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12th March 2019 | SXSW | Austin, TX | x

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#Repost @spadegfilms • • • • • • Detroit, Michigan Detroit⛵📌 ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠ #spadegfilms #texasmedia #hiphopblogger #sxsw19 #atxblogger #musicindustry #hiphopweekly #vh1 #viralvideos #ganglingo #lifestyle #growth #atxmostwanted #takeoff #gametime #familyeatfirst RuffTVLive (at Austin, Texas) https://www.instagram.com/p/B7n5LxBBwya/?igshid=12p1izdxyqe6s

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Tyler Blackburn & Michael Vlamis - 2019 SXSW Portraits Photography by Peggy Sirota

[iheartmoosiq]

Catching whenyoung was at the top of our priority list when we headed out for SXSW last month. And we nearly missed their set at The Line Of Best Fit’s showcase at the Swan Dive, too. That would have been an unfathomable disaster. I nearly panicked while stuck outside in a stagnant line when the band went on, but fortunately I only had to listen to a few of their songs from outside before I was able to use my SXSW express pass and make my way into the packed room, where I took in the Irish indie trio’s music in all its glory. Come May 24th, the group will be releasing their very first album, Reasons To Dream. In anticipation of its arrival, they bring us a fresh dose of their vibrantly sweeping indie on new single Future, a chiming rocker which tells the story of a close friend who sadly took their own life. Future also strives to find a message of hope in darkness. Future’s video was directed by award winning short film maker Michael Baldwin, and it stars young actor Badger. The song, as we’ve noticed from prior love affairs with whenyoung songs, is full of a youthful vigor. It’s a sanguine anthem that stirs the optimism in me while stoking my love for all things bittersweet. 

whenyoung says of their debut album:  "Reasons To Dream is a presentation of our collective experiences of life since we have moved to London... We've trundled through many jobs, flats, neighbourhoods and rehearsal rooms learning, practising, maturing and cultivating whatever it is we do along the way. We've gone from knowing nobody to making close friends, from finding it lonely to finding it welcoming." Pre-order Reasons To Dream, here. The band is touring across the UK this month. 

[letterboxd]

Spiritual.

“It just goes to show you can give four people similar ingredients and they will absolutely not make the same movie.”

In Max Minghella’s Teen Spirit, aspiring teenage singer Violet (Elle Fanning) pursues her pop dream via a TV reality competition show. The Cinderella plot-line is common enough in underdog stories, but Teen Spirit uses the setup to mount a textured, vibrant, uplifting film enhanced to no end by a clear love for the power of pop music.

A lot of the credit goes to Fanning, who does her own singing. The 21-year-old has enjoyed an auspicious career thus far, but none of her previous roles suggested the power of her performance in Teen Sprit as Violet, a Polish immigrant high schooler living a meager existence with her mother on the Isle of Wight (off the south coast of England).

Violet lies about her age to sing on the weekend in dingy pubs, and sees an opportunity when the titular TV show comes to town for open tryouts. Her mother doesn’t approve, but Violet needs a guardian, so she ropes in a local drunk, Vlad (Croatian actor Zlatko Burić), who happens to be a former opera star. Together, Violet and Vlad will face the stark odds of trying to make it as a modern day pop star.

Teen Spirit is an assured writing and directing debut for Minghella, who is best known as an actor (The Social Network, The Handmaid’s Tale). He’s also the son of Academy Award-winning filmmaker, the late Anthony Minghella, director of The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Cold Mountain.

Letterboxd met up with Minghella in Austin recently, following a well received screening of Teen Spirit at SXSW. Minghella developed and produced Teen Spirit with his old friend, actor Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot, King Kong), so when he says “we”, it’s Bell he’s referring to.

Max Minghella and cinematographer Autumn Durald on set.

How did you know the drama of this film would go beyond the usual drama that feeds the kind of reality shows it takes place around? Max Minghella: You don’t know. You hope. It’s interesting because I don’t know how interested I was really in reality shows. I mean, I love reality shows, but it wasn’t what I was really thinking about making this movie. I was kind of fascinated by the mechanics behind them, what we don’t see, and I’m always interested in back rooms. I’ve always been a very voyeuristic person—that’s quite evident in the film. I love seeing things I’m not supposed to see, and the movie almost takes place exclusively in those sorts of spaces.

There’s a lot going on thematically in the movie between these people. I think the relationship is quite unique and unconventional for a film like this. We’re constantly trying to subvert the poppiness of it. Like the music does in the film, which is very melancholic, [the music is] very kind of candy-colored. There’s two things which should be diametrically opposed, yet they turn into something that’s quite cinematic.

I really wanted this movie to be a big cinematic experience. Movies right now are in a difficult moment, and we really hope that this will be a film that can play as a theatrical experience, and make people wanna go and see it on the big screen. Those are the movies I love. It’s a medium I love so much. That’s my church.

