#i think it's also interesting that only kerri and colin seem to care about him as a person and they are people paid to be close to him

[antiqua-lugar]

I think it's very interesting that tom in episode 2 is already being like "remember greg we just gotta soldier on till waystar gets sold" because up to this point every season has been logan picking one kid as the favourite and then kicking them away and that's also what made him look scary and powerful but this season the energy really is "can that man fuck off". like tom and greg might be scared of logan but they don't care about logan. greg and tom are not gonna have sad emotional moments because logan doesn't love them. this changes the tone of the show a lot but also really shakes the status quo - no one around logan now really gives a shit about him and he has never looked smaller and fraile.

[barrykeoghans]

Barry Keoghan Can Do It All

Barry Keoghan returns from the bathroom of a “members only” club on the Lower East Side in New York City and plops down a handful of Dubble Bubble in front of me and his girlfriend, Shona Guerin. “Here’s some gum,” the 25-year-old Irishman says. I grab one—not because I necessarily want any, but because Keoghan seems to be presenting the Dubble Bubble as some kind of ice breaker, and it’d be rude not to join in. But as I start to untwist the wrapper, he quickly interjects: “The question is, do you trust me?”

It’s a pretty fucked up thing to say, considering Keoghan knows I’ve just seen The Killing of a Sacred Deer. In the film, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, Dogtooth) and costarring Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman, Keoghan plays a teenage boy named Martin who forces the surgeon who accidentally killed his father (Farrell) to make a dreadful compromise: sacrifice an immediate family member, or else watch each of them go paralyzed, bleed from their eyes, and then slowly die. How Martin is able to set off this agonizing chain of events is never explained; Keoghan plays him with an eerie matter-of-factness, blankly reciting the horrific rules to Farrell’s Steven Murphy like they’re lines from a book report. He uses a similar intonation to suggest that he’s poisoned the Dubble Bubble, clearly relishing the layer of wickedness that starring in Sacred Deer has added to his bright-eyed, innocent-seeming persona.

I put the gum down on the table.

Keoghan has had a remarkable few months: Before Sacred Deer, he played George, a naive, pure-hearted teen in a sweater vest, in Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster World War II epic Dunkirk. It was a small role with a basic function and only a handful of lines, but Keoghan managed to capture a sense of idealism in the character—to the point that his sudden death is genuinely and tragically sad. “I always said, I want to work with good indie filmmakers, and if a blockbuster comes up and the filmmaker is great, I’ll do that,” Keoghan says. “And then I get the best of all that! It’s Chris Nolan! The best director who also makes big films.”

Still, Keoghan’s performance in Dunkirk hardly compares to his turn as the Sacred Deer’s grim reaper in blue jeans and a backpack. Sacred Deer is a movie about responsibility, consequences, and comeuppance, and Keoghan’s Martin is the center of gravity around which all of those themes revolve. Lanthimos, as always when it comes to his films, is the one who crafted the seemingly alternate, near-human universe of Sacred Deer—at once sick and sickly humorous—but Keoghan is his mouthpiece, morphing from a simple, sympathetic kid into a merciless but magnetic exactor of justice over the course of two hours. “His face, his physicality, his whole presence,” Lanthimos tells me, when I ask why he decided to cast Keoghan. “He’s just an interesting human being to watch. It would’ve been easy to create this one-dimensional evil kid, but his mere presence conveys many different things at the same time.”

“To get to play those two roles within the space of a few months, to show my range, that’s a dream,” Keoghan says. “I want people to go, ‘Fuck, that’s him? He’s completely different.’”

Keoghan was born in one of the grittier neighborhoods of Dublin, Ireland. He’s from the north side of the River Liffey, which bisects the city and acts as a socioeconomic dividing line between the underprivileged north and the more affluent south. His mother, who was addicted to heroin, died when he was 5 years old, and he was sent to live in foster care. It’s the only segment of Keoghan’s life he won’t talk about; when I ask him about his childhood he responds, “You’ve probably done your research, haven’t you?” as if to say, “The information’s out there, so let’s move on.” When he was 11, his grandmother took him in. He’s more than happy to tell stories from his adolescence, painting a picture of himself to be just as sneakily sinister as some of the characters he’s played. He got kicked out of his all-boys high school because “they weren’t having my games anymore. The last thing I done was, I threw a coin and it hit a teacher in the head. That was the last straw for them.” He tells the story bashfully, staring down at his feet and suppressing a smile.

