#nikki amuka-bird

[greatcateblanchett]

Cate Blanchett as German chancellor, Hilda Ortmann, in RUMOURS [x]

[azertyrobaz]

Avenue 5, Season 2

[filministic]

Avenue 5 (2020-2022) 

[letterboxd-loggd]

Rumours (2024) Guy Maddin, Galen Johnson and Evan Johnson

December 1st 2024

[moviemosaics]

Rumours

directed by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson, 2024

[friend-through-teenage-nights]

John Finnemore in Avenue 5 S1E7 "Are You A Spider, Matt?"

[nathalieskinoblog]

[otakunoculture]

In Guy Maddin's Rumours, What's Amazing is That There's No Secret Societies At Work Here

If you love farces, then Rumours is for you. This bizarre #apocalypse #horror movie from Guy Maddin & Evan and Galen Johnson has lots to like, and I feel the #folkhorror style elements are done just right. #moviereview at:

Now playing at select theatres Spoiler Alert When Guy Maddin’s Rumours gets heavy with absurdist humour and presents a group of world leaders as inept, this movie may well be his most bizarre to date. That’s because of the setup: these folks have gathered to deal with some unknown global crisis. And as for whether the mud people they discover is part of it or not, that’s a mystery they’ll have to…

[rickchung]

Rumours (dirs. Guy Maddin, Evan & Galen Johnson) x VIFF 2024.

Set at a Group of Seven (G7) conference gathering the less than esteemed political leaders of the world's richest nations, Maddin and the Johnsons use the intergovernmental economic forum to mine plenty of goofy satirical material under the guise of writing a joint provisional statement after an unspecified global crisis. Starring an accented Cate Blanchett as the Chancellor of Germany, her and her international cohorts bumble through a surreal treatise of political collaboration after everyone else disappears and they get lost in a German forest. The Winnipeger directors present a glossily-lit soap opera satire more reminiscent of a summer camp slasher flick than a serious government summit, but that seems like precisely the point.

Screened at the 2024 Vancouver International Film Festival as part of the Special Presentations series.

Screening at the VIFF Centre from Nov. 18–21.

[xxmisty]

we watched Sleeper last night so I thought today would be a good day to share one of my favourite pieces from Torchwood Inktober 2021 of Beth with her... terrifying alien arm-knife thing (which would also be useful to have in emergencies... just saying... could do with a transforming weapon arm myself just in case we ever get broken into in the middle of the night! Not that I’m a sleeper agent.... I think... sorry, what was I saying??)

[esqueletosgays]

KNOCK AT THE CABIN (2023)

Director: M. Night Shyamalan Cinematography: Jarin Blaschke & Lowell A. Meyer

[milliondollarbaby87]

The Outfit (2022) Review

Leonard Burling is an expert cutter in Chicago 1956, who must outwit the dangerous group of mobsters who use his shop and one fateful night it is about to get so much worse. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Continue reading The Outfit (2022) Review

[jgroffdaily]

abbyquinnya

Knock At The Cabin comes out on February 3rd! I love this movie and these people and those Philly weeks so much🤎⚔️🚪🌄🫂🥞🤎

[filministic]

Avenue 5 (2020-2022) 

[adamwatchesmovies]

Knock at the Cabin (2023)

M. Night Shyamalan entered the scene as a hot director before falling from grace and recently, has been redeeming himself with a string of well-made mid-to-low-budget thrillers. Knock at the Cabin continues the trend. This film will have your stomach in all sorts of knots as its impossible dilemma makes you wonder what you would do.

Eric and Andrew (Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge) are vacationing with their adoptive daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) when four strangers approach their remote cabin. Their leader, Leonard (Dave Bautista) explains that the family must help them save the world, but at a terrible cost: they must sacrifice one of their own.

A more conventional movie would have turned Knock at the Cabin into a siege film. M. Night Shyamalan isn’t interested in telling that story. Outnumbered two to one, with no weapons to effectively defend themselves and distracted by Wen, Andrew and Eric are quickly overwhelmed. From there, the four strangers try to convince them that they're not insane and why they must sacrifice one of their own. Meanwhile, we learn through flashbacks why this family would never sacrifice one of their members.

The middle is where Knock at the Cabin is at its strongest. Whether you think the four strangers (the last three of which are played by Nikki Amuka-Bird, Rupert Grint and Abby Quinn) are bug-nuts or not, the film will eventually convince you of the opposite. Your mind races, trying to think of ways the family might convince these intruders to go away and get professional help. Or maybe the "prophets" will convince the family to make the sacrifice. What makes the dilemma all the more complicated is Andrew and Eric’s background. Although Shyamalan never shows them kissing (I’m not sure why), Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge have great chemistry. You believe neither could survive without the other and the thought of killing Wen is unfathomable. Making all this even more complicated is Andrew. Even if he believed the four strangers, you're not sure he cares enough about the world to save it. After being victimized by homophobes and rejected by his parents, nothing will change his opinion of what humanity is like. It makes me wonder if the reason we never see the couple kissing is to make the film more “intolerant friendly” so that someone who might feel uncomfortable by them would be able to see themselves as the person who caused Andrew to become so disillusioned by humanity.

Like many of M. Night Shyamalan’s other films, I’m unsure how Knock at the Cabin would hold up on a second viewing. Toward the end, you’ll be about 90% sure of whether this apocalypse is happening. Once you know that, the movie becomes entirely about whether Andrew and Eric will come to the same conclusion as you. That's fine - not every movie can have re-watch value. Making the ending more ambiguous might have changed that but it could’ve also made all of the theorizing and anxiety felt like it was a waste of time. I haven’t read the book by Paul Tremblay but it sounds like it leans a lot more in the horror direction than this adaptation. I can see why M. Night opted to change the ending. I’m not sure which I like better. I don’t see this as the kind of film I’d watch again, so I’ll explain why now.

The conclusion makes it clear that there was, indeed, an apocalypse about to happen and that by sacrificing Eric, Andrew saved the world. Disappointingly, the couple realizes this at about the same time. If they hadn’t, we could’ve had some scenes where a panic-stricken Eric realizes that they are allowing countless people to die by not listening to Leonard. This would have shown them as a less-than-perfect couple, however, so I can understand why the director opted not to take this route. I can also see why M. Night decided to make the ending conclusive, though I think the film would’ve been more impactful with some uncertainty. In a way, this movie is about faith. Introducing this as a more important theme, a theme that gets reinforced at the end by asking the audience what they believe would’ve made it a much more complicated picture. Then again, I’m not a seasoned director, so what do I know?

Knock at the Cabin presents us with a Gordian knot of a scenario that's tense to see play out. While I don’t think this is the kind of film that will have much re-watch value, it accomplishes what it sets out to do, which certainly makes it worth seeing. (August 10, 2023)

[alwaysthequietones]

BEHIND THE SCENES OF ‘KNOCK AT THE CABIN’