#oscars 2019 nominations

[laflamejpeg]

Photo Stills From One of My Favorite Movies of All Time “Waves” (2019).

[notrandtumblin]

These are just the films she has directed! She has written and acted in many amazing things as well (as I’m sure everyone knows already).

[matan4il]

I wanna share with you a small cut from a 2010 documentary about events that began unfolding in 2008. The film (which was up for an Oscar nomination, but wasn't shortlisted), followed the story of a young kid called Muhammad. He was born with an immunity deficiency that killed two of his sisters. Three other siblings didn't have it, but also weren't a match to donate bone marrow to him. To even consider the donation procedure, Muhammad's family needed 55,000 dollars (over 80,000 dollars today), which they obviously didn't have. An Israeli journalist did a TV piece about Muhammad, asking for the money to be donated. An Israeli man, whose son was a soldier killed by Palestinian terrorists, decided to do exactly that.

While Muhammad was in the Israeli hospital, his mom Raida was by him, and here's an exchange she had with the Israeli journalist who helped the family get the money they needed to save their kid's life:

I'm not sharing this because I want to demonize Raida. I'm not sharing it because every Palestinian thinks this way. I'm sharing it because some Palestinians, certainly the ones related to Islamist terrorist organizations like Hamas, do believe that if their child dies as a shahid (a martyr), during an attempt to kill Jews, then the kid would be with Allah. And that will be as if their child never died, because what's better, an imperfect and short life on this earth, or an eternal life with every good thing imaginable by Allah's side? So yes, there are parents who want their kids to die in a confrontation with Israel. There are kids who were brought up with these beliefs. And kindness and humanitarian gestures might change it, but many times they just can't compare to the promise made by this way of thinking.

That's not every Palestinian, but it's enough people to have an impact on the forming and continuation of the Israeli-Arab conflict (much like how Amin al-Husseini was one Palestinian leader, but his antisemitism had a crucial influence on the conflict, and translated into the deaths of countless people, mainly Jews). There are currently at least 30 terrorist organizations in Gaza alone (at least 5 of them are big enough to be household names in Israel), and Hamas on its own includes at least 30,000 people who think this way.

No one can understand this conflict as long as they ignore that the widespread existence of this mentality plays a factor in it. No one can bring about peace here, without getting that this is a part of what threatens it. No one can solve a problem while turning a blind eye to some of its parts.

And if you still think Raida is an exception, here are some more vids reflecting the same mentality from over the years... (I'm not gonna get into how heartbreaking it is that entire generations of Palestinian kids never stood a chance, because I think that's obvious for anyone with a heart watching these clips)

Official Palestinian Authority TV interview with the mother of a shahid, Nov 28, 2003:

"Being with Allah is better." Hamas TV on Jul 21, 2014:

Mother of murderer of 3 Israeli teens: "He was honored with Martyrdom because Allah loved him." Oct 6, 2014:

Palestinian mothers explain why they make joyful noises when their kids get killed as shahids. Apr 7, 2015:

"Death is inevitable, so why not die as shahids?" Oct 28, 2019:

Palestinian father explains his choice to expose his son to danger by bringing him to the site of violent riots, by saying his 4.5 years old wants to go to paradise. Jun 20, 2021:

"My son had nothing called a funeral, rather it was a wedding..." Official Palestinian Authority TV, Sep 13, 2021:

Shahid's mother says her son is a role model for Palestinian kids. Dec 31, 2022:

Shahid's mother shares she instructed her son on how to be a proper shaid. Official Palestinian Authority TV, Feb 21, 2023:

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[maevstar]

| Introducing myself in my fame dr ᯓᡣ𐭩

ᝰ. My name is Maeve Amelie Solace, but people usually call me by “Mae”.

ᝰ. I’m 26yo and I’m an A-list american actress and singer. (I was born in 1997 but I didn’t turned 27 yet).

ᝰ. I started my way on acting when I was 16 when my older brother was doing a play on high school and begged me to participate. I did, and since then I’ve been in love with acting.

ᝰ. When I graduated from high school i moved out from my hometown — Austin, Texas — to LA and entered to UCLA School of Theater.

ᝰ. My first big project in Hollywood was “The Edge of Seventeen” when I was 19-20yo, before that I just worked with small projects, mostly from my uni.

ᝰ. That project gave me more visibility in the industry and I became more well known.

ᝰ. Some of my films: The Edge of Seventeen, The School for Good and Evil (adaptation of the books), Lady bird, Scream 4 (2018), Little Woman, Causeway, We Live in a Time, Challengers, Me Before You, Glass Onion 2, Duna, Anyone but You, Don’t look up, No hard feelings, Don’t worry darling, The outrun, and etc.

ᝰ. Some of my shows: Supernatural (Claire Novak), Looking for Alasca, YOU, outer banks (season 4).

ᝰ. I’ve been nominated for the Oscar 4 times as the best Actress in a Leading Role, but I’m just gonna win the award in the 4th time (2024). Futhermore, i’ve won a lot of awards and nominations like Emmy’s and Golden Globes. In 2022, I entered the list of The Most Influential People by Time Magazine.

Now, my singer career:

ᝰ. My mom is a country singer — not much known — in Texas, so I’ve grew up loving music, and I’ve been writing songs since I was 15, but these never turned into real songs, until 2019-2020, when I recorded my EP’s.

ᝰ. My first EP is called “Minor” and it has 7 songs. I released it in 2019 just for fun, was some songs that I’ve been writing during the years. In 2020 I released more 2 EPs, called “Bittersweet” and “Good Riddance”, with 7 and 10 songs respectively, again, just for fun.

ᝰ. Now, my new coming up project on music is my first Album, called “The Secret Of Us”, it has 13 songs (+ 7 from deluxe) and all of them will have a music video, cause my objective is making a visual album.

ᝰ. With my new album, I intend to go on my first tour.

Fun facts about me:

ᝰ. I know ballet and gymnastics cause when my sister was 8 years old she wanted to learn but was scared to do it alone, so I used to go to classes with her.

ᝰ. I have 3 siblings, Will, Kayla and Austin. Will is 2 years older than me, Kayla is younger than me 4 years and Austin is 8 years younger than me. (Another fun fact is that Austin is adopted).

ᝰ. My s/o is Drew Starkey, I met him in a party at Maddie Cline’s house (2021). Also, Madelyn is my best friend and I’m very close to the cast of the outer banks too.

ᝰ. I’m in fact brazilian. I was born there but my family moved to the US when I was 8 — my father is brazilian but my mom is from us, she was in a trip when met my dad in brazil and blablabla — so I have dual nationality. (latinas are better lol). But when I was 14, I moved again to Brazil and lived there for almost 2 years with my aunt before I came back to US.

ᝰ. When I was 16, I made a YouTube channel with my brother Will and we used to talk about the most random things ever (btw it was a flop lol, this channel just came up when we became famous). (another fun fact is that he is also a well known actor, but more on theater plays than on screen).

ᝰ. When I was in high school, I was planning on going to med school — mostly because of my dad, he’s a doctor (my obsession with greys anatomy might got me inclined to that too🤭) — but then I fell in love with acting (when I was 16, like i said) and never quit. Besides that, I’m still very interested with things related to science and human body, stuff like that; most of things that I know are bc of my dad tho.