It was around that time that Keoghan started acting. “I seen this note in a window that said this small Irish movie Between the Canals, they were looking for actors.” Keoghan, who had never acted before, saw an opportunity. “I took the number down on the sly, because I knew that my friends would take the piss out of me, and I rang it when I went home.”

“Acting? I don’t know—I just see money,” Keoghan says when I ask what made him audition for the movie, an admission that feels honest and understandable. Actors are especially known for treating their profession like a craft they were drawn to by Dionysus himself; to hear one flatly admit that it’s a job is both jarring and refreshing. For much of the beginning of his career, Keoghan played characters similar to the side role he landed in Between the Canals: troubled kids from the streets. In 2013, he appeared in six episodes of the fourth season of Love/Hate, an Irish television series about Dublin’s criminal underbelly; he played a homeless youth in 2016’s Mammal. They weren’t splashy parts (Mammal screened at Sundance), but they were enough to get Keoghan noticed.

As Lanthimos says, Keoghan just has one of those faces. It somehow seems to be in constant flux; one second he looks like a Dior model, the next he looks like if Cillian Murphy got hit with a shovel. Sitting in front of me in a white tee and gray, Superdry sweats, he looks kind, innocent, and young—much younger than 25—but his expression can quickly flip, either because the light hit the scar under his right eye in a funny way or because he wants to tease you about poisoning your food. It’s his greatest weapon, and he knows how to use it.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer is full of disturbingly memorable scenes, but one stands out: About two-thirds through the film, Stephen Murphy’s wife, played by Kidman, confronts Martin in his home and begs him to lift the curse. Martin’s in his boxers and in the middle of eating a plate of spaghetti, which reminds him of a story about his father. As a kid, Martin remembers, he used to marvel at the way his dad ate pasta: so efficient, so brilliant. He demonstrates, twirling some of the pasta around his fork and eating it in one big mouthful. Still chewing, and with sauce covering his face, he continues the story, blankly recalling how devastating it was to grow up and one day realize that the way his father ate pasta is the way everyone eats pasta. The discovery made him feel betrayed, Martin says; as if the man whom he revered so much barely even existed. Meanwhile, Kidman’s character sits across from Martin dumbfounded, realizing how deep the boy’s scars go and perhaps coming to grips with the fact that the person who holds her life and her children’s lives in the balance is a teenager covered in marinara sauce.

It’s an outrageous scene, this kid shoveling spaghetti into his face while spouting an allegory about coming to realize your own insignificance—and Keoghan is unflinching, turning each forkful into a work of art. “You know, sitting in front of Nicole Kidman in your boxers is not an easy thing to do,” Keoghan tells me, hardly interested in talking about his performance or how he’s able to simultaneously capture pain, loss, and bald evil in one fell swoop. “I was just constantly like, ‘Can she see up there?’”

On the day we meet, Keoghan’s particularly giddy because Aaron Paul tweeted about how good he was in Sacred Deer. After six years of toiling away in mostly Irish productions, Keoghan’s performance as Martin has put him in a position where he can not only think about the future of his career, but the next five or 10 years of his life in general. Keoghan says, “It’s all a plan.” When he first signed with his talent agency, WME, this plan was already partially formulated: He had written down a list of directors he wanted to work with. Christopher Nolan and Yorgos Lanthimos were both on it. “I write everything down,” he says. “Directors, movies I want to do, that I want to produce, direct, start my own company, start my own boxing club.” Keoghan takes his roles in Dunkirk and Sacred Deer as proof that the first step to achieving a goal is putting it down on paper (or in his iPhone Notes). “I’m a big fan of the law of attraction,” he proudly states. He won’t show anyone the obsessively curated and growing list, but everything on it can be boiled down to one simple goal: “Have a successful, good career.”

Keoghan seems to know that, at 25, after two prominent roles in the films of two high-profile directors, his plan is coming together. He has two upcoming projects on his slate—an Irish movie starring Hugo Weaving and Jim Broadbent called Black 47, and American Animals, costarring Blake Jenner and Evan Peters—but he wants to ride this momentum even more. “I’m lookin’ for that script,” he says, leaning into the recorder, graveling his voice to sound tougher. “I’m lookin’ for that script!”

