t believe in democracy work in insidious ways.

The major news outlets have tended to minimize the dangers, working in fact for Mr. Bolsonaro by describing the situation as a confrontation between two extremes: the Workers’ Party potentially leading us to a Communist authoritarian regime, while Mr. Bolsonaro would fight corruption and make the economy market friendly. Many in the mainstream press willfully ignore the fact that Mr. da Silva respected the democratic rules and that Mr. Bolsonaro has repeatedly defendedthe military dictatorship of the 1960s and ’70s. In fact, in August 2016, while casting his vote to impeach Ms. Rousseff, Mr. Bolsonaro made a public show of dedicating his action to Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, who ran a torture center in the 1970s.

As a public figure in Brazil, I have a duty to try to clarify these facts. I am an old man now, but I was young in the ’60s and ’70s, and I remember. So I have to speak out.

In the late ’60s, the military junta imprisoned and arrested many artists and intellectuals for their political beliefs. I was one of them, along with my friend and colleague Gilberto Gil.

Gilberto and I spent a week each in a dirty cell. Then, with no explanation, we were transferred to another military prison for two months. After that, four months of house arrest until, finally, exile, where we stayed for two and a half years. Other students, writers and journalists were imprisoned in the cells where we were, but none was tortured. During the night, though, we could hear people’s screams. They were either political prisoners who the military thought were linked to armed resistance groups or poor youngsters who were caught in thefts or drug selling. Those sounds have never left my mind.

Some say that Mr. Bolsonaro’s most brutal statements are just posturing. Indeed, he sounds very much like many ordinary Brazilians; he is openly demonstrating the superficial brutality many men think they have to hide. The number of women who vote for him is, in every poll, far smaller than the number of men. To govern Brazil, he will have to face the Congress, the Supreme Court and the fact that polls show that a greater majority than ever of Brazilians say democracy is the best political system of all.

I quoted Mr. Jobim’s line — “Brazil is not for beginners” — to bring a touch of funny color to my view of our hard times. The great composer was being ironic, but he spoke to a truth and underlined the peculiarities of our country, a gigantic country in the Southern Hemisphere, racially mixed, the only country with Portuguese as its official language in the Americas. I love Brazil and believe it can bring new colors to civilization; I believe most Brazilians love it, too.

Many people here say they are planning to live abroad if the captain wins. I never wanted to live in any country other than Brazil. And I don’t want to now. I was forced into exile once. It won’t happen again. I want my music, my presence, to be a permanent resistance to whatever anti-democratic feature may come out of a probable Bolsonaro government.

[jennywboman]

It Takes Two’s Creator On Love, Endings, And A $1,000 Pledge

It Takes Two’s Creator On Love, Endings, And A $1,000 Pledge:

Introduction

Josef Fares is a passionate man. The filmmaker-turned-game-developer’s first sport, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, is a exceptional fable in regards to the energy of household. While that sport’s high quality spoke for itself, Fares took to the stage for follow-up A Way Out, memorably taking on Geoff Keighley’s 2017 Game Awards broadcast by addressing the digicam and saying, partially, ‘F— the Oscars!” It was a profane moment, to be sure, but it also showed Fares’ exuberance and pure aptitude for the outrageous. Hazelight Studios’ upcoming mission, It Takes Two, tackles the oddly underrepresented topic of affection. And after speaking to Fares in regards to the co-op journey, it’s clear that he has rather a lot to say about, effectively, every little thing.

“Video games are not always about fun; that’s a misconception that many people say, ‘Is this fun?’” Fares says. “The best moments of my life in video games haven’t been about ‘fun.’” The sport director and Hazelight founder cites experiences like Journey or moments from the opening sequence in The Last of Us to underscore his level. His personal sport, Brothers, memorably ends with a strong second that clearly isn’t meant to be enjoyable. “Some parts of gaming are fun, but I would say that more, depending on the scene, it should be engaging.”

That’s all to say that It Takes Two begins at a spot that’s decidedly unfun: the specter of divorce. Cody and May are a married couple who’ve fallen out of affection. Nothing particularly heavy has occurred, Fares says, however the grind of every day life has worn them down, they usually’ve determined that it is likely to be greatest to go their separate methods. Their younger daughter, Rose, shouldn’t be a fan of the concept.

“She created these two small dolls and she tries, as kids do, to talk to them and try to affect them somehow, and they magically transform into these dolls in this fantasy world,” Fares says. From there, it turns into a journey of discovery, each in how the couple rediscovers what initially introduced them collectively, in addition to attempting to rediscover how on earth to get again into their common our bodies. They’re joined by an anthropomorphic Book of Love, who acts as a kind of relationship guru. It’s a cute setup, however Fares and his workforce at Hazelight are utilizing it as a automobile for pushing narrative and gameplay as shut as they’ll probably get.

Building Relationships

Building Relationships

Watch the It Takes Two trailer, and it’s exhausting to not get whiplash. It introduces the story conceit, after which flashes a string of gameplay clips collectively at a frantic tempo. That sort of modifying model is comparatively commonplace in sport trailers, however it could be nearer to It Takes Two’s actuality than in a lot of its contemporaries. Fares acknowledges the significance of novelty and shock in video games, and it’s one thing that Hazelight is leaning into in a giant approach.

“Because we’re doing a narrative game, every situation has to reflect what goes on in the game,” he says. “So, if the character needs something, it should reflect the gameplay as well. I think in narrative games especially, repetitiveness is super dangerous. Once you have that, you get the feeling sometimes that designers and writers are doing two different games, if you know what I mean.”

He takes a slight detour, saying that he’s not speaking about video games that depend on repetition, reminiscent of ones the place the aim is to stage up and improve your character. That’s one other dialogue, he says, earlier than sticking in a fast jab: “Because for me, just changing colors and numbers on enemies is just a fake way … I think in 10 years hopefully nobody will do this, just having numbers going up, up, up, up, up.”

Fares believes that for a story sport to be actually profitable, there needs to be a robust relationship between the story and what gamers are doing at any given second. “Whatever the character is going through, it should reflect the gameplay as well,” he says. “It’s going to be insanely varied. I think we’re going to break some kind of world record in the amount of mechanics that we have.”

The actuality of budgets and timelines makes it difficult to completely keep away from repetition, however Hazelight’s earlier work has proven their willingness to search out artistic options. In A Way Out, as an illustration, gamers encounter a number of obstacles whereas attempting to cooperatively escape from a jail. Rather than have them retrace their steps again each time they run right into a locked grate, out-of-reach hall, or no matter, Fares thought it was vital to respect gamers’ time and have the sequences that introduce an issue transition to the problem-solving section, as may occur in a film. That’s one method to keep away from repetition. Another is to gleefully overwhelm gamers with the sheer quantity of stuff they’ll do.

“For instance, we have a level where they need to work on their attraction; as a couple, they’ve lost their attraction,” Fares says. “And that metaphor for attraction is actually a piece of magnet that we break in two so they have sort of a magnetic attraction to each other. And we have another section where they feel like they don’t give each other enough time, as can happen in a relationship.” In that part, Cody can quickly management time, and May – considering she’s unfold too skinny in her life – could make copies of herself. “We tried to marry those two, so they’re connected to their emotional states as well. That’s the way we’re pushing for this game.”

The aim, Fares says, isn’t to introduce mechanics and methods that gamers are anticipated to completely decide to and grasp over hours. Instead, his workforce needs to ship new concepts and ideas shortly, by having Cody and May (and gamers) remedy the issues they face on their journey from their shed by the varied rooms all through their dwelling. That journey contains fantastical detours, reminiscent of a visit right into a snow globe that they bought collectively on a trip. In that occasion, Fares says there’s nearly like a metropolis inside that tumbler dome. That sensation of by no means figuring out what’s coming subsequent makes for a sport that Fares says folks gained’t be capable to put down. “I’m really telling you, that’s a guarantee. I know I sound very cocky all the time, but that’s a guarantee. It’s very important for a narrative game.”

Unfinished Business

Unfinished Business

Fares needs folks to get along with a good friend or associate and luxuriate in It Takes Two – it could possibly’t be performed solo, in any case. But he additionally needs them to complete the sport. “I do know folks got here as much as me and mentioned, ‘Wow it’s improbable that 51 p.c of gamers in A Way Out completed the sport,’ they usually informed me that that’s an especially excessive proportion quantity, however truly it saddens me. That implies that 49 p.c of individuals didn’t end it. It’s not one thing I needs to be glad about.

“Every journalist right now needs to stop writing replayabilty, because we need to fix the problem that people are not even finishing our games. People are not even finishing the games. Listen to how sick this is: It’s so sick that the developers and publishers are literally focusing on the first piece of the game, because they know that’s what people will play. This is a mass psychosis going on!”

Hazelight’s deal with selection and telling an attractive story that ties into what gamers are doing is the studio’s approach of attempting to hook gamers alongside by to the closing credit. It’s not delivering open worlds (“I call them ‘open-repetition games,’” Fares jokes), however as an alternative creating extremely different and extra directed linear experiences.

It’s a guess that Fares is, characteristically, extraordinarily assured in. Early in our dialog, he makes a press release that’s impressively daring: “That’s another thing that I can guarantee you with It Takes Two: It’s impossible, and quote me on this, to get tired of this game. You can put this as the headline. I can literally give 1,000 bucks to anyone who says, ‘Oh, I’m tired of this game now because it doesn’t surprise me.’ One thousand bucks! I guarantee. I’ll give it to everyone who gets tired. But they have to be honest about it.”

Fares’ bombastic confidence is equal components refreshing and entertaining. But it’s clearly coming from a honest place. In an business the place focus testing can usually shave the perimeters off a artistic enterprise till it’s an inoffensive sphere, Hazelight is aiming to carry agency in its concepts and inform the tales it needs to inform – whether or not about jail breaks or romantic breakups.

“We do the game we want to do, and then when we take [the] game [to] players to test it, we want them to like the game we’re doing, not adjust the game for what they want,” Fares says. “It’s different. I think that’s very important instead of adjusting the game for the player. They should understand our game, and not the opposite. I guarantee people will love this. For sure. I have no doubt at all. If people don’t like this game, then I don’t know what to do. It would be nuts. I wouldn’t accept it. It’s unacceptable! Then everybody is wrong!” He punctuates the final sentence with an infectious chortle.

It’s exhausting to not get swept up into Fares’ worldview. He’s charismatic and charming, capable of say provocative issues with out sounding like an entire jackass. In an business the place so many builders seemingly aspire to be movie administrators, Fares involves video games from the opposite path. After spending a decade making function movies in Sweden, he’s turned his artistic vitality towards the medium he loves. Fares says It Takes Two was impressed by a lifetime of peering at video games from the skin.

“It’s almost like a love letter for my love of gaming – especially Nintendo; I’m a big Nintendo fan,” he says. “But it’s time for Nintendo to get some competition.” With that, he cracks himself up utterly, trying round for a number of seconds, maybe momentarily taken without warning by his personal good-natured hubris.

Source Link – www.gameinformer.com

source https://infomagzine.tumblr.com/post/642954269731045376

[xtruss]

A Gulag Historian Returns to Prison

Acquitted of child pornography, Yury Dmitriyev now faces charges of sexual assault.

— By Evan Gershkovich | July 14, 2020 | The Moscow Times

Sofia Miroyedova

Respected Gulag historian Yury Dmitriyev has spent decades calling attention to one of the darkest chapters in Russia's history. He now faces up to 15 years in prison on sexual assault charges in a case his allies say has been trumped up to silence him.

The Moscow Times Profiled Dmitriyev in 2018:

Yury Dmitriyev normally hates Moscow. The concrete, the commotion, the pollution. As much as he can, he stays in Karelia, where he was born, raised and has spent his 62 years. In the northwestern region bordering Finland and the Baltic and White Seas, he can usually be found in the woods or in his study, writing.

Yet on a pleasant evening in mid-May, Dmitriyev, a prominent researcher of Soviet crimes, was happy to be in the metropolis. Accompanied by his elder daughter, Yekaterina Klodt, and his lawyer, Viktor Anufriyev, old friends greeted him with grins and tight hugs in a courtyard outside Teatr.doc, a progressive theater, ahead of a human rights awards ceremony.

One month earlier, Dmitriyev had been cleared of child pornography charges. Authorities had detained him in December 2016 after investigators found nude photos of his 11-year old adopted daughter; Dmitriyev said he took the photos to monitor her physical changes as she was prone to illness. From the outset, human rights defenders claimed that the case was fabricated to silence an outspoken activist.

If the arrest came as a shock to those who knew him, so too did his acquittal: Fewer than one percent of criminal defendants in Russia are cleared.

But authorities, human rights defenders now say, weren’t done with the historian just yet. Only a month after the awards night, a judge annulled the April decision, starting the trial anew.

Then, two weeks later, prosecutors brought additional charges to the table: This time they claimed that Dmitriyev had sexually assaulted his daughter. As of late June, the historian was back in jail facing another uphill legal battle, his freedom having been fleeting.

