#ten points if you can work out my Cinematic Influences

[youssefguedira]

I wish you would write a fic about irreconcilable artistic differences on a movie set between Joe and Nicky.

not really irreconciliable as in not solvable at all but you know i had fun with this

Joe squeezes his eyes shut, covering his face with both hands, and leans forward. His shoulders tremble uncontrollably. He takes a short, sharp breath, and another, and another, but he can’t quite seem to get enough into his lungs. There’s a lump in his throat and a weight in his stomach. He leans forward with a low, wounded sound and–

“Cut,” Nicky says softly. Then, because it takes Joe a second to hear him: “Joe, stop.”

Slowly, Joe raises his head. Wipes at his eyes and takes a few deep breaths to steady himself. Nicky’s already up, frowning ever so slightly as he looks at the camera. 

“What is it this time?” Joe manages. His voice is hoarse; he has to clear his throat once or twice. Nicky doesn’t look up. The clock on the nightstand reads 01.34, but Nicky’s changed it a few times over the course of the shoot. He has no clue what time it really is, only that it’s dark outside.

It’s just the two of them in the room. Nicky had wanted to keep this one small, just him and Joe and the camera. The apartment they’re in is nice, if a little empty, though Joe supposes that’s the point. They’re in the bedroom, Joe sitting cross-legged on the bed, shirtless, sheets bunched up over his lap, a phone lying on the nightstand behind him. One entire wall of the room is taken up by a floor-to-ceiling window which lets the moonlight in, though there’s a few low lights set up behind Nicky to send bars of silver light across the bed, because the natural light hadn’t quite been strong enough for the effect Nicky wanted. It’s otherworldly; it’s beautiful. 

Nicky still isn’t looking at him, so Joe says again, “What?” It comes out a little harsher than he means it to, but it gets Nicky’s attention.

Nicky runs one hand through his hair. Joe can’t see him well, not with the light behind him and the shadows in the room. “I don’t know,” Nicky says. “It’s missing something.”

Joe has worked with Nicky enough times before. It’s not that he doesn’t like working with him - they’re friends - but he can’t fucking read him, and so after the sixth take of the same scene he can’t help but take it a little personally. 

Joe reaches for the bottle of water hidden just under the bed and takes a long drink, mostly to keep himself from snapping. What time is it? “I can try again, but I can’t do this indefinitely, Nicky.”

“I know, I know,” Nicky says, fidgeting again with the camera, “it’s not you, it’s just–” 

“What else could it be?” Joe interrupts. He’s not stupid. This scene doesn’t work if he can’t get it right, which means the entire film doesn’t work if he can’t get it right. More than anything else, this one depends on him. No music, no camera movement, no dialogue, nothing but him and the camera. And he wants to do it right, he loves this project almost as much as Nicky does, but there’s a hollow feeling in his chest and he’s spent the last however-many-hours having a near-complete breakdown over and over again and it’s still not right. And Joe doesn’t know what it is he’s doing wrong.

“I don’t know,” Nicky says quietly. Now he is looking at Joe, and Joe can’t tell if he’s disappointed, or angry, or – or what. He’s perfectly expressionless, as always. 

Joe loves this job. And he wants to get this right. But it doesn’t mean it’s not one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do, and he’s tired.

“I don’t have much more left in me, Nicky,” he says, and this time he does snap. He wipes at his eyes again, can’t look at Nicky. He’s supposed to be making himself vulnerable, above all in this scene, but suddenly he can’t stand the way Nicky’s looking at him. “Pass me my hoodie.”

“Joe–”

“I can’t. I can’t keep doing this.” He kicks the sheets off and gets tangled trying to do it, grabs his hoodie when Nicky offers it, pulls it over his head in one fluid motion and gets out of there as soon as he can. Thankfully, there’s only Andy and Nile in the other room, Andy lying back on the couch with her feet up and Nile perched on the arm of it. They both look up at Joe as he enters, both look like they’re about to ask, and Joe can’t stand it, can’t be in here a second longer, can’t–

“We are done for the day, I think,” Nicky says behind him, startling Joe. He hadn’t realised Nicky was there.

Andy raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t argue. It’s already the second day of trying to shoot this scene: they’re running the risk of falling behind schedule. 