His personal life shows a different side of him, one that’s less scrappy and not so firmly tuned to survival mode. You might even call him a romantic. He met his girlfriend, Shona, at a bar she worked in in Kerry. He asked her out on the spot, but not to dinner or anything like that: He suggested they drive out to Dingle, a picturesque peninsula on the west coast of Ireland. “Luckily she had a car. I had no way to get to Dingle,” Keoghan notes. Two weeks later, he returned to Kerry with suitcases. They’ve been living with Shona’s mom since.

“He doesn’t put a lot of thought into things,” Shona tells me, with more admiration than admonishment. “But he’s very caring. He can feel when he’s done something wrong. It hurts him.”

Now Keoghan and Shona want to move to the United States. They don’t know where exactly—he prefers New York City, she prefers L.A.—but the idea of turning ex-pat is thrilling to them. “And we’re looking to get our own dog,” Keoghan adds. “A rescue one. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I just love them, don’t I? They just listen.”

“I have to try to be in the moment,” Keoghan says at the end of our interview. “Because these moments we’ve been having lately are great. Everyone is looking at you, and it’s like, you’re totally in control of everything. It’s something that you need to enjoy.”

I pick up the gum again, and Keoghan’s eyes follow me as I put it in my coat pocket. He says nothing this time. Walking away from the table, I pull out the gum and decide to eat it.

By Andrew Gruttadaro

[thecinephale]

Nicole Kidman 59 - #40-36

40. Before I Go to Sleep (dir. Rowan Joffe)

One of the wildest discoveries of this project was that Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth acted in three movies together in the last half decade and we didn’t know about any of them. At least I didn’t. This one is the best because it takes itself the least seriously and Kidman is at least the lead. It’s a fairly cliché thriller that’s basically “50 First Dates but a thriller” where Firth and Mark Strong might both be gaslighting Kidman and she’s frantic and nervous and can’t remember anything. It’s nothing special, but compared to some other films on this list it’s watchable.

39. Billy Bathgate (dir. Robert Benton)

Imagine making a gangster movie with Kidman, Dustin Hoffman, Bruce Willis, Stanley Tucci, Steve Buscemi, and Frances Conroy and deciding to make the dopiest, dullest, white boy the lead. This always happens. White male writers think the audience needs a surrogate and assumes the audience is only themselves. Dustin Hoffman is clearly having a good time playing gangster, but this was also my first test of how difficult it will be to watch him knowing how inappropriate and abusive he’s been towards women throughout his career. Separate the art from the artist or whatever if you’d like but I struggle not to think about it. Kidman is given little to do except be lusted after and have two scenes of full frontal nudity.

38. The Human Stain (dir. Robert Benton)

Anthony. Hopkins. Plays. A. Light. Skinned. Black. Man. Maybe that alone should place it at the bottom of the list. Especially when Wentworth Miller plays his younger self. This came out the same year as Cold Mountain and again times really have changed. Thank God. I admit watching this was my first foray into the world of Philip Roth and it was everything I expected. White men feeling like the ultimate victims complaining about political correctness. The thing is the movie isn’t boring and Kidman really makes her supporting character the focus of every scene she’s in. Also a young Kerry Washington makes a brief appearance. But wow is this movie offensive. The message is basically people have always cared too much about race, in the past it hurt black people but now it hurts white people (and light-skinned black people passing as white played by Sir Anthony Hopkins).

37. Days of Thunder (dir. Tony Scott)

The first, and worst, of the three Kidman/Cruise pairings has each one playing parts that by 1990 were quite familiar to both of them. Cruise is an arrogant hotshot who is really good at something (here it’s racecar driving) and Kidman is the romantic interest of a hotshot and while initially she isn’t interested, she eventually concedes to his “charms.” Cruise is more watchable than the random Australian actors in the other similar movies and the racing scenes are well shot, but it still elicited many groans from me throughout.

36. Dead Calm (dir. Phillip Noyce)

There are so many films on this list that could’ve been fun or interesting genre fair if they didn’t revel in sexual violence towards Kidman. The set-up here is simple enough. Kidman and her husband played by Sam Neil (who I love dearly for his regular effort to work with women filmmakers) are living on a boat to escape the traumatic memory of their toddler son’s death. Then they rescue Billy Zane who turns out to be a psychopath. The toddler’s death is shown really brutally and the film seems to blame Kidman’s character. And it seems like the repeated violence including rape towards Kidman is framed as her punishment. It’s slickly made and I was invested in what happened next but it’s also just a really icky movie.

[flauntpage]

Your Wednesday Morning Roundup

The Flyers are back. Officially.

