#it’s a shame that sci fi and genre films are often shut out

[chalamet-chalamet]

‘A Complete Unknown’ and ‘Dune: Part Two’ received Oscar nominations for best picture.

[awesome-donut-me]

BIRDBOX

Directed by: Susanne Bier

Written by:Eric Heisserer

Back in the spring, in A Quiet Place, the characters had to keep their mouths shut because the monsters had super-acute hearing. Now, seven months later, everyone has to wear blindfolds if they're outside or else what they see will induce them to immediately commit suicide

Susanne Bier, whose 2010 Danish thriller In A Better World won the Oscar for best foreign language film, serves up an entirely dire world here, one in which people who are normal one minute go bonkers and kill themselves the next. No one knows what's going on or why this is happening, but an early line of dialogue sums it up, even if it wouldn't serve as the ideal advertising tagline: “If you look, you will die.”In the resulting chaos, close to a dozen people wind up cloistered in a private home, hiding away and intent upon letting no more strangers inside.

The film does succeed in building a feeling of oppressive claustrophobia and a last-stand mentality; the idea that you will become contaminated and very shortly thereafter bring upon your own death merely by casting your gaze upon the world is a creepy one, to be sure. At a couple of points, however, evident exceptions to the rule pop up, grungy individuals who have somehow escaped automatic death in ways that remain unclear. The fate of the entire world similarly remains uncertain. Bullock portrays a strong woman who will not be denied, one who will move heaven and Earth and do whatever it takes to survive an arduous task demanding great endurance.

Ultimately, no matter how high-minded a view of the material Heisserer and Bier may have held, this is deep-dish popular material that feels shortchanged in terms of suspense, scares and thrills. For her part, Bullock seems to have placed a foot in each camp, as she has done on occasion in the past, but she's rather underserved by a writer and director perhaps uncertain about how to maximize the piece's genre potential while simultaneously keeping it smart.

RogerEbert

Last year, Netflix dropped the high-budget “Bright” just before the holidays and it turned out to be a pretty massive sci-fi hit for the company, even if critics hated it. So, apparently, futuristic action movies are now going to be what the company gives us for Christmas every year. How’s this year’s cinematic sci-fi stocking stuffer, "Bird Box"? It’s imperfect, but you probably won’t be returning it.Undercooked metaphors about motherhood and a mishandled climax aside, there’s enough to like in Susanne Bier’s “Bird Box,”

Most of its strength emerges from a well-directed ensemble, one able to convey the high concept of a nightmarish situation without losing their relatable humanity. Lazy critics and viewers will compare it to “A Quiet Place” (I've already seen it called "A Blind Place"), but this is a piece that actually draws more from “Stephen King’s The Mist,” another tale of the paranoia that invades a group of strangers when they’re dealing with both the unknown and the worry that they may never again see the outside world or fully understand what's hiding in it.

Based on Josh Malerman’s novel, “Bird Box” intercuts between two time periods—about five years after the end of the world and in the first days when everything collapsed. It opens in the nightmarish present, but actually spends more time in flashbacks with Malorie (Bullock), an expectant mother unsure about whether or not she’ll form a connection with her baby. She expresses as much to her sister Jessica (Paulson) on the way to a meeting with her obstetrician, as the two discuss reports of mass suicides on the other side of the world. And then “whatever” is happening over there comes home as people start to hurl themselves out of windows and into oncoming traffic. These early scenes of absolute chaos are well-handled by Bier and honestly terrifying.

Bird Box” is not your typical horror movie. It’s refreshingly devoid of big action sequences and CGI, relying more on the fear experienced by its characters than actual supernatural interactions. In a sense, it’s a reverse haunted house movie, one in which it’s not the one house that’s haunted but everything outside of it. Most of the problems with “Bird Box” come back to a thin screenplay, one that too often gives its characters flat, expository dialogue and then writes itself into a corner with a climax that’s just silly when it needs to be tense. I haven’t read the book on which “Bird Box” is based, but it seems like the kind of thing that could work significantly better on the page, where our imaginations can run even more wild regarding what the characters are “seeing” and the scope of the mass suicides. Eric Heisserer's script works better when it sticks to the basics, locking us in what could be the last safe place on Earth and allowing us to ask how we’d behave in such a nightmarish predicament. And it does that just enough to find beats that are honestly tense and terrifying. 