ᝰ. I’m polyglot. I speak Portuguese, English, Italian, Spanish and a bit of French and Latin. I also know ASL.

ᝰ. I still don’t know how to ride bikes without training wheels cause no one ever taught me (😭).

ᝰ. I love the sea, beaches, everything related to that, it’s one of my favorite places in the world.

mood boards; mood boards details;

─────── ୨ৎ ───────

[cartermagazine]

Today In History

Eddie Murphy, is an American actor, voice actor, film director, producer, comedian and singer who was born on this date April 3, 1961 in Brooklyn, NY.

He first gained recognition as a stand-up comedian when he was a teenager and as a cast member of Saturday Night Live from 1980 to 1984.

Murphy’s most famous films include 48 Hrs. (1982), Trading Places (1983), Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Coming to America (1988), The Distinguished Gentleman (1992), The Nutty Professor (1996), Doctor Doolittle (1998), Daddy Day Care (2003), Tower Heist (2011), and Dolemite Is My Name (2019).

Eddie Murphy also voiced Donkey in the Shrek animated film series. In 2007, Murphy won a Golden Globe for best supporting actor in Dreamgirls, and Oscar nomination for the role.

Eddie Murphy is one of the highest grossing film stars, and one of the most celebrated comedians in history.

CARTER™️ Magazine

[aliveandfullofjoy]

95th Academy Awards: Oscars Trivia!

Another torturously long awards season is over! A24's highest-grossing film ever, Everything Everywhere All at Once, defied almost every piece of popular wisdom about the Academy Awards and easily cleared every hurdle in its path to a blowout, historic Best Picture win.

As you probably know, I'm a sucker for Oscar trivia, and this year has plenty of juicy nuggets to dig into. Let's get to it, starting with our newest Best Picture winner.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the third film in Oscar history to win three of the four acting categories, after A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and Network (1976). All three films won Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. Everything Everywhere All at Once is the only film of the three that managed to win Best Picture.

Michelle Yeoh is the first Malaysian actress, first Asian actress, and second woman of color to win Best Actress. This is only the thirteenth time that Best Actress and Best Picture have overlapped in the 95-year history of the Oscars. Yeoh's nomination made her the first Asian actress nominated for the award since 1935. The only other is Merle Oberon, who hid her Asian identity in life and passed as white.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the first science-fiction film to win Best Picture.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the first Best Picture winner with a woman of color (Michelle Yeoh) in the lead role.

Having opened in theaters in late March 2022 (the same weekend of the 94th Academy Awards), Everything Everywhere All at Once is the Best Picture winner with the earliest calendar release since The Silence of the Lambs, which opened Valentine's Day 1991.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the third Best Picture winner with a majority non-white cast (after 2016's Moonlight and 2019's Parasite) and the first American film with a majority Asian cast.

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All at Once) are the third directing team to win Best Director, joining Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise (West Side Story, 1961) and Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men, 2007). Kwan is also the fourth Asian director (and first Asian-American) to win Best Director.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the first movie in 95 years of Oscars history to win six(!) so-called "above the line" awards -- referring to Best Picture, Director, the four acting categories, and the two writing categories.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the first film to sweep the four primary guild awards (Producers Guild, Directors Guild, Writers Guild, and Screen Actors Guild) since Argo (2012), and only the fifth overall.

Some crazy coincidences between Michelle Yeoh and her Best Actress presenter Halle Berry: in addition to currently being the only two women of color to win Best Actress, they are also both former Bond girls (Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies [1997], Berry in Die Another Day [2002], both with Pierce Brosnan). Additionally, both women are former contestants of the Miss World pageant: Berry represented the United States in 1986, while Yeoh represented Malaysia in 1983. Also, in a weird case of history rhyming, both Berry and Yeoh won over a previous Oscar-winner in a film directed by Todd Field (Sissy Spacek in In the Bedroom in 2001, Cate Blanchett in TÁR in 2022).

With four wins, All Quiet on the Western Front tied with Parasite (2019), Roma (2018), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), and Fanny and Alexander (1982) as the most-rewarded non-English language films in Oscars history.

This is also the second time that Cate Blanchett has won a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, and a Critics Choice Award for a performance, only to lose the Oscar to the lead of the Best Picture winner. The other time this happened was the year another comedy won seven Oscars: Shakespeare in Love. Blanchett, who was nominated for Elizabeth that year, lost to Gwyneth Paltrow.

TÁR brought Blanchett her eighth Oscar nomination, tying her as the fourth most-nominated actress in Oscar history. Only Bette Davis (10), Katharine Hepburn (12), and Meryl Streep (21) are ahead of her.

TÁR is only director Todd Field's third feature (after 2001's In the Bedroom and 2006's Little Children), but all three of his films have gotten Best Actress nominations for their leads.

Blanchett has also extended her record as the Oscar-nominated actress with the most appearances in films nominated for Best Picture. With TÁR, she has now appeared in 10 Best Picture nominees.

Tom Hanks (who turned in one of the weirdest performances ever caught on film in Elvis) also crossed the 10 Best Picture appearance threshold with this year's nominations. The only nominated actor with more Best Picture appearances is Jack Nicholson, who's been in 11.

This year's nominations saw a record-breaking number of Asian actors nominated: Yeoh in Best Actress, Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once) in Best Supporting Actor, and Hong Chau (The Whale) and Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once) in Best Supporting Actress. Yeoh and Quan won, marking the first time multiple Asian actors have won in a single ceremony.

Hong Chau (The Whale) is the first Oscar-nominated actor to be born in a refugee camp.

This year also saw a record number of Irish actors nominated in a single year, with five: Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin) and Paul Mescal (Aftersun) in Best Actor, Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan (both from The Banshees of Inisherin) in Best Supporting Actor, and Kerry Condon (again, The Banshees of Inisherin) in Best Supporting Actress.

It was a banner year for Ireland in other categories, too, with nominations in Best Live Action Short (An Irish Goodbye, which won the award) and in Best International Feature (The Quiet Girl, the first Irish-language film ever nominated for an Oscar).

With his win in the Supporting Actor category, Quan became only the second Asian actor to win that award, joining the late Haing S. Ngor, who won for his debut performance in The Killing Fields (1984).

All five of the nominees for Best Actor -- Austin Butler (Elvis), Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin), Brendan Fraser (The Whale), Paul Mescal (Aftersun), and Bill Nighy (Living) -- were first-time nominees. This is the first time this has happened in this category since 1934(!!!).

It was a huge year for first-time nominees across all four acting categories: 16(!) of the 20 actors nominated were first-timers. This is the most ever in a single year. The only actors with previous nominations were Cate Blanchett, Angela Bassett, Judd Hirsch, and Michelle Williams.

Jamie Lee Curtis (Everything Everywhere All at Once) is the third person to be nominated for an Oscar after both of her parents were nominated as well: her father Tony Curtis was nominated for The Defiant Ones (1958), while her mother Janet Leigh was nominated for Psycho (1960). The other sets of nominated parents and children are Liza Minnelli (with parents Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli) and Laura Dern (with parents Diane Ladd and Bruce Dern). Minnelli, Dern, and Curtis all won acting Oscars.

With his performance in The Whale, Brendan Fraser became the first person to win Best Actor for a film not nominated for Best Picture since Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart (2009).