“The new charges are a chance for the prosecution to get it right,” Anufriyev said. “They failed the first time, so officials are giving them another chance to get the job done.”

Digging and Documenting

Two decades ago, Dmitriyev discovered a set of mass graves in a Karelian forest containing the bodies of more than 9,500 victims of Josef Stalin’s Great Terror. Poring over KGB documents, the head — and sole employee — of Memorial’s Karelia branch spent the next 20 years documenting each victim’s story.

“What makes Yury unique is that he combines both the digging and the documenting,” said Sergei Krivenko, a colleague of Dmitriyev’s at Memorial and a member of the Presidential Human Rights Council. “Some people work on compiling books of names, some people search for the exact locations of the killings. No one has dedicated themselves to both the way Yury has.”

“No one has dedicated themselves to both digging and documenting the way Yuri has.”

Those who know Dmitriyev say he toiled everyday. “He’s been doing this work for the past 30 years, and I’m 33,” said Klodt, his elder daughter. “I’m so used to it that, for me, his work is no different than a dentist’s.”

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, historians say, the state has supported them in locating and memorializing the burial sites of the estimated 15 to 30 million victims of Stalin’s rule. At the location Dmitriyev discovered — Sandarmokh — local authorities helped build roads and erect monuments and aided with an annual gathering at the site.

But in recent years, human rights defenders say, the climate has become less hospitable. Those who spoke with The Moscow Times pointed to a resurgence in Stalin’s popularity as a significant reason: In June last year, Russians voted him the “most outstanding” person in history. In second place was President Vladimir Putin, who has accused the West of “excessive demonization” of the Soviet leader.

Others pointed to a surge in nationalism since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and got involved in Ukraine. “There were many foreigners killed at Sandarmokh — Norwegians, Poles, Finns and Ukrainians, including around 200 intellectuals,” Krivenko said. “This is a very important place for Ukrainians especially, and a delegation would visit the site annually.”

Dmitriyev organized the memorial visit every year on Aug. 5. He invited foreign delegations and led discussions, Krivenko said. After the events in Crimea and Ukraine, the discussions often turned to politics.

“I think this is why they went after him,” Krivenko said. He also pointed to an October 2016 decision to add Memorial to a register of “foreign agent” organizations that receive foreign funding. “I think this gave the local siloviki” — officials with ties to law enforcement — “a signal that they could go after us.”

Two months later, in December, Dmitriyev was first arrested.

Prison as a Work Trip

The day after the awards night, Dmitriyev was invited to speak with human rights students at the Sakharov Center, named after the Nobel Prize-winning human rights activist.

Klodt had come with him and complained that she wasn’t feeling well. “Maybe they should put you in prison for a year too so they can toughen you up,” her father joked.

Quick to laugh, thin and slightly disheveled, Dmitriyev presented an unimposing figure. But when the subject of his work came up, he turned deadly serious.

“I don’t fight the system. That’s a dead end, and I’m already old now,” he told The Moscow Times before the event. “I fight for memory. I fight so anyone who wants to can learn about their relatives, regardless of whether the government wants it or not. These people existed at some point. They worked and loved and had children. I’m for protecting the freedom of private life and of those memories.”

Without those memories, Dmitriyev continued, today’s generation cannot judge whether their government is laudable or acting improperly.

“The people I dig up were in the same prison, walked the same halls and were behind the same bars.”

“When a person knows the history of their family for multiple generations, they can understand what our state is doing right and what it’s doing wrong,” he said. “Called upon by the state to do this or that, they’ll say, ‘No, my great-grandfather was summoned in the same way and it ended badly for him. So maybe it’ll end badly for me as well.’”

Dmitriyev shrugged at the subject of his time in prison. “I don’t make a great tragedy out of that year,” he said. “I just think of it as a work trip. I’ve gained a better understanding of what my heroes — the people I dig up and write about — were thinking. They were in the same prison, walked the same halls and were behind the same bars.”

More difficult, he said, was being separated from his younger daughter. Dmitriyev himself was adopted, and at some point he decided he wanted to care for an orphaned child too. He hoped he’d be able to talk to her again by the end of the year. “It’s a humane policy by the prosecutor’s office,” he joked. Then he turned serious again: “I can handle it, I’m a tough person. But what about the child? She thinks everyone has abandoned her.”

Into the Forest

After Dmitriyev was first arrested, the girl was taken in by her biological grandmother. Klodt said the family and the grandmother maintained regular communication. But when Dmitriyev was acquitted, Klodt said, the grandmother cut off all communication with the family. Then she sent a letter to the prosecution demanding the acquittal be overturned.

Anufriyev, Dmitriyev’s lawyer, believes that local authorities pressured her into writing the letter. He also says that the new charges of sexual assault are founded solely on a June 6 meeting between investigators and the girl during which, Anufriyev says, they coerced her into saying what they wanted. “They say they’re helping the child, but really they’re making her suffer,” he said.

Reached by phone, Tatyana Kordyukova, a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office, said she couldn’t comment on the case and referred The Moscow Times to the Investigative Committee. The Investigative Committee, in turn, did not respond to requests for comment.

On July 25, the retrial of the first case will begin. The Investigative Committee is currently researching the new charges, a process which could take months. The original charges carry up to 15 years in prison; the new charges up to 20.

This time, though, Anufriyev says Dmitriyev is better prepared. “After his last stint in prison, he now knows that we can fight and win this thing,” he said.

Klodt, too, is ready for the fight. “I’m not constantly hysterical like last time,” she said. “I understand that something needs to be done. I’m not giving up.”

His colleagues say they won’t give up either. When Dmitriyev was first arrested, human rights defenders, artists and writers across the country spoke out for him and wrote letters to Putin. Still, they are sober about the possible outcome.

“This is the atmosphere for us right now,” Krivenko said. He pointed to the case of Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian filmmaker accused of terrorism after he had refused to accept the annexation of Crimea, and Memorial colleague Oyub Titiyev, who is also in prison on charges widely believed to be fabricated.

“The only good thing from all this is that the president is showing us how it all happened in the 1930s — how people were blamed, how siloviki read signals from the top,” Krivenko said. “We used to study this in archives, now we see it in real life.”

During his short stint out of prison, Dmitriyev returned to work. Anatoly Razumov, a historian and one of Dmitriyev’s closest friends, stayed at his house from the night before the acquittal was overturned until June 19. The entire time, he says, Dmitriyev worked on a book he had to put off when he was first arrested.

In May, asked if he would return to his work or if he feared doing so would anger certain parties, Dmitriyev was unmoved. “If you’re afraid of wolves, you shouldn’t go into the forest,” he replied.

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior Home Edition May 1, 2020 – THE WRETCHED, VANILLA, DEERSKIN, BULL

Just think...  this weekend would have been the start of the summer box office with Marvel’s Black Widow before COVID came along. Now, we’re waiting for anywhere from two to three months or longer for the next big studio release in movie theaters with so many other “big” movies already being dumped to digital.

This is yet another week with no movies in theaters unless you’re in driving distance to a drive-in (i.e. you have a car), but at least we have some great stuff to watch at home, including a few virtual film festivals and virtual cinemas.

The first major disaster brought on by the advent of COVID-19 was the cancellation of the annual SXSW Festival in Austin. The movie that was supposed to open the fest, Judd Apatow’s The King of Staten Island, starring Pete Davidson, was supposed to open SXSW in March and then play Tribeca earlier this month, but Universal reported earlier this week that it was going to release it via digital download on June 12, the same day it was going to get a theatrical release.

Amazon has teamed with SXSW to screen 39 projects, including seven features, that will screen free of charge on Amazon from April 27 through May 6. The four narrative features available are the British-Bulgarian dramedy Cat in the Wall from Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova, which is being compared to Ken Loch’s I, Daniel Blake. There’s also the Guatemalan romance Gunpowder Heart, the French period film Le Choc du Futur and the French sci-fi anthology, Selfie.  The docs being offered are Karen Bernstein’s I’m Gonna Make You Love Me is described as “Fellini meets Motown” about one man’s search for self-acceptance, while Matt Riddlehoover’s My Darling Vivian about Johnny Cash’s first wife, Vivian Liberto, who gave the country singer four daughters. Last up is Alex Lee Moyer’s TFW no GW, a doc about the state of isolation, rejection and alienation that we all seemed to be feeling these days. There will also be a ton of shorts available that you can learn more about at The Hollywood Reporter.

The second weekend of the Virtual Oxford Film Festival will launch a few more feature premieres, as well as a virtual panel and the Fest Forward collection of experimental films. First up, on Friday, May 1 is a panel called “Creating Black Stories in Mississippi” at noon central time, and if you’re interested in that, you may want to check out the Mississippi Shorts, Getting to the Root and 70 Years of Blackness, which will now run through May 8, giving you more time to see them. Friday will also see the premieres of Daniel Lafrentz’s crime-drama The Long Shadow, preceded by Will Goss’ short, Sweet Steel. (Hey! I know Will Goss!) There will be a Zoom Q&A for the two movies on Wednesday, May 6, at 6pm Central. Also available Friday is Travis Beard’s doc, Rockabul, which is about the Afghan band District Unknown who fought against the USA’s counter-culture campaign by challenging freedom of expression and youth identify in Kabul with a QnA on May 8 at 8pm central. The Fest Forward Collection includes 8 international animated films from places like Estonia and Egypt, and those will have a virtual QnA on Saturday, May 2, at 1pm Central. (All of these Oxford QnAs and panels are recorded and available to watch for as long as the films are available to watch.)  You can get tickets for all these movies and events on Eventive.

This week’s Featured Film is the Pierce Brothers’ (Brett and Drew Pierce) horror flick, THE WRETCHED (IFC Midnight), which was a nice surprise since I’m not as easy a lay when it comes to horror flicks as other “horror fan” movie writers. The film involves a somewhat quizzical premise that isn’t too apparent as it begins, as we’re not exactly sure what is going on as it begins. It stars John Paul Howard as Ben, a young man living with his father (Jamison Jones), who has separated from Ben’s mother, as the two of them work at the nearby marina over the summer. Ben is immediately picked on and bullied by the locals, but he’s more distracted by the odd behavior of the woman next door (played by Madelyn Stunenkel). I’m not going to go too far into spoiler territory but the premise does involve witchcraft and an ancient evil that’s cropped up in the small town and is causing the disappearance of many small children… maybe… most of their parents seem to forget they have kids as they follow under the spell of the evil Ben’s discovered.

This is just a fantastic little scarer that at times reminded me of the original Fright Night, and I was really impressed with what the Pierce Brothers, first of all by working with a cast of great lesser-known actors, but the visual FX are fantastic and every aspect of the film’s mood and tone is just about perfect. I guess I’ve seen so much low budget horror that doesn’t really match the standards or production values of even some of the smaller-budget Blumhouse movies.

While you may not be near any of the scattered drive-in across the country that will probably be playing the movie, I definitely recommend downloading and/or renting it if you’re a fan of quality horror. The Pierces are extremely talented filmmakers who I’m sure will be doing better things down the road. For me, this is right up there with The Invisible Man, as far as this year’s stronger horror films.

Out now on VOD and Digital is Will Dennis’ quirky road comedy VANILLA (Gravitas Ventures) about a comedian (Kelsea Bauman) who goes on a three-day road trip from New York to New Orleans with an ice cream entrepreneur (Dennis), to sell his van with a questionable past to his ex-girlfriend. Both of them see the trip as a date, of sorts, but they set up a number of rules and boundaries to make the trip work.  It’s a pretty simple premise that’s made more fun by the unique elements Dennis introduces. Vanilla is a sweet, cute romantic movie with two actors appearing in their first movie that reminds me a little of the early work of the Duplass Brothers or Joe Swanberg where there’s a simplicity to the storytelling, but it’s really driven by the wonderful chemistry between the two leads.  It’s kind of amazing how enjoyable this movie is considering the inexperience of both actors, and I hope this gets seen by more people.  This is a wonderful discovery film that I was told played at the Lighthouse International Film Festival in Jersey and the Phoenix Film Festival, just a reminder why film festivals are so important!

Also on VOD and Digital this Friday is Annie Silverstein’s BULL (Samuel Goldwyn), starring Rob Morgan from Mudbound, Just Mercy and Netflix’s Daredevil. Amber Havard plays 14-year-old Kristal, a young troubled girl who is on her way to ending up in jail like her mother. After an incident where Kristal is in danger of going to juvie, she’s given a choice instead to help her next door neighbor, Morgan’s bull rider Abe Turner, with errands around his home. Kris soon discovers her own love for bull riding, as this unlikely relationship grows. I’m a big fan of Rob Morgan as an actor, because his work is highly-underrated, and I do have to say that Bull is a great vehicle for Morgan to have more of a leading role than he normally gets. He shines in that capacity, and Havard does a decent job in their scenes together, even though it’s a far lower key role. Then again, I thought this was a moderately decent indie that covered topics very similar to other movies, including Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre’s The Mustang last year and Chloé Zhao’s The Rider a year earlier.  Unfortunately, the material and especially Silverstein’s writing isn’t up to par with those movies, and it took me a little longer to get into this vs. those other films. Oddly, this will probably be seen by more people due to its VOD release, and that’s fine since I’d love movies like this to find more of an audience even with its pacing issues.