Vanity Fair

The movie looks cheap; there’s a drab flatness to Bier’s filming that screams TV movie, even when the story travels outside of its economical one-house set. Eric Heisserer’s script is clunky and off-tone often enough to remind you that, in addition to adapting Arrival, he also wrote Final Destination 5. (No knock on that film, really, but it’s not exactly premium material.) And that fabulous ensemble working alongside Bullock? They’re hammy and ineffectual, giving broad B-movie performances in what is supposed to be serious fare.

From almost the outset, Bullock is stuck in the shallows. Which is a shame, because she gives a bracingly good performance. She plays Malorie, an expectant, and maybe a little reluctant, mother whose life of studio art and playful banter with her sister (Paulson) is hideously interrupted by a sudden plague of violent suicide. Around the world, people are just up and killing themselves, often at great risk to others. These poor souls seem to be seeing something that fills them with immediate, dreadful despair.

All these survivors are scared, but they’re also silly and petty in a way that doesn’t feel true to the circumstances. Yes, people contain multitudes, but I would think that a world-ending horror would maybe pare away, or at least shade, some of their stock-character stiffness. Bird Box doesn’t think so, and badly offsets Bullock’s focused rigor with the goofiness of its under-developed side characters. (Only Rhodes works fluidly with Bullock—please someone pair them together again, only in something better.)

All that said, given that it’s on Netflix and won’t cost subscribers any more than they’ve already paid for the service, I can’t really say that Bird Box isn’t worth a look. The movie occasionally musters up some scares, and a few of the deaths are satisfyingly gnarly, for those who are into that kind of gruesome thing. And, of course, there’s Bullock, doing something good and interesting. Though it does ultimately prove frustrating and sad, watching her so desperately grasp for a finer film—one that lies just beyond what Bird Box allows us to see.

[loljulie]

wild,wild world; {001} debut

(hey hey, here’s anOTHER fic from me involving jack lowden, this time it’s ACTUALLY jack lowden x reader, where you’re an actress in a movie with him, and a cute relationship will develop over the next few chapters and yeah. i’ll still be updating the time traveler one in this tag, but this is a fun side fic for me to write if i’m feeling writer’s block for that one. enjoy~)

genre: dunkirk/hollywood (?)

jack lowden x reader

word count: 1718

Making it in Hollywood wasn’t easy ��� your arduous journey to your first film debut had proved that much for you. Countless auditions where you gave your all, only to be told no to almost all your attempts. Finally, though, an upcoming sci-fi film would become the platform for which your career would hopefully blossom.

It was a few months into filming. Yours was a supportive role – a friend of the main character – who gets a couple on-screen kisses with your counter-part. The whole plot was simple; it was a ship lost in space after a failure aboard, and the main character must race against time to save the crew and the rest of the passengers on the ship. A bit overdone, you had to admit, but the sci-fi genre was ever-growing and you weren’t complaining when you got the fateful phone call declaring you got the part.

You sat in the dressing room, scrolling through your phone absentmindedly. You’d arrived early to set that day – a habit you hoped the director and crew noticed – and got all your makeup and hair done early. You had a few scenes to shoot today, mainly the ones with your love interest.

You tried not to think too much of your love interest – or, rather, the man playing him. To be honest, you’ve always admired Jack Lowden’s work, and to be in a movie with him was a daunting experience. Furthermore, to play his love interest was a bit intense for you. With it being your first movie role, you didn’t want to mess anything up or overstep any boundaries, but Lowden wasn’t making it any easier with how charming and sweet he was.

Truth is, your mind has wandered to inconvenient thoughts – thoughts of him reciprocating any of the feelings you have, thoughts of him seeing you as more than a co-star and friend. You tried your best to convince yourself that you’re just imagining his stares your way, or the occasional brush against your hand, or the way he always chooses the seat nearest you.

A knocking at the door abruptly brought you out of your thoughts. Puzzled, you got up from your comfortable position on the couch and walked over to the door. You opened it to find none other than your co-star, in all his red-headed, dimpled smile glory. In his hands were two iced coffees – an essential drink for Los Angeles in the summer.

“Hope ye don’ mynd me dropping by,” Jack stated, and offered up one of the iced coffees to you. “For ye. I wis actually wondering if we cuid run some lines real quick?”

You took the plastic cup from his hand and nodded a thank you before taking a sip of the coffee. It felt like pure bliss. With how early you had gotten up to get to set, you’d forgotten to grab something to wake you up on the ride there. Luckily for you, Jack had made a recent habit of bringing some of the cast and crew coffees, and his kindness just so happened to fall on the day you needed it most.

“Sure, come right in,” you held the door open for him as he made his way into the room. You closed the door, taking a deep breath before you turned around to face Jack. You were assuming he’d want to practice the lines for the scenes that you’d be shooting for today, and you knew how that scene ended.