“We’ll find something else to do tomorrow,” Nicky says. “I’ll look over everything tonight. We will try this again on Monday.”

Andy and Nile look at each other. Nile shrugs. 

“Get some rest, Joe,” Nicky says. 

Joe shoves his hands in his pockets and doesn’t say a word.

–--------------------------------

He doesn’t get called in the next day at all, and he doesn’t interrogate it too closely. Takes the day off, pretty much, because they’ve only really got one scene left to film, and there’s not much more he can do for that. Nicky had wanted to leave it to the last, and Joe had agreed, at the time.

At about nine pm, someone knocks on his hotel room door, which is unusual on a day where they don’t have a night shoot to do. When he opens it, Nicky is on the other side. Joe lets him in without a word. 

“I wanted to apologise,” Nicky says, standing in the middle of the room and looking as uncomfortable as Joe’s ever seen him. “For last night. I was pushing you too hard, and I should not have done.”

Joe closes the door behind him. Nicky fidgets with the sleeve of his hoodie. 

“Sit down,” Joe says. 

Nicky does, settling himself on the edge of Joe’s bed, not quite looking him in the eye. Joe joins him, after a moment. 

“At the risk of sounding cliche,” Nicky says, “it’s not you, it’s me.”

Joe laughs, mostly because the phrase sounds so strange coming from Nicky and also because out of everything he’d thought Nicky might say, he hadn’t expected that. 

Nicky smiles slightly, too. Then he gets up and heads for the minibar. “Mind if I have a drink?”

Joe shakes his head. Nicky gets out a little bottle of wine, glances at the label, and takes a swig straight from the bottle without bothering to get a glass. 

“I can’t seem to get it right,” Nicky says. “You know I wrote almost fifteen different versions of that scene?”

The scene in the script itself is barely a page long. “No,” Joe says. 

Nicky nods. Rubs a hand over his face. “I wanted it to feel real. I thought if I could get it right, it would… help, somehow. I don’t know.”

It’s the exact same reason Joe said yes before he even read the script, when the whole thing was just an idea in Nicky’s head, when they were talking about it over drinks at Andy’s and Joe was in love with the idea almost immediately. He knew exactly why Nicky was writing it; he knows, now, exactly why it needs to be right. But at the same time – “I don’t know if that’s possible, Nicky.”

Nicky sighs. “I know.” He crosses back over to sit beside Joe again, takes another drink from the bottle. “But there is something missing, and I cannot seem to find it. And so it does not feel real. And I know this is not easy for you.”

“It’s not,” Joe says plainly. 

“But you know,” Nicky continues, “I could not have trusted anyone with this but you. If you had not said yes, I would not have done this.”

That, Joe didn’t know: he knows he’d been Nicky’s first choice, but he’d assumed that’s because they know each other well enough already. But it makes sense: the reason Nicky wrote the script is the same thing they’d bonded over. 

Even still, it’s a lot. “I don’t know if I can do it the way you want,” Joe says. 

Nicky looks up at him from where he’s been running his fingers over the label on the bottle absentmindedly. “If you want to stop, I can–”

“No,” Joe says quickly. “But I don’t think it’s ever going to be exactly the way you felt.”

Nicky looks away. “It is a lot to ask,” he says. “I know this.”

Joe doesn’t think; just reaches over and takes Nicky’s hand. “I know,” he says. “Trust me.”

Nicky takes a deep breath. Then he nods. "Okay."

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Body Double (De Palma, 1984)

This review contains spoilers.

I'd been long overdue for a rewatch of this, and with the Criterion Channel including this as part of a series on erotic thrillers, and Air making cheeky use of Pino Donaggio's iconic theme, I finally followed through. Now, if somebody were to ask me what the Ultimate Movie is, there's a good chance I'd name this one off the top of my head. I don't mean the greatest movie of all time, my favourite movie, the most influential movie, what have you. But a movie where its "movie-ness" is entirely the point, its artificiality is foregrounded, a movie that makes forceful use of cinematic devices while commenting on them or at least drawing attention to their place in the narrative. And I think Body Double checks all those boxes. And if you're gonna try to list other movies that might fit the bill, even from the same director, I'm gonna ask you to put those back in your pocket because I didn't actually think about this for more than a minute.