Back in the VOD/digital world, we have a handful of new releases including Quentin (Rubber) Dupieux’s DEERSKIN (“Le Daim”) (Greenwich), which I got a chance to see at Rendezvous with French Cinema back in February before the world came to a screeching halt, and that series ended up also being sidelined. The movie stars Oscar winner Jean Dujardin from The Artist whose obsession with a designer deerskin jacket leads him into a life of crime as he tries to complete his all-deerskin wardrobe. I generally like Dupieux’s weird sense of humor, and though this is less of a genre film than Rubber, it’s an entertaining film as we watch Dujardin’s character get further and further into trouble as he becomes obsessed with making a movie… as well as abolishing the world of all other jackets besides his own. If that sounds weird like a strange premise, then you clearly don’t know Dupieux’s work, and maybe it’s not for you. Deerskin is a movie I fully appreciated, because it was so weird and you never know where it was going, even going into the realm of American Psycho as it went along. Dujardin’s expressive performance was quite fun to watch, plus it it also co-stars Adèle Haenel from Portrait of a Lady on Fire, for those who loved that movie. Again, not for everyone, but if you enjoy Dupieux’s strange filmmaking ethos then Deerskin is another highly original offering.

Film at Lincoln Center’s Virtual Cinema will also be playing Catalan filmmaker Albert Serra’s new film Liberté (Cinema Guild), following it being a selection at the 57th New York Film Festival last year. This one takes place in the 18th century where a group of “bewigged libertines” engage in “pansexual games of pain, torture, humiliation and other dissolute, Sadean pleasure.” Sounds like something that would never play in Middle America if not for being available across the country thanks to this Virtual Cinema. I can’t remember if I saw Serra’s other film, The Death of Louis XIV, but this doesn’t sound like something I would watch unless I had free time at a festival, and clearly, I didn’t have time for this one at least year’s NYFF.

Another foreign film to look out for via virtual cinema is César Diaz’s Belgian-Guatemalan film, Our Mothers (Nuestras Madres) (Outside Pictures), which will be available via Virtual Cinema Friday. Besides being the Belgian entry for the 92nd Academy Awards, it also won the Caméra d’Or at last year’s Cannes, where it premiered during Cannes International Critics Week. It stars Armando Espitia as young anthropologist Ernesto who works for the Forensic Foundation in Guatemala as the country is in the middle of trying the soldiers who began the country’s civil war. Ernesto’s job is to identify the bodies of the missing, including possibly his father whose went missing during the war. The project began as a documentary and then became a narrative film.

Semi-related to the above, Cinema Tropical will be releasing three new genre-breaking films from a new generation of Brazilian directors, the “Cinema Tropical Collection” also done in conjunction with Lincoln Center, beginning with Gabriel Martins and Maurílio’s In the Heart of the World on Thursday, April 30.

Another movie getting a “Virtual Cinema” release (i.e. VOD/Digital) is Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra’s “docu-thriller” THE INFILTRATORS (Oscilloscope), which tells the true story of two immigrants who are thrown into a detention center. Marco and Viri are members of the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, a group of young DREAMers who want to put a stop to unjust deportations by being put in detention themselves, a plan that doesn’t go the way they planned. The film cuts between documentary footage of the real “infiltrators” with reenactments of the events inside the detention story, so it’s part documentary and part drama.

Also, Kino Lorber will be releasing Beanpole director Kantemir Balagov’s 2017 debut film, Tesnota (Closeness), virtually on Friday to help assist New York arthouse, Anthology Film Archives. This one is set in 1998 Nalchik in the North Caucasus of Russia and focuses on 24-year-old Jewish girl Ilana who works in her father’s garage, and while celebrating her young brother David’s engagement, he and his fiancée are kidnapped, but the Jewish community won’t go to the police to pay the ransom, so Ilana and her parents have to figure out a way to save them on their own.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Lots of stuff on Netflix this week, including THE HALF OF IT, the new film from Alice Wu, her first movie as as director since her terrific 2004 debut, Saving Face! This one stars Leah Lewis as Ellie Chu, a cash-strapped teen who writes a love to the school’s jock but ends up becoming friends with him and falling for the girl he has a crush on. I haven’t watched it yet to review, but I’m looking forward to it being a nice twist on Netflix’s other teen-oriented romance films.

Ryan Murphy’s second series for Netflix, Hollywood, will debut its first season on Friday, this one co-created with Ian Brennan (Glee, Scream Queens). It takes place in a post-WWII Hollywood and tells the story of a group of actors and filmmakers trying to make it. The cast includes Darren Criss, Patti Lupone, Mira Sorvino, Rob Reiner, Samara Weaving AND Michelle Krusiec, who starred in Alice Wu’s Saving Face! (See how it’s all connecting together?)

Chris Bolan’s documentary A Secret Love, which premieres on Netflix Wednesday, about two women, Pat Henschel and pro baseball player Terry Donahue, who fell in love in 1947 but had to keep that love a secret for 65 years due to the prejudice against lesbians they would have had to face.

Starting on Amazon this Friday is Upload, the new series from Greg Daniels (The Office, Parks and Recreation), with the first season being made up of ten episodes.  It stars Robbie Amell, who I got to interview last year for a small indie sci-fi film called Code 8. This is another dealing with life, death and the afterlife which seems to be a running theme through many series in recent years (such as Miracle Workers and The Good Place). In this one, Amell plays Nathan, a spoiled rich guy who ends up at Upload after a horrifying accident that takes his place, while Andy Allo plays the Upload “angel” assigned to Nathan who has to get him acclimated to his new afterlife. I’ve only watched the first episode of this so far, and it’s okay. I’m curious to see where it goes since it’s not a straight comedy perse like some of Daniels’ other work, and a lot is put on Amell’s shoulders to be funny, and Daniels is working with a lot of lesser-known actors for this one.

On Sunday, Showtime will launch the season debuts of Billions (Season 5) and the first season of Penny Dreadful: City of Angels.

Also, Lionsgate’s free movie offering this Friday is Damien Chazelle’s La La Land, my #1 movie of that year… thanks for nothing, #Schmoonlight!

Next week, more movies and shows not in theaters!

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

[how2to18]

I RECENTLY CAUGHT the start of a revolution that swept Armenia’s autocrat from power and replaced him with an opposition newspaper founder. It started as a mass demonstration and, had it been crushed, it might have hardly been remembered. More striking was that it was completely nonviolent. Also, it happened in Vladimir Putin’s backyard in a post-Soviet country.

Armenia’s government-sanctioned TV news stations, of course, did not cover the demonstrations, and the international press was late and sparse. But demonstrators live-streamed themselves on Facebook to protect themselves against a crackdown that never occurred.

Eventually, the “what happened” of the revolution would be reported by major international outlets and it would be known and accepted that the out-of-the-blue opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan had become Armenia’s new prime minister, elected only after Serzh Sargsyan, having served the maximum of two terms as president, backed down on his quest to remain in power, this time as prime minister — a post that had been significantly upgraded in time for his anticipated tenure. On April 23, 2018, after days of protests, Sargsyan resigned with a remarkable admission: “I was wrong, while Nikol Pashinyan was right.”

But the official narrative seemed lamentably inadequate to describe what had actually happened. The how and the why of this revolution intrigued me, so I went to the capital city of Yerevan to understand the set of events that had been doubly titled “Armenia’s Velvet Revolution” and the “Revolution of Love and Solidarity.”

¤

Yerevan is a strikingly small national capital, rich in public sculpture, with an opera house, puppet theaters, expensive restaurants, strip clubs, boxing gyms, chess clubs, nascent wine bars, and lovely parks within a 10-minute walk from each other. Buildings are generally not painted. The more reverential architecture is comprised of walls of monochrome stone.

The recent revolution had as much to do with Armenia’s history and its precarious position against its hostile neighbors as it did with Sargsyan’s abuses.

The 1915 genocide against the Armenians by the Turks created a global diaspora. Of the eight million ethnic Armenians on the globe, only three million live in Armenia. Turkey also took control of Mount Ararat, which looms within sight of Yerevan. In addition to substantial speculation that it is the resting place of Noah’s Ark, Mount Ararat features prominently in local art and culture and also in marketing for cigarettes, banks, and brandy. What Ararat precisely means is in the realm of the poets, but the mention of it will cause a response that is at once sad and bitingly hopeful.

To the east is Azerbaijan, against whom wars, skirmishes, and conflicts have been fought since the end of the Soviet Union. With the perpetrators of a historic genocide on one side and a military foe on the other, Armenia has a sense of national purpose and cultural cohesion that went on display during the protests against the dictator.

“We joined together and we were standing between the police and the Armenian people,” said Shavarsh Mudaryan.

We told the police that we are all part of the Armenian family. We told the police that we don’t need to fight with each other because we already have enemies. We don’t need enemies in our own country. We want them to join us and be a part of the revolution. After that, many of the police joined with the people. We had not been this happy for 30 years, so it’s not just a revolution, it’s a new page of our lives.

North of Armenia is Georgia, which shares a peaceful border; and beyond Georgia looms Russia, whose notable absence during the revolution remains a source of speculation. Why didn’t the claws of the Russian bear strike down on the “Revolution of Love and Solidarity”? One theory has it that Russia was too preoccupied with Syria and Ukraine to take on further foreign intervention.

Photos from the revolution show members of the clergy and military walking with the demonstrators. Nobody I interviewed expected this to lead to an actual revolution. “If a revolution was being planned, they would have stopped it,” as local journalist Ani Navasardyan phrased it.

Many people described a personal transformation when they witnessed the demonstrations growing larger. They felt something extraordinary was happening and that they were a part of it and that the experience of “freedom finally coming to our country,” in the words of Olya Azatyan, was a sublime moment.

A man named Momik Vardanyan felt this sensation after Sargsyan’s concession, and he coined the exuberant name “Revolution of Love and Solidarity” from a coffee shop called Café Illik, co-founded in August 2016 by Anahit Sahakyan.

“Soon after opening, artists, LGBT members, feminists, and communist started to meet at the cafe and passionate conversations about society began in the back,” Sahakyan told me.

I started to want to believe. I told people that I don’t believe but I’ll do everything to support you. It was risky, though. They could come and close it and I would lose everything. I have two children, what if something happens to me?

This was a flexible movement that only preached one thing: the nonviolent removal of Sargsyan from power. This permitted maximum creativity from its participants. For example, volleyball games were set up to block streets. Also, at 11:00 p.m. every night, people would clang pots and pans together out their windows. “The police could not stop everyone,” as Olya Azatyan said.

One of the other important noises out the window was Vardanyan screaming from the second floor of Café Illik. “Momik started shouting about the revolution of love and solidarity from the balcony and then the whole street started shouting,” recalled the co-owner Anahit Sahakyan. She reflected, “It was one of the happiest times of my life.”

I tracked down Momik Vardanyan and asked him to tell me the story of the phrase “revolution of love and solidarity.”

“I wrote it down on my Facebook and then ran to Café Illik and I started to shout it and the people there started to shout it together,” he said. “The next day my voice was gone and I wrote it on a banner and went to the square. People saw it and started to shout it. Everything was like a coincidence,” he said.

Other people at Café Illik made banners about the “Revolution of Love and Solidarity” that would be shown and shouted the next day. The day after that and with a tense struggle ahead, as the question of who would become the next prime minister was yet to be decided, Nikol Pashinyan called the movement the “Revolution of Love and Solidarity” and the whole country had a name for what was underway.

I asked Vardanyan when, he thought, the revolution would be complete. He said:

The revolution is just beginning. When we defined the revolution of love and solidarity, we said: let this revolution continue and let it be a revolution of love and solidarity. It will be good that this revolution does not end. Because the revolution implies that it must be permanent. If there is a place for struggle, you should be in that struggle — no matter if it is in your country, your city, or the things around you.

There should always be a struggle for equality and justice. It has always been an agenda, even before the revolution. You can’t fight only for privileges or for good jobs. And to struggle against the ideologies that strengthen unhappiness and people blaming themselves for unhappiness. The revolution must always continue.

Currently in Yerevan, evening news broadcasts tell stories of high-level officials being arrested and charged (ex-president Robert Kocharyan became the first former head of state of a former Soviet republic to be temporarily held in custody, for example). Those being currently jailed were perceived as untouchable prior to the revolution. Prime Minister Pashinyan’s public statements regarding this are rooted in the idea that all arrests must be grounded in evidence and the rule of law. During a Facebook broadcast on June 25, 2018, he said,

I cannot put anyone behind bars. However, I can and will put those who have committed financial abuse and those who have gained well at the expense of public funds behind bars. And the decisions regarding who will be behind bars and who will not be behind bars will be made by the prosecutor’s office.