This is also the first time since 2005 that all four acting winners were first-time nominees. Additionally, none of the four acting winners won in their category at the BAFTAs, which has never happened before.

With his Best Supporting Actor nomination, Judd Hirsch (The Fabelmans) broke the record for the longest gap between acting nominations: he was last nominated 42 years ago for Ordinary People (1980). The record previously belonged to Henry Fonda, who had a 41-year gap between nods.

In addition to being the first actor ever nominated for a performance in a Marvel movie, Angela Bassett (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) also became the fourth Black actress to be nominated more than once. She joined Viola Davis, Whoopi Goldberg, and Octavia Spencer.

The Fabelmans is the first movie to win the Golden Globe for Best Picture - Drama to go home emptyhanded at the Oscars since The Turning Point (1977[!]). In fact, this is the first time ever that both Golden Globe Best Picture winners (The Fabelmans in Drama, The Banshees of Inisherin in Comedy) went home with zero Oscars.

2022 had some other similarities with 1977, too: this was the first year since 1977 that two films (Everything Everywhere All at Once and The Banshees of Inisherin in 2022, Julia and The Turning Point in 1977) got four individual acting nominations. Both years saw comedies win Best Picture and Best Actress (Annie Hall in 1977), and both years had a sci-fi blockbuster nominated in Best Picture (Star Wars and Avatar: The Way of Water).

Ana de Armas (Blonde) became the second actor nominated for playing Marilyn Monroe, which is more Oscars than Monroe herself was ever nominated for. She was nominated in Best Actress alongside Michelle Williams (The Fabelmans), the other actress nominated for playing the star (in 2011's My Week with Marilyn).

De Armas also became the fifth Latina nominated for Best Actress, joining Fernanda Montenegro, Salma Hayek, Catalina Sandino Moreno, and Yalitza Aparicio. She is also the second Cuban actor ever nominated, after Andy Garcia.

With her win for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, legendary costume designer Ruth Carter became the first Black woman to win two Oscars — ever.

Only Austin Butler and Ana de Armas were nominated for playing historical figures this year. Weirdly, both Elvis and Blonde feature actor Xavier Samuel in small roles. What does it mean?

At 34 minutes long, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is the longest Best Animated Short winner ever.

In addition to being the first song from an Indian film to be nominated for and win the Oscar for Best Song, "Naatu Naatu" (RRR) is the fourth non-English language winner of that award, after "Never on Sunday" (1960, originally performed in Greek), "Al otro lado del río" (2004, in Spanish), and "Jai Ho" (2008, in Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi). "Naatu Naatu" is in Telugu.

It was the year of the sequel: between Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick, this marked the first time multiple sequels were nominated in Best Picture in the same year. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery also received major nominations.

Avatar and Top Gun also marked the first time since 1982 that the two highest-grossing films of the year were both nominated for Best Picture.

[skarsjoy]

NEW PROJECT announced for Alexander Skarsgård to star and executive produce "Pillion"

via Variety (5.8.24):

Alexander Skarsgard (“The Northman,” “Succession”) and Harry Melling (“The Pale Blue Eye,” “The Queen’s Gambit”) are set to lead the cast of “Pillion,” described as a “fun and filthy romance with heart” and being produced by multi-Oscar-winning powerhouse Element Pictures.

The film — to be launched in Cannes by Cornerstone, which is handling worldwide sales — marks the feature debut of Harry Lighton, whose short “Wren Boys” was nominated for best British short at the 2018 BAFTAs, was nominated for a BIFA and had its U.S. premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

“Pillion” follows Colin (Melling), a weedy wallflower letting life pass him by. That is until Ray (Skarsgård), the impossibly handsome leader of a motorbike club, takes him on as his submissive. Ray uproots Colin from his dreary suburban life, introducing him to a community of kinky, queer bikers and taking all sorts of virginities along the way. But as Colin steps deeper into Ray’s world of rules and mysteries, he begins to question whether the life of a 24/7 submissive is for him. Has he found his calling, or simply swapped one form of suffocation for another? 

The film — set to shoot in the U.K. this summer — is an Element Pictures production financed by BBC Film, Picturehouse Entertainment and September Films, who will handle distribution in the U.K. and Benelux respectively. The BFI is also supporting the film. The screenplay was developed with BBC Film and is based on Adam Mars-Jones’ “Box Hill” which was the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Novel Prize winner. Element Pictures’ Emma Norton, Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe will produce together with Lee Groombridge. BBC Film’s Eva Yates, Claire Binns for Picturehouse, September Films’ Pim Hermeling and Skarsgård are executive producers. Louise Ortega is the BFI’s executive for the project. Heads of department include cinematographer Nick Morris (“Wren Boys”), production designer Francesca Massariol (“The Strays”), BIFA Award winning costume designer Grace Snell (“The Souvenir”), BIFA Award nominated composer Oliver Coates (“Aftersun”) and casting director Kahleen Crawford (“Lost Daughter”).

“Everyone at Element is so excited to help Harry Lighton bring ‘Pillion’ to life,” said Norton. “Harry is a filmmaker who is drawn to risk and fascinated by the  potential to find surprising complexity in everyday life. We love this about him and believe that ‘Pillion’ is the perfect expression of his talent, bravery and ambition.”

Added Cornerstone’s Alison Thompson and Mark Gooder; “Harry’s script is equally compelling and shocking as it is funny and entertaining – and one of the best we’ve read in years. The casting is inspired and we are thrilled to unleash this brilliant project in the Cannes market.”

[mrs-stans]

Meet the makeup wizard who transformed Sebastian Stan into ‘A Different Man’

By Josh Rottenberg

At the tender age of 5, Mike Marino saw “The Elephant Man” for the first time and his life was forever changed. When David Lynch’s haunting and heartbreaking story of the disfigured John Merrick would air on HBO in the early 1980s, Marino found himself horrified but unable to look away, sparking a fascination with prosthetics that would eventually lead him to becoming one of Hollywood’s top makeup artists.

“I was so afraid of it, but little did I know how beautiful that story was and how much of an imprint it would leave on my brain and soul,” says Marino, 47, who earned consecutive Oscar nominations in 2022 and 2023 for his makeup work on “Coming 2 America” and “The Batman,” the latter starring a totally transformed Colin Farrell. “If it wasn’t for that film, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing.”

But for actor, TV presenter and disability rights advocate Adam Pearson, Lynch’s film took on a more painful role in his life. Growing up in England with neurofibromatosis type 1, a rare genetic disorder that causes tumors to grow on his face, Pearson was often taunted by classmates who cruelly called him “Elephant Man” and other names. As he got older, he saw how movies routinely depicted people with disfigurements as freaks, villains or victims, stripping away their humanity. “There’s an element of laziness to it,” says Pearson, 39. “How do we show this character is evil? Let’s slap a scar on them.”

Now, through a twist of fate, the lives of Marino and Pearson have intersected on a very different project: the darkly funny, mind-bending psychological thriller “A Different Man.” Directed by Aaron Schimberg, the A24 film stars Sebastian Stan as Edward, a shy, disfigured actor working in New York City who undergoes an experimental procedure to transform his appearance, only to find himself losing the role he was born to play — himself — to a cheerful, outgoing man named Oswald with his same facial deformity, played by Pearson. Renate Reinsve (“The Worst Person in the World”) co-stars as a playwright whose latest work brings Edward’s identity crisis to a head.

“A Different Man,” which The Times called “a self-deconstructing meta-pretzel of a dark comedy” following its debut at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, tackles complex themes of identity, beauty and disability with a blend of Charlie Kaufman-esque surrealism and David Cronenbergian body horror. Along with Stan’s performance, Marino’s meticulously crafted prosthetics are key to bringing Edward and his inner agonies to life, reflecting the deeper emotional anguish of a man trying to escape his own skin.

“The movie portrays how the shell of who we are should not dictate our spirit and our personality,” Marino says. “I think it’s a very important film, much like ‘The Elephant Man’ was.”

When Schimberg first wrote the script, inspired by his own struggles with a cleft palate and his experience working with Pearson on his 2019 satire “Chained for Life,” he initially had no idea how he would actually pull off the film’s demanding prosthetics work. “I was sort of blissfully ignorant,” says Schimberg. “After Sebastian came aboard, we started cobbling the film together very quickly. It was only about a month before shooting that I realized this film was going to completely fall apart if we didn’t get this right. It was very down to the wire.”

Signing on as an executive producer for the film, Stan asked around about makeup artists in the New York area who could handle such a difficult job under that kind of time pressure. One answer consistently came back: “Literally everyone, hands down, was like, ‘You’ve got to get Marino,’ ” the actor recalls.

Though he was already busy with a job on “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” Marino, who has done his share of more fantastical creatures, leapt at the challenge of re-creating a real-life disfigurement like Pearson’s. “I’m fascinated with people that have something going on with their skin because it’s just the most interesting, artistic, natural thing,” Marino says. “For me, there’s an amazing beauty to how Adam looks. This was not about a scary face or a monstrous person. I don’t like to do things like that with no soul or purpose.”

Marino’s passion for makeup and prosthetics took root early in life, inspired by industry legends like Dick Smith (“The Exorcist”) and Rick Baker (“An American Werewolf in London”). Growing up in New York, Marino started honing his skills as a preteen by practicing on his friends with latex, foam and various chemicals, destroying his bedroom rug in the process, to the chagrin of his parents. While still in high school, he mailed his portfolio to Smith and received encouragement and advice by phone from the makeup legend, who won an Oscar in 1985 for “Amadeus” and earned an honorary Academy Award for his life’s work in 2012. “Once he acknowledged me, it was like, OK, this is serious. There was no stopping me.”

After cutting his teeth on “Saturday Night Live” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Marino broke into film with the 2007 psychological thriller “Anamorph” and quickly became known for his versatility, seamlessly switching between fantasy creatures and more subtle, realistic applications. His work on Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan” amplified the film’s psychological horror, while on Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” he enhanced the film’s digital de-aging of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino with carefully crafted prosthetics.

Outside of film, Marino created the Weeknd’s plastic-surgery-gone-wrong look for the singer’s “Save Your Tears” video. “It’s all problems to solve,” Marino says. “There is no playbook.”

Diving into “A Different Man,” Marino used photographs and 3D scans of Pearson’s face, which has undergone some 40 surgeries over the years, as the basis for a multi-piece silicone prosthetic that would work with Stan’s features. “There was no way I could completely replicate Adam’s exact proportions,” he says. “I had to make some aesthetic choices.”

While the makeup work in “The Elephant Man” benefited from that film’s grainy black-and-white cinematography, the prosthetics in “A Different Man” had to withstand more unforgiving scrutiny. To put his Edward face to the test, Stan would walk from Marino’s makeup chair to the set through the streets of New York and crowds of strangers, giving him tremendous insight into how people treat those who look different.

“I went to my old coffee shop and the same barista who’d served me for years couldn’t identify me,” Stan recalls. “I got to really feel people’s reactions in real time. There were people who couldn’t even look at me, other people were staring and sometimes you’d get a bigger reaction, like, ‘Oh s—, it’s the Elephant Man!’ As Adam puts it, you feel like public property.”

Pearson, who shares his character’s sunny gregariousness, encouraged Stan to think about it like he does with his own experience as a movie star. “I was like, ‘You don’t know the level of invasion I get with people pointing, staring and taking photos, but you do understand a very similar thing from this angle, so lean into that heavily,’ ” he says. “ ‘And if it makes you uncomfortable, lean into it further.’ ”

While wearing the prosthetics, Stan could only see out of one eye and had limited hearing in one ear, challenges that helped further inform his performance as a man who has learned to shy away from potential threats and insults. “Edward is a character that has had to endure a lot of emotional abuse and probably some physical abuse, so he is probably always on his left foot a little bit in case something happens,” Stan says.

As Edward’s face changes following his radical treatment, Marino made additional prosthetics showing the transition, including an “extremely soft, mushy version” that, in a particularly Cronenbergian scene, Stan could pull off in chunks.

Colin Farrell as Oswald Cobblepot in “The Batman,” work for which Marino was Oscar-nominated. (Warner Bros. Pictures)

Marino’s talent for transforming stars is on full display in Farrell’s hulking, thuggish look as the Penguin in 2022’s “The Batman” and the new HBO spinoff series. “When Colin saw the sculpture I made, ideas started exploding,” Marino says. “Once we did a makeup test, it was magical — he knew how to speak, how to walk and he was already the guy.”

Marino, who is preparing to make his directorial debut based on a script he wrote set in the 1980s (“It’s deliberately not effects-heavy,” he hints), has lost none of his passion for the transformative power of latex and silicone since the days he was obsessively poring through issues of Cinefex magazine as a teenager. “If you think of Michelangelo showing beauty 500 years ago in painting and sculpture, I’m still showing that same beauty but in this new hyper-realistic way, in silicone,” says Marino, who named his makeup effects studio Prosthetic Renaissance. “It’s a very unique art. It’s like moving sculptures and paintings all at once.”

As for Pearson, if he were offered an experimental treatment to change his face, like in “A Different Man,” he says he wouldn’t take it. Despite the challenges it has brought him, Pearson believes his face has shaped the life he leads today.

“I joke with my friends that my disability does a lot of heavy lifting for my appalling personality,” he says with a laugh. “Everyone thinks it’s hard to go from non-disabled to disabled but I think the other way around would be even harder. The path we walk and the struggles we go through make us who we are and they’re inseparable from one another.”

[frozen10fanzine]

Frozen Through the Years

Yearly Spotlight: 2019

Written by @toriofthetrees

After six long years, 2019 saw the release of the long-anticipated sequel, Frozen II.

The lead-up up to the release was intense to say the least.

The first teaser trailer premiered in February, opening with Elsa on a black-sand beach stripped down to her bare essentials, barefoot, ready to take on a raging sea. She attempted twice to cross the torrential waters before the trailer turned to Anna’s shock of hundreds of diamond-shaped glass covered in strange symbols, taking over Arendelle. Following closely behind were several moments of Elsa, Olaf, Kristoff, and Anna taking on dangerous challenges, and a show of strange, foreign magic. All of this was centered around this new, mysterious setting known only at the time as an autumnal forest.

It gave just enough of a preview to hook millions.

The trailer was viewed and downloaded several million times on Twitter and YouTube within a short amount of time. In the fandom, a storm of news, posts, speculation, and discussions broke out over several platforms, too chaotic to keep track of. The months that followed the teaser were absolutely brimming with excitement! Across cinemas, television, and the internet—both in the US and internationally—came many trailers, sneak peaks, and posters about the upcoming movie. Alongside this came leaks as well, all of it sparking speculation in the fandom over what the plot of the movie could be.

Countless books about Frozen II came onto the market before the film was even released, notably without the end of the film printed within their pages. This lead to fans in many locations to protest the shops selling these books, wanting their money back.

Most of these protests lead to no results.

Success for Disney Studios, specifically. contributed to the exposure for Frozen II. ~In March, Disney invested billions of US dollars in company acquisitions across the film and TV industry, creating the most powerful media company in the world in the USA. ~This was the year of the 6th Disney D23 Expo, the biggest Disney fan event of the year! It was held on August 23–25 at the Anaheim Convention Center in California, showcasing news and pictures around all the new Disney parks, resorts—and movies! Including Frozen II! ~On November 12, 2019, Disney launched its streaming platform Disney+ in several countries ~2019 ultimately proved to be Disney's most successful cinema year to date, regardless of which new film was released!

All of this led up to the release of Frozen II on November 20, 2019 in most countries (unfortunately some countries had to wait until the beginning of January).

This new installment to Elsa and Anna’s story saw the sisters and their found family making a long trek away from Arendelle… in order to save it. Mysterious magics send them up north to the Enchanted Forest, that is covered in an impenetrable mist. Yet, it parts for them. The deeper they go into the forest, the more they discover about themselves, their family, the spirits, Arendelle… so that only one thing can be said for certain: Nothing will ever be the same again.

This film was polarizing.

In the cultural zeitgeist, it was a massive success like its predecessor, exceeding Frozen as the highest grossing animated film of all time. It received mostly positive reviews and it would go on to be nominated for multiple awards, including an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song. The Disney merchandising machinery was running at full speed and earned the company many more millions within a short amount of time. The limited edition dolls were sold out on the same day as release! However, it notably did not have the same cultural reach that its predecessor had. “Into the Unknown,” to many, was not comparable to “Let it Go.” And the film was nominated aplenty, but never actually received any awards.

However, it was within the fandom that this polarization was seen the clearest.

Frozen II made good on its promise that nothing would ever be the same for these characters. The sisters, though still as close as ever, no longer lived under the same roof by the end of the film. Elsa abdicated her crown for her duties as the Fifth Spirit and Guardian of the Enchanted Forest, while Anna took over as Queen of Arendelle. This separation, whilst to some was a step-up for the sisters, others saw as a step back. This debate rages in the fandom to this day, and many, many fans on Tumblr, Reddit, and other social media prefer Frozen to its sequel.

The fandom did gain some new content, including the addition of multiple ships. There were two that were rather popular. The first was Agduna (Agnarr/Iduna), which came about because of the major focus Frozen II had on them, the sisters’ parents. The second was Elsamaren (Elsa/Honeymaren), which came about because Honeymaren had a minor, but important interaction with Elsa in the film that sent her on the right path to Ahtohallan.

Just as Frozen II’s main theme—change—impacted the sisters, so to it did the fandom. The polarizing effect of the film lead to quite passionate arguments over its content. However, the fandom did not get any smaller or lose any passion. People continued to create, debate, discuss, and post about Frozen and Frozen II. In interviews, the cast and crew said that Frozen II was made to grow up with the audience who were there when the first film was released in theaters. With that in mind, the fandom no longer looked like it did when Frozen first came out.

Things change.

But we can still all agree on one thing: We love Frozen 💕

Stay Tuned For More

👆🏻 Click above if you want to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Frozen. The due date is April 12, 2024.

We look forward to seeing your memories ❄️

[doyouknowthisactor]

By "roles" I mean playing a different character, and in a different piece of media; someone playing one character across a franchise only counts as one thing for the purposes of this poll, as does playing multiple characters in one franchise/piece of media

Below are some of this actor's roles. Please only check after voting!

Cross Creek as Marsh Turner (Oscar nomination)

The Larry Sanders Show as Artie (1 Emmy win & 5 nominations)

Men in Black films as Zed

Hercules 1997 as Zeus (voice role)

Torn was formerly married to actors Ann Wedgeworth and Geraldine Page, and then to actor Amy Wright until his death in 2019. His daughter Angelica Page is also an actor. He is also the cousin of actor Sissy Spacek.

More roles

[insanityclause]

Tom Hiddleston Says Revisiting Loki Was ‘An Honor,’ Thanks Co-Stars for ‘Chemistry and Inspiration’

Ahead of accepting Variety’s Virtuoso Award at the Miami Film Festival, Hiddleston reflects on previous roles and impactful creative collaboration.

By Jenelle Riley

Tom Hiddleston knows “Miami.” That is, all the words to the Will Smith song titled after the famous city — a video of him reciting the lyrics once broke the Internet (not an unusual occurrence for the actor.) That was in 2012 when he was doing press for “The Avengers,” the movie that would change his life and career. It was also the same tour that last brought him to the city — but that was a whirlwind two days of press. “I do recall promoting ‘Avengers’ in Spanish and the city had a great, unique energy,” he says. “I’m really excited to be back as an explorer.”

The British actor will be returning on April 9 to the Miami Film Festival to accept Variety’s Virtuoso Award for his career achievements and will participate in a Q&A at the Adrienne Arsht Center – Knight Concert Hall. Tickets are available here.

And while Miami is known for its food and culture, the actor has one thing on his mind. “What will the weather be like?” he queries of the town’s famously balmy temperatures. “Because I’m coming from the wettest February on record in London’s history.”

Hiddleston admits it’s somewhat ironic to be receiving the Virtuoso Award there, because “when somebody says ‘virtuoso,’ I think of a dazzling soloist in an orchestra, and I feel about as far from that image as it’s possible to imagine.”

He continues: “I am the opposite of a soloist, actually. I always feel like I’m at my strongest in a team. What we do is a collective creative act and the joy of it is in the shared imagination.”

This might explain why his resume is filled with standout ensemble pieces in every genre. Hiddleston’s worked on stage — he earned a Tony nomination for his 2019 Broadway debut in “Betrayal” — the SAG Award-nominated ensemble of “Midnight in Paris,” up through his most current turn as the God of Mischief in Season 2 of the Disney+ series “Loki.”

The second season’s finale, “Glorious Purpose,” remains the highest-rated episode ever in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and brought a conclusion to an epic character arc that has spanned 14 years of Hiddleston’s life. The actor, who also served as producer on both seasons, says it would have been impossible without his “deep bench” of castmates, which includes Owen Wilson, Sophia Di Martino and Season 2 addition Ke Huy Quan, Oscar-winner for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

“I don’t know who said it, but there’s the phrase: ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together,’” he notes. “And it’s never been truer than for this show.”

Community and collaboration are perhaps his favorite aspects of the work. “I truly find the most interesting work I have discovered happens between people. You show up and ready and prepared, but you take that preparation onto the dance floor and see what there is between you. If I’ve done anything of value, it’s because of that chemistry and inspiration I receive from another actor.”

Hiddleston says that team spirit extends to his next project, “The Life of Chuck,” a big-screen adaptation of the Stephen King novella that also stars Karen Gillan, Mark Hamill and Chewitel Ejiofor. “I’m a lifelong tennis fan and I feel like being on set is like playing tennis,” Hiddleston notes. “It’s all about who you’re playing opposite and the energy back and forth between you. And I have some great partners on ‘The Life of Chuck.'”

As for continuing Loki’s story in a third season, it’s a question Hiddleston is asked pretty much every day — several times. “I truthfully don’t know,” he says. “I am so proud of where we landed in Season 2. To go from this lost, broken soul in Asgaard, and be given a second chance and learn so much about life that he actually gives himself to protect other people, has been such an honor.” For tickets to the conversation and Variety Virtuoso Award Presentation to Tom Hiddleston, visit here.

[sabrinacdaily]

Full Interview/Article By Lucy Feldman Below The Cut!

'Sabrina Carpenter is settling into a tiny banquette, one leg in pinstripe capris folded onto the bench, when she orders a… cappuccino. The obvious joke hangs in the air. “I've intentionally stopped myself from getting them now,” the “Espresso” singer says. The last time she was at this particular French restaurant in downtown New York, they surprised her with a round of espresso martinis.

It’s the kind of thing that surely happens all the time, now that the 25-year-old artist—unmissable with big, bright blonde curls and a 5-ft. frame—has rapidly become one of the most famous women in pop culture. To say that “Espresso” was one of the songs, if not the song, of the summer hardly captures the extent of her reach. The disco-inflected bop, released in April, became her first to exceed a billion streams on Spotify, where it hit No. 1 globally. But Carpenter’s buzz only got louder in June when she dropped the music video for “Please Please Please” (another Spotify global No. 1), co-starring her rumored boyfriend, the Oscar-nominated actor Barry Keoghan. And the singer sent the internet into a full-blown tizzy in August when she released her clever and cutting, genre-blending album Short n’ Sweet alongside another viral video: a campy, Death Becomes Her-influenced love-triangle romp, co-starring Jenna Ortega, for “Taste.” The album, now certified platinum, hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 at release and became the third biggest debut of the year, trailing only Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter and Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department.

Carpenter is everywhere. Swift, Beyoncé, Adele, Christina Aguilera, and Selena Gomez have all sung her praises. If you didn’t catch her on the season finale of Saturday Night Live, you probably saw her on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon. If you didn’t see her at Coachella, you definitely tuned in for her performance at the VMAs. And if you missed her opening for Swift on 25 stops of the Eras tour, you cannot be helped. The moment Carpenter herself says she knew she’d reached a new level: when there was a joke about her in Dan and Eugene Levy’s opening monologue for the 2024 Emmys. “That was probably the first time I was like, Oh, I'm not even there.”

When we meet for an afternoon pick-me-up, just over a month has passed since the album release, and Carpenter has been going nonstop. She’s back home in New York after the first three shows in her sold-out, 33-date Short n’ Sweettour, fresh off an 11-hour bus ride from Detroit. Hence the need for caffeine. “TMI,” she adds, “But I’m in my luteal phase, and just feeling like a monster.” When the server comes by with coffee, she orders a chocolate mousse for us to share. 

Carpenter may appear to have materialized from nowhere as a fully formed pop star, but she has been grinding for 16 years. Growing up in East Greenville, Pa., she started posting videos of herself singing on YouTube when she was 9. Her big break came at 13, when she landed a role in Girl Meets World, a reboot of the classic ’90s series Boy Meets World. Carpenter makes a point to note that she signed with her first label, Disney’s Hollywood Records, at 12—before she booked the TV show. “I knew that I wouldn't be able to thrive as a recording artist the same way I would have been able to working on a show as a child actor,” she says, “which I know sounds weird to have that perspective at 12, but I was really lucky to.”

Carpenter released four albums with the Disney-owned label between 2015 and 2019 and continued to act, in movies like Adventures in Babysitting, The Hate U Give, and Tall Girl. But she couldn’t quite break through to the mainstream as an artist. “For a long time, I was constantly guided and misguided,” she says. “I'm so grateful for all of those times where I was led astray, because now I'm a lot more equipped going into situations where I have to trust my own instincts.”

Her 2022 album Emails I Can’t Send—her first more adult project on a new label—was an opportunity to do just that. She put out a collection of songs about heartbreak, attraction, and scrutiny that were wiped clean of Disney’s perfectionistic sheen. “My last album was f-cking sad, straight up,” Carpenter says. She describes the first stretch of the pandemic, when she was 21, as a time when she realized she wanted to “make some mistakes,” or at least be less hard on herself. “I wanted to make sure to still be young while I’m young… To go through your life trying to be a little robot angel, you’re going to have a lot of regrets later,” she says. “That’s also why during that time of my life I was a little bit of an emotional wreck.”

The album contained songs that fans connected with tantalizing gossip, having deduced that Carpenter might have been the “blonde girl” described as winning over the person (purportedly fellow Disney actor Joshua Bassett) who broke Olivia Rodrigo’s heart in “Driver’s License.” Carpenter’s song “Because I Liked a Boy” seemed to respond: “Now I'm a homewrecker, I'm a slut / I got death threats filling up semi-trucks.”

“Because I Liked a Boy” made an impression during Carpenter’s Eras tour performances—but it was another song, “Nonsense,” about getting tongue-tied around a crush, that got new audiences hooked on the cheeky sensibility she's become known for. Carpenter says the tour with Swift, where she had no set, dancers, or props for her act, taught her how to stand in front of a crowd alone and put on a show. It stirred up hype for a tradition, which had begun on her Emails tour, where she delivered a punny new outro for “Nonsense” each night, creating viral clip after clip as the lines got more suggestive and ridiculous. One night in Australia: “Broke up ’cause the size was underwhelming/ Tried to give him pointers, wasn’t helping/ Maybe I just need a boy from Melbourne.” She confirms that she’s done with the bit, at least for now. “The extreme ‘it's over forever’ is just not in my repertoire. Maybe I’ll feel random one day and bring it back,” she says, but, “that was for that album, for that era. You’ve got to keep a thing good.”

Carpenter may be only 25, but she is coming into her own with the earned confidence of a veteran, and she knows how to give the people what they want. Her brand—she’s short, she’s funny, and she’s horny—is specific enough to feel authentic but also general enough to capture an ever-broadening audience. And she’s not afraid to make a joke about herself. “If you want to call me a Polly Pocket, a Bratz doll, I don't care,” she says. “You'll meet me and then you'll be like, damn, she talks a lot more than the dolls do.” It takes a certain amount of time under pressure to build the sense of self that Carpenter embodies—we’ve seen it this year with artists like Chappell Roan and Charli XCX, too. It’s hard to remember now, but even Swift was once a rising country-music star trying to break into the mainstream.

Jack Antonoff, who worked with Carpenter on multiple Short n’ Sweet tracks, was following her career long before they collaborated. “I look at all Sabrina's work, and she's just crystallized more and more,” he told TIME in a recent interview. “I guess the lesson there is there was nothing wrong. It was just about staying the course. That's really what it is to be an artist.”

Carpenter is reaping the benefits of her persistence. “There were so many things I dreamt of doing as a little girl I got to do this year that felt like such a cool, sweet, little bucket-list moment for my younger self,” she says. “I literally threw up when I found out about SNL. Not to be graphic.” The VMAs performance was another dream realized. “I grew up watching those performances and being like, I want to do that. But then it all just seemed so—not even out of reach, just like I had a different plan in my head of when it was all supposed to happen,” she says, meaning it wasn’t supposed to take this long. But now that everything has unfolded the way it has, Carpenter can see the advantage. “I feel so prepared for these moments,” she says. “If I was even 17 or 18, I think I would have been way, way more nervous and intimidated.” 

The next thing that could make her throw up with excitement, if the call came tomorrow: “If I could perform at the Grammys.” 

As polished and well-packaged as the Sabrina Carpenter brand is, it’s her willingness to be messy that really makes it all work. In Short n’ Sweet, she’s in turns cocky, desperate, petty, brutal, deliriously horny, and not all that pressed. The effect is that, no matter the drama at hand, Carpenter refuses to take herself too seriously. “I like the fact that I just put out a song that starts with ‘I can't relate to desperation,’ and then I’m putting out the most desperate possible sounding chorus I could in my life,” she says, of “Espresso” and “Please Please Please.” “The idea is like: if everything is super calculated, then the second you make a statement, that's who you are for the rest of your life—as opposed to it being like: or you can be super confident one day and then the most emotional wreck the next day.” 

Carpenter describes Short n’ Sweet as a “time capsule” of a certain period in her life, and a few songs on the album seem to, fairly overtly, reference a relationship she had with Shawn Mendes during off-again stretches of his past romance with Camila Cabello. (See: the lyrics of “Coincidence” analyzed against timelines of who was seen where with whom. See also: the roast ballad “Dumb & Poetic,” “Taste,” and a particularly savage line of “Slim Pickins.”) Likewise, casting Keoghan in the video for “Please Please Please,” a song about begging her actor boyfriend not to embarrass her, pretty much eliminated the possibility that anyone would think it wasn’t about him. 

Carpenter won’t say specifically who she was thinking of when writing any of her songs—no savvy pop star would—but she is willing to talk about the feelings within them. “It'll probably bite me in the ass at some point,” she says, knocking wood, “but it's been a really therapeutic album to be able to just say what I'm thinking.” One example: “Please Please Please” captures a love-hate dynamic that will be familiar to anyone who’s found themselves wondering if they’re in the wrong relationship. “I’m so blunt and forward. I feel like, what is the reason that we're all hiding from each other when these are just real things? Sometimes men embarrass you. That's super normal,” she says.

Now, starting to see crowds sing along with her on tour, she’s recognizing how relatable that song in particular is. “This just really hits for the girls that have every right to go back to someone who isn't good for them, and know that those mistakes are absolutely human to make, and repeatedly.” She takes a bite of chocolate mousse, a dollop of whipped cream and a few cookie crumbles on top. “The amount of times that we've all been with people we shouldn't be,” she continues. “We either learn it the hard way, or we are a miracle and we end up marrying that person.”

When the lights dim before Carpenter takes the stage at Madison Square Garden two nights later, the collective scream is head-splitting. She dashes onstage in a towel that she opens, eyebrows raised, to reveal a glittering yellow Victoria’s Secret bodysuit. The show takes off from there, an hour and a half of glitzy group dance sequences, intimate ballads, and winking innuendos set in a two-story New York City penthouse. There’s a fireplace in the living room, a moody, after-dark balcony, a pink satin bedroom, and even a bathroom, where, in an offbeat highlight of the show, Carpenter sits on a toilet and ruminates as she sings about a hot dummy who jerked her around. “Some songs feel like bathroom thoughts to me, like when you're at a party and you go to the bathroom to cry or judge yourself in the mirror,” she says. “It's comical but also brings a little groundedness to the show.”

Despite Carpenter’s years of experience—including opening for Swift on the massive Eras tour—the intensity of playing her own arena shows is new. “The first two shows, there were enough technical difficulties to ruin my life,” she says. There’s a part when she gets lifted 18 feet into the air on a giant heart—on the first night, she got stuck at the top. “I was up there far longer than I was supposed to be,” she says, a reminder of why, after seeing Matty Healy perform on a rooftop set for a 1975 show, she thought playing with heights on tour would be too scary. Suspended over the crowd in Columbus, Ohio, she just kept singing and hoped that someone offstage was working to get her down. (They did.) “If one thing malfunctions, it can affect the whole show,” she says. “So I've just been learning, rewiring my brain, to be able to handle stuff like that.” Aside from tech issues, the hardest part is not tripping—Carpenter is constantly running up and down stairs. There was no intensive pre-tour training regimen, and her body is feeling it. “I've started doing ice baths like a little spiritual man,” she admits, a tad embarrassed.

Throughout the concert, Carpenter quite literally wears her sexuality on her sleeve. “Femininity is something that I've always embraced. And if right now that means corsets and garter belts and fuzzy robes or whatever the f-ck, then that's what that means,” she says. She adds a babydoll negligee over the bodysuit in the first act, changes into a black lace catsuit and slips into a slinky robe, both by French designer Patou, in the second, and, in the final set, steps out in an ultra-sparkly two-piece halter top and skirt from Ludovic de Saint Sernin, made with crystal mesh donated by Swarovski. Carpenter’s stylist Jared Ellner teases that there will be different lyrics printed onto Carpenter’s tights throughout the tour: they did “Taste me” for night one and “I’m working late” for Madison Square Garden. The singer notes that this is the first tour where she has doubles of her outfits. “In the past it would be like, if that outfit has stains on it, good luck,” she says. Some of the corset dresses she wore on the Eras tour were in pale colors: “I would sweat, and it would just be terrible.”

With all the lingerie and innuendos in mind, I ask Carpenter if, a generation later, she has been spared the vilification that artists like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera suffered for daring to incorporate their sexuality into their work. “No, I definitely get that as well,” she says. She’s trying to remember that social media is an echo chamber. “Someone told me this, whenever I would get upset or feel like I'm the only one getting criticized for something other people are able to do seemingly so freely: I'm the one that's seeing all the negative sh-t about myself. My friends don't see that.” 

Artists like Madonna, Aguilera, Spears, Beyoncé, and Rihanna all helped pave the way, Carpenter says. “But you'll still get the occasional mother that has a strong opinion on how you should be dressing. And to that I just say, don't come to the show and that’s OK. It's unfortunate that it's ever been something to criticize, because truthfully, the scariest thing in the world is getting up on a stage in front of that many people and having to perform as if it's nothing. If the one thing that helps you do that is the way you feel comfortable dressing, then that's what you’ve got to do.”

Her approach seems to be working. “Juno,” a seductive pop song that references the 2007 teen-pregnancy movie, brings a show-stopping moment when Carpenter drops into a suggestive position and delivers the line, “Have you ever tried this one?”—then rises into the air on the heart-shaped platform. At Madison Square Garden, she bends on her knees, whips her hair, and jumps up and down above the crowd, ebullient. 

Somewhere in the arena is Carpenter’s mom, seeing the show for the first time. Her dad and 94-year-old grandfather came to opening night in Columbus. “My fans online are like, I can’t believe she's bending over in front of her grandparents!” Carpenter says. “I'm like, girl, they are not paying attention to that. They’re just like, I can’t believe all these people are here.”

It feels a little absurd to ask Carpenter what’s next—she’ll be on the road through March, and isn’t that enough? But she’s already tinkering with new songs (a constant practice) and she hints that there are “a few projects” she’s working on for after the tour. In the nearer term, Halloween is coming up; she’ll go big, and she’ll take it as a massive compliment if you choose to dress up as her. And in December, she’ll release a holiday special on Netflix. “It's an hour of literal nonsense,” she says. “If people are expecting boring, me singing by a tree, it's not that. It's so fun, so chaotic. There are so many guests that I’m excited about.” 

To Carpenter, it’s all still a bit surreal. She says she’s been looking out at the crowds at night, checking to make sure they’re really all there to hear her songs. It makes her easy to root for: the girl who found her way into this world before she knew who she was, finally finding the success she’s worked so hard for only now that she can trust herself to do it all her way. 

I make a comment about how much experience she has behind her, despite being so young. She says thank you, and it’s clear she means it. “People like to make you feel like, when you’re above 21 in this industry, you’re haggard,” Carpenter says, her laugh filling the air. “But I’m trying to remember that I’m still quite young.”'

[moodboardmix]

Ryuichi Sakamoto (January 17, 1952 - March 28, 2023)

Professor Sakamoto was one of Japan’s most successful musicians, acclaimed for work in Yellow Magic Orchestra as well as solo albums and film scores.

As a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra alongside Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, Sakamoto created joyous and progressive electronic pop in the late 1970s and early 1980s, alongside solo releases. He acted alongside David Bowie in the 1983 film Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence and composed its Celebrated theme, the first in a series of film scores including Oscar-winning work in 1987 with David Byrne and Cong Su for Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor.

Alongside YMO, Sakamoto continued releasing solo albums including 1980’s B-2 Unit, another influence on the robotically funky sound of electro that also foreshadowed other dance music styles. After focusing purely on solo work, he forged further connections in the west, collaborating with musicians including Iggy Pop, Robert Wyatt, Laurie Anderson, David Sylvian and more. Sylvian contributed Forbidden Colours, a vocal version of one of Sakamoto’s most famous works, the theme to second world war drama Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence. Sakamoto also starred in the film as a prisoner of war camp commander.

Following The last Emperor (in which he also had an acting role), he collaborated with Bernardo Bertolucci again for The Last Buddha, and with Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence director Nagisa Oshima for Gohatto. He also scored two films by Brian De Palma (Snake Eyes and Femme Fatale), plus Wild Palms for Oliver Stone, High Heels for Pedro Almodóvar, the 1990 film adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, and more. His 2015 score for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s film The Revenant was nominated for Golden Globe, Bafta and Grammy awards. In 2019, he composed the music for an episode of dystopian TV drama series Black Mirror. He took no further acting roles, aside from appearing as a film director in Rain, a music video for Madonna.

Mr Sakamoto released a steady schedule of solo releases throughout the 1990s and onwards, and wrote a piece for the opening ceremony of the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona. In 1999 he debuted the multimedia opera project Life, in collaboration with artist Shiro Takatani with contributions from Bertolucci, Pina Bausch and more. He and Takatani extended the concept into installation work from 2007 onwards.

Also in 2007, he began the ambitious Schola project, curating 17 compilations of global music ranging from composers such as Ravel and Beethoven to Japanese pop. It was released via his record label Commons, set up in 2006, which has also released work by artists including Boredoms and OOIOO.

In 2002, he began a fruitful partnership with German musician Carsten Nicolai, who used his Alva Noto alias for four collaborative albums of minimalist electronica.

Mr Sakamoto was also an environmental campaigner, opposing the use of nuclear power, and creating the forestry project More Trees to enable carbon offsetting.

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

[ilikethisacompletelynormalamount]

In the true story, BAFTA winner Scott, also coming off rave reviews for All Of Us Strangers, is set to play Group Captain James Stagg, the Allies’ Chief Meteorologist whose job it was to inform Supreme Commander General Eisenhower of weather conditions that would make-or-break their Normandy invasion. The decision-making was critical in the fate of the war and the course of history.

Anthony Maras (Hotel Mumbai) will direct the ticking-clock thriller, which is due to start shooting in the UK this September. Additional casting is underway, with Studiocanal handling world sales.

Olivier award-winner David Haig and Maras wrote the screenplay based on Haig’s critically lauded play, which ran in London’s West End before going on to be performed for the late Queen Elizabeth II and world leaders to mark the D-Day 75th anniversary in 2019. The official synopsis reads: “In the seventy two hours leading up to D-Day, all the pieces are in place except for one key element—the British weather. Britain’s chief meteorological officer James Stagg (Andrew Scott) is called upon to deliver the most consequential forecast in history, locking him into a tense standoff with the entire Allied leadership. The wrong conditions could devastate the largest ever seaborne invasion, while any delay risks German intelligence catching on. With only his trusted aide Captain Kay Summersby to confide in, and haunted by a catastrophic D-Day rehearsal, the final decision rests with Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower. With only hours to go, the fate of the war and the lives of millions hang in the balance.” Haig’s play explores the personal and military stresses on Stagg and how tensions grew between the teams with different weather forecasts for the date of the proposed D-Day. The film will concentrate on the pressure-cooker of the decision-making but also capture the scale of the landings. Studiocanal previously had commercial and critical success with WWII story The Imitation Game while Working Title similarly scored box office and Oscar recognition with WWII film Darkest Hour.

[brian-in-finance]

I know this is a long shot but has Cait ever been on an EMMY prediction list? Usually she was on the GG. Amazed that she is here even if not in the top 6.

https://variety.com/lists/2024-emmys-lead-actress-drama-predictions/also-in-contention-2/

Thanks for the message, Anon. 😃

Your link includes Variety’s predictions of nominees in the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series category for the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards. Nominations will be announced on 17 July and the Emmys awarded on 15 September.

Variety included this photo in its story published yesterday, 11 April 2024:

Photo : Robert Wilson for Starz

It’s not a long shot, as you suggest. To date, she’s never been nominated, but predictions lists have included Caitríona’s name every Outlander season. Here are some examples:

The Wrap 2015 / Season 1

E! News 2016 / Season 2

Awards Watch 2018 / Season 3

Spoiler TV 2019 / Season 4

Gold Derby 2020 / Season 5

We Are Actors (Variety) 2022 / Season 6

Variety 2024 / Season 7

Outlander has been nominated four times.

Screenshot: IMDb

Regarding 2024 Emmys for Drama, Variety has published its predictions lists for Drama Series, Lead Actor, and Lead Actress. The lists for Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Directing, Writing, and Casting are pending. Maybe we’ll see more Outlander representation in those five categories? 🍿

Remember… I'm thinking about naming my first son Emmy so I can say I've got one. I want Emmy, Oscar, and Tony - and my daughter Grammy. — Noah Wyle

😂 According to IMDb, Noah Wyle has two children, sons, and neither is named Emmy. He received five Emmy nominations for playing Dr John Carter on ER.

[thequietabsolute]

The Smiths // Meat is Murder (1985.)

The album's sleeve uses a 1967 photograph of an American marine, Cpl. Michael Wynn, in Vietnam, though with the wording on his helmet changed from "Make War Not Love" to "Meat Is Murder". The original image was used for Emile de Antonio's 1968 Oscar-nominated documentary In the Year of the Pig. Wynn stated in 2019 that he was never asked permission for the use of the photo, and that he "wasn’t real happy" that the wording on the helmet was changed.