Their 51st year (50th of playing hockey if you take away the 2004-05 lockout year) kicks off tonight in San Jose against the Sharks. That game is scheduled to start at 10:30 on NBCSN. But it’ll probably be around 11 since home openers mean delayed starts. Pack up on Red Bull or coffee to go alongside your cold ones.

We’ve heard about the heralded young group of defensemen the Flyers have for a couple of years now, and most of them are finally up with the big club, for at least some time. Robert Hagg, Sam Morin, and Travis Sanheim join Ivan Provorov and Shayne Gostisbehere in a core that can last the team for maybe the next decade.

But similar to the Phillies this summer, will all of the youngsters play at the same time? Morin and Sanheim were fighting for a roster spot until Ghost got hurt in the third period of the preseason finale on Sunday. Will Ghost even dress tonight? It sounds like he will.

I would think Radko Gudas would be a lock in the starting lineup, but what about Brandon Manning and ALTERNATE CAPTAIN ANDREW MACDONALD? I’m pretty sure Dave Hakstol won’t bench either guy, but he should.

Yesterday’s defensive pairings at practice were interesting, and odds are they won’t be the same come today or tonight.

Besides the defense, I’m really excited to see what Nolan Patrick can do. The second overall pick centered the second line at yesterday’s practice. Is he top six worthy?

Either way, hockey is back.

The Roundup:

Continuing with the Flyers, the players gave the final alternate captain role to Valtteri Filppula and Andrew MacDonald. That Andrew MacDonald. Filppula will be the alternate captain for home games, while AMac assumes the role for road games.

When former Flyer Kerry Huffman saw Ivan Provorov for the first time in a junior hockey program, he knew he’d be something special:

He didn’t come out of nowhere. He didn’t spring on the scene. He has stood out every step of the way.

“A lot of it, too, was not just his game, but how the other kids looked at him,” said Huffman, now an assistant coach with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, the Flyers’ AHL affiliate. “He had a certain way he carried himself. In the summers when I would see him, he would come in to do skill sessions. He just had a presence to him that jumps out at you when you see it.

“Obviously, when you see a 14-year-old defenseman, you never know what’s going to happen, where they’re going to go or what they’re going to turn into. But he had a lot of raw, innate ability that certainly the other kids don’t have. There are a lot of quality kids who have gone through that program — maybe 10 Division I defensemen. He was just head and shoulders above everybody.”

After clearing waivers, the team officially loaned Matt Read to Lehigh Valley.

The rookies also got new numbers:

New #Flyers numbers: Morin: 5 Sanheim: 6 Hagg: 8 Patrick: 19 Leier: 20

— Dave Isaac (@davegisaac) October 3, 2017

Check out the team’s self-produced video from training camp.

Flyers anthem singer Lauren Hart posted an op-ed about the national anthem and the protests.

—

Sixers center Joel Embiid was heavily discussed today. He ran. He played tennis. He also got a Rocky video of him.

Embiid won’t play in tonight’s preseason opener against Memphis. Neither will Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot (knee) or Dario Saric (rest). Amir Johnson (right ankle sprain) is questionable for tonight. But we will see Ben Simmons.

Former Eagle Brian Dawkins spoke to the team yesterday.

Over the course of his talk, Dawkins stressed the importance of hard work, and the responsibilities that come along with being a professional athlete, especially in a city as passionate as Philadelphia. He pointed to parallels between the rise of the Eagles to perennial Super Bowl contender during the early 2000s, and the current state of the Sixers.

“To me, there are some similarities, what you guys are starting up right now,” Dawkins told the Sixers players seated before him. He then issued a challenge to the group.

“Going forward, it’s up to you. It’s up to you then to decide what direction this is going to be.”

Brian Dawkins inspiring speech to @sixers today

Told them to at their teammates and tell them

"I got you"@Eagles http://pic.twitter.com/ql4LiyV6rf

— John Clark NBCPhilly (@JClarkNBCS) October 4, 2017

Preseason opener against Memphis is at 7 on NBC Sports Philadelphia+ (formerly TCN).

Meanwhile, in New York:

So my buddy found the reported anti-Knicks ad on the subway in NY. Look at this gem. #TTP NYC http://pic.twitter.com/hEfnmLjWFE

— Ryan Abrams (@RyanAbrams76) October 3, 2017

—

The Eagles continue to get set for the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday. Even though Carson Wentz doesn’t have big numbers, he’s avoiding the negative plays in his second season with the team, from Zach Berman of the Inquirer:

The caution flag to wave is that it’s still early. At this point last season, Wentz had only one interception. The Eagles were also 3-1. But when the interceptions started coming more frequently, the wins came less frequently. Eleven of his 14 interceptions last season came in losses. In 20 career games, the Eagles are 3-8 when Wentz throws an interception. They’re 7-2 when he doesn’t throw an interception.