“I guess we can do some real work, since you brought the coffee,” you joked as you took a seat next to him on the couch. You took another sip from the straw as he chuckled lightly.

“I figured you’d need it,” Jack replied before taking a sip of his own drink and placing it on the coffee table in front of him. He stood up and stretched his arms over his head. “Shall we git stairted, then?”

“Yeah,” you answered, starting a bit at how quickly he wanted to start. “From scene 15?”

“Aye, sounds good.”

You nodded and stood up. From where Jack stood, you positioned yourself a few feet from him. In this scene, you’ve just found out that he must go out in dangerous territory with the main character to save the ship. It’s dangerous, there’s a lot of risks with him going, and you’re scared you’re going to lose him. You gave yourself a second to get into the mindset before diving into the first lines.

“Just, just give me a moment,” you sighed, crossing your arms over your chest and turning away from Jack. The lines came easily to you. They were the same lines you had auditioned with so many months ago, and the same lines that got you the part.  You turned back around to face him, tears welling in your eyes. “I know you have to do this, I do, it’s just –“

You took another breath, and focused on how the words needed to sound when they came out. “I’m just scared of losing you. If something happens to you out there –“

“Nothin’ wull happen to me, I promise,” Jack, or Lachlan, interjected. He took a couple step towards you, keeping your eye contact. A tear fell from your eye, and before you could wipe it off, he reached up a hand and brushed it away. “I will be back in no time, ‘n’ then we’ll go home 'n’ forgoat aboot this whole mess.”

You had no lines left before the –

Kiss. He brought his lips down gingerly to yours and soon, the two of you were practicing the kiss for the first time. Before, you’d always stop right before it, and skip to the lines after. You half expected that to happen now, too, until his soft lips were against yours. You felt one of his hands against the back of the neck, deepening the kiss, though your hands were still by your side from how shocked you were. You were grateful your character was also supposed to be a bit shocked, too, because it was an effortless reaction. He pulled away slowly, his eyes fluttering open to look into yours.

Your breath caught in your throat - and you were glad you didn’t have the next line, or else you might have missed it. Jack paused for a moment, not saying a word for what you assumed was some sort of dramatic effect.

“I will be okay,” he promised again, brushing your cheek with his thumb.

“You better be, or else –”

“Or else, whit? Ye’ll murdurr me?” he teased with a playful smile. You shook your head, though starting to smile as well.

“Oh, shut it.” You retorted. And, just like that, the scene was over. The two of you lingered in the moment for longer than others probably would have, before you broke away and reached for your coffee before taking a seat on the couch again.

“That wis brilliant. If we cuid do it juist lik’ that for th’ cameras, it’d be perfect,” you heard Jack say from behind you. He let out a breath of air before he spoke again. “It juist felt so… genuine.”

You felt a blush coming on at that – because, honestly, it kind of was genuine – but quickly tried to distract yourself from it. “I’m not so bad for a newbie, then?”

“Ye still hae a ways to go,” he joked as he joined you on the couch. You nudged his side with your elbow, causing him to chuckle. “I’m oinlie kidding. Ye'r very good.”

You smiled at his compliment. “You’re not so bad yourself,” you replied, and leaned your head against his shoulder as you sipped at your drink. “Have you gone to hair and makeup yet?”

“Na, bit I’ve git some time to kill afore I actually need to be thare,” he answered.

“And you’re spending it with me? I’m honored.”

“Tis oinlie 5 minutes, love,” he stated with a smug grin. You sent a playful smirk his way.

“5 minutes with the Jack Lowden is more than enough for me,” you joked, to which you noticed his smile widen and his cheeks redden slightly.

“O, shut it,” he groaned and leaned his head back. You giggled at his reaction, and poked his side so his head shot up.

A knock at the door sounded, but unlike Jack, the person behind it opened it after the first couple of knocks. That was something that got on your nerves a bit – it felt like they disregarded your privacy, really – but you knew that when it got crazy on set, there was no time for someone to wait for the door to open.

“Y/N, they need you in costumes,” the lady in the headset, Jane, called to you. You liked Jane – for at least she still knocked before opening the door. Some other crew members would often just barge in. You nodded and got up, coffee still in your hand. Jack followed suit, finding no need to be in your dressing room without you in it.

“Damn,” he muttered from behind you. “Thare go my 5 minutes wi’ th’ amazing Y/F/N Y/L/N.”

You chuckled at that, turning your head to glance back at him. “Awh, no, what a missed opportunity, too. What a shame.”