I think the voyeurism theme is especially interesting in that the movie isn't just conflating the hero with the viewer and implicating us in his kinks and hangups (and in this respect, De Palma is very much following in the tradition of Hitchcock), but also conflating the villain with the director. The entire scenario of the movie is concocted by the villain as a scheme to kill his wife and get away with it, and he goes about this as one would make a movie. He casts for the part of the hero by preying on a down-on-his-luck actor and for the part of his wife by hiring a pornstar with a memorable warmup routine. He lures the hero with fancy production values in the form of an expensive house with a view to die for. He trains the hero's eyes where and when to look, like one might frame and edit a shot. Makeup and costumes play into his alibi.

There are multiple levels of movies within movies here, not just in the villain's scheme, but the low budget vampire movie the hero is cast in (and fired from) and two pornos, one where the hero catches on to the fact he's been played, and another where he tries to play the star of the first porno. And during the latter, not only is the voyeurism element referenced in the dialogue ("I like to watch") and the hero is guided through the experience both by another cast member (Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes to Hollywood) and the director of the porno (De Palma regular Al Israel), the climactic moment of the latter, it cuts back to a boisterously artificial scene earlier in the movie. There are layers upon layers upon layers of artificiality, and by putting them all together De Palma gives meaning to all of them. If everything in the movie is artificial, then its truths must be contained in artifice.

I will also note that while on my initial viewing, I'd probably say that I really would want to watch just the vampire movie, or maybe the music video part of the second porno, at this point I'll readily admit I'd watch all three. It's worth noting that the middle porno looks closer to the average production at the time, although if you look closely, the camera movements seem an awful lot like the fake slasher at the beginning of Blow Out, steadicamming its way from one choice window view to another. The latter porno is definitely an outlier, although one can find similarities to the production design in a Rinse Dream or Gregory Dark movie, or maybe Squalor Motel from the following year. I woudn't be surprised if some porn directors were influenced by this, De Palma makes a couple of references for those in the know. ("I have a routine that's a sure ten on the Peter-Meter.")

I think the casting of the main parts here is pretty much perfect. Craig Wasson brings a certain sympathetic dweebishness (his resemblance to a certain late night host works out in the movie's favour, surprisingly), Melanie Griffith is able to imbue both toughness and humanity into her guarded character (and is, like, next level hot to boot), Gregg Henry has a smile that is none too reassuring, and Deborah Shelton is delicate in ways that make her sympathetic (interestingly, her voice was dubbed by Helen Shaver). Plus we get Dennis Franz as the director of the horror movie and he's always a hoot. But it's interesting to ponder how the movie would have played with Annette Haven in the lead, who was the inspiration for Griffith's character but was rejected by cowardly studio heads. I actually think she would have been a bitter fit for the Shelton role with her Old Hollywood looks and poise, whereas I think of somebody more punkish like Sharon Mitchell would have been better in the Griffith role. As for the leads, maybe I'm just high off a recent viewing of Talk Dirty to Me, but the dynamic between Richard Pacheco and John Leslie in the movie think they would have nailed the Wasson and Henry roles, respectively. Throw in Robert Kerman and Bobby Astyr as the horror and porno directors, respectively (or maybe not), Gary Graver directing with some of the De Palma Lite style he brought to V: The Hot One, and boom, you've got a porno Body Double. Basically the same thing, but with actual penetration in that "Relax" scene. Also way cheaper:

"Well, films cost money."

"I got money."

"Well, then what are you doing in hard core?"

During my viewing, I was chuckling a fair bit thanks to a recent listen of LexG's podcast episode about the movie, where he complains that this would be the worst porno ever thanks to all the music video stuff and lack of a money shot, and that Griffith's character would make for a terrible pornstar given all the stuff she doesn't do.