No one can accuse Wentz of playing conservatively, either. He’s willing to throw down field and doesn’t always attempt high-percentage passes. His success comes when he demonstrates smart quarterbacking, finding the balance between being too aggressive and too careful.

“I think every quarterback has a number where everybody wants to be single-digit interceptions when the season’s over and certainly have a lot of touchdown passes,” Reich said. “And one thing about Carson, I know he’s never going to play scared. That’s what I love. He still has that aggressive mind-set and that aggressive nature to look down field, but yet the decision making has been excellent.”

Jim Schwartz is searching for answers to the team’s fourth quarter struggles.

Rasul Douglas was one of those players that struggled throughout the game on Sunday. He hopes he can bounce back in a big way this week.

The team added cornerback D.J. Killings to their practice squad after promoting Justin Hamilton to the active roster. They still have an open spot after wide receiver Bryce Treggs signed with the Cleveland Browns.

Jake Elliott’s cannon of a kick against the Giants has turned him into an Eagles legend.

Colin Cowherd called Philly fans “dumb”, but the team clapped right back on Twitter.

—

The Phillies will have a low payroll in 2018, according to president Andy MacPhail:

But reaching the turning point will not lead immediately to contention. Wins and losses will carry more weight in 2018, but the team, MacPhail said, still expects “a relatively low payroll.” The Phillies will instead apply financial resources to other areas such as stadium upgrades, a sports science staff, and boosts to their analytics department. So, there will be a new playing surface and public address system next season at Citizens Bank Park.

A true turning point will come once the Phillies are willing — they are already able — to compete in free agency.

“We’ve already talked to ownership about it and explained to them why [the payroll will be low in 2018],” MacPhail said. “They did not react extraordinarily well in the beginning. Ultimately, they’re OK with it with one proviso: that if an opportunity presents itself, we do not exclude it. They understand the program.”

Bob takes a look at each of the rookie position players.

—

In other sports news, after a slow start, the Yankees got hot in the AL Wild Card game and beat the Twins 8-4. They’ll play Cleveland in the ALDS beginning on Thursday.

Brewers prospect Bubba Derby was at the country music concert in Las Vegas that was the biggest mass shooting in the country’s history. He escaped and told his story:

“We didn’t know where the shots were coming from,” said Derby, who was “about 100 yards” in front of the stage when the shooting began. “It sounded like they were on top of us. Everyone got down. We tried to get as low to the ground as possible. The first thing I did was look for my family.

“I turned around and looked to find my aunt, and I’ll never forget the look on her face. We made eye contact and we thought we were about to die. You could hear the bullets ricocheting. It’s one of those moments where you just want to try to get out of there.”

The NBA is changing the format to their All-Star Game. Two captains, one from each conference, will select their team from a pool of players. Just like what the NHL did a few years ago.

Former Flyer Ville Leino has retired from pro hockey. But he’s still making money, thanks to Buffalo:

Ville Leino has retired from pro hockey. Still gets 1.2M usd for 3yrs from his buyout. #sabres

— Juha Hiitelä (@jhiitela) October 3, 2017

Seems like the Sabres love giving away money. They signed Jack Eichel to an eight-year, $80 million contract extension.

Timberwolves power forward Taj Gibson will become the first NBA player to wear No. 67. He picked the number to represent his hometown of Brooklyn.

The Patriots have their own plane:

Welcome aboard #AirKraft: http://pic.twitter.com/NGBAHvA27T

— New England Patriots (@Patriots) October 3, 2017

Tennis player Dan Evans is suspended one year after a positive cocaine test. It is a helluva drug.

Very accurate depiction of the Browns:

An actual dumpster fire outside of Browns stadium right now. http://pic.twitter.com/ZcXWma3QVR

— Mark Cerimele (@RealMarkCerimel) October 3, 2017

—

In the news, bail has been set for $5 million after a New Jersey father was accused of killing his two-year-old son after robbing a department store.

The Las Vegas shooter’s girlfriend returned to Los Angeles yesterday.

It sounds like all 3 billion Yahoo accounts were hacked back in 2013.

Your Wednesday Morning Roundup published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv