#screenplay we HAVE has elements which never made it to the film that exists right now)

[fellhellion]

hey Tunes, do you know whats happening in the Miguel tag? I'm too afraid to check it out myself so thought I'll ask you.

essentially the atsv screenplay was released two or so days ago, which you can read in its entirety here, and there has been valid crirtique regarding the language utilised to describe Miguel within said screenplay, including allusions to bloodlust and the screenplay describing him as an animal twice I believe.

[worldwidemovies012]

Thangalaan review

: Pa Ranjith's film is intertwined with some fantasy and mystical realism. A must watch for Vikram fans.

Thangalaan is a period action drama starring Vikram, Parvathy Thiruvothu and Malavika Mohanan in the lead roles. The film is directed by Pa. Ranjith, produced by Studio Green K.E.Gnanavel Raja and the music is scored by G.V. Prakash Kumar.

Premise:

Britishers are in a wealth hunt, they take tribal people to work for them. Strange visions of Vikram to lead the troop to the Gold-rush area. What happens after forms the crux of the story.

Writing/ Direction:

Gold is the base of the film, the film showcases how it was handled in the 19th century by our rulers. Well-researched in terms of landscape, the way people look and the terms they use, which is sure to take the viewers back in time. The fantasy element is intriguing, the dynamic development of it is one of the few appreciable aspects of the film, the closure to it makes sense, sadly it is rushed by leaving no impact. The first half is like an adventure flick, with many different themes tried, but the result is extremely flat.

No clarity in the fight scenes as to who is winning and who is losing, the Black Panther sequence is a big dud with poor vision and the heavy smoke effects used lowers the visual standard.

Pasupathy’s humour portions are a big relief to the dry screenplay. The second half starts on a promising note with a few good scenes, displaying the happiness of the tribes for receiving new clothes, how the British treat the tribe with respect until they get to the Gold and shows their true nature after that, etc. Post which the film becomes dull with the slavery part not turning out to be emotional on-screen, the payoff is also very weak by bringing in a clumsy platter which is hard to consume. The biggest drawback of the film is the dialogue modulation of the artists which is probably authentic for the period, but had to go through hell to follow and understand.

Performances:

Chiyaan Vikram’s limitless efforts are evident on-screen, showing great variety in makeover, body language and expressions. Parvathy Thiruvothu is very casually natural on-screen, her scenes with the hero are lively, but the script required more to utilize the chemistry between them. Quite a challenging role for Malavika Mohanan, she has given her best, just wish she had more highlight action scenes to prove her full-potential. Pasupathy’s character started off fascinatingly, but then the arc was left abruptly without giving a proper ending it deserved. Stone-faced villains, the issue with foreign actors’ performances which the most Indian films have exists here too. The other supporting characters are written in a half-baked manner that we don’t get to feel for them.

Technicalities:

Meticulous work by G.V.Prakash, top quality songs overall, especially the Minikki Minikki track stands out and it is beautifully placed in the film. Solid score, his music made a lot of weak situations better, he has focused on what instruments to use as well. The visuals are first class, strong production value and location recce have led the team to explore new terrains, however the action is captured in an unimpressive manner. A lot of edit patterns and jump cuts are fascinating, but finesse is missing when things are simple, the packaging fails to engross. VFX is a mixed bag, the models look neat during the static shots, but the motions aren’t done right to make the sequences believable. Stunts lack punch, the approach is realistic but the output feels hurried.

Bottomline

Fantasy element is fine when it stands alone, falters when blent with reality. The film misses to hold the interest except for the initial chunk in the latter half. Had immense potential to be a hard-hitting flick, but it never took off from the ground level.

hindi:- थंगालान समीक्षा: पा रंजीत की फिल्म कुछ कल्पना और रहस्यमय यथार्थवाद से जुड़ी हुई है। विक्रम के प्रशंसकों के लिए यह फिल्म अवश्य देखें।

थंगालान एक पीरियड एक्शन ड्रामा है, जिसमें विक्रम, पार्वती थिरुवोथु और मालविका मोहनन मुख्य भूमिकाओं में हैं।

फिल्म का निर्देशन पा रंजीत ने किया है, जिसका निर्माण स्टूडियो ग्रीन के.ई. ज्ञानवेल राजा ने किया है और संगीत जी.वी. प्रकाश कुमार ने दिया है।

प्रस्तावना:

अंग्रेज धन की तलाश में हैं, वे आदिवासी लोगों को अपने लिए काम पर ले जाते हैं। विक्रम को सेना को गोल्ड-रश क्षेत्र में ले जाने के लिए अजीबोगरीब दृश्य दिखाई देते हैं। उसके बाद क्या होता है, यही कहानी का सार है।

लेखन/निर्देशन:

फिल्म का आधार गोल्ड है, फिल्म दिखाती है कि 19वीं सदी में हमारे शासकों ने इसे कैसे संभाला।

भूदृश्य, लोगों के देखने के तरीके और उनके द्वारा इस्तेमाल किए जाने वाले शब्दों के संदर्भ में अच्छी तरह से शोध किया गया है, जो दर्शकों को निश्चित रूप से समय में पीछे ले जाएगा।

फंतासी तत्व दिलचस्प है, इसका गतिशील विकास फिल्म के कुछ सराहनीय पहलुओं में से एक है, इसका समापन समझ में आता है, दुख की बात है कि इसे जल्दबाजी में बनाया गया है, जिससे कोई प्रभाव नहीं पड़ता।

पहला भाग एक साहसिक फिल्म की तरह है, जिसमें कई अलग-अलग थीम आजमाई गई हैं, लेकिन परिणाम बेहद सपाट है।

लड़ाई के दृश्यों में क���ई स्पष्टता नहीं है कि कौन जीत रहा है और कौन हार रहा है, ब्लैक पैंथर का दृश्य खराब दृष्टि के साथ एक बड़ा डफ है और भारी धुएं के प्रभाव का उपयोग दृश्य मानक को कम करता है।

पसुपथी के हास्य भाग सूखी पटकथा के लिए एक बड़ी राहत हैं। दूसरा भाग कुछ अच्छे दृश्यों के साथ एक आशाजनक नोट पर शुरू होता है, जिसमें नए कपड़े प्राप्त करने के लिए जनजातियों की खुशी प्रदर्शित होती है, कैसे ब्रिटिश जनजाति के साथ सम्मान के साथ व्यवहार करते हैं जब तक कि वे गोल्ड तक नहीं पहुंच जाते और उसके बाद अपना असली स्वरूप दिखाते हैं, आदि���

इसके बाद फिल्म सुस्त हो जाती है क्योंकि गुलामी वाला हिस्सा स्क्रीन पर भावनात्मक नहीं बन पाता है, भुगतान भी बहुत कमजोर है क्योंकि एक भद्दा प्लेट पेश किया जाता है जिसे पचाना मुश्किल है।

फिल्म की सबसे बड़ी कमी कलाकारों के संवादों का उतार-चढ़ाव है जो शायद उस दौर के हिसाब से प्रामाणिक है, लेकिन इसे समझने और समझने के लिए नरक से गुजरना पड़ा।

प्रदर्शन:

चियान विक्रम के असीम प्रयास स्क्रीन पर स्पष्ट हैं, मेकओवर, बॉडी लैंग्वेज और भावों में बहुत विविधता दिखाते हैं।

पार्वती थिरुवोथु स्क्रीन पर बहुत सहज रूप से सहज हैं, नायक के साथ उनके दृश्य जीवंत हैं, लेकिन स्क्रिप्ट में उनके बीच की केमिस्ट्री का उपयोग करने के लिए और अधिक की आवश्यकता थी।

मालविका मोहनन के लिए काफी चुनौतीपूर्ण भूमिका, उन्होंने अपना सर्वश्रेष्ठ दिया है, बस काश उनके पास अपनी पूरी क्षमता साबित करने के लिए और अधिक हाइलाइट एक्शन दृश्य होते। पसुपति के किरदार की शुरुआत आकर्षक थी, लेकिन फिर आर्क को बिना उचित अंत दिए अचानक छोड़ दिया गया।

पत्थर के चेहरे वाले खलनायक, विदेशी अभिनेताओं के अभिनय की समस्या जो कि अधिकांश भारतीय फिल्मों में होती है, यहाँ भी मौजूद है।

अन्य सहायक पात्रों को आधे-अधूरे तरीके से लिखा गया है कि हम उनके लिए कुछ महसूस नहीं कर पाते।

तकनीकी बातें:

जी.वी.प्रकाश द्वारा किया गया बेहतरीन काम, कुल मिलाकर बेहतरीन गाने, खास तौर पर मिनिक्की मिनिक्की ट्रैक सबसे अलग है और इसे फिल्म में खूबसूरती से रखा गया है।

सॉलिड स्कोर, उनके संगीत ने कई कमज़ोर स्थितियों को बेहतर बनाया, उन्होंने इस बात पर भी ध्यान दिया कि कौन से इंस्ट्रूमेंट का इस्तेमाल करना है।

विज़ुअल बेहतरीन हैं, प्रोडक्शन वैल्यू और लोकेशन रेकी ने टीम को नए इलाकों की खोज करने के लिए प्रेरित किया है, हालांकि एक्शन को बहुत ही कमज़ोर तरीके से कैप्चर किया गया है।

एडिट पैटर्न और जंप कट बहुत आकर्षक हैं, लेकिन जब चीजें सरल होती हैं तो बारीकियाँ गायब हो जाती हैं, पैकेजिंग भी ध्यान खींचने में विफल हो जाती है।

वीएफएक्स एक मिश्रित बैग है, स्टैटिक शॉट्स के दौरान मॉडल साफ-सुथरे दिखते हैं, लेकिन दृश्यों को विश्वसनीय बनाने के लिए गति सही तरीके से नहीं की गई है। स्टंट में दम नहीं है, दृष्टिकोण यथार्थवादी है लेकिन आउटपुट जल्दबाजी में किया गया लगता है।

��ॉटमलाइन

फ़ैंटेसी एलिमेंट अकेले होने पर ठीक है, लेकिन वास्तविकता के साथ घुलने-मिलने पर यह कमज़ोर पड़ जाता है।

फिल्म के दूसरे हिस्से में शुरुआती हिस्से को छोड़कर बाकी हिस्सा दिलचस्पी बनाए रखने में विफल रहा। इसमें एक दमदार फिल्म बनने की अपार संभावना थी, लेकिन यह कभी भी जमीनी स्तर पर आगे नहीं बढ़ पाई।

[reachexceedinggrasp]

Would love to hear about your beefs with Lucas because I have beefs with Lucas

(Sorry it took me three thousand years to answer this, anon.)

They mainly fall under a few headings, with the third being the most serious and the thing that I am genuinely irl furious about at least biannually (and feeling unable to adequately sum up The Problem with it after yelling about it so often is a huge part of why this post has been in my drafts for such a long time):

1. His self-mythologising and the subsequent uncritical repetition of his bullshit in the fandom. Obvious lies like that he had some master plan for 10 films when it’s clear he did not have anything like a plot outline at any point. We all know the thing was written at the seat of various people’s pants, it’s blatantly self-evident that’s the case. There’s also plenty of public record about how the OT was written. Even dumber, more obvious lies, like that Anakin was ‘always the protagonist’ and the entire 6 films were his story from the beginning. This is preposterous and every time someone brings it up (usually with palpable smugness) as fanboys ‘not understanding star wars’ because they don't get that ‘the OT is not Luke's story’... Yeah, I just... I cannot.

Vader wasn’t Anakin Skywalker until ESB, it’s a retcon. It’s a brilliant retcon and it works perfectly, it elevated SW into something timeless and special it otherwise would not have been, but you can tell it wasn’t the original plan and there’s proof it wasn’t the original plan. Let’s not pretend. And Luke is the protagonist. No amount of waffling about such esoteric flights of theory as ‘ring structure’ is going to get away from the rigidly orthodox narrative and the indisputable fact that it is Luke’s hero’s journey. Vader’s redemption isn’t about his character development (he has almost none) and has no basis in any kind of convincing psychological reality for his character, but it doesn’t need to be because it’s part of Luke’s arc, because Vader is entirely a foil in Luke’s story. It’s a coming-of-age myth about confronting and growing beyond the father.

All attempts to de-centre Luke in RotJ just break the OT’s narrative logic. It’s a character-driven story and the character driving is Luke. Trying to read it as Anakin’s victory, the moral culmination of his choices rather than Luke’s and putting all the agency into Anakin’s hands just destroys the trilogy’s coherence and ignores most of its content in favour of appropriating a handful of scenes into an arc existing only in the prequels. The dilemma of RotJ is how Luke will define ethical adulthood after learning and growing through two previous films worth of challenge, education, failure, and triumph; it’s his choice to love his father and throw down his sword which answers the question the entire story has been asking. Vader’s redemption and the restoration of the galaxy are the consequences of that choice which tell us what kind of world we’re in, but the major dramatic conflict was resolved by Luke’s decision not the response to it.

And, just all over, the idea of Lucas as an infallible auteur is inaccurate and annoying to me. Obviously he’s a tremendous creative force and we wouldn’t have sw without him, but he didn’t create it alone or out of whole cloth. The OT was a very collaborative effort and that’s why it’s what it is and the prequels are what they are. Speaking of which.

2. The hubris of the prequels in general and all the damage their many terrible, protected-from-editors choices do to the symbolic fabric of the sw universe. Midicholrians, Yoda fighting with a lightsabre, Obi-wan as Anakin's surrogate father instead of his peer, incoherent and unmotivated character arcs, the laundry list of serious and meaningful continuity errors, the bad storytelling, the bad direction, the bad characterisation, the shallowness of the parallels which undermine the OT’s imagery, the very clumsy and contradictory way the A/P romance was handled, the weird attitude to romance in general, it goeth on. I don’t want to re-litigate the entire PT here and I’m not going to, but they are both bad as films and bad as prequels. The main idea of them, to add Anakin’s pov and create an actual arc for him as well as to flesh out the themes of compassion and redemption, was totally appropriate. The concept works as a narrative unit, there are lots of powerful thematic elements they introduce, they have a lot of cool building blocks, it’s only in execution and detail that they do a bunch of irreparable harm.

But the constant refrain that only ageing fanboys don’t like them and they only don’t like them because of their themes or because they humanise Anakin... can we not. The shoddy film making in the prequels is an objective fact. If you want to overlook the bad parts for the good or prioritise ideas over technique, that’s fine, but don’t sit here and tell me they’re masterworks of cinema there can be no valid reason to criticise. I was the exact right age for them when I saw them, I am fully on board with the fairy tale nature of sw, I am fully on board with humanising Anakin- the prequels just have a lot of very big problems with a) their scripts and b) their direction, especially of dialogue scenes. If Lucas had acknowledged his limitations like he did back in the day instead of believing his own press, he could have again had the help he obviously needed instead of embarrassing himself.

3. Killing and suppressing the original original trilogy. I consider the fact that the actual original films are not currently available in any form, have never been available in an archival format, and have not been presented in acceptable quality since the VHS release a very troubling case study in the problems of corporate-owned art. LF seizing prints of the films whenever they are shown, destroying the in-camera negatives to make the special editions with no plans to restore them, and doing all in the company’s considerable power to suppress the original versions is something I consider an act of cultural vandalism. The OT defined a whole generation of Hollywood. It had a global impact on popular entertainment. ANH is considered so historically significant it was one of the first films added to the US Library of Congress (Lucas refused to provide even them with a print of the theatrical release, so they made their own viewable scan from the 70s copyright submission).

The fact that the films which made that impact cannot be legally accessed by the public is offensive to me. The fact that Lucas has seen fit to dub over or composite out entire performances (deleting certain actors from the films), to dramatically alter the composition of shots chosen by the original directors, to radically change the entire stylistic tone by completely reinventing the films’ colour timing in attempt to make them match the plasticy palate of the prequels, to shoot new scenes for movies he DID NOT DIRECT, add entire sequences or re-edit existing sequences to the point of being unrecognisable etc. etc. is NOT OKAY WITH ME when he insists that his versions be the ONLY ones available.

I’m okay with the Special Editions existing, though I think they’re mostly... not good... but I’m not okay with them replacing the original films. And all people can say is ‘well, they’re his movies’.

Lucas may have clear legal ownership in the capitalistic sense, but in no way does he have clear artistic ownership. Forget the fans, I’m not one of those people who argue the fans are owed something: A film is always a collaborative exercise and almost never can it be said that the end product is the ultimate responsibility and possession of one person. Even the auteur directors aren't the sole creative vision, even a triple threat like Orson Welles still had cinematographers and production designers, etc. Hundreds of artists work on films. Neither a writer nor a director (nor one person who is both) is The Artist behind a film the way a novelist is The Artist behind a novel. And Lucas did NOT write the screenplays for or direct ESB or RotJ. So in what sense does he have a moral right to alter those films from what the people primarily involved in making them deemed the final product? In what sense would he have the right to make a years-later revision the ONLY version even if he WERE the director?

Then you get into the issue of the immeasurable cultural impact those films had in their original form and the imperative to preserve something that is defining to the history of film and the state of the zeitgeist. I don't think there is any ‘fan entitlement’ involved in saying the originals belonged to the world after being part of its consciousness for decades and it is doing violence to the artistic record to try to erase the films which actually occupied that space. It's exactly like trying to replace every copy of It's a Wonderful Life with a colourised version (well, it's worse but still), and that was something Lucas himself railed against. It’s like if Michaelangelo were miraculously resuscitated and he decided to repaint the Sistine Ceiling to add a gunfight and change his style to something contemporary.

I get genuinely very upset at the cold reality that generations of people are watching sw for the first time and it’s the fucking SE-except-worse they’re seeing. And as fewer people keep physical media and the US corporate oligarchy continues to perform censorship and rewrite history on its streaming services unchecked by any kind of public welfare concerns, you’ll see more and more ‘real Mandela effect’ type shit where the cultural record has suddenly ‘always’ been in line with whatever they want it to be just now. And US media continues to infect us all with its insidious ubiquity. I think misrepresenting and censoring the past is an objectively bad thing and we can’t learn from things we pretend never happened, but apparently not many people are worried about handing the keys to our collective experience to Disney and Amazon.

4. The ‘Jedi don’t marry’ thing and how he wanted this to continue with Luke post-RotJ, so it’s obviously not meant to be part of what was wrong with the order in the prequels. I find this... incoherent on a storytelling level. The moral of the anidala story then indeed becomes just plain ‘romantic love is bad and will make you crazy’, rather than the charitable reading of the prequels which I ascribe to, which is that the problem isn’t Anakin’s love for Padmé, it’s that he ceased to love her and began to covet her. And I can’t help but feel this attitude is maybe an expression of GL’s issues with women following his divorce. I don’t remember if there’s evidence to contradict that take, since it’s been some time since I read about this but yeah. ANH absolutely does sow seeds for possible Luke/Leia development and GL was still married while working on that film. Subsequently he was dead set against Luke ever having a relationship and decided Jedi could not marry. Coincidence?