“Kin I git a raincheck?”

“I’ll have to check my schedule and get back to you on that one.” You answered with a devilish grin before holding your drink up as you two exited the room. “Thanks again for this.”

“Thanks again for this,” you said, holding up the drink in your hand as you led him out the room.

“Na problem.” Jack nodded as the two of you exited. He pulled you into a quick hug before walking backwards a few steps toward the hair and makeup room. “I will see ye oan set, aye?”

You nodded and flashed a smile his way. He turned and faced forward, his back to you as you watched him leave. You walked toward costumes, your lips on the straw of your drink, absentmindedly thinking of a Scottish man and fantasizing about the kiss you had shared with him.

[chicagoindiecritics]

New from Every Movie Has a Lesson by Don Shanahan: 20 YEAR RETROSPECTIVE: The best of the rest of 1999

(Background image: twitter.com)

In an annual series, Every Movie Has a Lesson is going to look back twenty years to revisit, relearn, and reexamine a year of cinema history to share favorites, lists, and experiences from the films of that year.

As I was saying one column earlier when I laid out my absolute Top 20 from 1999, I was a 20-year-old undergrad Elementary Education major at Saint Joseph’s College twenty years ago. I was a country kid absorbing cable television for the first time, working at a local video store, writing movie reviews for the college newspaper. I was devouring movies new and old and the rural boundaries of Rensselaer, Indiana or my activity time as the football equipment manager didn’t stop me. On football road trips, I was more or less “staff” where I wasn’t bed-checked like the players. I used to go out after hours, pre-Uber and without a cell phone, and scout ahead the closest movie theater to the team hotel in order to find ways to see movies on opening Friday nights. Man, that was living.

As the historians will tell you, 1999 was a damn fine year. There are many films from that year that count as favorites and greats in several different ways. Some have gotten better with age and some have worsened, even dropping at as former favorites. Here are my little breakdowns of the “rest of 1999.” Enjoy!

Personal Favorites

(Image: justwatch.com)

Message in a Bottle, Entrapment, Deep Blue Sea, The 13th Warrior, The Mummy, Double Jeopardy, Life, Star War: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, The Best Man, The Bone Collector, Bicentennial Man

My 1998 retrospective last year will show you that I am an absolute softy for a romantic genre. My first taste of anything Nicholas Sparks came in movie form and it was the Kevin Costner-starring Message in a Bottle. This might have been my #2 favorite movie of 1999 in the college newspaper behind The Green Mile and I swallow a minute amount of shame. I still love this one. Kostner is a lifetime favorite of mine and his pairing with Paul Newman set against melodrama with rich production values (that Caleb Deschanel cinematography and Gabriel Yared score still get me) was gold for me.

Along the same lines, 2014’s The Best Man Holiday made me re-fall-in-love with The Best Man, a favorite that has only gotten better. Sappy Robin Williams has a limit, but Bicentennial Man can still arouse bigger sci-fi thoughts I appreciate. I’ll never grow tired of the best big-screen WTF moment of that year with Deep Blue Sea and its Samuel L. Jackson swerve.

The 1990s were the peak of the “mid-budget programmer,” studio-backed star vehicles with easy budgets, proven talent, and often genre content risks. Many of those became your steady diet of basic cable entertainment years later before reality TV took over. I’ll gladly put on the likes of Entrapment, Deep Blue Sea, Double Jeopardy, Life, Bicentennial Man, and The Bone Collector over many of today’s straight-to-Netflix films of the same budget level. The old stuff is so much better. The 90s also did blockbusters pretty damn well for its time too where I have no problem still enjoying Star Wars: Episode !- The Phantom Menace (just turn on Darth Maul and those John Williams choir voices) and The Mummy. Story came before effects still and it shows.

Guilty Pleasures

(Image: youtube.com)

Varsity Blues, Any Given Sunday, American Pie, She’s All That, Simply Irresistible, Cruel Intentions, 10 Things I Hate About You, Austin Power: The Spy Who Shagged Me, The World is Not Enough, Lake Placid, Galaxy Quest. The Boondock Saints

Speaking of those mid-budget programmers, the next class down was the lost art of the “high school movie.” The 1980s has John Hughes and the 1990s had the R-rated raunch phase that pushed further what the 80s started. Made for virtually pennies with mostly unknown talent or TV stars, these movies raked at the box office with the youth of the day, myself included. Honestly, they don’t make these kinds of movie anymore. Hell, they couldn’t get made today with the same landscape and lenses. Six years ago, I wrote an editorial here on Every Movie Has a Lesson on that phenomenon and it feels even more true in 2019. The raunchy teens grew into the “man-child” movies of the 2000s and 9/11 made everyone grow up into a wiser political culture since.