On the more local level, the promise of the revolution was to rid the country of corruption. However, because corruption involves integrated economies, this is harder than it sounds. People would take loans out to pay off a government official to train as a police officer, for example; and then, once working as a police officer, they would pay back that loan in part through seeking and accepting bribes for traffic violations. The issue, then, becomes one of adjusting police salaries that traditionally made corruption a near-necessity — in addition to loan reform within the banking system. Challenges like these are constant and present in the society.

Most Armenians seemed aware that tinkering and time would be necessary. I purchased a ticket to the Yervand Kochar Museum, and sometime later, as I was leaving, a woman who works there raced after me, stopped me, handed me my receipt, and said with a large smile, “Our new prime minister says we need to do this now.”

¤

Andrew McGregor is a filmmaker, performance art roboticist, curator, writer, and adventurer.

The post Revolution from the Balconies appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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[mrmichaelchadler]

Alternative Stakes: Debra Granik on Leave No Trace

“I always think that my assignment is to seek out stories that are experienced by people who don't get the ticket for Easy Street.”

This is what writer/director Debra Granik tells me one afternoon in New York, when we settle down to talk about “Leave No Trace”—a quietly aching, lyrical film that tells the story of a father and his young teenage daughter, living off-the-grid away from the eyes and ears of the authorities. Granik’s articulated artistic focus on insular people living on the fringes of society won’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s seen her previous films like “Down to the Bone” and the Oscar-nominated Ozark tale, “Winter’s Bone,” which famously introduced Jennifer Lawrence to the world. The filmmaker expressly isn’t interested in stories that revolve around characters that have everything or are out to seek wealth. “I am interested in the lives of everyday, ordinary Americans,” she explains. “The struggle to have a living wage doesn't come easy. You're ready to work, you want it, you seek it … but it's not like it's just given to you. For whole swaths of people, that map of ‘come along this way, come to college, do this and that,’ isn't offered. It’s a big country, you know?”

“Leave No Trace” is picturesquely set amid the bright and wet landscapes of the Pacific Northwest. The aforementioned father and daughter, Will and Tom (played by Ben Foster and the terrific newcomer Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie, respectively), are based on a real-life family that was first discovered by author Peter Rock in a brief newspaper article. Rock then turned their account into his novel, My Abandonment, filling in many of the blanks the way he imagined them. Then the book came Granik’s way, and she and her co-writer Anne Rosellini further massaged it for screen, imagining their own version of the true story. “There were two producers that had optioned the book, which was published by 2004,” Granik recalls. “And they held it for a while looking for someone to direct. It was a good time for both of us. [My creative screenwriting partner] Anne Rosellini and I read the book and really responded. You play the whole book in your mind's movie screen first: tall trees, moss that was described ... It felt like it was going to be very photogenic and that there would be a lot of texture with reflective surfaces. It was all going to be things that the camera will love.”

A seemingly small film with a big scope, “Leave No Trace” poses deep questions about the veteran experience in America, societal conformism and even responsible parenting. While the individual experiences of two voluntary outcasts trying to survive on their own terms clash with a system not exactly designed to tolerate them, they come at odds with one another, too. A veteran struggling with PTSD, Will tries to do his best as a father despite his personal psychological troubles, and raises Tom not only with practical knowledge, but also through a firm sense of moral code. Meanwhile, Tom finds herself at a guilt-ridden crossroads: on one hand, she wants to be with and support her father. On the other, she craves the simple but safe comforts of a settled-existence. 

Granik calls the daily perils of the unconventional lifestyle, adopted by Will and Tom, “alternative stakes.” “I want to be part of a movement that helps re-establish that stakes can be more diverse,” she reflects. 

I know you've made a documentary, “Stray Dog,” since “Winter’s Bone,” but still, it’s been eight years since your last narrative feature. What took so long? We really missed you.

Thank you. Right after “Winter's Bone,” I had a feature project that I was very interested in and I did a lot of research for it. (Not “Stray Dog”; another film that I'm finishing now.) The narrative script was about a person’s journey after incarceration—they tried to live in a way that keeps them out of jail. But things happen that they get caught up in the same life style and go back to jail. I want to ask, “When does someone not go back to jail?” We know that story; we know how people get caught back up in the criminal justice system, but what we don't know is how people get out, and stay out.

It turned out; it was better suited for documentary. Narrative can tell a sort of more streamlined, cogent story. But “cogent” doesn't allow for all the ands. [There are] a lot of ways that people feel very frustrated with that process and they stick it out. And they withstand setbacks. Who knows how they keep their faith, but they do make it over to the other side. The time that it takes to make the feature is really contingent on the feature being sort of almost ready-made—so coming to a book is more ready-made. You at least have the story that someone sorted out.

One of the things I really love about “Leave No Trace” is the way you handle the stakes the father and daughter are up against. I saw this as a pretty high-stakes survival story about people who could even die. While you opt-in for a consistently peaceful, serene feeling visually, the stakes are always there.

Well I love that you can process and even assign that. I share your feeling—stakes don't have to be the barrel of a gun pressed against someone's head. Stakes don't have to be the threat of being harmed by the violence of another person. You're right. Stakes are, how do you keep your body temperature from reaching a dangerous place if you've gotten wet, or where are you going to go? If your life was working and you were trying to be undetected by society, and then they say, "We need you to come back, you need to be able to come back in," and you feel as though you can't. That's high-stakes; especially if you've got someone else that you're responsible for. So I do really love other people's stories that have those (I don't know what we want to call them) alternative stakes. It’s not the threat of a high jinx crime or someone going into the inner sanctums of the banking system.

It’s something more primal.

Yeah. As we've pyramid-ized so many things; the algorithm has forced us into a really thin line. I think we used to have a big pie of what stakes could be. Social realism was always about the stakes of everyday life. In many countries, the issues around the end of agrarian life and tradition [exist]. [As in,] what does it mean to send people from a village to their first corporate jobs? What does it mean to go from a non-mechanized everyday life to a very mechanized one? Those are diverse stakes. But our appetite got reduced. We're like gladiator culture now; we like one stake. We've gone full circle and I think we probably do it every hundred years or something. It's so tiring.

Perhaps there is an element of escapism in the stakes we choose to care about in big budget entertainment now. But then I see a film like yours and I feel you're grounding us back to our core.

It's true—rent is a stake, right? At the end of every month, there's a huge amount of people that need to worry about whether they've got enough money to stretch to get what they need. Losing your job, whether it’s a working class job or a high finance job, those are big stakes. So whether Spider-Man loses the rope [or not] ... I agree, I think that's an easier stake to comprehend. Is he going to get there or not? Is he really falling or will he be able to stop his fall on the balcony on floor 80? It is true, we want the stakes to be so far away. Probably at the end of the month, people want the stakes to be really about whether he is going to be able to jump on a moving train or not.

How did you dip your toes into that region in the Pacific Northwest, get to know the communities and then marry your experience with what was already in the book? 

Research is always the extremely fun part because you're not filming yet. I mean that really passionately. You're allowed to explore, take a lot of pictures, meet people, and ask questions. You're not looking at your clock and trying to figure out, "Are we going to make the day?" You find different routes. Someone says, "Oh yeah, just five minutes from here is the town where the teenagers have a Bunny Club." Veterans who are willing to speak to you might look at your script and be able to say, "I really think it might go more like this," or, "This is something that I remember someone saying to me.”

It's funny, the author [of the book] and I took a similar approach. The things that were itemized or described with some precision in this very brief article that appeared in the paper (when the-real life family was discovered), didn't give much. And so [the author] used every bit of that in his book and I then stayed very close to what he did in the first third of his book. He imagined what happened to them, and I imagined what happened to them slightly differently. I spoke to him and I said, (because in the book we deviate dramatically—in the book the father dies in a very grizzly way), "I'm wondering what would happen if the father lives after he's injured," And he said, "You should follow that thought, because this version is just my version. If it's not completely making sense in your head, you should at least run the story like that once, do a draft where he lives and see what happens." And I did that. Anne and I thought it was a very strong way to look at their decision to part. It wasn't because he died. They have to make that decision.

I love that you took that direction. The greatest sign of love to me is being brave enough to allow your loved one their freedom.

It’s very hard, yes. It’s like taking a bullet sometimes.

And Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie, in the role of that young person craving her own path, is phenomenal. There's something really raw and unadulterated about her. How did you find her?

Thom is from New Zealand, born and raised there. And she taped her own audition and sent it to the casting directors we were working with. Initially I said, "It's out of the question, she's from New Zealand. It's a low budget film, we can't even bring her here." But the more we kept casting, the more her audition stuck. I kept going back to it. We met and we said, "Can we call her at least?" So we had several Skype calls, and I loved what she had to say about the book and the screenplay. She had a lot of rich thoughts. And she seemed like she hadn't been in the fray of New York and LA yet. And so she did seem un-jaded; not very urban. She's filming two things now. So she is already [busy]; her schedule is booking up really quickly. 

Did you have Ben Foster in mind as the father, as you were writing it? He has a certain presence and look; really quiet, but with a lot brewing underneath. 

I left that really open. I was really concentrating on the information I was getting from inspirational sources to kind of understand that character. As we started to get serious about someone who could fill those shoes, I was very impressed with what Ben had done; specifically related to sensitive research and portrayals of veterans, of people who had been involved in combat. And I liked his work very much in Oren Moverman's film, “The Messenger.” I felt that Ben would bring a complexity. But then I thought this is also a really fresh, new kind of role for him. So the discussions were very positive with him. I realized that he had a great interest in the material, in non-conforming lifestyles. He was interested in what it would be like to opt-out a little bit from the digital era.

I can definitely see that about him.

Yeah. Ben was about to be a father, his first. And so I think he was very open to Thom leading the way on that part. They had a lot of tasks to do, which was really helpful. They had to really pass each other, do things with each other, like make fire work. She really had to get those things prepared, feather the sticks. And their food and their sustenance really rely on them being a team. So they did this very immersive rehearsal together for two days, with a primitive skills instructor.

And they both really admired her. She was extremely excellent at what she does. And they got their first knives and learned how to use them really well. The skills teacher taught them about five or six things she carefully selected that they could do in a shorter time, and then perform on screen. And I think that brought them together in a really great way. They critiqued each other and they were very aware of how they were doing.

There are moments between them that anchor their relationship in believable and relatable truths. One happens early on in the movie—she finds this little charm or piece of jewelry and he says, "Okay, if it’s still here when we get back, you can take it. That’s fair."

That incident, or that little moment, was described in the book. But I did really like it because I thought it was very true to a teen person who would know that park very well. And I did like that in Peter's book, the father definitely has systems and wants to make a systematic way of living. He wants to have rules, he wants to have ethics, and he wants to feel that he is doing right by his daughter. It's maybe an old-school way of teen parenting. But of course, she's not a saint, she has mischief is in her. And I wanted to be able to show that. In that moment, it gave us the opportunity to be able to show all those things.

My other favorite scene is the one with the bees and beehive handler. Being that intimate with something that can but doesn’t want to harm you felt very in synch with the themes of the film, both poetically and philosophically.

The beekeeper is a very passionate beekeeper. There are many of them. That's another thing that is like, the devotional dancers, or like people that run these agricultural clubs. Beekeeping is one of these things that you find in every state, every place. And this was the Pacific North-west version—there is something very spiritual about it. In real life, she was playing herself. And when we were rehearsing, she said to me that she thought Thom could handle the bees. She thought, many people can't. You have to be very calm to hold them because they need to feel safe; they can't feel like you're going to crush them. The only time they would ever sting, as she says, is when they feel that you're going to kill them. So they sting in self-defense.

So I said, "Thom, how do you feel?" And she said, "I want to do it." And then I said, "Well, I've got to call your parents. Because there are a lot of insurance issues, the production can't let you do it.” It would have to be something that you want to do and that your parents consent to. And she really liked Susan, the beekeeper. She went a couple of times to Susan's own home, where she keeps her own hives. And they practiced and they looked at it and Susan explained to her how to proceed. So it wasn’t any kind of complicated stunt.

In a lot of ways, “Leave No Trace” is a pretty political film, maybe quietly so. You deal with issues around veterans, the hardships or everyday Americans, the living-off-the-grid and from-the-land attitude, and so on. 

Most stories will actually have some kind of political resonance. And then even if we don't plan on it, we'll bring that to [the table], right? We'll bring assumptions about someone's race or their ethnicity on screen. I like to create stories where I'm not foreclosing the option to consider in an open-minded way. One of my jobs as a storyteller, in the way that I self-describe my job, is to engender some kind of consideration or empathy; to ask some questions that at least make you motivated to want to understand another person. Something about what they've lived through, what they think about. 

So I was trying to make sure that we're surrounding [Will] with a few questions from a brochure, from a psychiatric test [about PTSD]. Things that made us wonder about him, and of course by extension, what might have happened to him; what might befall him. And similarly for his daughter, when the social workers are asking her certain things, it gives us a chance to ask not just what we would want for the characters. It's an interesting, complex process.