There’s a lot of blinking red ‘issues with women’ warning signs all over Lucas’s work, but the prequels are really... egregious.

[letterboxd]

Noir Zealand Road Trip.

Breakout noir filmmaker James Ashcroft speaks to Letterboxd’s Indigenous editor Leo Koziol about his chilling new movie Coming Home in the Dark—and reveals how Blue Velvet, Straw Dogs and a bunch of cult New Zealand thrillers are all a part of his Life in Film.

“Many different types of feet walk across those lands, and the land in that sense is quite indifferent to who is on it. I like that duality. I like that sense of we’re never as safe as we would like to think.” —James Ashcroft

In his 1995 contribution to the British Film Institute’s Century of Cinema documentary series, Sam Neill described the unique sense of doom and darkness presented in films from Aotearoa New Zealand as the “Cinema of Unease”.

There couldn’t be a more appropriate addition to this canon than Māori filmmaker James Ashcroft’s startling debut Coming Home in the Dark, a brutal, atmospheric thriller about a family outing disrupted by an enigmatic madman who calls himself Mandrake, played in a revelatory performance by Canadian Kiwi actor Daniel Gillies (previously best known for CW vampire show The Originals, and as John Jameson in Spider-Man 2). Award-winning Māori actress Miriama McDowell is also in the small cast—her performance was explicitly singled out by Letterboxd in our Fantasia coverage.

Based on a short story by acclaimed New Zealand writer Owen Marshall, Ashcroft wrote the screenplay alongside longtime collaborator Eli Kent. It was a lean shoot, filmed over twenty days on a budget of just under US $1 million. The film is now in theaters, following its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, where it made something of an impact.

Erik Thomson, Matthias Luafutu, Daniel Gillies and Miriama McDowell in a scene from ‘Coming Home in the Dark’.

Creasy007 described the film as “an exciting New Zealand thriller that grabs you tight and doesn’t let you go until the credits are rolling.” Jacob wrote: “One of the most punishingly brutal—both viscerally and emotionally—first viewings I’ve enjoyed in quite a while. Will probably follow James Ashcroft’s career to the gates of Hell after this one.”

Filmgoers weren’t the only ones impressed: Legendary Entertainment—the gargantuan production outfit behind the Dark Knight trilogy and Godzilla vs. Kong—promptly snapped up Ashcroft to direct their adaptation of Devolution, a high-concept novel by World War Z author Max Brooks about a small town facing a sasquatch invasion after a volcanic eruption. (“I find myself deep in Sasquatch mythology and learning a lot about volcanoes at the moment,” says the director, who is also writing the adaptation with Kent.)

Although Coming Home in the Dark marks his feature debut, Ashcroft has been working in the creative arts for many years as an actor and theater director, having previously run the Māori theater company Taki Rua. As he explains below, his film taps into notions of indigeneity in subtle, non-didactic ways. (Words in the Māori language are explained throughout the interview.)

Kia ora [hello] James. How did you come to be a filmmaker? James Ashcroft: I’ve always loved film. I worked in video stores from the age thirteen to 21. That’s the only other ‘real job’ I’ve ever had. I trained as an actor, and worked as an actor for a long time. So I had always been playing around with film. My first student allowance that I was given when I went to university, I bought a camera, I didn’t pay for my rent. I bought a little handheld Sony camera. We used to make short films with my flatmates and friends, so I’ve always been dabbling and wanting to move into that.

After being predominantly involved with theater, I sort of reached my ceiling of what I wanted to do there. It was time to make a commitment and move over into pursuing and creating a slate of scripts, and making that first feature step into the industry. My main creative collaborator is Eli Kent, who I’ve been working with for seven years now. We’re on our ninth script, I think.

But Coming Home in the Dark, that was our first feature. It was the fifth script we had written, and that was very much about [it] being the first cab off the rank; about being able to find a work that would fit into the budget level that we could reasonably expect from the New Zealand Film Commission. I also wanted to make sure that piece was showing off my strengths and interests—being a character-focused, actor-focused piece—and something that we could execute within those constraints and still deliver truthfully and authentically to the story that we wanted to tell and showcase the areas of interest that I have as a filmmaker, which have always been genre.

Do you see the film more as a horror or a thriller? We’ve never purported to be a horror. We think that the scenario is horrific, some of the events that happen are horrific, but this has always been a thriller for me and everyone involved. I think, sometimes, because of the premiere and the space that it was programmed in at Sundance, being in the Midnight section, there’s a sort of an association with horror or zany comedy. For us it’s more about, if anything, the psychological horror aspect of the story. 

It’s violent in places, obviously, but there’s very little violence actually committed on screen. It’s the suggestion. The more terrifying thing is what exists in the viewer’s mind [rather] than necessarily what you can show on screen. My job as a storyteller is to provoke something that you can then flesh out and embellish more in your own psyche and emotions. It’s a great space, the psychological thriller, because it can deal with the dramatic as well as some of those more heightened, visceral moments that horror also can touch on.

Director James Ashcroft. / Photo by Stan Alley

There’s a strong Māori cast in your film. Do you see yourself as a Māori filmmaker, or a filmmaker who is Maori? Well, I’m a Māori everything. I’m a father, I’m a husband, I’m a friend. Everything that I do goes back to my DNA and my whakapapa [lineage]. So that’s just how I view my identity and my world. In terms of categorizing it, I don’t put anything in front of who I am as a storyteller. I’m an actor, I’m a director. I follow the stories that sort of haunt me more than anything. They all have something to do with my experience and how I see the world through my identity and my life—past, present and hopefully future.

In terms of the cast, Matthias Luafutu [who plays Mandrake’s sidekick Tubs], he’s Samoan. Miriama McDowell [who plays Jill, the mother of the family] is Māori. I knew that this story, in the way that I wanted to tell it, was always going to feature Māori in some respect. Both the ‘couples’, I suppose you could say—Hoaggie [Erik Thomson] and Jill on one side and Tubs and Mandrake on the other—I knew one of each would be of a [different] culture. So I knew I wanted to mirror that.

Probably more than anything, I knew if I had to choose one role that was going to be played by a Māori actor, it was definitely going to be Jill, because for me, Jill’s the character that really is the emotional core and our conduit to the story. Her relationship with the audience, we have to be with her—a strong middle-class working mother who has a sort of a joy-ness at the beginning of the film and then goes through quite a number of different emotions and realizations as it goes along.

Those are sometimes the roles that Māori actors, I often feel, don’t get a look at usually. That’s normally a different kind of actor that gets those kinds of roles. And then obviously when Miriama McDowell auditions for you it’s just a no-brainer, because she can play absolutely anything and everything. I have a strong relationship with Miriama from drama-school days, so I knew how to work with her on that.

Once you put a stake in the ground with her, then we go, right, so this is a biracial family, and her sons are going to be Māori and that’s where the Paratene brothers, who are brothers in real life, came into the room, and we were really taken with them immediately. We threw out a lot of their scripted dialogue in the end because what we are casting is that fundamental essence and energy that exists between two real brothers that just speaks volumes more than any dialogue that Eli and I could write.

Matthias Luafutu as Tubs in ‘Coming Home in the Dark’.

What was your approach to the locations? [The area we shot in] is very barren and quite harsh. I spent a lot of time there in my youth, and I find them quite beautiful places. They are very different kinds of landscapes than you normally see in films from our country. We didn’t want to go down The Lord of the Rings route of images from the whenua [land] that are lush mountains and greens and blues, even though that’s what Owen Marshall had written.

I was very keen, along with Matt Henley, our cinematographer, to find that duality in the landscape as well, because the whole story is about that duality in terms of people, in terms of this world, and that grey space. So that’s why we chose to film in those areas.

Regarding the scene where Tubs sprinkles himself with water: including this Māori spiritual element in the film created quite a contrast. That character had partaken in something quite evil, yet still follows a mundane cultural tradition around death. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah. I’m not really interested in black-and-white characters of any kind. I want to find that grey space that allows them to live within more layers in the audience’s mind. So for me—and having family who have spent time in jail, or knowing people who have gone through systems like state-care institutions as well as moving on to prison—just because you have committed a crime or done something in one aspect of your life, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t room and there aren’t other aspects that inform your identity that you also carry.

It’s something that he’s adopted for whatever reasons to ground him in who he is. And they can sit side by side with being involved in some very horrendous actions, but also from Tubs’ perspective, these are actions which are committed in the name of survival. You start to get a sense Mandrake enjoys what he does rather than doing it for just a means to the end. So any moment that you can start to create a greater sense of duality in a person, I think that means that there’s an inner life to a world, to a character, that’s starting to be revealed. That’s an invitation for an audience to lean into that character.

Erik Thomson and Daniel Gillies in ‘Coming Home in the Dark’.

What is the film that made you want to get into filmmaking? The biggest influence on me is probably David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. I saw that when I was ten years old. A babysitter, my cousin, rented it. It’s not a film that a ten-year-old should see, by the way. I was in Lower Hutt, there in my aunty’s house, and it was very cold, and there’s a roaring fire going. My cousin and her boyfriend were sitting on a couch behind me, and they started making out. I sort of knew something was going on behind me and not to look. So I was stuck between that and Dennis Hopper huffing nitrous, and this very strange, strange world opening up before me on the television.

I’ve had a few moments like that in my life [where a] film, as well as the circumstance, sort of changed how I view the world. I think something died that day, but obviously something was born. You can see what Lynch did in those early works, especially Blue Velvet. You don’t have to go too far beneath the surface of suburbia or what looks normal and nice and welcoming to find that there’s a complete flip-side. There’s that duality to our world, which we like to think might be far away, but it’s actually closer than you think.

That speaks to Coming Home in the Dark and why that short story resonated with me the first time I read it. Even in the most beautiful, scenically attractive places in our land, many different types of feet walk across those lands, and the land in that sense is quite indifferent to who is on it. I like that duality. I like that sense of we’re never as safe as we would like to think. Blue Velvet holds a special place in my heart.

What other films did you have in mind when forming your approach to Coming Home in the Dark? Straw Dogs, the Peckinpah film. The original. Just because it plays in that grey space. Obviously times have changed, and you read the film in different ways now as you might have when it first came out. But that was a big influence because there was a moral ambiguity to that film; those lines of good and bad or black and white, they don’t apply anymore. It just becomes about what happens when people are put under extreme pressure and duress, and they abandon all sense of morals. The Offence by Sidney Lumet would be another one, very much drawn to that ’70s ilk of American and English filmmaking.

‘Coming Home in the Dark’ was filmed on location around the wider Wellington region of New Zealand.

Is there a New Zealand film that’s influenced you significantly? There’s a few. I remember watching The Lost Tribe when it was on TV. That really scared me. I just remember the sounds of it. Mr. Wrong was a great ghost story. That stuck with me for a long time. The Scarecrow. Once I discovered Patu! [Merata Mita’s landmark documentary about the protests against the apartheid-era South African rugby tour of New Zealand in 1981], that sort of blew everything out of the water, because that was actually my first induction and education that this was something that even occurred. I think I saw that when I was about eighteen. That this was something that occurred in our history and had ramifications that were other than just a rugby game.

And Utu, every time I watch that, it doesn’t lose its resonance. I get something new from it every time. It’s a great amalgamation of identity, culture, of genre, and again, plays in that grey space of accountability. Utu still has that power for me. It’s one of those films, when it’s playing, I’ll end up sitting down and just being glued to the screen.

It’s a timeless classic. I will admit that when I watched your film, The Scarecrow did immediately come to mind, as did Garth Maxwell’s Jack Be Nimble. Yeah. [Jack Be Nimble] was really frightening. Again, it was that clash of many different aspects. There was a psychosexual drama there. You’ve got this telekinetic mind control and that abuse and that hunkering down of an isolated family. There are plenty of New Zealand films that have explored a sort of similar territory. They’re all coming to me now.

Bad Blood has a great sense of atmosphere and photography and the use of soundscape to create that shocking sense of isolation and terror in these quick, fast, brutal moments, which then just sort of are left to ring in the air. But I love so much of New Zealand cinema, especially the stuff from the ’80s.

Kia ora [good luck], James. Kia ora.

Related content

Leo’s Letterboxd list of Aotearoa New Zealand Scary-As Movies Adapted from Literature

Dave’s Cinema of Unease list

A Brutal Stillness: Gregory’s list of patient, meditative genre films

Sailordanae’s list of Indigenous directors of the Americas

Follow Leo on Letterboxd

‘Coming Home in the Dark’ is available now in select US theaters and on VOD in the US and New Zealand. All photographs by Stan Alley / GoldFish Creative. Comments have been edited for length and clarity.

[wandaposting]

I still stand by this, having someone as sympathetic and genuine as Monica (who also directly experienced what the westview citizens were dealing with, albeit for less time but still, and was even the one to verbalize it as the weighing grief and almost overflowing agony we now know it to be) say that "they'll never know what you sacrificed for them" is one of biggest disservices to her character in the limited time we've known her. This wasn't some big bad starting shit where Wanda came in after the fact, hell Hayward and even Agatha didn't show up until after the bubble was up, this was all directly her starting and her doing. Sure, the argument could be made that she didn't know right away, but as even you pointed out, there are several different instances where she was shown something was off/out of place. Not to mention, the mcu *really* doubling down on her telepathy and then just. Not having her acknowledge the suppression and undoubted agony radiating off of 3k+ westview citizens? x for doubt y'all

The fact that it's almost treated like westview and everyone are wrong or even unreasonable for being upset with/at her is a little upsetting too? Yes, Wanda has canonically always tried her best and things tend to go sideways, but this isn't a case where her reappearing well-intentions make up for the chaos and (in this case, largely mental, but I don't doubt a few people have some bruises or swelling from that little sequence before she started reopening the hex) destruction that tends to follow her in the mcu. No matter how well- intentioned she's been/may have been in the past, people know her name and face for a reason. The mcu in general has this weird idea that Wanda is their starting point for a 'they hate me solely for my powers' storyline when she really isn't the best starting point for that lmao. Well-intentioned or no, intentional or not, mcu-specific Wanda's story has chaos following her everywhere she goes- and by association, a fear of her inherent presence bc of that following chaos and destruction. Obviously people like Hayward and Ross exist solely to yell about metahumans to the clouds and obviously the chaos and destruction come to fruition inherently bc of her power's presence, but solely blaming the general public's fear of her on the fact that she has powers and not bc of literally everything else is a little meh to me.

Literally, look at westview. A place meant for her to have a home, a place in the world, and it ends w her going into "self-isolation" after she spent a week plus holding a town of 3k physically and mentally hostage? That isn't something that can be 'well, actually' ed away or 'she has depression, so'ed away bc of her grief and issues- especially when there were several opportunities for an out earlier on. It's all just treated weird and not even really Wanda-leaning to me, like it's a good moment for her and everyone is against her be of her powers X-men style, it just feels rushed and disingenuous. Especially after those lines from Monica? Managed to mischaracterize her already and we're only been with her for about an hour total

the narrative that so obviously wanted to characterize wanda and monica as ultimately goodhearted and emotionally empathetic characters was definitely, jarringly at odds with how the westview finale unfolded. this is not so much me ragging on the characters themselves because “those poor westview npcs,” or me making a big deal out of a house of m adaptation that’s still better than house of m, but me being bummed out that they really flubbed this one critical element of her development, that they could have done much better with, with only minor adjustments to the screenplay.

maybe something was lost when the pandemic interfered with the production, maybe they were rushed. i like to think the pre-pandemic wandavision plans wouldn’t have varied drastically from what we got (minus the darcy/monica/boner/minimoffs vs Demonic Senior Scratchy scene that WOULDA BEEN NICE TO SEE). but if it did, i kind of wish they would’ve taken the time they needed to fine tune these elements instead of dumping it on that early release date. we might’ve gotten something much more special.

on the other hand ... wonder woman 1984 was delayed repeatedly, and they (albeit a different production) still thought it was a good idea to keep that creepy steve trevor body possession plot point, which was a disservice to diana’s character despite the general goofy fun of the film.

this feels like the exact same situation amplified by the population of westview lksjflskd

[sceptilemasterr]

Defenders of the Flame (TE Rewrite) Act 1, Scene 10 - New Routine

Title: Defenders of the Flame (A CIU Screenplay)

Main Pairings: Shreya x F!MC, Beckett x F!Atlas

Other Pairings: N/A

Genre: Full Rewrite (The Elementalists, Book 1)

Rating: PG-13 for violence, blood, swearing, alcohol, and sexuality

Summary: Fiora and her friends settle into their routine as Penderghast students.

Previous Scene: Theory and Practice

Masterlist: Link

INT. PENDERGHAST CAMPUS - VARIOUS LOCATIONS - DAY

MONTAGE

Some time later, Fiora and her friends sit in Dr. Religast’s Stoicheal Theory course once again. Dr. Religast points to a diagram of a human body with an illuminated elemental symbol in the center of it.

DR. RELIGAST: ...as stoichi is innate in all things, so too is it innate within ourselves. Innate stoichi can be divided into three base components. Can anyone describe these for me?

Beckett’s hand launches up as usual, but Fiora is only half paying attention. Shreya whispers something in her ear, and the two of them giggle...

* * *

In the same auditorium, another professor named DR. RALLAH teaches History of Attuned Society. She is an older woman with a severe face and a flat, droning voice. Fiora practices with a small votive candle beneath her desk, trying to coax the flame out toward her hand.

DR. RALLAH: ...during this time Attuned still lived side-by-side with Attuneless societies in the Archikial Realm. While the two groups had known of each other’s existence prior to this, they largely kept to themselves; Attuned kept to themselves in scattered, small societies separated by Attunement. This changed during and after the Second Thunder War, in which several Fire-Attuneds played a pivotal role. One of them would go on to become King-Consort Dominic Rys of Cordonia, ushering in an era of Attuned-Attuneless cooperation and peace...

Zeph has fallen asleep, drooling on his desk. Shreya watches Fiora’s practice attempts with rapt attention, ignoring the professor completely. Even Beckett is beginning to look bored, his note-taking becoming slower and slower...

* * *

In Dr. Englund’s ASTP class, Fiora and the others stand in groups of two, using their Attunements to form shapes with large sources of their respective elements. At one point, while she and Shreya are attempting to shape their campfire into a floating rectangle, she briefly loses control and the flame starts to expand.