The songs feel very deliberate. How much freedom did you have to choose the ones you wanted? We wrote all the songs that you see in the movie into the original script. And we didn’t think we were gonna get them. To be honest this movie never felt real. That’s the honest truth. I didn’t feel as if this movie could happen at any point, until we were shooting. It felt ridiculous. There’s too much music. It’s got subtitles in it. It’s about an immigrant. There’s a thousand things about it that don’t feel plausible. It’s not a hundred-million-dollar Fox movie, it doesn’t feel as if the house was riding on it, so there was no reason not to be crazy. Because it didn’t feel like it would ever happen.

We were very, very lucky—every movie’s a miracle, our miracle was music. And the fact that [Teen Spirit producer] Fred [Berger] happened to have made La La Land, which he wasn’t even making at the time that we met him. He happened to go and make this film while we were writing Teen Spirit. It happened to work. It happened to involve Interscope Records. The songs that we had in our script happened to be with Interscope Records, 90 percent of them. It wasn’t planned. We don’t know anything about music. We were just going “we like this one, and this one” and it all happened to be the same place, and it happened to be a place that we had to go. So it worked out. If Sony BMG or somebody had released the soundtrack, this movie would be full of completely different songs, and not the ones we wanted.

Elle Fanning as Violet.

Elle Fanning is so powerful in this, yet so subtle at the same time. It’s a deeply nuanced performance for a film like this, and that’s what’s brave about it. She doesn’t do any of the ostentatious things or the loud things that people react to. People like acting when they see the “acting”. Those tend to be the kind of performances that are rewarded or applauded. It’s quite brave to take a role like this, which can be very showy and takes a lot of emotional range, and then not ever take the obvious hit. Never. She does what I think is always the most human honest choice in those moments.

Does it concern you or did it occur to you that Teen Spirit is coming out amongst a rash of movies about pop stars? Her Smell, Vox Lux, A Star Is Born… It wasn’t like we were aware that everybody was making music movies. We’re friends with Brady Corbet, who made Vox Lux, so I was very aware of Brady’s movie, and he’s somebody I hugely admire and have a constant dialogue with. But I also knew how different it was. So I wasn’t nervous about it. We’re very close to the A Star Is Born people, in fact they made both these movies, Interscope, so they’re actually kind of almost like a part of the same team, so it doesn’t feel competitive with them at all, it’s always felt very supportive. And Alex [Ross Perry], who made Her Smell, is a friend of mine. So none of it feels antagonistic.

What’s so fascinating is they’re so completely different. A lot of them have female protagonists. I don’t think anyone has said “this movie looks like this movie or feels like this movie”. It just goes to show you can give four people similar ingredients and they will absolutely not make the same movie. It’ll just turn into something very different. I feel like now there’s a huge appetite for films like this, an increasing appetite.

The reality show elements in the film feel highly authentic. I researched the actual truth. Everything that happens with [Teen Spirit judge/producer] Rebecca [Hall]’s character was very grounded in reality, that is sort of what happens on these shows, and I wanted all of it to be: what would happen? And how would these two people react to those things? The thing we studied the most was music tour documentaries, I would say. Like the Madonna movie, and the Katy Perry documentary, those are beautifully made. The behind-the-scenes stuff is so endlessly compelling and cinematic to me.

You’ve said that you wrote Zlatko’s role with him in mind—why did you want him in your movie? I’d just seen him in stuff, and he’s so unique. And if you’re going to do a Cinderella story and have a Fairy Godmother, he seems like a really unique way of doing a Fairy Godmother. I genuinely don’t think anyone else could’ve played the part.

Why did you choose to set it on the Isle of Wight? Well, my dad’s from the Isle of Wight, so that was sort of just a silly narcissistic thing. And then I think it’s a good metaphor. This girl is on an island, away from something, a place she wants to be. Looking at a horizon that she can’t quite reach, it’s another layer of alienation, which makes sense to me.

How do you feel now that Teen Spirit is being shown to audiences? It feels so masturbatory making a film, it really does. And I’m extremely happy with where we’ve gotten to with it. It’s the film I wanted to make. For better or worse. And it’s lovely to share it with people. But at the end it is a slightly selfish exercise I think. I’m at peace with what I’ve made. I feel good. And now I’d like to move on and start thinking about something else. But it feels good to have finished this process—I don't think we squandered it and didn’t waste people’s time. It’s a lot of people’s energy, a lot of people’s hard work and kindness. You make a movie and a hundred people are going too far and doing too much for you and not sleeping enough and you want to be responsible to those people.

‘Teen Spirit’ is in New York and LA cinemas now, and opens US-wide from April 19.

[silkkpopbonnet]

For the Chungha fans!

[curiositymustbeguided]

Credit to @jimgaffigan for this info on instagram. This plot kinda makes me wonder if Kendrick is taking on a more antagonist role in this one. Either way, Agent Kendra Glack (Kendrick's character's name) is gonna be hot!

On the side, it's nice to see some new "Red Carpet Premiere" Anna pics floating around. Feeling blessed.

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[likestarsonearthj2]

12th March 2019 | SXSW | Austin, TX | x / x / x / x IG Story / xx

[sirehtx]

In Austin for SxSW!!!!

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