There is now an improved sense of support in the industry for female driven stories and female filmmakers. I'm wondering if, when you compare your experience as a director since “Winter's Bone” to today, you feel a sense of renewed hope that things might get easier for women.

Oh, I do. I do feel very optimistic. I think that we're now seeing the statistical [evidences]. In the ‘90s when many film schools decided to have parity, the film class would have 50% women, 50% men. Now a couple of decades later, we've started to see that that made a difference. The amount of women that are permitted to be in the academic setting, or the training program, then are going to come out and start performing their art, or executing their skills. You know you plant the tree, and many years later, the tree is standing and up there and ready to be in the forest.

So I think that that alone is one element. And the other: all the cultural shifts that have to happen. Culture just gets so stale. “Time's Up” is a really great phrase. To vote we had to say, "Time's up". People of color have to say, "Time's up" [to] this country’s hideous legacy. Time's up on a lot of practices that perpetuate these legacies. What I hope you hold the torch for just as a journalist and as a writer and thinker (I want to just give you this really positive feedback); I think you're on to something that I've not really heard any other journalist be able to pinpoint: what's the pie and the stakes? How many stakes do we acknowledge as worthy?

So we [need to] have a space and culture that can take [existential stakes] that are not committed through violence. Like we said, someone can be at risk for many different reasons. So I think until our appetite for stakes broadens back out again, we're going to have a problem. There are women who make [genre] films, but statistically they are I think in the minority. Stakes of a lot of other women [is what] I'm interested in. And those are hopefully being highlighted and becoming more relevant and more front and center in today's society, where the conversation seems to be shifting. It's not just about gender. It's about our appetite for what we consider worthy to care about.

To read Susan Wloszczyna's interview with Ben Foster about "Leave No Trace," click here 

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[thiswillbereportedtomanagement]

When we think of documentaries, we often think of the films that investigate harsh truths about our world. The Oscar tends to go to a documentary that delves into the underbelly of Mexican cartels, details the atrocities of war in the Middle East, or investigates systemic poverty in our own backyard. Of course, this sort of documentary is essential. A documentary like Super Size Me, Icarus, or 13th can change the way we think about the world. But, documentaries about art and creativity can change the way we think about the world as well. A documentary that focuses on the possibilities of creativity can move us just as deeply as a film that shines a light on the darkest depths of humanity. Let’s look at some of the documentaries that you can watch today on Netflix that might inspire you with their visions of compelling artistry, incredible design and bursting creativity. If, in your life on Earth, you can find the joy that Iris Apfel has found, then yours will have been a life well spent. Interior designer and fashion icon Iris Apfel captured the attention of the New York style scene decades ago and never let go, curating her homes and her personal style in a way that “larger than life” only begins to describe. Apfel first arrived on the New York fashion scene in an entirely unorthodox way by today’s standards. She and husband Carl Apfel ran a textile company together. She would also work as a writer at Women’s Wear Daily, as an interior designer, and as an illustrator’s assistant. Later in life, she got into historical restoration, which brought her in contact with a number of celebrity clients, including nine presidents. The comfort that her ventures afforded her allowed her to collect an impressive, and impressively strange, array of objects, trinkets and accessories, including an oversized RCA dog, ornate vases, and various and sundry huge, colorful bracelets and necklaces. And then there are the clothes. Her fashion collection grew so immense that the Met was able to build a special exhibit from just a small piece of her massive holdings. Apfel insists on being called “The Geriatric Starlet” to this day, and after watching this breezy 80-minute film, you’ll be convinced no one has ever earned the title so thoroughly. Not only one of the best documentaries about art, Exit Through the Gift Shop is viewed as one of the great film works of the 21st century so far. In Exit, famed British street artist Banksy tells the story of Thierry Guetta, a French emigre to the United States who is obsessed with street art. What we have then is a documentary about a man who is obsessed with Banksy (and documenting himself), directed by Banksy. You won’t be surprised to hear that Exit Through the Gift Shop also premiered to a degree of controversy. We are talking about Banksy after all. It almost seems too good to be true, and many observers suspect it is. For his part, Banksy has maintained that the film is “real.” Though, after you watch the film, you’ll likely spend some time considering what, exactly “real” means. The film becomes a meditation not just on street art or “conceptual” art, but on the nature of art, fame, and authenticity. As the first African-American animator hired by Disney, Floyd Norman made history. He went on to have an incredible career, working on classic films like Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmations, and The Jungle Book. If his work at Disney had been his only contribution to animation, he would have been a legend in the field. But, Norman went on to work at Hanna-Barbera and Pixar, where he worked on Scooby-Doo and Toy Story 2, respectively, before retiring at age 65. Later in life, Norman invested himself in mentorship, and continues to attempt to develop the careers of others even though he is now over 80 years old. Rarely do artists get the chance to demonstrate the political courage that Sun Mu has in his life, and almost never do they rise to the challenge in the way he has. Beginning his career in North Korea as an anti-regime propagandist, and going on to continue his art after being exiled, Sun Mu is a true artistic renegade. The film follows Sun Mu as he prepares to go undercover for his first solo exhibition in China, where he is truly risking danger for his art. During the film, Sun Mu never shows his face to the camera and every appearance he makes is shrouded in shadow. Even his name keeps him anonymous, as it simply means, “No boundaries.” I Am Sun Mu offers a close-up look at the immediate danger and admirable bravery that comes with being a true political dissident. Art can be a weapon, and watching someone wield their art in this way is truly inspiring. It’s difficult to imagine the stress and pressure that would go into creating a collection for a major fashion house. Dior and I offers the insider’s point of view that means you don’t have to wonder anymore. The film follows Raf Simons as he creates work for Christian Dior, and the highs and lows that come with becoming fashion royalty. Dior and I meditates on the concept of the Belgian designer Simons finding his place in the storied fashion house. Though Dior himself has been dead since 1952, his ghost haunts the film, as Simons reckons with his legacy while trying to define his own. Simons doesn’t speak French; he is a minimalist: will he fit in? Beyond the fashion world, Dior and I admirably tackles an age-old issue that plagues many great artists. How do you honor the job you’ve been tasked to do and your own artistic voice at the same time? There are still rags to riches stories, or at least farmhouse to fashion house stories. This was the trajectory of Jeremy Scott. His childhood was spent on a small-town farm, and now he is the creative director of Moschino. As with many people from rural areas or difficult circumstances, Scott has carried a piece of his upbringing with him as he’s navigated the fashion world. Scott was rejected from FIT because of a “lack of creativity and originality.” He overcame that to become head of a fashion house. Then, he was derided by critics, even as fans embraced his work. And now, even at the top of his game, he maintains a carefully curated cavalier attitude that betrays just how much he really cares. Perhaps the most poignant sequence in the film shows him going back home to visit the farm where he was raised. There we see something that many of us know all too well: you never really leave home, no matter how far you go. Creating meaningful art means taking risks. Few artists have taken the kind of risks Ai Weiwei has. The Chinese artist, sometimes called the “Chinese Warhol,” has often found himself at odds with China’s one party regime during his career. That hasn’t stopped him from continuing to push boundaries with his work. Director Alison Klayman started documenting Ai Weiwei at an interesting time. In May of 2008, a massive earthquake hit the Sichuan Province, which led Ai Weiwei to sharpen his criticism of the Chinese government. The film follows Ai Weiwei as he continues to create art despite harassment from the state. The film ends with authorities trashing Ai Weiwei’s studio and assaulting him. While this is a horrific moment, the viewer is also meant to appreciate that for Ai Weiwei, there is no separation between his art and his activism. You’ve probably sampled a number of the original fictional series released on Netflix lately. It’s tried to do the same thing with documentary, and Abstract is one of its most rewarding attempts. The series tries to get at the heart of what design means, and, perhaps more importantly to the filmmakers, how design works, by interviewing designers in various fields: shoes, theater, cars, and more. Episode two, featuring Nike designer Tinker Hatfield will likely be the most interesting to our readers, but, if you have any interest in design, you’ll want to stick around for the rest of the episodes. Each designer offers a glimpse into a different process, different inspirations, and of course, different products. Documentaries about creatives often take a “life’s work” biographical structure. Here, the series aims to be about process, and while not always perfect, Abstract creates something that is unlike much of what you see in the documentary world: a real glimpse into what goes into creation. We don’t necessarily consider forgers to be artists. This film makes the argument to the contrary. We meet German forger Wolfgang Beltracchi as he nears the end a six-year prison sentence that followed a thirty-year career creating fakes of some of the greatest artists who ever lived. Jail time has not shaken the man’s confidence in his craft: he believes he can forge any artist from Da Vinci to Monet. From there, the documentary demonstrates that he is right. Though the film offers intriguing details about the economic incentives and artistic realities that allow con artists to succeed, it is when we watch Beltracchi work that the film reaches its high point. He pays attention to every detail of his work, from dust on the back of the frame to the smell of the canvass. You quickly grow to understand how someone could be taken in by a fake, especially when the forger creates a piece to fill a “gap” in an artist’s catalog that, if it were real, could be worth millions. But that doesn’t take away from the awe that Beltracchi’s work ultimately inspires. Vivian Maier, a Chicago nanny and housekeeper, was one of the greatest street photographers of the 20th century, and no one knew it until just before her death. Even the people in Vivian Maier’s life didn’t know much about her work. She never exhibited publicly. She lived her life in total obscurity. And yet, she took thousands of pictures that offer a beautiful glimpse into the bygone era of 1950s and ’60s Chicago. The pictures may have remained unknown to the world if director John Maloof hadn’t purchased a lot of her negatives for $400 at auction. The discovery of Maier’s work is valuable not just for the photographs themselves, but also as a springboard for a discussion of art. What makes someone an artist? What makes something art? These questions and more swirl around the subject: a woman who was finally branded an artist when she no longer had a voice in the matter. In recent years, documentarians have taken to highlighting the skills of musicians lost to history. 20 Feet From Stardom told the story of two long-time back-up singers, and 2008’s The Wrecking Crew gives a moment in the sun to unheralded 1960s session musicians. We have all heard songs by The Beach Boys, The Mammas and the Pappas, and The Monkees. What you probably didn’t know is that all of these bands relied on the same session musicians in the studio. Even on immortal albums like Pet Sounds, the titular Wrecking Crew often played the instruments on the recording. Your first thought may be that these players might have some bitterness as they look back at all they didn’t get credit for, but what’s so inspiring about the film is how positively the surviving musicians remember their time in the studio. They were paid to do what they loved, and the entire country got to love it along with them. To a person, the musicians view that era as a golden opportunity and a highlight of their lives. Director: James Marsh Is tightrope walking creative? Is it art? Whatever your view may be, you can’t deny that it is pulse-pounding entertainment. Marsh’s film chronicles Phillippe Petit’s 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers. The film focuses only on the event itself, portraying it with the drama of a heist film. The performance lasted nearly an hour before Petit was arrested, and even his arresting officer had to admit he had beheld a work of art. The policeman said Petit’s performance was like “dancing.” Any artist will appreciate the focus the film gives to the various people on Petit’s team who helped him pull off the legendary stunt. It turns out that the old saying is true: no man walks alone… even on a tightrope. Romance novelists are some of the most derided workaday artists there are. Romance novelists are often women. They write for a predominantly female audience. And they tend to produce work at a prodigious rate. As far as the American patriarchy is concerned, that’s three strikes right there. Director Laurie Kahn offers a different perspective. Rather than beat us over the head with it, she allows it to come organically from the (mostly) women who write, edit, and publish the books that comprise this multi-billion dollar industry. Much of the film focuses on the nuts and bolts of the romance novel industry, which is incredibly interesting. But, the most inspiring moments of the film come from a focus on the community around the books, and the kind of close-knit camaraderie that grows up around writers, publishers, aspirants, and fans of the bodice rippers as they celebrate their passion. Though he was once among the handful of prominent American writers, the younger generations don’t seem to think much about Gore Vidal these days. While he was alive, however, Vidal elevated the role of public intellectual to that of an artist. His debates with conservative William F. Buckley are still viewed as some of the best in American public life. While Buckley’s bigoted worldview hasn’t aged well, Vidal and his massive body of work, hold up as thorough, if often acidic assessments of American life. Vidal published his first novel at age 19, and wrote and spoke prolifically from that point forward. He wrote the comic transgender novel Myra Breckinridge. He wrote the script for Ben Hur. Most memorably he wrote excoriating assessments of the titans American political life. At the end of his career, Vidal amassed of total output of over thirty novels and dozens of non-fiction texts. More importantly, he became one of the great examples of what it meant to be an American voice. What can you do with yarn? If all you’re imagining is a grandmother working on her crochet game, you’ll quickly feel like you lack imagination. Yarn follows a series of artists who are doing amazing things with, yes, yarn. A Japanese artists shows off his yarn-based climbing apparatus. A Polish artists produces crocheted bodysuits. There are even yarn street artists. If you’re feeling a dearth of creativity in your life, Yarn will likely cure what ails you. If you’re left with the sudden urge to pick up some yarn yourself, then, at least you can’t say we didn’t warn you. Next up; here’s how to hack your happiness, according to a new book.

https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/netflix-documentaries-creativity/

[bensolotags]

Frequently Asked Questions

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS,

BEST PRACTICES, AND TIPS FOR TWEETS

From @BenSoloTags

(Scroll down to see Best Practices and Tips)

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I participate in a BenSoloTags Twitter hashtag campaign?

To participate in our hashtag campaigns, first, follow @BenSoloTags, our official twitter account to find out when they are planned. We suggest you turn on notifications for our account, so you can get notified whenever we tweet something official. You can do that by clicking the button with the alarm icon on it on our profile. We send out the official campaign notices from that account, including themes, time zones, best practices, and updates.

*

Where can I suggest a hashtag idea for a future campaign?

Please send a tweet to @BenSoloTags if you have a campaign idea!

*

How often do you do campaigns?

We try to do campaigns about once a month.

Why don’t we do more campaigns?

Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) see a LOT of tags, 24/7/365. We’re working to present unique monthly tags that are fun, positive, and creative. Disney and LFL will certainly notice when we trend a hashtag, even if it’s once a month.

*

Are you the only people doing campaigns?

No. There are other groups out there working to bring Ben Solo back to Star Wars. We’ll try to share information about specific campaigns and the accounts/groups promoting them, along with our own monthly hashtag campaigns.

Twitter contacts for some of the other groups include: 

@kiara_solo

@KarolV14070769

@solosaberx

*

Why do you list different time zones on your campaign schedule?

The way to get attention for our cause is to “trend” on Twitter. The easiest and best way to trend is to have the most people possible tweet the same hashtag at once. Fans all over the world want to take part in the campaigns, so we try to accommodate as many of them as possible. So, for example, people in Los Angeles are tweeting at noon local time, which is 3:00 pm in New York, 8:00 pm in London, 11:00 pm in Germany, etc.

How do you decide which tag to use?

We have spoken with some social media experts who have experience with how corporations read social media. According to our sources, corporations like positive hashtags and public engagement. Companies tend to “tune out” what they consider “negative” hashtags, or even categorize them as spam so they remain unseen.

Therefore, using hashtags like #YouKilledMyFavoriteCharacter would not bring us closer to our goal of bringing Ben Solo back alive to the Star Wars universe. 

Longer hashtags mean fewer characters to tweet with, so those would be limiting. 

We try to make it fun as well as send a message to Disney/LFL. We had so much fun before TROS came out, and we’ve been so bummed since, that we want to promote enjoying each other’s content.

*

Why do you list different time zones on your campaign schedule?

The way to get attention for our cause is to “trend” on Twitter. The easiest and best way to trend is to have the most people possible tweet the same hashtag at once. Fans all over the world want to take part in the campaigns, so we try to accommodate as many of them as possible. So, for example, people in Los Angeles are tweeting at noon local time, which is 3:00 pm in New York, 8:00 pm in London, 11:00 pm in Germany, etc.

*

How do you decide which tag to use?

We have spoken with some social media experts who have experience with how corporations read social media. According to our sources, corporations like positive hashtags and public engagement. Companies tend to “tune out” what they consider “negative” hashtags, or even categorize them as spam so they remain unseen.

Therefore, using hashtags like #YouKilledMyFavoriteCharacter would not bring us closer to our goal of bringing Ben Solo back alive to the Star Wars universe.

Longer hashtags mean fewer characters to tweet with, so those would be limiting.

We try to make it fun as well as send a message to Disney/LFL. We had so much fun before TROS came out, and we’ve been so bummed since, that we want to promote enjoying each other’s content.

*

Is every tag featured on the Ben Solo Tags twitter account sponsored by BST?

No. We try to let people know about campaigns hosted by other accounts, as well as the monthly BST tag. Anything that isn’t our campaign will have “FYI” at the beginning and links to find more information (where possible).

*

Why don’t you use the same hashtag every time? One that everyone can remember?

According to “15 Shortcuts to Get Your Hashtag Trending on Twitter:”  “...if a trend goes on too long, it ceases to be a trend. Twitter prefers trends to last for a day or two at a maximum, and trends that go on for too long are no longer spikes in traffic; they’re a new baseline. There are hashtags with 5,000 tweets in a day, while other tags are getting 50,000.

“If your tag hasn’t trended within the first day of using it, it’s probably not going to reach that spike without some exceptional circumstances. It’s better to abandon it and try to get something else trending than it is to try to get an old tag to trend again later.”

Source: https://follows.com/blog/2017/04/shortcuts-hashtag-trending-twitter

*

Why don’t you campaign for other characters besides Ben? Rey (Rose, etc.) deserves some love too!

As much as we feel all the sequel trilogy characters were given a hard shake by TRoS, Ben is the only major sequel trilogy character that died. So even if Rey and other characters suffered, they still have a (hopefully better-written) future. However, unless we can garner support to bring Ben back to life, his story ends where TRoS ends.

In light of this, our campaigns focus exclusively on Ben, or Ben as a part of Reylo, but we would love to support and help spread information about campaigns to celebrate other characters. Just let us know how we can help at @BenSoloTags.

*

Why aren’t we allowed to use any art we find? If it’s on Pinterest, it’s fair game, right?

Well, no. Most artists don’t appreciate your re-posting their work without permission. The best way to share an artist’s images in a way that acknowledges their work is to retweet the artist’s original tweet from their account whenever possible. A direct tweet is better than a quote tweet. If you can’t find the original tweet, you can try asking the artist to repost their work so you can share it, or ask them to grant you the permission to repost it.

*

Where are you on social media?

Twitter: @BenSoloTags

Facebook: Ben Solo Tags

Instagram: @bensolotags​

*

Best Practices

Feel free to amplify the signal and RT the BenSoloTags tweet about the campaign with your own followers.

If possible, use ONE hashtag per tweet (two maximum), so the Twitter algorithm won’t filter out your tweet as “spam.”

Try to tweet during the time zone recommended for your country, but if that doesn’t work for you, participate when you can the day of the campaign. Do not use third-party services or bots to tweet for you.

Retweeting other hashtag tweets helps the tag trend, but don’t go crazy. If you retweet too fast, you will get put in Twitter retweet “jail” for up to 72 hours for “suspicious activity.”

Never tweet the hashtag alone. Made sure to add some text or a picture to your tweet. Otherwise, it will be filtered out as “spam.”

Tweets with a visual component work especially well and get retweeted more often. You can include your own artwork or semi-official/official photos from the movies or of the actors. Only share fan art from the artist’s original post or with their permission. Tips for Tweeting with the Current Hashtag.

Here are just a few ideas for creative, fun campaign hashtag posts:

Post photos of yourself with friends and family.

Fanfic writers - share a sample of your work or a URL of one of your stories.

Create memes and/or photo manipulations. 

Create and share photos with appropriate quotes and/or poetry (your own or your favorite poet’s).

Share pictures of your own Ben Solo/Star Wars cosplay.

Express what you love about Ben Solo or how you feel about him.

If you’ve written a letter to an actor or one of the filmmakers, you could share it or a sample of it.

Edit your favorite Ben Solo film scene, or create a Ben Solo-themed music video; post it or a link to it.

Take a photo of yourself or a friend with a Rey-inspired hairstyle or a Kylo inspired pose...or vice-versa!

Please Do NOT tag official Disney or Lucas Film accounts or those of their employees.

PLEASE - DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS! Do not engage with them. Your replies count as negative discourse and may be used to invalidate the tag by the algorithms.

Please be respectful of others.

And most importantly, have fun sharing your love and enthusiasm for Ben Solo.  

[zeroviraluniverse-blog]

11 Incredible Stephen Hawking Quotes

Visit Now - https://zeroviral.com/11-incredible-stephen-hawking-quotes/

11 Incredible Stephen Hawking Quotes

The great filmmaker Albert Maysles once explained the power of nonfiction moviemaking by saying, “When you see somebody on the screen in a documentary, you’re really engaged with a person going through real life experiences, so for that period of time, as you watch the film, you are, in effect, in the shoes of another individual. What a privilege to have that experience.”

A privilege, yes, and a privilege that’s outsized for us today. We now have access to thousands of documentaries online, allowing us all kinds of shapes and sizes of shoes to step into. To extend our personal knowledge of human experience. Thousands of little empathy machines. Small windows into lives that aren’t our own.

Here are 25 of the best documentaries that you can stream right now.

1. 13TH (2016)

Following the breakout prestige of Selma, Ava DuVernay constructed an exploration of the criminalization of black individuals in the United States, crafting a throughline from slavery to the modern private prison boom. Eschewing an overdramatized style, DuVernay calmly, patiently lays out facts and figures that will drop your jaw only until you start clenching it.

Where to watch it: Netflix

2. AILEEN: LIFE AND DEATH OF A SERIAL KILLER (2003)

For those only familiar with Aileen Wuornos through Charlize Theron’s portrayal in Monster, Nick Broomfield’s documentary offers a considered portrait of the human being behind the murderer. In his first film about Wuornos, The Selling of a Serial Killer, Broomfield considered her as a victim of abuse and betrayal, with her image commodified. In this follow-up, he takes us all the way to the day of her execution, wondering how anyone would think she was of sound mind.

Where to watch it: Netflix and Amazon Prime

3. ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL (2017)

“Too big to fail” entered the lexicon following 2008’s bursting housing bubble, but while the world’s largest banks skated through, Abacus Federal Savings Bank was deemed small enough to prosecute. Steve James (of Hoop Dreams fame) has crafted an intimate, Oscar-nominated look at the Chinatown bank that became the only financial institution to face criminal charges in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis, starting at the family level before zooming out to the community and country.

Where to watch it: Amazon Prime

4. BEING ELMO (2011)

Narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, puppeteer Kevin Clash shares his childhood growing up in Baltimore and the road to a career as a furry red monster on Sesame Street. It’s a delightful peek behind the curtain to see how magic is made, featuring interviews with legends like Frank Oz and Kermit Love. Pairs well with I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story (which is available to rent on Amazon).

Where to watch it: Netflix

5. BEST OF ENEMIES (2015)

Both quaint and prescient, the televised debates between William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal during the 1968 Republican National Convention show us a midpoint between idealized civic discussion and the worst instincts of modern punditry. This sly documentary explains the force of this rivalry, its ironic popularity as televised circus, and the aftermath of all the clever insults.

Where to watch it: Netflix

6. CALIFORNIA TYPEWRITER (2017)

A bright palate cleanser that shouldn’t be overlooked just because it isn’t emotionally devastating. The success of this film is its ability to transfer other people’s obsessions to the viewer. Tom Hanks, John Mayer, historians, collectors, and repairmen all share their abiding love for the click-clack of a device that defies obsolescence. You may crave a Smith Corona when it’s all over.

Where to watch it: Amazon Prime

7. CAMERAPERSON (2016)

Patience is rewarded in this thoughtful, dazzling cinematic quilt of footage collected from 25 years of Kirsten Johnson’s career as a cinematographer. Her lens takes us to Brooklyn for boxing, Bosnia for post-war life, Nigeria for midwifery, and more.

Where to watch it: Amazon Prime

8. CARTEL LAND (2015)

Raw and fearsome, Matthew Heineman’s documentary puts you in the boots on the ground of the Mexican Drug War. This gripping look at Arizona Border Recon and the Autodefensas of Michoacán shows what happens when governments fail citizens who are in the line of fire.

Where to watch it: Netflix and Amazon Prime

9. CASTING JONBENET (2017)

This isn’t the documentary you’d expect it to be. Kitty Green took an experimental approach that’s less about rehashing the true crime sensationalism of the headline-owning murder of a child beauty queen and more about how many stories can be contained in a single story. Green auditioned actors from JonBenét Ramsey’s hometown and, in the process of making several dramatizations, interviewed them about what it was like living in the area during the 1996 investigations (and what they think really happened).

Where to watch it: Netflix

10. CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS (2011)

There’s nothing like hanging out with Werner Herzog in an ancient cave. Herzog filmed in the Chauvet Cave in southern France to document the oldest known human-painted images, which is fortunate for us because the cave isn’t open to the public. It’s a wondrous nature documentary about us.

Where to watch it: Netflix

11. CITY OF GHOSTS (2017)

Another brutal hit from Matthew Heineman, this documentary carries the audience into the Syrian conflict through the eyes of citizen journalist collective Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, which both reports on war news and acts as a counter to propaganda efforts from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Some documentaries are interesting, but this one is also necessary. 

Where to watch it: Amazon Prime

12. DARK DAYS (2000)

Before Humans of New York there was Dark Days. This delicate, funny, mournful project is a true blend of reality and art. Marc Singer made it after befriending and living among the squatter community living in the Freedom Tunnel section of the New York City subway. Despite never making a movie before, he decided that shining a light on these homeless neighbors would be the best way to help them.

Where to watch it: Amazon Prime

13. EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP (2010)

Covered in spray paint and questionable facial hair decisions, this documentary displays the transformation of Thierry Guetta from clothing shop owner to celebrated street artist, but since Banksy directed it, it’ll never shake the question of its authenticity. Real doc? Elaborate prank? Entertaining either way.

Where to watch it: Netflix

14. GAGA: FIVE FOOT TWO (2017)

It’s incredibly honest. As much as an inside look into the life of a global pop superstar can be. Lady Gaga (real name Stefani Germanotta) spends a healthy amount of the movie standing around without makeup, waxing wise and humorously before jumping face-first into her work and fanbase. The film focuses on her time crafting her Joanne album and her Super Bowl halftime show, but they could make one of these every few years without it getting stale because Gaga is a tower of magnetism.

Where to watch it: Netflix

15. THE INTERRUPTERS (2012)

In the middle of gang violence in Chicago, CeaseFire attempts to use members’ direct experiences to ward off new brutalities. Dubbed “violence interrupters,” Ameena Matthews, Cobe Williams, and Eddie Bocanegra are at the heart of this vital film about ending community violence by employing disease-control strategies, and the Herculean task of reversing systemic criminal activity without losing sight of the humanity of the people affected.

Where to watch it: Amazon Prime

16. JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI (2012)

Let’s hope that this meditative, sumptuous documentary never leaves Netflix’s shores. The portrait of then-85-year-old Sukiyabashi Jiro’s quest for unattainable perfection is both food porn and a somber-sweet consideration of the satisfaction and disquiet of becoming the best in the world at something and, somehow, striving for better.

Where to watch it: Netflix

17. JOSHUA: TEENAGER VS SUPERPOWER (2017)

When someone tells you it can’t be done, show them this. The simple title both celebrates and belies the smallness of one person fighting a system. Joe Piscatella’s doc follows the explosive growth of the Hong Kong protest movement engaged by teen activist Joshua Wong when the Chinese government refused to act on its promise of granting autonomy to the region, and it is a dose of pure inspiration.

Where to watch it: Netflix

18. THE LOOK OF SILENCE (2014)

Joshua Oppenheimer and Anonymous’s sequel to the Oscar-nominated The Act of Killing features an Indonesian man whose brother was murdered during the 1965 purge of Communists talking to his brother’s killers while literally checking their vision. His bravery and composure are astonishing, as is the insight into the many rationalities unrepentant men use to shield their psyches from their own heinous acts. A peerless piece of investigative art.

Where to watch it: Netflix

19. MY SCIENTOLOGY MOVIE (2017)

An absurdist rabbit chase and a deliberate provocation, writer/star Louis Theroux’s punk documentary poked the bear of the infamous religion in order to get access to it. They auditioned young actors to recreate real-life events described by ex-members, got denounced by the church, and even got into a “Who’s On First”-style argument with a member (“You tell him to turn the camera off then I’ll tell him to turn the camera off!”). Serious subject matter by way of Borat.

Where to watch it: Netflix

20. THE NIGHTMARE (2015)

This documentary by Rodney Ascher should be seen by everyone and somehow be banned from being seen. Not content to profile people suffering from sleep paralysis—the condition where you can’t move or speak while falling asleep or awakening, yeah—Ascher riffs on the hallucinations that sometimes accompany the ailment. As if being frozen weren’t enough. The result is a true story that’s just as effective as a horror film.

Where to watch it: Netflix

21. PUMPING IRON (1977)

A landmark docudrama about the Mr. Olympia competition, this is the film that launched a wannabe actor from Austria into the public conscious. Arnold Schwarzenegger is brash and beautiful in this celebration of body perfection which finds a balance between joy and the teeth-gritting agony of endurance. Great back then, it’s now a fascinating artifact of the soon-to-be action star/politician.

Where to watch it: Netflix

22. STOLEN SEAS (2013)

Constructed using real audio and found footage of the 2008 hostage negotiation aboard a Danish shipping vessel, filmmaker Thymaya Payne’s film isn’t content to simply shine a light on the horrific reality of a Somali pirate attack; it strikes to build a contextual understanding of what these attacks mean for the rest of the world. For all of us.

Where to watch it: Amazon Prime

23. STORIES WE TELL (2013)

An absolute personal stunner, actress Sarah Polley directed this docudrama about the scariest thing you can reveal to the world: your family. It’s an emotional, gamut-spanning search for identity that requires reconciling conflicting views about your parents and digging through buried secrets. Polley bringing them into full view, for all of us to see, is a selfless act that resulted in an outstanding piece of art.

Where to watch it: Amazon Prime

24. THE THIN BLUE LINE (1988)

A modern classic of nonfiction storytelling. Through archival footage, interviews, and reenactments, documentary royalty Errol Morris used this film to argue the innocence of a man destined for lethal injection. It tells the story of Randall Dale Adams, who was sentenced to death for killing a police officer in 1976, despite evidence that the real killer—a minor at the time—had committed the crime. A must-see for fans of Making a Murderer.

Where to watch it: Netflix

25. TIG (2015)

When you get diagnosed with cancer, the natural thing is to perform a stand-up act about it the same day, right? Comedian Tig Notaro became famous overnight when her set confronting her same-day diagnosis went viral, and this documentary from Kristina Goolsby and Ashley York focuses on the year that followed. A rocky year that deals with death, a new career chapter, a new relationship, and possibly a new child. It’s okay to laugh through the tears.

Where to watch it: Netflix

[willpollock]

We haven’t had Tangerine Satan president even a week before the wheels have come off the American wagon.

Trump has so many conflicts of interest, so many defiantly ignorant and wrong ideas of procedure and tradition, that gaining focus to resist is not an easy task. Today we’ll take two: his cabinet net worth and treatment of the press.

Remember when Trump said he was “for the little guy?” Yeah about that… The combined net worth of Trump’s cabinet choices and other “important presidential appointments” so far exceed $20 billion. If you isolate just his closest circle (from the WaPo):

The net worth of the Cabinet Trump had selected as of Monday was at least $13.1 billion, based on available estimates, or more than the annual gross domestic product of about 70 small countries.

So when all the focus was on Hillary Clinton being beholden to Wall Street and too cozy with monied donors, he was projecting.

By comparison, by the end of his presidency George W. Bush’s team was worth “about $390 million collectively,” says the Washington Post.

Trump is in fact so corrupt, so full of daily lies, that the resistance to him could splinter since there are so many strands on the sweater to pull.

The one that is currently frying my rice? The reaction of D.C. poh poh to the constitutionally protected action of protesting—and covering those protests. Granted, some of the protestors became violent and caused damage. But that doesn’t justify rounding up whole swaths of people and throwing them in jail—some of them without charges.

I also learned a new word that you need to know: “Kettling.” Think of it as the opposite of law-enforcement restraint. In a nutshell, when police set up a perimeter around a group of protestors, all of the people within that circle are subject to arrest and detention. Here’s the problem: innocent protestors, marchers and, yes, journalists can get ensnared in a situation that could involve confiscation of cell phones and lack of access to communication, food and water, and bathroom services.

D.C. police ignored decades of precedent and “kettled” a large group, including approximately six journalists. All of them are subject to a felony sentence of 10 years in priz or a hefty fine. Sound outlandish? That’s because it is (ThinkProgress):

It’s a tactic known as overcharging, where prosecutors use the threat of long jail terms to induce guilty pleas. Even if Phillips ultimately drops some of these 200-plus felony cases after reviewing evidence more carefully, Hopkins-Maxwell said, he’s already sent a clear and ugly signal.

I don’t see our union can survive this. Setting aside egregious civil liberties violations of the peaceful protestors, our media and legal observers cannot and should not be intimidated into silence. We won’t be silent, either.

  We can thank producer Sheila Nevins for Bright Lights (HBO)—the greatest unintentional farewell gift imaginable. After Nevins had seen Fisher’s show Wishful Drinking (based on the book of the same name, which is great—highly recommended), she thought it would be perfect to adapt it for television.

What was uncovered in that process was the bond these two women shared, and Fisher’s desire to film her mother’s continuing performing verve. “In my heart of hearts, I think Carrie wanted to memorialize Debbie,” Nevins told The Hollywood Reporter.

Bright Lights would have been poignant and sad in its own right without the deaths of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds a day apart. The doc’s producers moved up the release date from March after they sadly passed away.

Many scenes in this brilliant documentary (which, by the by, will win an Emmy) spoke to me, but most of all, the moment in the antique shop where Carrie was filled with enthusiasm as a collector. “I’m having a crisis of joy” she quipped wistfully. To me this encapsulated her as a person, surviving manic depression and addiction, only to come out on the other side shopping with gusto.

I had the privilege to be at Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009, and I attended one of the black-tie parties with some pals. Carrie Fisher was there, sitting quietly by the side of the stage, watching Cyndi Lauper sing with Rufus Rainwright. I didn’t know it at the time, but I captured a rare moment of Carrie enjoying the show, seated to the side of the stage—much like I imagine she did when her mother was performing.

I was so happy to dig this series out of the vault so I can share it with you.

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One final postscript: director Fisher Stevens played a bit part in Friends as Phoebe’s annoying psychologist boyfriend who analyzed the bunch, much to their chagrin. Stevens’ interview with Access Hollywood is actually quite good and gives some background on how the two women reacted to the film.

  Last week (CrankyYank Vol. 47) we had esteemed guest blogger and great pal Rob “Reenage” O’Connor review the first episode of Homeland (Showtime) Season 6. He wrote that this new season episodes have “some exciting possibilities in them already, and offer the taste of some real meat as they begin to intertwine.”

I offer a quick counterpoint to Rob’s review, which was largely positive. For me, the first episode landed like the thud of yellowpage books on your front porch. The writing and directing were spotty and vague—certainly not in keeping with past episodes that were built around suspenseful plot arcs and gripping sequences in foreign lands.

As I mention in my sidebar bio, I’m obsessed with the mechanics of filmmaking. In this case, there were many stumbles in the plot and directing that gave me pause. Why did Quinn have to visit the drug den? Why did that intruder come in and decide, “nah, I’ll wait” and pause on his robbery and get serviced by a hooker first. Huh?

I especially loathe when filmmakers do too many takes and try to overlap them to make sense in post-production editing. With a show so heavily reliant on storytelling, tell the fucking story in a single shot, rather that stunt the emotional impact by cutting to different angles. Single long shots ask more of the actors but, in the end, produce a way more convincing product.

Todd VanDerWerff over at Vox has the best take on the series in my view:

Most seasons of Homeland start slowly. Showrunner Alex Gansa and his writers want nothing more than to emulate great spy novels, which take time to build up steam.

  But even by those standards, the early episodes of season six are a patience-testing slow burn. The Quinn stuff is unnecessary, and every other storyline feels like it’s taking place on a different show. It’s not clear why Carrie, Saul, and the president-elect are all in the same series, except for the fact that they have been before. And even when Homeland tries to knit them together, the result feels slightly forced.

The show—even with a surprising course-correction from frantic thriller to build-as-you-go drama—is still one of the best on TV. I’m putting my trust in writers, directors and producers to take us on a ride that both mirrors and exposes political life as we know it.

  My friend Eddie Duke here in Atlanta gave me a heads-up about meditation audio on YouTube that can help you center yourself and encourage you to breathe. Do a search and find one that suits you, but this 3-Hour Reiki Music video above has a great selection of healing, meditative “soundtrack-y” instrumental music that will cure your crankies in no time flat.

  That’s a wrap guys. We’ll see you right back here next Thursday afternoon at 2 p.m.

Will Pollock is an Atlanta-based freelance multimedia journalist focusing on pop-culture, politics, journalism & media, retail, real estate, travel, politics, and human interest. 

He is the author of two books (Pizza for Good & Leaving Triscuit), with more on the way. Sign up for the mailing list, follow on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram—and check out the book links below.

Make sure to comment often—cranky loves company.

Support independent authors, writers, artists, journalists and professionals. Buy a book, leave a review, start a discussion. Our success as a nation depends on your engagement and involvement.

  CrankyYank Vol. 48: Felony Journalism | ‘Homeland’: The Quieting | Carrie Fisher’s ‘Crisis of Joy’ & More We haven't had Tangerine Satan president even a week before the wheels have come off the American wagon.

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“I WANTED TO SAY something to you,” John Gilmore whispered to Charles Schmid Jr., who was sitting in front of him, alone, during a recess at Schmid’s murder trial in the Pima County courthouse. Schmid (who was known locally as “Smitty”) was accused of killing two Tucson girls, Gretchen and Wendy Fritz, though there was every reason to believe he’d also killed another teenager named Alleen Rowe. Gilmore, Schmid, and the bailiff were the only ones in the courtroom that afternoon in Tucson in 1965.

Schmid leaned back and Gilmore, who was then writing for the Los Angeles Free Press, quietly introduced himself: “I’m a friend of Lois Hudson’s.” (This was a friend of Schmid’s wife.) A bond would soon develop between the actor-turned-journalist and the accused killer, but Schmid’s lawyer, William Tinney, disapproved. “I don’t give a good God-damn if he’s a friend of Jesus Christ,” Tinney told his client. “You don’t say a word during the entire duration of this trial!”

The Charles Schmid case marked the beginning of one Los Angeles writer’s trip into certain dark caves of midcentury American insanity, which he would transform into a series of gonzo true-crime books and Hollywood memoirs. It was the moment when a handsome and promising young television actor named Jonathan Gilmore left Los Angeles and, in effect, disappeared — to be replaced by John Gilmore, nonfiction writer and firsthand witness to some of America’s gaudiest nightmares.

The author of Laid Bare: A Memoir of Wrecked Lives and the Hollywood Death Trip; Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia Murder; Live Fast-Die Young: Remembering the Short Life of James Dean; and The Garbage People, one of the first books ever written on the Manson case, seemed instinctively drawn to negatively charged individuals like Schmid, the so-called “Pied Piper of Tucson,” a talentless wannabe musician whose Manson-like hold over his teenage followers extended all the way to killing-for-fun. (Gilmore would later claim that when he first met Charles Manson in 1969, the latter recognized Schmid’s name and exclaimed, “I love the guy!”)

Not since the gory murder spree of James Dean–aping garbageman Charles Starkweather in the late 1950s had Americans been given such a fright as by the Charles Schmid case. It seemed to represent to Americans in 1965 a collision of everything gone wrong with kids-these-days: not just sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but full-on motiveless homicide. Charles Schmid himself was an oddball to beat oddballs, with his troweled-on pancake makeup, a fake rubber beauty mark on his cheek, and the crushed tin cans pounded down inside his boots for height. He dreamed of becoming a duplicate Elvis, “except I’ll be better.” It was all daydreams and fluff. He played tape recordings inside his amp while pretending to strum his guitar.

To John Gilmore, a 30-year-old of considerable experience in late 1950s Beat circles and in the worlds of theater and television, Schmid was something else: a charmer capable of getting people to do anything he wanted, whose antisocial, rock-hard psychopathy was masked by genuine charisma. Gilmore was enthralled.

Schmid, in turn, recognized the hepcat from Hollywood as someone he could relate to and trust. “Of all these old newspapermen, he singled me out,” the writer remembered, decades later. “Smitty would look over at me whenever there was a mistake or a discrepancy in the testimony: an arched eyebrow, a nod, or a pursed, mocking smile.” This was a meeting between two simpatico personalities, representing flip sides of the artistic outsider: one ambitious, dishonest, pathological and manipulative, the other ambitious, openly curious, and talented.

“He was a consummate actor,” Gilmore recalled. “He’d never get angry. He was always cool, calculated, just calmly telling you, in that very convincing and soft baritone voice of his, ‘where it’s at.’ Talking about the prosecutors, he’d say, ‘this is just more of their way of building a case against me…’ He never raised his voice. Nothing rattled him.” During a recess in the courtroom, Gilmore watched Schmid talking with Diane, his new bride, “his head sort of dipping, insinuating, and I could see her knees sort of getting weak under the chair, shaking.” Any actor, not just John Gilmore, might have frankly admired such a performance.

He was present later, on a windswept afternoon when Charles Schmid led sheriff’s deputies to the lonely spot in the desert near Tucson where Alleen Rowe’s skull and skeleton were found, tightly buried underneath dry, hard-packed dirt. “Tight where he buried her. Shallow,” Gilmore remembered.

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“Diane, the girl Smitty had just married, knocked on the door of my hotel room one day,” Gilmore told me in 2014. “At the door she said, ‘Smitty wants to see you.’” They drove to the Pima County Jail. There, behind glass, sat Schmid, who’d already decided to make Gilmore his personal manager: “I’ve already written 120 pages to give you.” Thus began Gilmore’s first business meeting (the first of many) with a murderer.

An agreement was reached. Thanks in part to his sudden ownership of Smitty’s writings, Gilmore was able to write his first true-crime book, The Tucson Murders (Dial Press, 1970). The book treats its readers to long, generous quotations from Schmid’s crazily verbose letters and his jailhouse musings, which carry a very special tang of ’60s kid slang: not just descriptions of his bitchin’ threads (“I sure miss decking out in my Continentals and vest and high-collar shirts like I used to, Baby”) but the sad delusions of his dreams of life after prison (“If this RCA audition falls through, I’ll try again and again and again until I prove I’m good enough to cut my songs. I know I can”). At its worst, the material is pop-psych schlock:

The uncertainties of tomorrow and the lost yesterdays add tangible fuel to my inner rebellion […] As I played and sang I projected sex with intent […] even the basic simplicity of my dancing became tainted with sexual suggestiveness […] Any mask I wear to disguise this becomes far more translucent and my carnal appetite becomes visible to the apparent embarrassment of my onlookers […] I truly wish I could be a great surgeon, or philosopher, or anything constructive, but in all honesty I’d rather turn my amplifier full-blast and listen to the noise until I’m enveloped. 

(This reminds me that Gilmore later would mock the convoluted writings of Ed Wood, whom he had known both as a local Hollywood wino and a fellow paperback writer.)

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Like James Ellroy, another son of Los Angeles who grew up addicted to crime books, John Gilmore made no bones about his relentless pursuit of fame. The difference was, Gilmore started out in life more or less on the high road. His early ’50s friendship with fellow aspiring actor James Dean is a matter of public record (in most, if not all, Dean biographies). His interactions with the young Jack Nicholson and Dennis Hopper, as well as with such “successful losers” in Hollywood as Ed Wood, TV horror-hostess Vampira, and actress-turned-prostitute Barbara Payton (all highlighted in his book Laid Bare), naturally became grist for the mill of a writer who’d once worked for Confidential Magazine back in 1958.

As his own half-successful quest for movie stardom seemed about to peter out by the mid-’60s, Gilmore took the advice of a Broadway producer who told him “you’re not an actor, you’re a writer.” Years of churning out cheap paperbacks followed while he was living at the Hollywood Tower on Franklin Avenue (circa 1962–’65) and taking occasional acting jobs, mainly in TV Westerns. His close friendships with Dennis Hopper and avant-garde filmmaker Curtis Harrington during this period should have produced something, but didn’t; though thoroughly committed to “the art life,” Gilmore was never an avant-gardist himself. For him, the human condition was always the target.

When the Schmid story broke nationally, in late 1965, the young paperback writer from Hollywood was able to inject himself into the case without difficulty. His book doesn’t purport to solve the mystery of Smitty’s urge to kill, but the current reprint edition (retitled Cold-Blooded: The Tucson Murders and published by LA-based Amok Books) lets present-day readers enjoy its seedy, mid-’60s desert-town ambience, and the incredulous spectacle of a teenage girl’s strange willingness to help someone lure her “best friend” out of her bedroom one night, after that someone suddenly decided, “I want to kill a girl tonight! I want to see what it’s like, and if I can get away with it!”

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Gilmore is on record as stating that, in the 1950s, “if you didn’t want a business degree or want to get married, you were branded as an outlaw.” This chip on the shoulder against ’50s society seems to have cemented his personality (despite his pro-police sympathies; his father was an LAPD patrolman). He nursed lifelong obsessions for certain L.A. crime cases. To his peculiarly open mind, it was a short step from hanging out with James Dean to meeting in cheap bars with a shadowy skid-row character who may have killed the Black Dahlia.

A New York–based writer and filmmaker named Rémy Bennett, 33, has been working on a documentary about Gilmore’s life and work, to be titled L.A. Despair: Chasing Death with John Gilmore. She’s been fascinated by his books since childhood. “I was 13 when I pulled Severed off of my father’s bookshelf,” she remembers. “The story haunted and transfixed me with its sad and darkly beautiful telling of the life of Elizabeth Short, and the eerie atmosphere of 1940s Los Angeles that she inhabited.” Bennett would ultimately read through the entire shelf of Gilmore books, true crime and fiction, and come away fascinated by the writer’s own quixotic, “maverick” life: his relentless search for witnesses-to-the-crime and the damaged survivors of scandal, for the aging criminals, actors, and actresses he’d once known from the aborted movie career that might have been, had his luck run differently.

“Maybe he was too much of a loner himself to make it, in that collaborative world of acting,” Bennett wonders. As Gilmore himself boyishly put it in his Jimmy Dean memoir: “Other people had told me I was misanthropic…”

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In late 1969, Gilmore decided to head up to Death Valley and interview Charles Manson, recently arrested and being held in jail in the town of Independence. He snagged the interview, and was appalled by the spastic facial contortions and con-man jive this particular monster was spewing forth. “You can’t really have an exchange with Charlie. You are the target […] for a gamut of histrionics,” he wrote in the resulting book, The Garbage People:

He had the shuck down to a first-rate act. Charlie talked and talked […] and to give his ricocheting mental aberrations a little religious zing, he’d mouth half of what he said […] as cryptic parables: a seer whispering through his beard. But to an eye trained to the cages, it was philosophical mumbo-jumbo. Basically it did nothing more than clog like wax. To me, having repeatedly supped with the Devil, you might say, it is very understandable.

In an April 1971 newspaper article titled “Manson: Happiness Is a Cell,” Gilmore presented extensive excerpts from his interviews, most of which never made it into The Garbage People. Here, Charlie’s crackpot philosophy was laid bare:

If you want to get to people and unlock their minds the basic way you get to them is through fear […] I told Sadie to sweep the floor and make me a sandwich, because this is all a woman is for. That is why God put them here […] (then) I can get to her mind and get inside her soul, and body. The Black Muslims know the way, they’re ahead of us,” said the failed race-warrior. “Fifty years ahead of us, fifty years ahead. They know what’s happening. I turn them on because I’m the only white guy in here who knows about Mohammed […] I have no fear of dying. I’ll know where and I’ll know when it is my time. I’m going to lie down, put a little white tag on my toe with the name Charles Manson on it and then I’m going to lie down and die.

The attraction to this kind of darkness never left Gilmore, but he survived unscathed. “I never had the self-destructive urge,” he once said, unlike so many of his earlier Hollywood friends who would fall by the wayside: Sal Mineo, noir movie actor Tom Neal (I guess you could throw Ed Wood in here, too), and, of course, James Dean himself — “Jimmy had talked about Paris, but he never made it out of the country except to Tijuana to see the bulls.”

Looking back at his work when we spoke in 2014, Gilmore said that he realized his “unconscious intent” was always to insert himself into the books as he wrote them, whether fiction or nonfiction: “The creative artist is always part and parcel of what he’s doing; basically, it’s the world according to me. However that sounds, selfish or not, why should I let that be buried underneath?”

The days of having business meetings with murderers were over by then. He’d spent his 60s writing more books, was interviewed for European TV, and had to shrug it off when a proposed David Lynch movie, to be based on his Black Dahlia book, fell through. He was living in a large, book-filled house in suburban North Hollywood, though he had always dreamed of leaving Los Angeles and retiring to the desert. “I’m a committed indoorsman,” he once told me, over coffee and pancakes at Du-Pars.

John Gilmore died at the age of 81 on October 13, 2016, from leukemia. He no doubt shared his friend Jimmy Dean’s outlook on the afterlife, which he quoted in Live Fast, Die Young: “‘What bullshit!’ he said. There was no God, there was only art, only the composer, the creator of the symphony. ‘No matter what they say, there isn’t any heaven. There’s no hell either. There’s nothing before you’re born and there’s nothing after you’re dead.’” Gilmore’s two children spread his ashes somewhere in Death Valley.

At the memorial held for him at Hollywood’s Museum of Death, writers and L.A. historian-types as diverse as Kim Cooper of Los Angeles Visionaries Association, Stuart Swezey (his publisher at Amok), and filmmaker Richard Connor remembered the maverick who chucked a budding Hollywood career for the hinterlands of the American psyche. “He never compromised,” his son Carson told the assembled. “I’ve seen personal relationships go straight out the window, if it meant giving up what he knew he had to do.”

Rémy Bennett flew out from New York to attend the memorial. When we met at the 101 Coffee Shop on Franklin Avenue, she told me that Gilmore’s empathy for the “Black Dahlia,” Elizabeth Short, had moved her:

She became more than just a symbol of “L.A. despair” to me. I saw a young woman whose yearning I could identify with, and a spirit of tragedy that “echoed” in so many lives of people that were lost and searching in those days in Hollywood. John’s ability to get under the skin of his subjects speaks more to a collective sense of grief, and a desire to understand rather than exploit. Cold-Blooded, I think especially, should be mentioned in the same breath as Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood and Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song. But somehow he’s remained in the shadows as a cult figure, not the innovator of new journalistic crime writing that I think he deserves to be remembered as.

She envisions her work-in-progress as an impressionistic montage of period photos, quotes, and recordings of Gilmore’s writings, talks with surviving friends, and shots of those places conjured in his books, including the Hollywood rooming houses haunted by Elizabeth Short.

At the memorial, one of the actor-writer’s old friends got up to speak. He looked around and said simply, “Well, John was a solo act.” He deserves an encore.

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Anthony Mostrom, a former Los Angeles Times columnist, is currently a book reviewer and travel writer for the LA Weekly.

The post “Having Repeatedly Supped with the Devil…”: The Strange Muses of John Gilmore appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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