DR. ENGLUND: Ms. Luxen!

ZEPH: On it!

Zeph rushes to the scene, dragging the water from his own assignment over his head. Beckett sprints toward Fiora as well, forming his block of metal into a large blanket that he drapes over part of the fire, while Zeph douses the remainder with his water. The two of them look at each other and smile.

BECKETT: Well done. Zephyr, was it?

ZEPH: Call me Zeph. And you did a nice job, yourself!

DR. ENGLUND: Right then. Back to your assignment, all of you.

Fiora blushes, then shrugs as Dr. Englund produces a second campfire, already lit, and places it in front of them.

DR. ENGLUND: ...I have three more of these on standby just in case, Ms. Luxen.

* * *

Outside on the quad, near a patch of forest, Dr. Kontos teaches Natural Studies. The class, divided up by Attunement, watches as he brings out several crates full of tiny creatures known as Attuned Companions.

DR. KONTOS: A Companion is more than a pet. They are your friend, your ally... and also your greatest strength, if you give them the love, care, and effort that they deserve. Remember this well, all of you. We will be tracking your progress with your Companions as the class progresses.

He passes out creatures to the class: Zeph and the other Water-Atts get small, blue, fox-like creatures called Arylus. Fiora, Shreya, and the other Fire-Atts get tiny flying dragons called Lumians. Beckett and the Metal-Atts get orangish-silver froglike Companions called Gorgues. Beckett looks down at his Companion with confusion. The Gorgue croaks at him.

BECKETT: What am I supposed to do with this?

DR. KONTOS: You raise him. Raise him well, Mr. Harrington.

BECKETT: Right. Naturally, sir. My apologies.

Fiora squeals and hugs her Lumian tightly.

FIORA: Okay, this thing is cute and awesome all at the same time. I am so naming him ‘Dracarys!’

Shreya stares at her in confusion.

SHREYA: ...Does that mean something?

FIORA: Wait, don’t tell me you’ve never seen-- oh, right, duh. Never mind. Anyway, hi, Dracarys!

Dracarys lets out a high-pitched roar, with a tiny tuft of flame emerging from his mouth when he does so. Shreya’s own Lumian floats over to Dracarys and the two start flying around one another.

SHREYA: Aww, they like each other! Well, I’m going to name mine ‘Rys.’

FIORA: Okay, now it’s my turn to ask why.

SHREYA: Rys! You know, as in the famous Tuneless queen who was the first to unify Attuned and Tuneless? Kenna Rys? ...Please, I’m sure Dr. Rallah must’ve mentioned her at some point in class!

FIORA: You’re telling me you actually pay attention in that class?

SHREYA (laughs): ...Okay, no. I read a novel about them when I was growing up, that’s all.

FIORA: Alright, that makes way more sense.

SHREYA: Come here, Rys! That’s a good girl!

She hugs Rys, who snuggles happily into her arms as Dracarys perches on Fiora’s shoulder.

FIORA: Best. Class. Ever!

* * *

Weeks pass by, and Fiora and her friends are once again in Stoicheal Theory class.

DR. RELIGAST: ...Those who have Primal Attunements are especially rare. 99 percent of all known Attuned have Base Attunements; the vast majority of those capable of utilizing Primal Forces have achieved this feat over time, rather than being born Attuned to a Primal Force. Now, the differences between...

Fiora takes some notes in between practicing with her candle under the desk, making the flame dance and form letters as Shreya does the same beside her. They spell their own names, then each other’s. Then Zeph whispers something in Shreya’s ear, and Shreya uses her flame to spell out “Bucket Harrington.” The three of them laugh quietly, and Beckett turns to see what they were all laughing at. He frowns.

BECKETT: How juvenile. ‘Bucket Harrington,’ as if...

But as Beckett turns back to focus on Dr. Religast, a faint smile forms on his face.

* * *

Beckett sits cross-legged on the grass outside as his Grogue sits on his head, croaking happily as he spits metal pebbles at insects buzzing nearby. Each time he scores a hit, he laps up the fallen insect with his tongue.

BECKETT: Grogue, would you please stop that racket?

BECKETT’S GROGUE: Ribbit!

ZEPH: Good boy! Ishi, come here!

Zeph claps, and his Arylu, ISHI, bounds happily over to him. He scratches the creature behind his ears.

ISHI: Ruff! Ruff!

Shreya and Fiora sit side-by-side, their Lumians flying around their heads as they feed them bits of raw meat, which the creatures cook with their flame breath before eating. Several nymphs and satyrs are scattered throughout the class, assisting some of the students; Aster is working with Shreya and Fiora and their Companions. Dr. Kontos walks through the group, looking down at each Attuned and their respective Companion in turn. He smiles at all of them until he gets to Beckett, then frowns.

DR. KONTOS: Mr. Harrington, I can’t help but notice you don’t seem to be applying yourself very well to this assignment. I was under the impression from your records that I could expect more from you.

BECKETT (defensively): I--

He looks down at the ground, suddenly embarrassed.

BECKETT: Yes, sir. I will try to do better in the future.

DR. KONTOS: See that you do.

Dr. Kontos walks away, and Beckett lifts his Grogue off his head and looks at him. The Grogue croaks back, then spits an iron pebble at Beckett’s forehead.

BECKETT: Heavens... what am I supposed to do with you, Grogue?

FIORA: You could start by giving him a name, y’know. Just saying. Isn’t that right, Dracarys?

She pats Dracarys on top of his head. The Lumian snorts contentedly.

BECKETT (bewildered): A name?

* * *

Dr. Rallah gives another lecture in History of Attuned Society. As Shreya and Zeph amuse themselves by manipulating a candle and a dish of water respectively, in a sort of element “duel,” Fiora peers over at Beckett’s notes. The camera follows her gaze to reveal that the notes devolve into barely-legible scribbles, then stop abruptly... as Beckett has fallen asleep. Fiora looks over at Shreya and mouths, ‘Wow.’ Shreya giggles.

ZEPH (whispering): Ha! Got you when you were distracted! I win again!

SHREYA (whispering): Oh, no you don’t. Best three out of five?

ZEPH (whispering): You’re on!

Oblivious to how little attention she is receiving from any of her students, Dr. Rallah drones on:

DR. RALLAH: ...and the Council made the decision for all of Attuned society to retreat into the Stoicheal Realm for safety. On September 9th, 1621, this decision was carried out on what we now know as the first Separation Day. Shortly thereafter, Attuned leaders engaged in a widespread campaign to eliminate any and all signs of Attuned presence in Attuneless society. This was largely successful, and by January 27th, 1623, it was decided...

* * *

DR. ENGLUND: Drawing out your own innate stoicheal energy into an external creation is more difficult than manipulating existing elements, so do not feel upset if you have trouble doing it at first. We have three weeks in which to practice this, after all!

Shreya and Fiora stand across from one another, their hands held in front of their chests as they concentrate. Dr. Englund walks past them, nodding, then continues on to Beckett, who holds his palm outstretched. A tiny film of metal has begun to form along one of his palm creases. Dr. Englund smiles approvingly.

DR. ENGLUND: A great first step, Mr. Harrington. But that doesn’t quite look like a sphere three inches across, so you’ve got a bit more work to do yet. Keep at it!

Beckett frowns as Dr. Englund walks away. Fiora gives him a look.

FIORA: Can’t win ‘em all, huh, Bucket?

BECKETT: I’ll have you know--

SHREYA: Oh! I’ve got it!

Shreya leaps excitedly as a small ball of flame coalesces between her palms. It hovers for a moment, then crashes to the ground, catching a nearby table on fire. Within a few seconds, Zeph is already there, launching a stream of water at the fire and putting it out.

ZEPH: Zeph’s Fire Control is on the scene! Wait-- Shreya?! Not Fiora? Whoa, plot twist!

He laughs, and a moment later, Shreya and Fiora join in as well... And then, surprisingly, so does Beckett.

ZEPH: Yes! Beckett, you actually laughed! I can’t believe it!

BECKETT: Well, you know, I do have a sense of humor. And it was indeed unexpected- and thus, amusing- to see Shreya being the cause of a fire accident rather than the usual culprit, since if--

ZEPH: Shh! No, no, no. Never explain a joke. It ruins it.

BECKETT: But I--

ZEPH: Just enjoy the moment! Trust me.

Reluctantly, Beckett smiles.

BECKETT: ‘Enjoy the moment.’ Yes, I suppose I can do that.

Zeph, Fiora, Shreya, and Beckett smile at one another before Beckett extends a hand to the three of them in turn, and they all shake hands.

BECKETT: Now then. Perhaps we can work together on this assignment?

SHREYA: I’d love to. Welcome to the club, Beckett!

BECKETT: ...What ‘club?’

ZEPH: The ‘Pend Pals,’ of course! Oh, and that reminds me, we’ve gotta introduce you to Griffin later. Officially, I mean.

BECKETT (muttering): ‘Pend Pals?’ Just what have I gotten myself into...?

END MONTAGE

_______________________

Scene Notes: I love writing montages; they’re fun! A little bit of worldbuilding stuff did get dropped here, so:

Attuned history! And yes, I did connect it with a familiar Choices book. Sometimes these crossovers just write themselves. As a result, this means at some point, Attuned (or at least Fire-Atts) were known to Tuneless society; Dr. Rallah’s second lecture describes when they went into hiding. (And yes, Dr. Rallah is one of those teachers who could, believe it or not, make even the events of TC&TF sound boring.)

Also, we finally get to see the Companions! Here there are only the three you’re familiar with from canon, but yes, each Attunement has its own species of Companion they’re assigned to. Lumians for Fire, Arylus for Water, and Grogues for Metal... the others will appear soon enough!

Timeline: Yes, we’re still inside the ES time jump. Specifically, Fiora’s first day of class was 8/13; this montage stretches for about three months, from 8/14 to 11/22. The Catalysts aren’t quite back from their time trip yet... but both Most Wanted end-credits scenes occur on 8/14, at the start of this montage.

_______________________

Next: The Girl in the Mirror

CIU Tag List: @brightpinkpeppercorn @endlesshero1122 @bbaba-yagaa @acidsugar0 @shaylan211 @griselda1121 @acanthisorbis @marmolady

DotF/Elementalists Tag List:

[themattress]

Holy Shit!

https://imgur.com/gallery/WKkli

https://imgur.com/gallery/j9OQylb

Beyond the proof that the guy who uploaded this is involved with Bad Robot that he provided at the end of his second post, these definitely seem legit because the first post was in 2018, before The Rise of Skywalker came out, yet the treatment contains some blatant concepts that ended up finding there way into that movie that I have a hard time believing anyone but J.J himself could have come up with (plus, the rest of the plot is very J.J-like, as I’ll get into.)

So these definitely seem to be the discarded Episode VIII and IX treatments. Thoughts?

- Luke’s reasons for coming to Ahch-To definitely seem more in line with TFA than in TLJ, seeing as if he wanted to just “go there to die” he wouldn’t have left a freaking map to the place behind, plus it seemed off that someone disillusioned with the Jedi ways would go to the site of the first Jedi Temple to begin with. His portrayal also matches what we saw at the end of TFA (seeming to be in mourning for Han), and fits the “kind but sad” description from the script. And far from cutting himself off from the Force, Luke has been influencing it from afar as part of his grand plan, explaining Rey’s vision when she touched his lightsaber.

- Luke has a wife and kids! Sadly for EU fans, the wife is not Mara Jade.

- It was Luke’s influence via the Force that explained the things Rey could do that fans deemed her a Mary Sue for, plus some other things that weren’t so routinely noted such as the remarkable coincidence that she and Finn just happened to run into Han and Chewie right after obtaining the Millennium Falcon. Not sure how well this would have gone down...

- Saccrum, Snoke’s home planet, is literally Exogol. Secret ancient Sith planet that is nigh impenetrable to all non-Sith, site of the final battle and (as we’ll soon learn) where Snoke is repeatedly cloned and where Palpatine is resurrected by Sith alchemists...it’s fucking Exogol.

- I recall concept art for Kylo Ren’s partly metallic face floating around.

- Dathan Naut seems cool, but she never really amounts to much.

- So it seems J.J Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan’s vision for the Sequel Trilogy always seemed to boil down to “All the generations of Jedi vs. all the generations of Sith reaching a climactic battle, with Skywalker vs. Palpatine at the heart of it, and the Palpatine who becomes a Skywalker as the key to victory.” That idea was always where they were going.

- Jedi/Sith Holocrons were always gonna be a thing, which is why Rebels worked them in.

- Live-action Ahsoka was also always an objective, it seems, and I bet the way they wrote her out in Rebels’ “Twilight of the Apprentice” was to potentially serve as a lead-in for her appearance in the Sequel Trilogy. But because that never came to pass, they brought her back toward the end of the series and set her on the new trajectory that she’s currently on. Honestly, I think that’s for the better, Ahsoka wouldn’t have really fit in the main film series.

- Not big on this Cfi-Xi character, she mainly seems to be here to “no homo” C-3PO. And her main role relating to the Sith Planet ended up played just fine by C-3PO in TROS anyway.

- BB-8 had the kind of fake-out death they ended up giving to Chewie.

- Wow, so Hux was supposed to die in Episode VIII and Phasma in Episode IX originally. Funny how that got totally flipped backward in the versions we actually ended up getting.

- OK, this “family time” that Rey’s getting is precious. It’s sad we didn’t get to see this.

- Hoo boy, “this is the bad ass Luke Skywalker we’ve been waiting for!” Really? Et tu, J.J and Kasdan? In light of the recent showing by Luke in The Mandalorian, I again question why this portrayal of the character is so widely beloved by fans when it has little to no basis in the OT.

- Rey vs. Kylo Ren in a raging ocean backdrop; here in Episode VIII rather than IX. Similarly, it’s a duel that Kylo clearly has in the bag, but a fluke in the Force allows Rey to survive, although I much prefer the fluke we got to the one this treatment proposes because....

- Goddamn it, J.J. You’re doing the time travel / time paradox shit again? Were Lost, Fringe and Star Trek not enough for you to explore that concept in? This is the biggest part of these treatment drafts that rubs me the wrong way, it’s just so needlessly convoluted and cliche.

- Also, yet another Mystery Box in Luke’s severed hand on Saccrum.

- No Jedi Leia in that flashback? Yeah, I can see why Kathleen Kennedy rejected this.

- Btw, Rian Johnson wasn’t the only one who was going to turn Luke into an asshole failure, it seems. Making this highly risky plan with Ben and not letting his parents know about it? Dick! 

- Snoke is the one who destroys Luke’s academy, not Kylo Ren. And he does so as he is dying; another clue-in that there’s more to Snoke than it seems given that he’s still around.

- Lando would have been in Episode IX anyway, albeit still running Cloud City.

- The idea for this Episode IX is that the Skywalkers are a Jedi dynasty that long predated Anakin (Shmi being a descendant of it), and the Palpatines were their Sith enemies. Sheev Palpatine also would have died his first death generations ago and was being constantly resurrected via clone bodies made on Saccrum ever since, so the one that Anakin killed wasn’t the original; Palpatine can’t be stopped unless Saccrum is destroyed. While not as convoluted as the time paradox shit, I appreciate the simpler route they ended up taking.

- J.J and Kasdan always wanted Rey’s father to be a defective Palpatine clone.

- There was never a planned origin for Snoke in these treatments; wherever he came from the bottom line was that Palpatine brought him onto his side by promising to share his key to immortality (constant cloned bodies made on Sacccrum) with him. Again, this ended up being simplified into Snoke just being a whole-sale creation of Palpatine’s from the very beginning.

- Since these are treatments, the “love” part of the dynamic between Rey and Kylo Ren is highly underdeveloped and would likely have been fleshed out in screenwriting. The end result, with the deprogramming vision of Rey and Darth Vader, sounds pretty effective though, but I think I much prefer the Leia death / vision of Han version that we ended up with.

- LOL, the “droid way of making love”. I want to see this idea repurposed someday.

- That’s an interesting twist on Alderaan, although it really doesn’t amount to anything given that the planet Leia grew up on and called home still got destroyed by the Death Star.

- “Magic blood”, another J.J-ism. Again, I much prefer the simpler version TROS gave us.

- The climax’s structure is basically the same as in TROS, with Rey (and others) heading to the Sith planet from Ahch-To and then Leia’s Resistance forces going there from their base, with Rey and Ben facing Palpatine. The biggest differences is that we also have Luke vs. Snoke and Finn vs. Phasma battles going on, in addition to a Jedi vs. Sith ground battle.

- Yeah, I don’t really care for how Phasma’s death is handled: making her hideously scarred and treating her sympathetically don’t sit right with me. Rian Johnson did it better, IMO.

- No red stormtroopers here, but there are red Tie Fighters.

- Ben still gives his life to save Rey, albeit in a less literal manner.

- Palpatine still wants Rey to ascend to the Sith throne and rule by his side. Also: “he loves the smell of burning hair, it reminds him of home”!? Wow, that’s dark in what it’s implying...

- OK, so while not a Jedi, Leia is the Big Damn Hero in the end. That makes sense.

- WTF? Rey straight-up kills Palpatine with Sith lightning!? Yeah, that definitely wasn’t ever gong to fly with Lucasfilm, since it totally contradicts ROTJ’s message! It was inevitable that we’d end up with the more correct “Rey deflects Palpatine’s own Sith lightning back at him”.

- “Rey Skywalker” is the end point for the story here as well, but it ending on Tatooine is so much more emotional than ending it on Alderaan Prime, a place that only just now exists.

My final impression is that we probably could have had the best version of the Sequel Trilogy possible IF the right corrections were made when adapting these treatments into real screenplays, such as axing the more convoluted and pointlessly fanservice-y elements and making different choices for a few of the characters (Rey, Kylo Ren, C-3PO, Phasma, etc...also something more substantial for Poe since they clearly had no idea what to do with him). However, it was also an impossibility for it to ever happen due to many different factors, the biggest of which being Carrie Fisher’s passing in 2016. So as it stands, I am still satisfied with the version we got and am especially happy that J.J returned for TROS to provide the end of the Skywalker Saga with some of his original (mercifully fine-tuned and simplified) ideas.

[centrally-unplanned]

The Phantom of the Opera Movie: How (not) to Adapt Your Fanfic to Stage & Screen

I recently watched the infamously-maligned trainwreck that is the 2004 Phantom of the Opera film adaptation of the stage musical, which lived up to its reputation! Rehashing the atrocious casting of literally-sang-for-the-first-time-two-weeks-before-filming-Music-of-the-Night Gerard Butler as the Phantom is well-trod territory, but I don't think that is the real crux of the film's failings. Instead, I think it serves as a quintessential example of the failure to transition from stage to screen - and how lucky the stage adaptation was.

For the "PotO" uninitiated, despite the endless shipping the titular Phantom and the female deuteragonist Christine do not have a romantic relationship. Oh the Phantom is trying to get down with that, for sure, but she sees him as either a ghost, an angel, or a terrorist at various points, never a credible love interest. In the original novel this is extremely explicit, and it is actually preserved in the stage adaptation - though as you realize with this film not intentionally.

In a stage musical, audiences don't really "suspend disbelief" the way they do for something like movies. There is one or more human beings, right in front of them, being real people in a wooden box with minimalist decour - the artifice is inescapable. Which is fine, actually! Instead of being immersed in the worldbuilding the audience can appreciate the craft of it all, the acting chops of the leads and the high notes they hit and the cool set designs around them. As such strong plots for musicals aren't really required; details are skipped over in exchange for focusing on other aesthetic elements. More importantly for our purposes, in a musical like Phantom of the Opera the audience isn't set up to expect a tight directorial vision, with instead the characters being the a product of the choices of the actors themselves - people even look out for the different interpretations different leads will bring to the same script. Each performance is itself an adaptation.

This lack of verisimilitude does wonders for the musical version of Phantom of the Opera. Honestly, plot-wise and arc-wise? Phantom of the Opera isn’t that great. Christine, one of the supposed leads, has no motivation for like 90% of run-time, instead being buffeted about by the whims of other, more powerful characters (just like early 20th century France ooooh, eat it Leroux), and Raoul, her earnest, wealthy suitor-cum-fiance, is the dried cement of love interests with no arc to speak of. Lots of plot elements are covered quickly and left vague as to their meaning. But really, who cares? You get to watch a tortured, corrupted genius offer a panoply of shadowed delights to a beautiful ingenue in a rock-opera baritone, and Rage Against The System so hard when spurned they drop a God-damn chandelier on the stage - that’s really all you need!

In the stage musical there is often - lets be honest very often - sexual subtext between the Phantom and Christine. But that is the choice of the actors, it's not in the script, it stays subtext. You are there to watch those actors put their spin on it and take it to the limit - let them have fun with the material! On stage it serves a great metaphorical function; to be tempted by music, by the mystery of darkness, has been metaphorical sex for so long it needs no more explication. 

Now, however, we loop back to the movie adaption, with two key points to establish. First, movies do not work like musicals. There is no live person in front of you, every shot is the product of a dozen takes and as many hours of editing choices, and as a viewer you are dragged along lockstep seeing the results of these choices. All of this is in the service of building a cohesive vision that allows the audience to fully suspend disbelief. The price for this immersion is that now every moment of the film is imbued with intent. Everything has to be there for a reason, the way things in reality are - or more accurately the way we want reality to be. To quote Best Girl Mizusaki:

(Just when you thought I was going to write a media essay without being a huge weeb for once, huh?)

What's true for animation is almost as true for film, all of which means that how characters act is no longer an actor on stage doing their spin but the cohesive narrative of a story.

Second, the movie takes all of that fanshipping sexual subtext and cranks it all the way up the nosebleed seats, while changing none of the relevant plot points. In fact, it adds plot details to strip away the musical’s ambiguity! One of Christine's opening scenes, only briefly touched on in the stage musical, explains cleanly that she considers the Phantom the angel of her dead father come down to protect and guide her. Later in the show, as the Phantom's villainy becomes more apparent, when propositioned by Raoul her only objection is to how the Phantom might hurt her if he found out. Well after all of his temptations, rage, and villainy, near the climax of the film, she still sings in a graveyard about her uncertainty over whether or not he is a literal ghost or spirit of her father. So the plot structure is preserved and explicit - Christine is drawn to him due to his musical talent and offerings of instruction, is unsure if he is even human, but realizes his corporeality, villainy, and fundamental pitiable humanity at the end. Raoul throughout is her explicit, engaged-to-be-married romantic partner.

So then why are her and the Phantom fucking??

Seriously, I cannot undersell how sexual their scenes are.They are all over each other, fingers gliding over skin, and the next scene after this one is her in his bed with sex-hair all over the place! This subtext is continued in every scene they have together, long after he has been revealed as a murderer. At one point he confronts her in public, with her fiance watching, and it's still played like he is the Tuxedo Mask to her Sailor Moon. Even the scene where she takes off his mask is shot like it was foreplay-gone-wrong, and the Phantom just forgets to say his safeword in time (This is why you pre-negotiate about your kinks, all!).

Any movie-goer understands what the intent of scenes like these are, why a director would choose these actions & shots; they want us to know that they are getting busy off camera, even if only by implication. We know they don't actually do that because there is a book to refer back to but damn does this movie want us to forget that...in these scenes. Which is the problem, of course - the rest of the movie operates as normal! In the above scene Christine thinks the Phantom is, again I must emphasize this, the ghost of her father; apparently she is going for the reverse-Oedipus achievement but no one told the rest of the script. Is she lying to Raoul about her love and her reasons? Is she actually tempted? Stop telling me you are unlovable via haunted monologues Gerard Butler, you look like testosterone on a stick and y'all boned literally five minutes ago, I am not buying it!

The subtext and the text are at war with each other - and given that, as we established, the dynamic between the Phantom & Christine is really the only interesting part about this story, strip that down to a muddled mess and you really have nothing left. And in a movie, subtext like this is just another form of text - the director chose these shots, it's intended. Beyond the terrible vocal performances and sometimes baffling shot direction, the movie's biggest failing is this schizophrenic mismatch between the script and the actions on screen which is a problem the stage musical honestly didn't have to worry about. These scenes are not set up like this, and the ability to add subtext by the actors is just fundamentally limited by the medium; it cannot touch the story itself, which isn't even the focus of the audiences. Even if these contradictions did exist more in the stage musical, they wouldn't doom it due to the nature of said medium.

Which is very, very fortunate, because there is one final point to make - Andrew Lloyd Weber, the creator of the stage musical, wholeheartedly approved of this direction for the movie. He produced the film, wrote the screenplay, chose the director, the works - this is his film. And, as is apparently from interviews and a...not fondly remembered stage sequel to the musical that he wrote, he ships the Phantom and Christine hard. Not in the "oh I love their dynamic on screen way", but in the Ao3 sort-by-fetish-tags "they are my Trash'' way. And I would never begrudge a man his ships, but apparently he was not content to keep it away from the canon. He absolutely reads the stage musical this way as well!  It's just one of those interesting ironies of life - one of the most successful adaptations of a book to a stage musical was made by someone who, in my opinion, did not grasp the fundamentals of the story he was adapting. We just didn't notice because the medium didn't care, and also damn can he write a score that slaps.

I would not be the first person to say that this movie for Andrew Lloyd Weber is something of a George Lucas moment for him, a creator completely missing the appeal of his own work; but after seeing it the comparison rang deeply true. The Phantom of the Opera movie is truly the Phantom Menace of musicals.

No, I don't feel bad for that last line, why do you ask?

[christianslaterreview]

Mobsters (1991) dir. Michael Karbelnikoff

Synopsis:

Charlie 'Lucky' Luciano, portrayed by Christian Slater, is a young, working class Italian whose family is being terrorized by the Mafia as his father owes money to one of two main bosses, Don Faranzano (Michael Gambon). Luciano teams up with three of his boyhood friends to overthrow Don Faranzano and the other boss, Don Masseira. The film follows the boys as they quickly rise to top and become embroiled in Mafia politics, love stories, and personal conflicts that threaten to ruin lifelong friendships.

Review:

This is going to be a hard review for me to write because I really don't care about this movie. Like, at all (I mean look at my shitty synopsis lmao). Usually I'm so ardent about my reviews because I so desperately want the film in question to be good. Typically, Christian Slater's films have just enough about them that's good that elements of them are not only salvagable, but sincerely enjoyable. They're also usually just bad enough to remain interesting. Bad enough to make me care.

Mobsters, however, was so formulaic and devoid of any actual substance that the end product feels like a parody. It was so clearly hitching it's wagon to the popularity of other films in the same genre such as Bugsy and Good Fellas, but in their hurry to piece together some semblence of a film before the trend fizzled, they forgot that a movie needs elements beyond snappy one liners, empty banter, period costumes, and pretty faces with famous names. The audience is rushed through most of the narrative with focus only given to a handful of major plot points - but this is of course only when we're torn away from the laughably long and gregarious sex scenes which are peppered throughout the entire film to really help move things along - so all the opportunities to truly get to know the characters, their drives, their vulnerabilities, etc. in compelling B-plots or excellent pacing of the A-plot are nowhere to be found. The result is a film that feels like it was developed purely for flashy, promotional material with the story being tossed inside this hollow, pandering concept as an afterthought.

One of my main issues with most films is the pacing. I expect every film to have Tarentino level pacing where the story is slowly teased out in a seemingly chaotic but methodical progression. Tarentino is the fucking master of knowing just how long to let a certain plot point sit on the back burner before bringing it back full force right before you forget it ever happened. He knows just how long to keep the camera focused on one character's face, how long the back and forth dialogue needs to continue before bursting into action, how long to keep the audience waiting before a reveal (if the reveal ever happens). And before I get totally lost on this tangent and end up becoming a Tarentino stan blog, my point is that Mobsters fails in every single one of these devices.

Instead of feeling like 2hrs passed by so quickly because I was just that engaged, the run time of this film felt unbelievably long because literally nothing of real interest happened until about an hour into the movie. Right off the bat, we're thrown into the drama as Luciano's Mother and Father are assaulted and threatened by one of the main bosses, Faranzano. But rather than feeling like we're being poignantly acclimated to the brutal setting of this story, it just feels sudden and awkward, like a cheap, theatrical bid for emotion and drama. Granted, this might not be the screenplay's fault per se. None of the actors did a particularly solid job throughout this film, which did end up weakening whatever elements of Mobsters could have been salvagable.

After this point, the movie just rushes through introductions in a series of montages with a voiceover by Slater in his ... "accent". The movie barely has time to get on it's legs before we've already reached the next milestone in the boys' story as they're making a name for themselves as bootleggers. However, instead of actually demonstrating the struggle, the danger, the politcs of rising to the top, we just get another expositional montage with voiceovers. Have fun trying to remember what overlapping whispers are important plot points and which ones are just a little flavoring to show the glamorous gangster lifestyle the boys are entering into.

The stitled, awkward pacing of this film can actually be broken down to a pattern if you were paying close enough attention: major plot point, expositional montage mentioning specific Thing, the Thing happens in literally the next scene, 12 minute long sex scene, and repeat for 2 hours. It doesn't make for a very compelling narrative at all.

Additionally, the characters themselves were so one dimensional and poorly acted (sorry Christian :/ ) that not even they could save the movie. The accents were cheesy as hell, but even worse than those was the dialogue which consisted of banter and one liners that wanted so badly to be insidious and clever, but only ended up sounding like borderline nonsensical gangster jargon that was regurgitated by memory from someone who had seen Good Fellas once. And when the dialogue wasn't an unsuccesful mimicry of shrewd banter, it was equally meaningless, psuedo-artfilm dialogue. But instead of using dialogue as a device to allude to greater themes and deepen both the emotional and philosophical landscape of the film, everyone's dialogue was just a series of free floating, psuedo-intellectual lines that when strung together, didn't actually make a conversation or even develop the characters themselves.

Which is yet another problem with Mobsters. Although the characters are based upon real life historical figures, the characters themselves are barely developed on screen. Everyone's personalities are almost indistinguishable from one another because every character is so one dimensional. Despite the bounteous material the writers had to work with such as Lucky Luciano's righteous anger at the injustice his family and others have faced, Lansky's battle against the anti-semitism he faces, or the political landscape of the time controlled by the Mafia, all the characters are still underdeveloped caricatures.

The main focus of the film could have been the conflict that exists between Luciano's desire to see an end to the vicious reign of the Mafia while also seeking to be the Ringleader himself. It could have been a slow burn film focusing on the strategy and politics of attempting to dethrone the cities two biggest mob bosses. It could have been about how Luciano's and Lansky's friendship developed and devolved throughout their enterprise. It could have focused on literally any number of things to help anchor the story in a main conflict. But instead, the focus of the film flits from politics to personal drama to love scenes with only the cast of characters to connect the threads. None of those plot points were artful B-plots that helped flesh out the story and the characters; they were pitiful, unskilled attempts at creating a world to immerse the audience in without having any knowledge about how to effictively do that. As a writer, you can't give equal attention to all the different threads throughout a story otherwise the audience doesn't know what the main point is - that's why they're called B-plots.

Moreover, Mobsters used yelling really loudly and dramatically as a superficial plot device over and over again and each time it did nothing but made me want to hit mute for a moment or two. Syd Field's put it best when she said "All drama is conflict. Without conflict, there is no action. Without action, there is no character." However, what Karbelnikoff doesn't understand is that conflict is not just people displaying extreme emotion; there needs to be substance behind what is creating this conflict and that the audience needs a chance to become invested in the storylines and motivations the conflict is contigent upon. People aren't moved just by emotion itself; people are moved when they can empathize with a character's struggle. But we can't do that unless the director takes the time to walk us through the world they've created so the stakes actually seem real.

This film is chock full of scenes where characters that don't seem to have a reason to fight are fighting. I'm sure it's supposed to demonstrate what a rough business being a mobster is and how the pressure of ambition and the ever present threat it might overtake you, but instead it just makes the characters seem volatile and juvenile to the point that I don't even want to sympathize with any of them.

Lastly, this wasn't even a beautiful movie. Just like a Marvel movie, every shot was obvious, straightforward, and boring. In a movie that is all about the excess and glamour and violent opulence, you'd think the cinematography itself would reflect that. Instead, I wasn't surprised or moved by a single shot throughout the whole film. The overtop villains had such potential for unsettling, aggrandizing angles but every scene felt about as creative as watching talking heads.

And my very last bone to pick with this film is the ENDING. It felt like they decided to toss in a random moral to the story solely for the purpose of offering some kind of closure. I mean, to be fair, there's no other way they could have wrapped it up since the entire film is just a series of loose threads. But it was just the perfect way to punctuate the end of this wishy-washy movie (about MOBSTERS) with a vague cliche sentiment of "can't we all just get along?"

To me, Lucky Luciano is perhaps an anti-hero. I empathize with his desire to seek retribution and justice and instigate egalitarian politics, however, he doesn't seek to eradicate the institution of the Mafia, he just wants to run it *differently*. This could have made Luciano a supremely compelling character, but the movie never really frames him as a good guy or a bad guy. He is just kind of matter-of-factly presented to the audience with no real commentary. So by the end of the film, the fact that he's painted as this feel good hero within the last few minutes felt contrived and meaningless.

If Luciano's aim was to be the biggest mob boss around while also instituting a more egalitarian regime, why wasn't that the main focus of the film? It's definitely brought up, but it isn't given the focus it should have. We just knew that he wanted to overthrow the other bosses, but didn't delve into what his visions for the Mafia were or how much his desire for success was consuming him.

So the ending sentiment of the movie being "and then the bad guys were dead and a really Nice Guy became head of the Mafia and everyone was treated a lot nicer :)" felt juvenile and cheesy.

Mobsters gets a total of 1 Slaters out 10 Slaters. I'm not prepared to give it a zero, but I have no justification for that because, news flash, my rating system is wholly subjective and based on what I feel inside my heart. I will not be accepting criticism on this point. Thank you for understanding.

[mostlymovieswithmax]

1. Logan (2017)

Spoiler warning? Probably.

At the time, this was one of those ‘once in a blue moon’ movies. It took a character we’d seen portrayed by the same actor for 17 years over a period of eight movies and gave us something we never knew we needed. James Mangold flipped the formula on us and delivered a film that didn’t need to promote a franchise or pander to a whole host of demographics so that they could get as many people in the cinema as possible. Those who worked on it looked at the people who had followed the X-Men movies, even those who were just kids when the first movie came out at the start of the millennium, and decided to treat the audience with dignity and respect, knowing at the very least, those who had grown up watching Hugh Jackman in this role from the beginning would be old enough to view a movie like this. They gave this iteration of the character a proper send-off before he was left to stagnate and fade. It was something that hadn’t really been done in the superhero genre before and I would argue, hasn’t been done since. They gave us Logan.

How do I explain that this is my favourite movie of all time? Yes it is well-made. Yes, it ticks a lot of the technical boxes I look for in movies. It is what it is because it stems from a franchise of films based on comic book superheroes. Without the highs of movies like X-Men: Days Of Future Past, or lows of movies like X-Men Origins: Wolverine (which I still kind of find fun to watch), would Logan exist today? Or, if the answer is yes, how different would it be if we took even one of those movies away? Everything happened in the order and time it did and as a result, this movie came into being. I doubt the connection I have to Logan would be as strong or even have developed in the first place if it didn’t have those previous entries to continue the character from. I remember going to see Logan in the cinema when it was released and at the time, I didn’t think all that much of it. Characters that I had grown to love over the years from when I was a child died in front of me and when they died, they died for good. No resurrections this time. And I knew that. But I sat, stone-faced, unmoved by what I was seeing and now, two years on from watching it initially and having seen it multiple times since, I have to ask myself… why? My most recent viewing had me bawling like a baby. Why was my earliest reaction to my now favourite movie so mild? When you think of grand climaxes to beloved characters, especially superheroes, it’s not uncommon to think a proper send-off is something akin to Avengers: Endgame. I’ve seen Wolverine built up over 17 years. He fought a samurai robot in The Wolverine; he went up against the Dark Phoenix in The Last Stand and had the skin torn away from his body repeatedly in an attempt to keep her from destroying everything; he stopped an apocalyptic extermination of mutants in Days Of Future Past. So logically, doesn’t he deserve a goodbye that measures up to those standards we’ve applied to him over the years? To put him in a situation that requires him to save the world? Is this the ending I wanted when I saw the movie for the first time? Logan is small-scale. It deals with a situation on an intrinsically human level. The only goal is to protect a child and get away from the bad guys, who serve as a last middle finger to a character who has gone through so much shit and who at this point, at almost 200 years old in the year 2029, just wants to buy a boat and live out the rest of his days in peace with his oldest and only remaining friend. Logan understands the scale it conveys and uses that to its advantage, grounding the character and the story as a whole in order to give it the emotional weight and resonance it needs to serve as not just a decent end for Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, but a notable, spectacular end for an iconic character in popular culture.

How original Logan is in terms of the story it tells and how it goes about certain elements is debatable, although I’m not entirely of the opinion that it’s even trying to be so unheard of in every department. Yes, I’ve never seen anything like this before in the confines of an existing character who, up until now has only been seen to operate under the restriction of what is appropriate to a viewer aged 12 or above. I’ve never seen this kind of story told in as bleak a fashion when it comes to comic book superhero movies. But no, this is not the first and only movie to tackle the themes it’s going for or the type of story it tells. We’ve all seen road trip movies; there are countless tragic hero stories and antagonists set on building armies. How many times have we seen a movie where the villain is just an evil version of the hero? This isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. Juxtaposing Logan (aka James Howlett/aka Wolverine) with X-24, a younger, stronger version of himself was a brilliant way to go. It speaks subconsciously to the characters’ fears and what he sees himself as. He is his own demon. This film takes a lot of inspiration from and pays homage to the type of stories that are told in old Westerns, specifically the 1953 film ‘Shane’, where a gunslinger hopes to settle down with a family but is forced into a battle between two separate parties. Mangold goes as far as to literally show a scene from Shane in Logan to highlight this and say that it’s not a wholly new concept for a movie, but wears its inspirations on its sleeve and even acts as a tribute.

The acting is superb, as if anyone needed to be reassured. Hugh Jackman gives maybe the best performance of his career in this. He gives it his all, as someone who clearly cares a lot about the character of Logan/Wolverine and manages to portray him in a way I never knew I needed. Patrick Stewart takes his iconic Professor X (someone we’ve known on the big screen just as long as Wolverine), who’s always been such a wise and collected authority figure, and twists him into this heart-breakingly haunted ghost of his former self, dipping in and out of sanity as he battles with the very human disease of dementia. Dafne Keen as Laura is exactly the fire this film needed to elevate itself past being just above average. A girl of few words but a presence that is felt so strongly. For a first feature and from someone so young, I’m amazed at how spot on the casting for this character was.

Violent and visceral; I now feel every emotional beat like a punch to the gut. The sound and cinematography are so well done and make for some heavy scenes that are meant to establish characters or make the audience feel horrible and upset. The first scene itself lets us know exactly where Logan is at in life and it’s genuinely one of the many highlights. The writing is pitch perfect; it is everything that I want and more and, if I’m in the right mood, has no problem reducing me to tears. The ever-memorable screenplay gives these characters a lot more depth than they had previously by honing in on what is explored in the previous movies. We always knew Logan was a pretty tragic character but never before have we seen the extent of how haunted he is. The sadness of it all comes from realising he has constantly been dealt a bad hand for nearly two centuries and is seldom given much of a break. Every time I revisit Logan I find something else to love about it. Possibly my one and only gripe is that the score could be better and really, as scores go, it’s still decent. With all the blood and action and misery and sorrow and blood (again) that is exhibited, I hang on to the small glimmer of hope that takes this movie to the end, in what is a heartbreaking finish but also an immensely satisfying one. I’m not sure I’ll ever tire of this. I can’t see myself one day feeling like I no longer get enough out of it to warrant watching it again. Logan brings a magnificent conclusion to a character I’ve followed for so long and I’m so thankful that Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine wasn’t left to collect dust until retiring in a most lacklustre fashion. This is everything I love about film.

[angelofberlin2000]

Photo: Emily Denniston/Vulture and photos courtesy of the studios 

Keanu Reeves has been a movie star for more than 30 years, but it seems like only recently that journalists and critics have come to acknowledge the significance of his onscreen achievements. He’s had hits throughout his career, ranging from teen comedies (Bill & Ted’s) to action franchises (The Matrix, John Wick), yet a large part of the press has always treated these successes as bizarre anomalies. And that’s because we as a society have never  been able to understand fully what Reeves does that makes his films so special.

In part, this disconnect is the lingering cultural memory of Reeves as Theodore Logan. No matter if he’s in Speed or Bram Stoker’s Dracula or Something’s Gotta Give, he still possesses the fresh-faced openness that was forever personified by Ted’s favorite expression: “Whoa!” That wide-eyed exclamation has been Reeves’s official trademark ever since, and its eternal adolescent naïveté has kept him from being properly judged on the merits of his work.

Some of that critical reassessment has been provided, quite eloquently, by Vulture’s own Angelica Jade Bastién, who has argued for Reeves’s greatness as an action star and his importance to The Matrix (and 21st-century blockbusters in general). Two of her observations are worth quoting in full, and they both have to do with how he has reshaped big-screen machismo. In 2017, she wrote, “What makes Reeves different from other action stars is this vulnerable, open relationship with the camera — it adds a through-line of loneliness that shapes all his greatest action-movie characters, from naïve hotshots like Johnny Utah to exuberant ‘chosen ones’ like Neo to weathered professionals like John Wick.” In the same piece, Bastién noted: “By and large, Hollywood action heroes revere a troubling brand of American masculinity that leaves no room for displays of authentic emotion. Throughout Reeves’s career, he has shied away from this. His characters are often led into new worlds by women of far greater skill and experience … There is a sincerity he brings to his characters that make them human, even when their prowess makes them seem nearly supernatural.”

In other words, the femininity of his beauty — not to mention his slightly odd cadence when delivering dialogue, as if he’s an alien still learning how Earthlings speak — has made him seem bizarre to audiences who have come to expect their leading men to act and carry themselves in a particular way. Critics have had a difficult time taking him seriously because it was never quite clear if what he was doing — or what was seemingly “missing” from his acting approach — was intentional or a failing.

This is not to say that Reeves hasn’t made mistakes. While putting together this ranking of his every film role, we noticed that there was an alarmingly copious number of duds — either because he chose bad material or the filmmakers didn’t quite know what to do with him. But as we prepare for the release of the third John Wick installment, it’s clear that his many memorable performances weren’t all just flukes. From Dangerous Liaisons to Man of Tai Chi — or River’s Edge to Knock Knock — he’s been on a journey to grow as an actor while not losing that elemental intimacy he has with the viewer. Below, we revisit those performances, from worst to best.

   45. Johnny Mnemonic (1995)

The nadir of the ’90s cyberpunk genre, and a movie so bad, with Reeves so stranded, that it’s actually a bit of a surprise the Wachowskis were able to forget about it and still cast him as Neo. Dumber than a box of rocks, it’s a movie about technology and the internet — based on a William Gibson story! — that seems to have been made by people who had never turned on a computer before. Seriously, watch this shit:

44. The Watcher (2000) This movie exists in many ways because of its stunt casting: James Spader as a dogged detective and Keanu as the serial killer obsessed with him. Wait, shouldn’t those roles be switched? Get it? There would come a time in his career when Keanu could have maybe handled this character, but here, still with his floppy Ted Logan hair, he just looks ridiculous. The hackneyed screenplay does him no favors, either. Disturbingly, Reeves claims that he was forced to do this movie because his assistant forged his signature on a contract. He received the fifth of his seven Razzie nominations for this film. (He has yet to win and hasn’t been nominated in 17 years. In fact, it’s another sign of how lame the Razzies are that he got a “Redeemer” award in 2015, as if he needed to “redeem” anything to those people.)

43. Sweet November (2001) It’s a testament to how cloying and clunky Sweet November is that its two leads (Reeves and Charlize Theron) are, today, the pinnacle of action-movie cool — thanks to the same filmmaker, Atomic Blonde and John Wick’s David Leitch — yet so inert and waxen here. This is a career low point for both actors, preying on their weak spots. Watching it now, you can see there’s an undeniable discomfort on their faces: If being a movie star means doing junk like this, what’s the point? They’d eventually figure it all out.

42. Chain Reaction (1996) As far as premises for thrillers go, this isn’t the worst idea: A team of scientists are wiped out — with their murder pinned on poor Keanu — because they’ve figured out how to transform water into fuel. (Hey, Science, it has been 23 years. Why haven’t you solved this yet?) Sadly, this turns into a by-the-numbers chase flick with Reeves as Richard Kimble, trying to prove his innocence while on the run. He hadn’t quite figured out how to give a project like this much oomph yet, so it just mostly lies around, making you wish you were watching The Fugitive instead.

41. 47 Ronin (2013) In 2013, Reeves made his directorial debut with a Hong Kong–style action film. We’ll get into that one later, because it’s a ton better than this jumbled mess, a mishmash of fantasy and swordplay that mostly just gives viewers a headache. Also: This has to be the worst wig of Keanu’s career, yes?

40. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993)

Gus Van Sant’s famously terrible adaptation of Tom Robbins’s novel never gets the tone even close to right, and all sorts of amazing actors are stranded and flailing around. Reeves gets some of the worst of it: Why cast one of the most famously chill actors on the planet and have him keep hyperventilating?

39. Replicas (2019) In the wake of John Wick’s success, Keanu has had the opportunity to sleepwalk through some lesser sci-fi actioners, and this one is particularly sleepy. The idea of a neuroscientist (Reeves) who tries to clone his family after they die in an accident could have been a Pet Sematary update, but the movie insists on an Evil Corporation plot that we’ve seen a million times before. John Wick has allowed Reeves to cash more random checks than he might have ten years ago. Here’s one of them.

38. Feeling Minnesota (1996) As far as we know, the only movie taken directly from a Soundgarden lyric — unless we’re missing a superhero named “Spoonman” — is this pseudo-romantic comedy that attempts to be cut from the Tarantino cloth but ends up making you think everyone onscreen desperately needs a haircut and a shave. Reeves can tap into that slacker vibe if asked to, but he requires much better material than this.

37. Little Buddha (1994)

To state the obvious, it would not fly today for Keanu Reeves to play Prince Siddhartha, a monk who would become the Buddha. But questions of cultural appropriation aside, you can understand what drew The Last Emperor director Bernardo Bertolucci to cast this supremely placid man as an iconic noble figure. Unfortunately, Little Buddha never rises above a well-meaning, simplistic depiction of the roots of a worldwide religion, and the effects have aged even more poorly. Nonetheless, Reeves is quite accomplished at being very still.

36. Much Ado About Nothing (1993) Quick anecdote: We saw this Kenneth Branagh adaptation of the Bard during its original theatrical run, and when Reeves’s villainous Don John came onscreen and declared, “I am not of many words,” the audience clapped sarcastically. That memory stuck because it encapsulates viewers’ inability in the early ’90s to see him as anything other than a dim SoCal kid. Unfortunately, his performance in Much Ado About Nothing doesn’t do much to prove his haters wrong. As an actor, he simply didn’t have the gravitas yet to pull off this fiendish role, and so this version is more radiant and alive when he’s not onscreen. It is probably just as well his character doesn’t have many words.

35. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) GIFs are a cheap way to critique a performance. After all, acting is a complicated, arduous discipline that shouldn’t be reduced to easy laughs drawn from a few seconds of film played on a loop. Then again …

This really does sum up Reeves’s unsubstantial performance as Jonathan Harker, whose new client is definitely up to no good. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a wonder of old-school special effects and operatic passion — and it is also a movie in which Reeves seems wholly ill at ease, never quite latching onto the story’s macabre period vibe. We suspect if he could revisit this role now, he’d be far more commanding and engaged. But in 1992, he was still too much Ted and not enough anything else. And Reeves knew it: A couple years later, when asked to name his most difficult role to that point, he said, “My failure in Dracula. Totally. Completely. The accent wasn’t that bad, though.” Well …

34. The Neon Demon (2016)

One of the perks of being a superstar is that you can sometimes just phone in an amusing cameo in some bizarro art-house offering. How else to explain Reeves’s appearance in this stylish, empty, increasingly surreal psychological thriller from Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn? He plays Hank, a scumbag motel manager whose main job is to add some local color to this portrait of the cutthroat L.A. fashion scene. If you’ve been waiting to hear Keanu deliver skeezy lines like “Why, did she send you out for tampons, too?!” and “Real Lolita shit … real Lolita shit,” The Neon Demon is the film for you. He’s barely in it, and we wouldn’t blame him if he doesn’t even remember it.

33. The Lake House (2006) Reeves reunites with his Speed co-star for a movie that features a lot fewer out-of-control buses. In The Lake House, Sandra Bullock plays a doctor who owns a lake house with the strangest magical power: She can send and receive letters from the house’s owner from two years prior, a dashing architect (Reeves). This American remake of the South Korean drama Il Mare is romantic goo that’s relatively easy to resist, and its ruminations on fate, love, destiny, and luck are all pretty standard for the genre. As for those hoping to enjoy the actors’ rekindled chemistry, spoiler alert: They’re not onscreen that much together.

32. Henry’s Crime (2011) You have to be careful not to cast Reeves as too passive a character; he’s so naturally calm that if he just sits and reacts to everything, and never steps up, your movie never really gets going. That’s the case in this heist movie about an innocent man (Reeves) who goes to jail for a crime he didn’t commit and then plans a scam with an inmate he meets there (James Caan). The movie wants to be a little quirkier than it is, and Reeves never quite snaps to. The film just idles on the runway.

31. The Bad Batch (2017) Following her acclaimed A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, filmmaker Ana Lily Amirpour plops us in the middle of a desert hellscape in which a young woman (Suki Waterhouse) must battle to stay alive. The Bad Batch is less accomplished than A Girl, in large part because style outpaces substance — it’s a movie in which clever flourishes and indulgent choices rule all. Look no further than Reeves’s performance as the Dream, a cult leader who oversees the only semblance of civilization in this post-apocalyptic world. It’s less a character than an attitude, and Reeves struggles to make the shtick fly. He’s too goofy a villain for us to really feel the full measure of his monstrousness.

30. Hardball (2001)

Reeves isn’t the first guy you’d think of to head up a Bad News Bears–style inspirational sports movie, and he doesn’t pull it off, playing a gambler who becomes the coach of an inner-city baseball team and learns to love, or something. It’s as straightforward and predictable an underdog sports movie as you’ll find, and it serves as a reminder that Reeves’s specific set of skills can’t be applied to just any old generic leading-man role. The best part about the film? A 14-year-old Michael B. Jordan.

29. Street Kings (2008) Filmmaker David Ayer has made smart, tough L.A. thrillers like Training Day (which he wrote) and End of Watch (which he wrote and directed). Unfortunately, this effort with Reeves never stops being a mélange of cop-drama clichés, casting the actor as Ludlow, an LAPD detective who’s starting to lose his moral compass. This requires Reeves to be a hard-ass, which never feels particularly convincing. Street Kings is bland, forgettable pulp — Reeves doesn’t enliven it, getting buried along with the rest of a fine ensemble that includes Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, and a pre-Captain America Chris Evans.

28. Constantine (2005) In post-Matrix mode, Reeves tries to launch another franchise in a DC Comics adaptation about a man who can see spirits on Earth and is doomed to atone for a suicide attempt by straddling the divide twixt Heaven and Hell. That’s not the worst idea, and at times Constantine looks terrific, but the movie doesn’t have enough wit or charm to play with Reeves’s persona the way the Wachowskis did.

27. The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) Reeves’s alienlike beauty and off-kilter line readings made him an obvious choice to play Klaatu, an extraterrestrial who assumes human form when he arrives on our planet. This remake of the 1950s sci-fi classic doesn’t have a particularly urgent reason to exist — its pro-environment message is timely but awkwardly fashioned atop an action-blockbuster template — and the actor alone can’t make this Day particularly memorable. Still, there are signs of the confident post-Matrix star he had become, which would be rewarded in a few years with John Wick.

26. Knock Knock (2015) Reeves flirts with Michael Douglas territory in this Eli Roth erotic thriller that’s not especially good but is interesting as an acting exercise. He plays Evan, a contented family man with the house to himself while his wife and kids are out of town. Conveniently, two beautiful young strangers (Ana de Armas, Lorenza Izzo) come by late one stormy night, inviting themselves in and quickly seducing him. Is this his wildest sexual fantasy come to life? Or something far more ominous? It’s fun to watch Reeves be a basic married suburban dude who slowly realizes that he’s entered Hell, but Knock Knock’s knowing trashiness only takes this cautionary tale so far.

25. The Devil’s Advocate (1997)

Very few people bought tickets in 1997 for The Devil’s Advocate to see Keanu Reeves: Hotshot Attorney. Obviously, this horror thriller’s chief appeal was witnessing Al Pacino go over the top as Satan himself, who just so happens to be a New York lawyer. Nonetheless, it’s Reeves’s Kevin Lomax who’s actually the film’s main character; recently moved to Manhattan with his wife (Reeves’s future Sweet November co-star, Charlize Theron), he’s the new hire at a prestigious law firm who only later learns what nefarious motives have brought him there. Reeves is forced to play the wunderkind who gets in over his head, and it’s not entirely convincing — and that goes double for his southern accent.

24. The Prince of Pennsylvania (1988) “You are like some stray dog I never should have fed.” That’s how Rupert’s older hippie pal, Carla (Amy Madigan), affectionately refers to him, and because this teen dropout is played by Keanu Reeves, you understand what she means. In this forgotten early chapter in Reeves’s career, Rupert and Carla decide to ditch their going-nowhere Rust Belt existence by taking his dad (Fred Ward) hostage and collecting a handsome ransom. The Prince of Pennsylvania is a thoroughly contrived and mediocre comedy, featuring Reeves with an incredibly unfortunate haircut. (Squint and he looks like the front man for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.) Still, you can see signs of the soulfulness and vulnerability he’d later harness in better projects. He’s very much a big puppy looking for a home.

23. The Last Time I Committed Suicide (1997) Every hip young ’90s actor had to get his Jack Kerouac on at some point, so it would seem churlish to deny Reeves his opportunity. He plays the best pal/drinking buddy of Thomas Jane’s Neal Cassady, and he looks like he’s enjoying doing the Kerouac pose. Other actors have done so more indulgently. And even though he’s heavier than he’s ever been in a movie, he looks great.

22. A Walk in the Clouds (1995) Keanu isn’t quite as bad in this as it seemed at the time. He’s miscast as a tortured war veteran who finds love by posing as the husband of a pregnant woman, but he doesn’t overdo it either: If someone’s not right for a part, you’d rather them not push it, and Keanu doesn’t. Plus, come on, this movie looks fantastic: Who doesn’t want to hang around these vineyards? Not necessarily worth a rewatch, but not the disaster many consider it.

21. The Replacements (2000) The other movie where Keanu Reeves plays a former quarterback, The Replacements is an adequate Sunday-afternoon-on-cable sports comedy. He plays Shane, the stereotypical next-big-thing whose career capsized after a disastrous bowl game — but fear not, because he’s going to get a second chance at gridiron glory once the pros go on strike and the greedy owners decide to hire scabs to replace them. Reeves has never been particularly great at playing regular guys — his talent is that he seems different, more special, than you or me — but he ably portrays a good man who’s had to live with disappointment. The Replacements pushes all the predictable buttons, but Reeves makes it a little more enjoyable than it would be otherwise.