With that in mind, it’s probably wrong and more than a little misogynistic to enjoy the debauchery of American Pie, Varsity Blues, and even the intentional camp of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me in 2019. Alas, I could and I do. They’re time capsules of eye-rolling fun at this point. I just can’t show these movies to my students or own children. They count as guilty pleasures, right next to James Bond films and cheesy creature features.

Not all in this section are contraband. One can argue there isn’t a 1999 movie that has aged better, surprisingly, than Galaxy Quest, which grows with esteem and fandom the more other things retread and reboot. The football fans still rightfully worship the swagger of Any Given Sunday. Pygmalion and Shakespeare students can still be proud of She’s All That and 10 Things I Hate About You (which is many folks’ introduction to the late Heath Ledger, including mine). The buried treasure I recommend the most is Sarah Michelle Geller’s Simply Irresistible, an airy and easy romance that also couldn’t be made today with the same panache. I gave that one some anniversary love this year writing for 25YL. Seek it out for a good time.

Underrated Gems

(Image: letterboxd.com)

Payback, True Crime, EDtv, A Walk on the Moon, The General’s Daughter, Summer of Sam, The Wood

Here are a few to add to Bringing Out the Dead and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai which made my Top 20 in the last post. These titles are a step down from personal favorites, but movies that I find more solid than flimsy compared to the rest of the offerings from 1999. Most are more of those mid-budget programmers like Payback and The General’s Daughter, but don’t sleep on director Spike Lee’s under-seen Summer of Sam or Viggo Mortensen’s swooning Woodstock romance A Walk on the Moon. Plenty cheesy for sure, but EDtv counts as slightly ahead of its time even after trying to follow The Truman Show from 1998.

Re-Visitations Needed

(Image: rogerebert.com)

Magnolia, Eyes Wide Shut, Being John Malkovich, 8mm, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, Pushing Tin, Dick, Sleepy Hollow, Ride With the Devil, Girl Interrupted

With full admission, the 20-year-old version of me did not have his teeth completely cut or his eyes fully focused as a fit critic who could see past the entertainment and into the art. There are many movies on fancier “Best of 1999” lists that were simply lost on me back in their day. I recognize the impact and greatness of Magnolia, Eyes Wide Shut, and Being John Malkovich, for example, but they will always be distant. Some of them I’ve tried again. Some need another chance or two. For the others, I want to see how a few top directors’ (Guy Ritchie, Ang Lee, Tim Burton) earlier works look now against their current stuff.

Blind Spots

(Image: The Independent)

The Straight Story, Ravenous, All About My Mother, The Thirteen Floor, Flawless

These are the movies looking to make the queues and wish lists on platforms and streaming services so richly available to us in 2019.

Overrated

(Image: variety.com)

The Sixth Sense, The Blair Witch Project, Analyze This, Never Been Kissed, Big Daddy, South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, Mystery Men, Dogma

Alright, let me get my next umbrella to cover the crap coming to fall. I’m going to come right out and call M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense overrated. It’s the biggest 1999 movie that has fallen out of favor for me personally. I blame the director’s degrading work since this first hit. Smart as it is, it loses a little each viewing and only exposes his twist-dependent lack of creativity. I know Mystery Men has earned a level of cult status, but I find it to be a busy mess still. The repeated crappy comedy phase since 1999 for Robert De Niro has not helped Analyze This.

After that, it’s about personal taste. I’m never been a South Park lover, TV or otherwise. Kevin Smith’s work has not aged well for me and Dogma, as bold as it was, feels like preening more than deep satire. I’m not a horror guy and couldn’t care less about the 1999’s equivalent of click bait with The Blair Witch Project. Thanks for the motion sickness, though. I’ve never been a Drew Barrymore fan, and I think Big Daddy is where Adam Sandler started to lose his edge and sink into the weak sauce territory that, other than a few moments like Uncut Gems this year, he’s never recovered from.

Still Bad

(Image: forbes.com)

Wild Wild West, Baby Geniuses, My Favorite Martian, Virus, Wing Commander, Forces of Nature, The Mod Squad, Runaway Bride, The Out-of-Towners, Bowfinger, Mickey Blue Eyes, The Bachelor, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, The Haunting

Yikes, was Wild Wild West a trainwreck! But then, we also got Wing Commander. Double yikes!

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