20. Tune in Tomorrow (1990) A very minor but sporadically charming bauble about a radio soap-opera scriptwriter (Peter Falk) who begins chronicling an affair between a woman (Barbara Hershey) and her not-related-by-blood nephew on his show — and ultimately begins manipulating it. Tune in Tomorrow is light and silly and harmless, and Reeves shows up on time to set and looks extremely eager to impress. He blends into the background quietly, which is probably enough.

19. I Love You to Death (1990)

This Lawrence Kasdan comedy — the first film after an incredible four-picture run of Body Heat, The Big Chill, Silverado, and The Accidental Tourist — is mostly forgotten today, and for good reason: It’s a farce that mostly features actors screaming at each other and calling it “comedy.” But Reeves hits the right notes as a stoned hit man, and it’s amusing just to watch him share the screen with partner William Hurt. This could have been the world’s strangest comedy team!

18. Youngblood (1986)

This Rob Lowe hockey comedy is … well, a Rob Lowe hockey comedy, but we had to include it because a 21-year-old Reeves plays a dim-bulb, good-hearted hockey player with a French Canadian accent that’s so incredible that you really just have to see it. Imagine if this were the only role Keanu Reeves ever had? It’s sort of amazing. “AH-NEE-MAL!”

17. Destination Wedding (2018) An oddly curdled comedy about two wedding guests (Reeves and Winona Ryder) who have terrible attitudes about everything but end up bonding over their universal disdain for the planet and everyone on it. That sounds like a chore to watch, and at times it is, but the pairing of Reeves and Ryder has enough nostalgic Gen-X spark to it that you go along with them anyway. With almost any other actors you might run screaming away, but somehow, in spite of everything, you find them both likable.

16. Thumbsucker (2005)

The first film from 20th Century Women and Beginners’ Mike Mills, this mild but clever coming-of-age comedy adaptation of a Walter Kirn novel has Mills’s trademark good cheer and emotional honesty. Reeves plays the eponymous thumbsucker’s dentist — it’s funny to see Keanu play someone named “Dr. Perry Lyman” — who has the exact right attitude about both orthodontics and life. It’s a lived-in, funny performance, and a sign that Keanu, with the right director, could be a more than capable supporting character actor.

15. Something’s Gotta Give (2003) This Nancy Meyers romantic comedy was well timed in Reeves’s career. A month after the final Matrix film hit theaters, Something’s Gotta Give arrived, offering us a very different Keanu — not the intense, sci-fi action hero but rather a charming, low-key love interest who’s just the supporting player. He plays Julian Mercer, a doctor administering to shameless womanizer Harry Sanborn (Jack Nicholson), who’s dating a much younger woman (Amanda Peet), who just so happens to be the daughter of a celebrated playwright, Erica (Diane Keaton). We know who will eventually end up with whom in Something’s Gotta Give, but Reeves proves to be a great romantic foil, wooing Erica with a grown-up sexiness the actor didn’t possess in his younger years. We’re still not sure Meyers got the ending right: Erica should have stuck with him instead of Harry.

14. Man of Tai Chi (2013) This is the only movie that Reeves has directed, and what does it tell us about him? Well, it tells us he has watched a ton of Hong Kong action movies and always wanted to make one himself. And it’s pretty good! It’s technically proficient, it has a straightforward narrative, it has some excellent long-take action sequences (as we see in John Wick, Keanu isn’t a quick-cut guy; he likes to show his work), and it has a perfectly decent Keanu performance. We wouldn’t call him a visionary director by any stretch of the imagination. But we’d watch another one of these, definitely.

13. Dangerous Liaisons (1988)

Le Chevalier Raphael Danceny is merely a pawn in a cruel game being played by Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont, and so it makes some sense that the young man who played him, Keanu Reeves, is himself a little outclassed by the actors around him. This Oscar-winning drama is led by Glenn Close and John Malkovich, who have the wit and bite to give this 18th-century tale of thwarted love and bruised pride some real zest. By comparison, Danceny is practically a boy, unschooled in the art of manipulation, and Reeves provides the character with the appropriate youthful naïveté. He’s not a standout in Dangerous Liaisons, but he acquits himself well — especially near the end, when his blade fells Valmont, leaving him as one of the unlikely survivors in the film’s ruthless battle.

12. The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009) In this incredible showcase for Robin Wright, who plays a woman navigating a constrictive, difficult life with more grace and intelligence than anyone realizes, Reeves shows up late in a role that he’s played before: the younger guy who’s the perfect fit for an older woman figuring herself out. He hits the right notes and never overstays his welcome. As a romantic lead, less is more for Reeves.

11. Parenthood (1989) If you were an uptight suburban dad, like Steve Martin is in Ron Howard’s ensemble comedy, your nightmare would be that your beloved daughter gets involved with a doofus like Tod. Nicely played by Keanu Reeves, the character is the embodiment of every slacker screwup who’s going to just stumble through life, knocking over everything and everyone in his path. But as it turns out, he’s a lot kinder and mature than at first glance. Released six months after Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Parenthood showed mainstream audiences a more grown-up Reeves, and he’s enormously appealing — never more so than when advising a young kid that it’s okay to masturbate: “I told him that’s what little dudes do.”

10. Permanent Record (1988) A very lovely and sad movie that’s nearly forgotten today, Permanent Record, directed by novelist Marisa Silver, features Reeves as the best friend of a teenager who commits suicide and, along with the rest of their friends, has to pick up the pieces. For all of Reeves’s trademark reserve, there is very little restraint here: His character is devastated, and Reeves, impressively, hits every note of that grief convincingly. You see this guy and you understand why everyone wanted to make him a star. This is a very different Reeves from now, but it’s not necessarily a worse one.

9. Point Break (1991)

Just as Reeves’s reputation has grown over time, so too has the reputation of this loopy, philosophical crime thriller. Do people love Point Break ironically now, enjoying its over-the-top depiction of men seeking a spiritual connection with the world around them? Or do they genuinely appreciate the seriousness that director Kathryn Bigelow brought to her study of lonely souls looking for that next big rush — whether through surfing or robbing banks? The power of Reeves’s performance is that it works both ways. If you want to snicker at his melodramatic turn, fine — but if you want to marvel at the rapport his Johnny Utah forms with Patrick Swayze (Bodhi), who only feels alive when he’s living life to the extreme, then Point Break has room for you on the bandwagon.

8. Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) and Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) Before there was Beavis and Butt-Head, before there was Wayne and Garth, there were these guys: two Valley bozos who loved to shred and goof off. As Theodore Logan, Keanu Reeves found the perfect vessel for his serene silliness, playing well off Alex Winter’s equally clueless Bill. But note that Bill and Ted aren’t jerks — watch Excellent Adventure now and you’ll be struck by how incredibly sunny its humor is. Later in his career, Reeves would show off a darker, more brooding side, but here in Excellent Adventure (and its less-great sequel Bogus Journey) he makes blissful stupidity endearing.

7. The Gift (2000) This Sam Raimi film, with a Billy Bob Thornton script inspired by his mother, fizzled at the box office, despite a top-shelf cast: It’s probably not even the first film called The Gift you think of when we bring it up. But, gotta say, Reeves is outstanding in it, playing an abusive husband and all-around sonuvabitch who, nevertheless, might be unfairly accused of murder, a fact only a psychic (Cate Blanchett) understands. Reeves is full-on trailer trash here, but he brings something new and unexpected to it: a sort of bewildered malevolence, as if he’s moved by forces outside of his control. More of this, please.

6. My Own Private Idaho (1991)

Gus Van Sant’s landmark drama is chiefly remembered for River Phoenix’s nakedly anguished performance as Mike, a spiritually adrift gay hustler. (Phoenix’s death two years after My Own Private Idaho’s release only makes the portrayal more heartbreaking.) But his performance doesn’t work without a doubles partner, which is where Reeves comes in. Playing Scott, a fellow hustler and Mike’s best friend, Reeves adeptly encapsulates the mind-set of a young man content to just float through life. Unlike Mike, he knows he has a fat inheritance in his future — and also unlike Mike, he’s not gay, unable to share his buddy’s romantic feelings. Phoenix deservedly earned most of the accolades, but Reeves is terrific as an unobtainable object of affection — inviting, enticing, but also unknowable.

5. Speed (1994)

Years later, we still contend that Speed is a stupid idea for a movie that, despite all logic (or maybe because of the utter insanity of its premise), ended up being a total hoot. What’s clear is that the film simply couldn’t have worked if Reeves hadn’t approached the story with straight-faced sincerity: His L.A. cop Jack Traven is a ramrod-serious lawman who is going to do whatever it takes to save those bus passengers. Part of the pleasure of Speed is how it constantly juxtaposes the life-or-death stakes with the high-concept inanity — Stay above 50 mph or the bus will explode! — and that internal tension is expressed wonderfully by Reeves, who invests so intently in the ludicrousness that the movie is equally thrilling and knowingly goofy. And it goes without saying that he has dynamite chemistry with Sandra Bullock. Strictly speaking, you probably shouldn’t flirt this much when you’re sitting on top of a bomb — but it’s awfully appealing when they get their happy ending.

4. River’s Edge (1987) This film’s casting director said she cast Reeves as one of the dead-end kids who learn about a murder and do nothing “because of the way he held his body … his shoes were untied, and what he was wearing looked like a young person growing into being a man.” This was very much who the early Reeves was, and River’s Edge might be his darkest film. His vacancy here is not Zen cool … it’s just vacant, intellectually, ethically, morally, emotionally. Only in that void could Reeves be this terrifying. This is definitely a performance, but it never feels like acting. His magnetism was almost mystical.

3. John Wick (2014), John Wick: Chapter Two (2017), and John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum (2019)

If they hadn’t killed his dog, none of this would have happened. Firmly part of the “middle-aged movie stars playing mournful badasses” subgenre that’s sprung up since Taken, the John Wick saga provides Reeves with an opportunity to be stripped-down but not serene. He’s a lethal assassin who swore to his dead wife that he’d put down his arms — but, lucky for us, he reneges on that promise after he’s pushed too far. Whereas in his previous hits there was something detached about Reeves, here’s he locked in in such a way that it’s both delightful and a little unnerving. The 2014 original was gleefully over-the-top already, and the sequels have only amped up the spectacle, but his genuine fury and weariness felt new, exciting, a revelation. Turns out Keanu Reeves is frighteningly convincing as a guy who can kill many, many people.

2. A Scanner Darkly (2006)

In hindsight, it seems odd that Keanu Reeves and Richard Linklater have only worked together once — their laid-back vibes would seemingly make them well suited for one another. But it makes sense that the one film they’ve made together is this Philip K. Dick adaptation, which utilizes interpolated rotoscoping to tell the story of a drug cop (Reeves) who’s hiding his own addiction while living in a nightmarish police state. That wavy, floating style of animation nicely complements A Scanner Darkly’s sense of jittery paranoia, but it also deftly mimics Reeves’s performance, which seems to be drifting along on its own wavelength. If in the Matrix films, he manages to defeat the dark forces, in this film they’re too powerful, leading to a pretty mournful finale.

1. The Matrix (1999), The Matrix Reloaded (2003), and The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

“They had written something that I had never seen, but in a way, something that I’d always hoped for — as an actor, as a fan of science fiction.” That’s how Reeves described the sensation of reading the screenplay for The Matrix, which had been dreamed up by two up-and-coming filmmakers, Lana and Lilly Wachowski. Five years after Speed, he found his next great project, which would become the defining role of his career. Neo is the missing link between Ted’s Zen-like stillness and John Wick’s lethal efficiency, giving us a hero’s journey for the 21st century that took from Luke Skywalker and anime with equal aplomb. Never before had the actor been such a formidable onscreen presence — deadly serious but still loose and limber. Even when the sequels succumbed to philosophical ramblings and overblown CGI, Reeves commanded the frame. We always knew that he seemed like a cool, left-of-center guy. The Matrix films gave him an opportunity to flex those muscles in a true blockbuster.

[ramajmedia]

Jim Carrey's 10 Best Movies, According To Rotten Tomatoes

Despite being one of the biggest movie stars in the world with countless box office hits, Jim Carrey is a pretty divisive actor. Some fans appreciate his knack for rubbery expressive comedy, but others criticize this performing style as overacting.

While he was once possibly the most bankable star in the world, his status has dropped in the past few years and he hasn’t really starred in a major hit since 2008’s Yes Man. Still, he’s left behind a very impressive body of work and there’s every chance his star could rise again. So, here are Jim Carrey’s 10 Best Movies, According To Rotten Tomatoes.

RELATED: Jim Carrey’s 10 Most Hilarious Characters, Ranked

10 Man on the Moon (63%)

It was a dream come true when Jim Carrey was cast to play one of his idols, comedy legend Andy Kaufman, in a biopic. Directed by the great Milos Forman, this biopic plays around with the rules a lot.

There are dramatic moments and it follows a familiar formula, but there’s also a lot of Kaufman-esque comic trickery at play. As a recent Netflix documentary can attest to, Carrey went a little cuckoo on the set as he refused to break character for the entire shoot, even when the cameras weren’t rolling. But it’s hard to deny that Kaufman himself would’ve been proud.

9 Dumb and Dumber (67%)

This road comedy by the Farrelly brothers should never have gotten a sequel. The original stands perfectly on its own as one of the funniest movies ever made and no sequel could live up to that (especially the trainwreck we were eventually served in 2014).

Few comedies have a gag rate this rapid and even fewer have such a high rate of gags actually landing. Everything in the screenplay for Dumb and Dumber is carefully considered to deliver an infinitely funny moviegoing experience: the plot as a whole is funny, the individual scenes stand alone as funny, and each of those scenes is filled with hysterical one-liners and wordplay. Frankly, in terms of laughs, Dumb and Dumber is up there with Airplane! and The Naked Gun.

8 I Love You, Phillip Morris (71%)

This real-life story of con artist Steven Jay Russell has a darker sense of humor than Jim Carrey’s fans are used to, and it’s got a lot more dramatic elements than his usual work, but it’s still a lot of fun. Russell went to prison, fell in love with a fellow inmate named Phillip Morris (who, here, is played by Ewan McGregor), and when Morris was released, he broke out of prison a whopping four times just to be with him.

It’s a delightful story with more complex acting than Carrey is usually given the chance to do. Critic Steve Persall described it perfectly: “Catch Me If You Can mashed up with Brokeback Mountain if Mel Brooks directed.”

7 Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (72%)

Jim Carrey found Count Olaf, the lead antagonist role in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, to be the perfect part for him to play. He loves character work, and Olaf isn’t just an eccentric character on his own – he’s a bad actor who disguises himself as other people.

RELATED: The 10 Best Episodes Of Netflix's A Series Of Unfortunate Events

So, Carrey got to play a bunch of different characters who were being played by another character. He was eager to do a sequel to the movie, and he never likes to do sequels, but unfortunately, due to its unusually dark tone for a kids’ movie, it didn’t perform so well at the box office.

6 The Mask (77%)

The movie that made Jim Carrey’s career was a comic book movie, but not the kind of comic book movie that now floods theaters every couple of weeks. The Mask is about an ordinary man who is granted extraordinary powers, sure, but he doesn’t use them to save the world. The Mask is more like The Nutty Professor than Spider-Man, and obviously, a slapstick-based Jerry Lewis-esque role is right in Carrey’s wheelhouse, so it’s a brilliant movie.

On a side-note, Carrey isn’t the only A-list star whose career began with The Mask. You’ll also see a young Cameron Diaz make her starring debut in the film.

5 Horton Hears a Who! (79%)

This animated adaptation of the Dr. Seuss classic (funnily enough, the first-ever fully animated feature-length adaptation of the author’s work) takes the gloss of CG animation but gives it the whimsy of the iconic illustrations from Seuss’ work. Jim Carrey voices the titular elephant, who realizes that a tiny civilization lives on a speck of dust on top of a flower and will do anything to protect them.

Steve Carell plays the mayor of this civilization, while Seth Rogen lends his voice to Horton’s mouse sidekick, the aptly named Morton. It’s a heartwarming movie that tells us that even the smallest people matter.

4 Liar Liar (81%)

Jim Carrey loves high-concept movies that he can dig his teeth into. A prime example of this is Liar Liar, in which he plays a lawyer who, thanks to his son’s birthday wish, is unable to lie for 24 hours. This led to hilarious scenes like Carrey rattling off a comprehensive list of offenses he’d just committed to a cop who pulled him over and beating himself up in a men’s room to get out of court.

But ultimately, the movie carries a strong message. You shouldn’t lie to your kids – or anyone, for that matter – and Fletcher learns that the hard way in this movie. It’s far from a flawless movie, but fans of Carrey will definitely get their fill.

3 Peggy Sue Got Married (85%)

Directed by The Godfather’s Francis Ford Coppola, Peggy Sue Got Married stars Kathleen Turner as a woman in her 40s who is ready to divorce her husband, Charlie, played by Nicolas Cage and is filled with regret about how her life has played out.

Then, she gets the opportunity to go back in time and start all over again. She can prevent herself from ever marrying Charlie in the first place. That is, until she finds herself charmed by him all over again. Jim Carrey plays a minor role as Walter Getz, and since the movie came out almost a decade before Carrey became a star, he’s virtually unrecognizable.

2 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (93%)

Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman has made a career out of taking something we can all relate to, like the feeling of despair and hopelessness after a relationship, and spin it into something cinematic, like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Jim Carrey stars as Joel, a guy who falls head over heels in love with a girl, played by Kate Winslet, who breaks his heart.

RELATED: Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind: 10 Quotes That Can Never Be Erased From Our Memories

Unable to get her out of his head, he hires a company to get her out of his head using experimental new technology. Naturally, it goes wrong and he ends up trapped in his own memories. It’s very strange, but also very powerful.

1 The Truman Show (94%)

This trippy work of social science fiction could easily be an episode of Black Mirror. Jim Carrey plays Truman Burbank, a regular guy who has never left his small town and lives a quiet existence. He starts to notice unusual things about his life and soon realizes that there are cameras on him at all times, broadcasting his every move to a world filled with adoring viewers.

When he discovers the truth and tries to escape, the director of the show becomes mad with power and would rather kill him than see him leave town and experience the real world. His fans all rally behind him. It’s very satirical, yet also very moving stuff.

NEXT: Cate Blanchett's 10 Best Movies, According To Rotten Tomatoes

source https://screenrant.com/jim-carrey-best-movies-rotten-tomatoes/

[courtneyrobinson97]

IXD301

Where does content come from?

This week was all about where content comes from and also who owns that content. We looked at sources of content, for example:

Client Supplied

Self Generated

User Generated Content

APIs

Etc.

We also identified different sources of imagery, etc., for example Illustration, Icons, Photography… from places like:

Illustration

iStockPhoto

Shutterstock

Getty

Copyright

What is copyright?

Copyright (or author’s right) is a legal term used to describe the rights that creators have over their literary and artistic works. Works covered by copyright range from books, music, paintings, sculpture, and films, to computer programs, databases, advertisements, maps, and technical drawings.

Copyright touches our lives on a daily basis. Whether you read a book, watch a film, transfer music, or take a photo, copyright issues are ever-present.

Copyright law aims to balance the interests of those who create content, with the public interest in having the widest possible access to that content. WIPO administers several international treaties in the area of copyright and related rights.

There are two types of rights under copyright:

economic rights, which allow the rights owner to derive financial reward from the use of their works by others; and

moral rights, which protect the non-economic interests of the author.

Most copyright laws state that the rights owner has the economic right to authorise or prevent certain uses in relation to a work or, in some cases, to receive remuneration for the use of their work (such as through collective management). The economic rights owner of a work can prohibit or authorise:

its reproduction in various forms, such as printed publication or sound recording;

its public performance, such as in a play or musical work;

its recording, for example, in the form of compact discs or DVDs;

its broadcasting, by radio, cable or satellite;

its translation into other languages; and

its adaptation, such as a novel into a film screenplay.

Examples of widely recognised moral rights include the right to claim authorship of a work and the right to oppose changes to a work that could harm the creator's reputation.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organisation devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organisation has released several copyright-licenses, known as Creative Commons licenses, free of charge to the public. 

These licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators. An easy-to-understand one-page explanation of rights, with associated visual symbols, explains the specifics of each Creative Commons license. 

Creative Commons licenses do not replace copyright but are based upon it. They replace individual negotiations for specific rights between copyright owner (licensor) and licensee, which are necessary under an "all rights reserved" copyright management, with a "some rights reserved" management employing standardised licenses for re-use cases where no commercial compensation is sought by the copyright owner. The result is an agile, low-overhead and low-cost copyright-management regime, benefiting both copyright owners and licensees.

Portfolio Website Content - So Far...

<!-- HOME SECTION -->

<h1>HOME PAGE</h1>

<div>

<img src="images/background.png" alt="Me" /> 

<h1>HEY, I'M COURTNEY.</h1>

<p><i>METAL GIRL WITH TATTOOS.</i></p> <p><i>ANIMAL & COFFEE ENTHUSIAST.</i></p> <p><i>UI DESIGNER & FRONT-END DEVELOPER.</i></p>

<button>VIEW MORE ABOUT ME</button>

</div>

<!-- END OF HOME SECTION -->

<!-- START OF PORTFOLIO SECTION -->

<h1>PORTFOLIO PAGE</h1> <div>

  <div> <img src="images/dogapp.png" alt="Who's That Good Boy?" />

<h2>WHO'S THAT GOOD BOY?</h2> <h3><i>SKILL : APP DESIGN / PROTOTYPING</i></h3>

<p>The educational app for all ages, encouraging users to travel and discover the many varieties of doggos we have in this beautiful world even right on our own doorstep.</p>

<p>Who’s That Good Boy? allows users to have a fun, interactive experience as well as sharing the experience with family or friends.</p>

</div>

<div> <img src="images/mybranding.png" alt="Self Branding" />

<h2>SELF BRANDING</h2> <h3><i>SKILL : CORPORATE IDENTITY - BRANDING</i></h3>

<p>My brand vision is to create unique and exciting solutions within the design industry which adhere and relate to my selected style and approach to design.</p>

<p>In this section you will see my start to finish process of making my Monogram, Wordmark and Visual Marque.</p>

</div>

<div>

<img src="images/infographic.png" alt="Dementia in the UK" />

<h2>DEMENTIA IN THE UK</h2> <h3><i>SKILL : DATA VISUALISATION - INFOGRAPHIC</i></h3>

<p>During my first year of university, my Nannie suffered from and passed due to the affects of Dementia.</p>

<p>I decided to base my infographic on the topic of Dementia in the UK as it's a disease that, unless witnessed first hand, not everyone understands the full extent and issues it raises.</p>

<p>I wanted to make something that would provide people with the relevant information in an interesting but informative way.</p>

</div> </div> <!-- END OF PORTFOLIO SECTION -->

<!-- ABOUT SECTION -->

<h1>ABOUT PAGE</h1>

  <div>

<div> <h3>Hey, I'm Courtney.</h3>

<p>I’m a young, enthusiastic UI designer based in Belfast currently seeking placement opportunities for 2020-2021.</p>

</div>

<div> <p>I'm currently a second year student at Ulster University, Belfast, studying a Bachelors in Interaction Design.</p>

<p>My key areas of interest include:</p>

<ul> <li>Front-End Development</li> <li>Branding</li> <li>UI Design</li> <li>App Design</li> <li>Data Visualisation</li> <li>Illustration</li> </ul>

</div> <div>

<p>Before coming to Ulster University, I achieved a Level 5 HND in Graphic Design at Belfast Metropolitan College. It was here that I discovered my passion for digital design whilst building and designing projects for set briefs.</p>

</div> </div> <!-- END OF ABOUT SECTION -->

<!--CASE STUDY SECTION -->

<h1>CASE STUDY PAGE</h1>

<div> <img src="images/appheader.png" alt="Who's That Good Boy'" />

<h2>The Challenge</h2>

<p>Create an illustrative travel app considering elements such as mobile design principles, colour and thumb.</p>

<h2>The Process</h2>

<img src="images/travelapp-mindmap.png" alt="Mind-map" />

<p>For this project, I began by exploring the potential answers to the problem given by drawing a mind-map of ideas after hearing the topic “Travel”. From this, I was able to branch the ideas out further to see which ideas held the most potential in regards to fulfilling the set brief of creating an app using illustration but also considering the potential needs of the intended users.</p>

<p>After discussing my list of ideas in class, my next stage was to begin market research. I had to gain a sound knowledge and understanding of all the elements that need to be considered when building and designing an app before I could begin developing my own concept. Looking at how existing apps use illustration in regards to travel as well as their navigation layout approach, icon sets and branding were all helpful as it made me consider what was needed for my own app in order for it to be successful.</p>

<img src="images/masterapprentice.png" alt="Master Apprentice" />

<p>As I’d never created an icon set before, I used the design technique of master apprenticing to recreate a set of travel icons so that I would have a better approach to designing using just simple shapes. I enjoyed completing this exercise and it encouraged me to research the history of icons to see how they have varied in design approach from the 1900’s to present day.</p>

<img src="images/travelapp-mindmap2.png" alt="Mind-Map" />

<p>Now that I had a better knowledge on what needed to be included in an app, I then went back to my initial mind-map of ideas. From this I decided to create a dog themed app as I felt it held strong visual stimulation for creating illustrations. My inspiration behind the functioning of the app stemmed from looking at Pokemon Go. I wanted to design an app that encourages the user to travel in real life to collect as many dog breeds as they could, gaining a stamp for each breed as a reward.</p>

<p>The idea for the app is that the user would photograph a dog they find whilst out exploring, the app would then transform the dog into an illustrative id card which would then be stored. Each dog discovered gains the user more ranking and also unlocks mini challenges like a treasure hunt as they have to answer questions and follow clues to end up at a final destination.</p>

<img src="images/travelapp-wireframes.png" alt="Wireframes" />

<p>Turning to my sketchbook was the next stage of my process so that I could start developing visuals for my app design. I created many rough sketches in regards to icons, illustrations and wireframes so that I could move on to digitising the app using Sketch to develop them into clean, finished design elements which would piece together to finalise the overall app design.</p>

<img src="images/presentation.png" alt="App Presentation" />

<p>I produced a high-level mock-up of my app to present in front of my classmates in order to receive constructive feedback that would then help guide me to a finalised app design. Once I made the recommended changes to my designs, I created a functioning prototype using InVision to best show how my app design answers the problem set in the original brief.</p>

<h2>Some Obstacles</h2>

<p>The main challenge I encountered was when I was digitising the dog illustrations as at this point I had limited experiences using Sketch for these purposes. The illustrations therefore took quite a bit of time to create however I feel that this experience helped strengthen my skill set in regards to using this software.</p>

<h2>My Reflection</h2>

<p>Throughout the process of this project, I feel like I was able to strengthen my existing skill set for developing and designing concepts from start to finish, however, I also got to experiment and learn some new techniques I hadn't tried out before such as prototyping and considering the rule of thumb.</p>

<p>To read further notes and my reflections on this brief, click the link below to my Tumblr page!</p>

<button>VISIT MY TUMBLR</button>

</div> <!-- END OF CASE STUDY SECTION -->

<!-- CONTACT SECTION -->

<h1>CONTACT PAGE</h1>

<img src="images/background.png" alt="Me" />

<div> <h1>Let's Chat!</h1>

<p>Check out the ‘Hire Me’ page for my CV or fire me an email using the link provided below whether it be for job opportunities, an invite to groups/events or perhaps even for a killer collaboration project.</p>

<p>I’m currently seeking placement opportunities for 2020-2021.</p>

<button>GET IN TOUCH</button>

</div> <!-- END OF CONTACT SECTION -->

<!-- HIRE PAGE SECTION -->

<h1>HIRE PAGE</h1>

<div> <img class="center" src="images/visual1.png" alt="Visual Marque" />

<h1>Courtney Robinson</h1> <h2>UI DESIGNER & FRONT-END DEVELOPER</h2>

</div> <div>

<h3>Design Experience</h3> <h4>Content Marketing Manager</h4> <h5>Robinson Financial Services</h5> <h5><i>Oct 19 to Present (Part Time)</i></h5>

<p>Roles & responsibilities:</p>

<ul> <li>To expand the company’s digital footprint and brand awareness</li> <li>To take full responsibility of the companies digital marketing strategies including use of social media, email campaigns, blogs, SEO (to name a few) to increase digital lead generation</li> <li>To provide administrative support to the Company Director</li> <li>To perform other incidental and related duties as required and assigned</li> <li>Responding promptly to customer enquiries in person or via telephone & email</li> <li>Working to tight deadlines</li> </ul>

<h4>Freelance Designer</h4> <h5>Courtney Robinson Designs</h5> <h5><i>June 17 to Present (Part Time)</i></h5>

<p>Roles & responsibilities:</p>

<ul> <li>Responding promptly to customer enquiries in person or via telephone & email</li> <li>Create visuals based on customer requests (print or digital)</li> <li>Strong use of Adobe Creative Suite and Sketch Software</li> <li>Daily reports on the status of pending work</li> <li>Good general IT skills</li> <li>An ability to communicate design ideas clearly</li> <li>Working to tight deadlines</li> </ul>

</div> <div>

<h3>Education</h3>

<h4>Interaction Design (BDes)</h4>      

                                                                <p>Ulster University, Belfast</p>

<p>Sep 18 - May 22</p> <p>Result: Pending</p>

<h4>Graphic Design (QCF)</h4>

<p>(EDEXCEL BTEC Level 5 HND Diploma)</p> <p>Belfast Metropolitan College, Belfast</p> <p>Sep 15 - May 17</p> <p>Result: Pass</p>

<h4>OCN NI Level 2 Award in Social Media (QCF)</h4>

<p>Belfast Metropolitan College, Belfast</p> <p>Sep 15 - May 17</p> <p>Result: Achieved</p>

</div>

<div> <h3>Design Skills</h3>

<ul> <li>Sketch</li> <li>Adobe Creative Suite</li> <li>HTML/CSS</li> <li>InVision</li> <li>Branding</li> <li>Digital Marketing</li> <li>Web & App Design</li> <li>Data Visualisation</li> </ul>

</div>

<div> <button>DOWNLOAD PDF</button> </div> <!-- END OF HIRE PAGE SECTION -->

Sources:

https://www.wipo.int/copyright/en/

https://creativecommons.org/

[picturelockshow]

"The Best Of Enemies" Review: Another Been There Seen That Blockbuster on Race Relations

If you’ve seen a blockbuster Hollywood film dealing with race, you’ve seen The Best of Enemies. You can expect to learn more about the white antagonist than the black protagonist, whose weight in the true story is equal or greater to the other. The heart of the message, as it usually is, is definitely one that is good and should be celebrated. The problem is, with the same old screenplay structure, this film is still preaching to the choir and not digging deep enough to give us a sense of hidden figures in our nation’s history.

The film is set in 1971, when C.P. Ellis (Sam Rockwell) was the Exalted Cyclops of the Durham, North Carolina klavern of the United Klans of America. Ann Atwater (Taraji P. Henson) was a fair-housing activist at the time, trying to fight for the treatment of African-American residents in the community. After the segregated black elementary school burns from an electrical fire, the community has to decide whether to integrate the white school or not. Bill Riddick (Babou Ceesay) is brought in from Raleigh to conduct a charette, a deadline driven time of planning or activity, in order to bring the city to a conclusion.

The film builds Ellis’s character early on by showing him and fellow klansmen shooting up a home of a white woman who is dating a black man. “Wait for the light!” C.P. says. They shoot through the bottom floor of the home to intimidate her as soon as the light upstairs is turned on. It’s an interesting look from the inside of the Klan as to how they’re doing their “job”. Ellis also has a son in a mental hospital who he visits regularly and pours love into. So it’s evident that he understands loving someone who may be different, but is staunch in his racist thinking. Atwater is always breathing hard. It could be because she’s overweight, but there is a sense of anger brewing under the surface with her that comes from years of hard work and hard living. While she’s not afraid to talk to the city officials who don’t care what she has to say (one turns in his chair to give her his back during a hearing) Atwater means business and expects them to listen.

The elements of a dynamic drama are there. There is an internal clock within the film that pushes the movie forward. You have a man who hates black people but loves his family and a woman who advocates for black people by speaking truth to power on a daily basis. The question becomes, how did they go from enemies to having the kind of friendship in which Atwater delivered the eulogy when Ellis died in 2005? It’s this deep study in character development and human interaction that writer/director Robin Bissell misses the mark on in exchange for symbolism over exhibiting the internal reflection/change of his characters.

Throughout the film, social class is represented through clothing. The rich and educated wear suits and nice clothes in the film, while the “common folk” wear button ups and dresses thin enough for their sweat stains to seep through and make sure we know they work hard. In fact, the rich don’t ever seem to sweat in a community that seems to be hot as evidenced by Atwater’s constant use of a handkerchief to dab away her sweat. There is a surface level exploration of the politics of the town that would give the viewer an inside look at why tensions exist amongst the the groups represented in the film. 

Atwater does a nice thing for the Ellis family, unbeknownst to them, which simply serves as an example of being kind even when someone is mean to you. At the end of the charette, Atwater gives a one sentence answer in whether the schools should be integrated or not. We get a monologue from Ellis for his decision to do what we knew was right from the beginning. There is a disproportionate amount of focus and backstory on both characters in this film, and that has to stop.

If The Best of Enemies had never been made, the vast majority of people who see the film would never know about Ann Atwater and C.P. Ellis. So there has to be some credit given to the people who brought this movie to life. However, if we’re going to have stories dealing with race and overcoming prejudice in our history, let’s do it the right way! Taraji P. Henson and Sam Rockwell brought it as their characters, but perhaps the same equality their characters were fighting for should be brought to similar screenplays in the future!

Rating: C

[curly-q-reviews]

ROAD TO THE OSCAR MAYER WIENER AWARDS 2K19

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, 2018 (dir. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen)

Nominated for: Best Original Song, Best Costume Design, Best Adapted Screenplay

SPOILER ALERT THAR BE SPOILERS AHEAD ME HEARTIES BE YE WARNED

wowee what a cool film!!  i went into this not knowing much about it except it was directed by the Coen brothers (directors of Fargo and The Big Lebowski) which set real high expectations for me.  these guys are real masters of storytelling and what immediately come to mind when i think of movies that know how to effectively use dark humor.  i also love the kinds of stories they tell in general, how they take subjects and settings that seem kinda mundane and just give them this little extra spark. 

so is this newest film just as good as their other work???  well id say yeah for sure!!!  it reminds me a lot of a film they did shortly after The Big Lebowski called O Brother, Where Art Thou?, because theyre both period pieces AND because they both feature a myriad of eclectic and interesting characters.  the one thing that makes The Ballad of Buster Scruggs really stand out from their other films however is the fact that this is actually an anthology made up of six different stories, all set during the same time period in The Wild West.  its also worth mentioning that this movie was made to premiere on Netflix, which is something ive started to see more and more as the streaming platform becomes the new go-to source of media content.  its very exciting to see such prolific directors go the Netflix route and have great success with it, because it means that the platform really is capable of creating high-quality movies and TV shows and working with big-name talent.  im sure the big hollywood production companies are all quaking in their lil booties cause this means big BIG changes are on the horizon

ok so ive reviewed anthology series before, notably Black Mirror, and with those reviews i ranked the short stories in order of least to most favorite.  so i guess in this case ill do the same, although its hard to really rank these cause i truly enjoyed all of them in different ways.  there was one however that didnt really tickle my fancy much, which was “Near Algodones”.  this one stars james franco as a bank robber who seems to have met his match in a fiery (probably crazy) bank teller.  he gets caught and hung from a tree by the town’s sheriff, but nearly manages to escape death when a Native American tribe swoops in and kills the sheriff and his crew.  james franco is saved by a cattle driver, only to be caught again by the next town’s sheriff for allegedly trying to hawk the cattle (which was not the case at all).  right before they kick the chair out from under him at the hanging, he sees a beautiful woman in blue, who at first smiles at him but then looks unnerved as he stares back at her. 

i think with this one the ending really didnt do much for me, i kinda didnt get it.  i did understand the whole irony behind surviving punishment for a crime he DID commit but getting hanged for a crime he never committed, and the bank teller was pretty hilarious, but everything else about the segment was just ok.  james franco didnt really blow me away (he never really does but thats besides the point), the rest of the performances were fine, and the story just kinda zipped on through.  maybe ill give this one another watch to see if the ending makes any more sense to me, or if theres any sense to be made from it at all

next up for me would be “The Gal Who Got Rattled”, and this segment i have mixed feelings over.  its about this brother and sister who set out on the Oregon trail so that the brother can get his sister to marry his business partner in Oregon.  the sister seems like a kind of wishy-washy, subdued character who just kinda goes along with whatever her brother says without giving much of her own opinion.  i gotta give credit to zoe kazan (who starred in The Big Sick) cause she does a great job with this character, totally spot-on performance.  ok so turns out the brother is a fucken HORRIBLE businessman who screws up all his business deals all the time, and he tragically dies like two days into being on the oregon trail.  he has this annoying-ass dog that barks all the time and everyone else on the caravan is sick of it, so when the brother dies the sister just lets one of the trail leaders put it down.  turns out the sister like did not like her brother at all but was always too afraid to say anything.  now getting back to the bad businessman thing, apparently he had promised the helper boy that is helping move their covered wagon a large sum of money, half of it halfway through the journey and the rest when they get to oregon.  problem is, the sister doesnt have the money, so it was either left in the brothers pocket when he was buried or there wasnt actually any money at all and he lied, y’know, like a bad businessman does.  the trail leader who put the annoying dog down offers to help her, and the two start to get close.  so now its like a pseudo love story thing.  except it ends pretty tragically (the sister dies its a long story and pretty ironic just watch it if u wanna know)

so uuuhhhhh this one was long as shit, like a lot longer than the other segments when it didnt really need to be???  like it just kept  going and going, and again the ending didnt really make up for how long it was.  i really liked zoe kazan in this, but otherwise nothing to write home about. 

number four on my list would have to go to “All Gold Canyon”, which basically just follows the story of a gold miner in the mountains trying to get that money honey.  this segment is the simplest one out of the bunch, but i gotta say its absolutely gorgeous.  what beautiful scenery and cinematography.  it provides a nice contrast to our disheveled, run-down gold miner who is just tearing up the beautiful grassy fields trying to get to this gold.  there seems to be a theme in this one of man’s relationship to nature, and how the gold miner does put in effort to respect it but still takes advantage of it for his own benefit.  and i guess theres a broader theme of greed, or the ruthless and endless pursuit of wealth which can drive people to do crazy and desperate things.  i definitely really enjoyed this one, especially the gold miner character played by tom waits.  but otherwise it didnt stand out as much to me as the other segments im gonna talk about

SPEAKING OF WHICH heres number three!!  “The Mortal Remains” is right up my alley, and has some more mythical elements to it than the other segments ive talked about so far.  so we have a wagon full of passengers all going to this hotel for various reasons, and its a really diverse cast of characters: we have the older wife of a prolific religious lecturer, a rich Frenchman, a trapper, a foppish Englishman, and a cheery laid-back Irishman, the last two seeming to be companions of some sort.  they all get on the topic of the true nature of mankind, and the three characters opposite of the strange pair all have something different to say.  the trapper believes that all people are inherently the same, with the same basic needs.  the older woman disagrees and insists that there are two kinds of people, upright and sinning.  and then the Frenchman says that both of them are wrong, that human existence is much more complicated and nuanced than that; no one persons life is exactly the same as another’s.  and then we have the Englishman and the Irishman, who turn out to be bounty hunters of some sort (is heavily alluded that they are grim reaper-type figures).  they explain their method of completing their kills, and talk about how they enjoy watching their victims “try to make sense of it all” in their death throes.  these two clearly have a much more cold and sinister idea of the nature of mankind, and the rest become very unsettled all the way to the hotel.  no one else even dares to step out of the carriage while the bounty hunters drag their latest victim through the front entrance and up the stairs.

oh man this segment was great!  i think the reason its third on my list is cause i really wish there was more to it, like if the Coen brothers spent more time on this one instead of “The Gal Who Got Rattled” it would be perfect.  Jonjo O’Neill and Brendan Gleeson as the bounty hunters were so enthralling, and i loved watching them play off of each other.  hell, i couldve had a whole movie featuring those two.  and the screenwriting really shines in this segment too.  this segment almost feels like a fable or something, which is really fitting for the time period.  makes me wonder if they had based it off of an actual fable.  but anyway yeah this ones awesome!

i had a hard time choosing between “The Mortal Remains” and this next segment for second place cause i liked them both equally, but in the end “Meal Ticket” gets #2 purely because of the utterly fantastic performance by Harry Melling, who plays a quadriplegic actor in a traveling show run by liam neesons character, an irish traveling entertainer.   the story itself is really simple, we just see this disabled actor be carted from one town to the next, doing the same stage show which is basically just him reciting famous prose throughout the ages.  meanwhile liam neeson is trying to get as much money as he can out of the audience members.  he doesnt interact much with harry melling outside of feeding him and helping him piss and get dressed.  u get the sense that he doesnt really see his disabled actor as an actual person, but more of an entertaining object or a pet.  and this becomes even more apparent when the irishman gets some competition from another traveling entertainer who has a chicken that can do math.  he sees this chicken getting more money than him, so he buys it off of the other guy and takes it with him.  and finally, the poor limbless actor is literally and figuratively tossed aside for the next best thing.

man oh man what a great segment!  harry melling blew me away with his performance, the fact that he was able to get such a nuanced range of emotion out of the few lines he was given (basically he had to recite the same shit over and over again) was so impressive to me.  and his non-verbal communication was really solid too.  liam neeson did really well in his role too.  and again the story itself is really great, simple but effective and really gets the point across without having to beat the audience over the head with its message. OH YEAH ITS REAL GOOD LOVE IT

and finally we have my #1 pick, which i think the directors knew this was the best one out of the bunch too cause its the first segment as well as the title of the whole movie.  “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” has that signature Coen brothers wit and dark humor that i love, it plays off of typical Western movie tropes and is very tongue-in-cheek and i ate that shit up.  tim blake nelson as the titular buster is just so fucken perfect for this role, he really shines in this and its kind of a shame that its one of the shorter segments cause it really is the best one and he knocks it out of the park.  we got some great music in this segment too, which is where that Best Original Song nom comes in.   this one also has some strong fable-y vibes to it, like this story could be amongst the likes of American folklore like Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed.  i wont get much into the plot of this one but i highly recommend watching it, even if you dont wanna see the rest of the segments. 

the segments fit together pretty well overall, although the tone of each of them differs slightly the fact that the setting and time period are the same is enough to firmly knit all these stories together.  its a really unique idea for a movie, and is so far the best attempt at an anthology movie that ive ever seen purely because the stories really all make sense together and play off of each other well.  in other anthology movies ive seen like The ABC’s of Death the segments usually dont have much at all to do with each other, except that they all fall in the same genre.  so overall id say give this a watch, especially if ur a Coen brothers fan, cause theres some real good stuff in here.

well thats all i got for now cowboys!!  i watched Roma the other day and CRIED REAL HARD so get ready for me to kiss that movies ass in a review that should be done in the next few days.  until then go uuhhhhhh lasso a cow or something.  chew some tobaccy.  fondle a barmaids titties.  die of dysentery.  y’know just old west things~

[ahouseoflies]

The Best Films of 2018, Part V

We’re finally here. Thank you for reading. Or at least scrolling around to the movies that you care about. GREAT MOVIES

12. Minding the Gap (Bing Liu)- In part because it's produced by Steve James, Minding the Gap's easy short-hand is "Hoop Dreams for skateboarding." Because most of the film's pleasures come from following the subjects over the course of five or six years, that makes sense. What differs is that director Bing Liu is so young, which makes this a promising film if a less definitive one than James's feature debut. It’s trying to do so much, but it never feels calculated or constructed as it expands. Boldly, Liu seems to suggest that people don't really change that much, that what drives them or gnaws at them just manifests itself in different ways. The cycle of abuse ends up being a common element for the three skaters, and, as Liu admits on camera, domestic violence is the reason he made the film. (The treatment of it is raw, a blunt object when a more delicate instrument might work better.) He got the hard part right though: delicately getting us to care about people who sometimes don't care about themselves. 11. A Quiet Place (John Kransinski)- Strong early Shyamalan vibes from this lean chiller. Krasinski's directing debut, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, didn't do much for me, and I skipped his obligatory man-comes-back-to-hometown-because-his-mom's-dying follow-up. But the filmmaking really impressed me here just by understanding how to set the table of this kind of movie. A close-up on an important nail sticking out of a floorboard here, an effortless explanation of a rule there. The hang-up for a film this high-concept is that you get distracted by all of the unanswered questions. (How did he get a printer quiet enough to print out all of those radio call signals?) But this world is fleshed out enough, especially an eerie dinner sequence, to bypass that kind of stuff for me. More than anything, there's a sort of elasticity of shot selection that serves the suspense. A tender early scene in which the central couple is dancing while wearing headphones goes on for maybe twice as long as one might expect. So later, the cross-cuts and smash-cuts have even more weight because the camera was allowed to linger earlier. Here's maybe the biggest reason for the movie's success: The characters are all slightly smarter than the audience, whereas the temptation might have been to go the other way with it. 10. Black Panther (Ryan Coogler)- I don't know if I can add anything to the discourse on this meditative yet ambitious film. I do think one early scene points at what makes it special for the genre. When T'Challa is first named king, he has to be drained of the Black Panther powers to fight anyone who wishes to challenge the throne. A member of an outsider tribe challenges him and nearly beats him. It shows a) the world-building of this noble, fair culture, b) the existence of this fully developed clan that will be important later, c) just how human T'Challa is if his reign can come so perilously close to ending just as it has begun. Every scene like that has a logical purpose. Of course, once Killmonger, the best, most realistically motivated Marvel villain of all time, gets introduced, we return to that method of challenging the throne, and writers Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole aren't afraid to let the worst possible thing happen to T'Challa. What occurred forty-five minutes earlier makes this fight seem like a fait accompli. And it's in this sort of narrative detail that the film is able to work up to its thematic purpose. The first half is about, to quote T'Chaka, whether a good man can be a good king. But the second half is about the responsibility of goodness. Show me where Iron Man bit off that much. 9. Support the Girls (Andrew Bujalski)- Although it takes place mostly in one location during one day, Support the Girls has a bigger world going on in its margins. We hear it on radios, or we see it in the people taking a pitstop in Double Whammies while they're on their way somewhere better. But the force that's really encroaching on the characters' insulated environment is Mancave, the national chain that threatens to put them out of business. "They have commercials and everything," one character complains, and we get snatches of those commercials that were presumably directed by Andrew Bujalski himself. It's ten seconds of content maybe, shot in a bigger, broader style than the modest approach of the rest of the film. But the key to understanding how far Bujalski has come is realizing that he is no longer making fun of the people in the commercial, even if they're jacked bros screaming for a boxing match. That portrayal is amplified, sure, but Bujalski is mature enough now to not ridicule those people. It's okay that they're just not the people he's interested in. He's supernaturally empathetic toward the rogue's gallery of people he is interested in, who spin the ordinary challenges of the working class into something extraordinary. The sunniest member of the team is played by Haley Lu Richardson, who deserves special recognition as the indefatigable Maci. I can't think of parts that are much different from her roles in this, Columbus, and Split, to the extent that people probably don't realize they're played by the same woman, but she rules in every single one. The sky is the limit for her. When a workplace is described as "a family," it's usually just a way for the boss to take advantage of workers when the "family" designation does nothing to help them: "I know I shouldn't ask you to work off the clock, but can you help me out as a FAMILY MEMBER?" Occasionally though, it does feel like a family when people work closely to one another for hours on end and depend upon one another for real life needs. This movie is about what happens when a work family is both control and support.

8. Roma (Alfonso Cuaron)- The trailer for Children of Men advertises itself as "from the director of The Prisoner of Azkaban and Y Tu Mama Tambien," and I remember an audience giggling at that strange CV. For one thing, at the time people didn't understand yet why someone would brag about contributing to a Harry Potter movie. But to pair that children's picture with either a Spanish title they hadn't heard of or a movie that they knew was sexually explicit? Who was this guy? Roma is who he is. I like some of his other films more--I would argue that his approach hurts the performances here--but it seems impossible for him to make anything this personal again. The baldly emotional highs that it reaches come not only from the direct simplicity of the story but also from the sophisticated perspective with which it's being downloaded directly from Cuaron's memory. (It's also, accidentally or purposefully, quite a political film at this moment in time. It insists, sometimes in the dialect of Mixtec, that these people around us silently washing dishes or picking up dog poo are, in fact, part of our family.) There's a moment when one brother throws something at another's head, barely missing, and they both stop in their tracks with fear about how tragically things could have ended up. My dad experienced a similar moment in his childhood, and he would tell the same story about Uncle Steve throwing a shoe at him any time we passed the wooden door with a dent in it at my grandma's house. What a tiny moment to live on for decades, in tangible and intangible ways. Cuaron claims that all of these moments shape us, and taking us to the moon was only a warm-up for resurrecting them for us. 7. Happy As Lazzaro (Alice Rohrbacher)- Alice Rohrwacher won the screenplay award at Cannes, probably because her script for Happy As Lazzaro is fundamentally unpredictable. Games of checkers are unpredictable though. That word doesn't quite cover the way the viewer is forced to guess at something as elemental as "What year is this taking place?" And none of the twists and turns of the storytelling--I refuse to spoil--would gel if Rohrwacher as a director wasn't teaching you how to watch the film the whole time with a rich, warm, light touch. Considering the purity of this vision as a fable, buoyed by realistic labor concerns on the other hand, it's a pity that people are calling Birdbox "crazy" when something like this is just a few clicks down on that service. 6. The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos)- When assessing The Favourite, the easy temptation is to say that because it isn't stuffy, because of its scabrous wit or its intimate filming techniques, that it "isn't your mother's chamber drama." It is invigorating, but in a lot of ways, the film isn't saying anything that the average Masterpiece Theater production doesn't. Instead it takes cultural touchstones about the emptiness of power and distorts them, much like the fish-eye lenses that Yorgos Lanthimos favors to photograph the palace. It says an easy thing in a hard way, with conviction to burn. Lanthimos seems freed by not having to write the screenplay, and every decision of his is rooted in making things more narrow. The barrel distortion of the fish-eye seems apt for this idea, but so do the secret passageways that Queen Anne gets wheeled through to avoid the lower rungs of the estate. Of course there's no outside world to intrude upon her majesty. But there's even an inner world to the inner world. (It's impossible to watch Olivia Colman's gonzo depiction of Anne's incurious indolence and not think of Trump.) I'm convinced that Emma Stone can do anything, and the final shot, an all-timer, only validates that suspicion. 5. Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot (Gus Van Sant)- You have to check out every Gus Van Sant movie, even after a few missteps, because you never know: He might take the emotional climax that you didn't even know you wanted and score it to inter-diegetic "Still Rock 'N Roll to Me," thus grounding real poignance with even realer goofiness.I'll admit that the bar is low, but this is probably the most authentic, least treacly movie ever made about addiction recovery. Van Sant, who wrote, directed, and edited, tells the story with patient command. We take Joaquin Phoenix for granted at this point, but everybody on the poster is exceptional. And Udo Kier gets to say, "Pop, pop. It's always about penises." INSTANT CLASSICS

4. A Star Is Born (Bradley Cooper)- In one scene Cooper's Jackson Maine wears a black leather jacket under a brown leather vest, and the movie itself risks that kind of hat-on-a-hat silliness and redundancy. But instead it comes off as the best kind of big swing, a comforting and warm serving of Old Hollywood. Cooper's camera knows how to embrace silence and let the leads play off each other to craft raw, touching performances. Sometimes the close-ups are so intense and focused that, when he cuts back to a master, it's disorienting to be reminded that there are other people in that space, in the world at all.The movie's deficiencies come from "Wait, how much time has passed?" moments in the writing, problems that I always have had with Eric Roth projects. But it's easy to get swept up in a movie of moments that believes so much in itself.

3. Mission: Impossible- Fallout (Christopher McQuarrie)- The pattern of Mission: Impossible- Fallout is: infodump that explains the stakes and the strategy of what we're about to see, followed by an action sequence that is somehow even more thrilling than the one that came before it. Imagine a really interesting day of grade school classes, in which you learned, like, multiplication, followed by recess every other period. As for T.C., what more could you possibly want out of a human being?

2. Wildlife (Paul Dano)- When Jerry, Jake Gyllenhaal's groundskeeper of pathetic pride, figures out that his boss is about to fire him in front of his son, he smiles and, through clenched teeth, asks if this talk can happen tomorrow. Part of him actually believes that postponing the meeting will help; maybe the boss's temper will cool overnight. But this is a man who is bound by the same desperate spirit as his wife Jeanette, who muses, "Tomorrow something will happen that will make us feel different." When people are living day-to-day, clinging to their dignity--he refers to himself as a "small person" at one point--tomorrow really does offer a regenerative power. Those characters are the same-pole magnets that inform this coming-of-age tale, and the subtext of the film is "Can you believe Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal have a fourteen-year-old son?" It works for the 1960 setting because these are people who defined themselves before they knew who they were, and they'll now do anything to re-define themselves as brave/sexy/valuable. But it works for the actors too. Gyllenhaal in particular is tender and heartbreaking in a true supporting role, allowing himself to look his age, framing himself with the dad akimbo arms. But Mulligan's fake confidence is great too, especially in a scene in which she nearly begs her husband to let her work. Something tells me that I should credit a director for coaxing two career best performances from two great actors. Some people just have it, and Paul Dano does.

1. First Reformed (Paul Schrader)- In 1998 I dragged my father to see Paul Schrader's Affliction, a movie that was kind of about my father's father. When the end credits rolled on that bleak, wrenching film, my dad turned to me and said, "I feel like I have to take a shower." We walked around a nearby hotel and talked for an hour, not that he was able to articulate why he was so shaken. We discussed the difference between entertainment and art and what makes a piece of either successful. Even though he hated the experience, he couldn't deny that it was an experience. He kept on saying, "That's not why I go to the movies." And no matter what I, fifteen at the time, told him, he couldn't understand that's exactly why I go to the movies. First Reformed had the same mesmerizing effect as the best of Schrader's work: When I exited the building, I stumbled into the sunlight because I had been trapped in someone else's mind for almost two hours.

Part of that effect comes from the narrative device of Reverend Toller's journal, which plants us in his headspace from the beginning. Part of it comes from the intimate scale of the film, which features only a handful of locations. But if what I'm explaining seems small, then I'm doing a bad job. The canvas expands. Schrader insists that our care for the environment is our most immediate responsibility; this film historian has no problem with planting the film at 2017 in dialogue. And that emphasis is matched only by his disdain for how big business encroaches on personal aspects of our lives. There's even a scene that tries to account for a recent rise in extremism among young people. As if to prove that he isn't being pedantic, he has one character communicate one of those ideas, letting you assume that role is his mouthpiece, then he has another character reply with something just as convincing. First Reformed weaves in those elements, but it's ultimately a character piece that humanizes the type of person we think we know but for which we have no frame of reference. In Ethan Hawke's piercing performance, we see a Reform minister who punishes himself actively and passively for what he thinks are sins. He uses faith as an armor and as an excuse, being so of the mind and--as another character puts it--"in the garden" that he denies himself medical care. No matter what anyone else tells him, he is convinced of one of the tenets that Schrader could never shake from his Calvinist upbringing: There's nothing you can do to save yourself.