I do think the movie's place in De Palma's career is interesting to consider. This was made after Scarface, after increasing criticism of all the excess and sex and violence in his movies, and once again, he decides to go overboard, foregrounding the porn element and bringing out a frighteningly large drill during the murder. (Amy Holden Jones beat him to the metaphor with that particular weapon in The Slumber Party Massacre, but De Palma's is bigger.) Set pieces are stretched out to comical, excruciating lengths with all kinds of complications, like a packed elevator, a vicious dog, a cord that keeps coming unplugged. (I chased my viewing with some of Brice Dellsperger's Body Double shorts, which offer amusingly lo-fi remixes of key scenes from this and other movies, and not just De Palma's, and the takes on this one emphasize the excess accordingly.) But it's also an interesting companion piece to Blow Out in particular, in part for the movies within the movie, and in part for the role filmmaking plays in the plot. Blow Out is coloured by post-Watergate pessimism and disillusionment, and the hero's trade ends up being futile in stopping the villain, serving instead as a way to process failure and tragedy. There's some of that here, as the hero at first seems to be the victim of a filmmaking scheme. But over the course of the movie, he's been co-opting those methods, eventually using them to catch the killer, beat his crippling claustrophobia, and even get the girl. During the climax, as he's being buried alive, he flashes back to the production he was fired from to once again butt heads with the director.

"I don't think I like your attitude."

"Well, I think if I get this shot, you'll like it a lot better, right?"

But as he's playing the scene back in his head, he's steadily regaining his confidence, and when decides to go ahead and finish the shot, there's a sense of real triumph. "Let's do it!"

[entertainment]

Entertainment Spotlight: Minhal Baig, Hala

Writer and director Minhal Baig recently released a feature-length film, Hala, about a Pakistani-American teenager that uncovers a secret that threatens to unravel her family, which premiered in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. She previously served as a story editor on Bojack Horseman (Netflix) and staff writer on Ramy (Hulu). In 2017, she was chosen to participate in Ryan Murphy's Half Foundation Directing Mentorship. Minhal took some time out of her busy schedule to answer some of our questions:

Without any spoilers, what scene, moment, or line from Hala are you most excited for audiences to see?

The scene between Hala and Eram in the shopping mall parking lot was a turning point in the writing process for me. Their relationship is fraught and because the story is being told from Hala’s perspective, we’re more aligned with her than we are with her mother. But in this scene, the perspective opens up a little bit. Eram makes some valuable points, albeit in a harsh way. She chastises Hala for marginalizing her and even asks her, rather bluntly, whether she looks down on her. This was a difficult scene to write because it came from such a personal place. I reflected on my own experience of treating my mother this way, and how differently I look back at those interactions now.

The story of Hala is one that will resonate with many people grappling with similar issues in their own lives. What do you hope that audiences take away from the film?

I hope that viewers can take away that we are more similar—in complicated family dynamics and coming-of-age—than we are different. Hala came from a very specific place, drawn from my lived experience. It’s not autobiographical, but there was emotional truth in Hala’s search for self. It’s not a search defined by her ties to her culture, faith or even her sexuality; it’s all of these things at once. I want people to be moved, to extend compassion, to be feel less alone.

What inspired you to write Hala?

Hala came out of a place of processing a pain that I experienced in my own adolescence. I was wrestling with my own identity as a teenager and my relationship with my family. It was a difficult time in my own life when I chose to leave home for college. I don’t think my parents were ready for that, but I also wasn’t quite ready, either. I was forced to learn a lot on my own and much of that is reflected in Hala’s own journey. While the film drew upon my personal life, it eventually became her story and needed to be true to the character.

If you could give any character from the film a piece of advice, who would you speak to and what advice would you give?

I think about how much pain and anguish could have been avoided had I been more open with my family. There was so much that I hid and continue to hide, not necessarily out of a sense of self-preservation anymore but because I didn’t want to burden them with the reality that I was not living up to their expectations. If I could talk to Hala, I would let her know that she’s not alone in her experiences and that vocalizing her feelings to her family, while difficult, might be what brings them closer together.

What’s the first thing that you remember being a fan of?

I remember seeing Jurassic Park and Hum Aapke Hain Koun with my family in a theatre. They were early cinematic experiences that I’ll never forget. For a little while, we could forget everything and just live in the world of a movie. It was everything.

Do you have any interesting facts about the filming of Hala that viewers would be surprised to know?

The high school that we filmed at, Northside College Prep—is where I went to school in Chicago. It was a very surreal experience to shoot in a classroom that I’d been in ten years ago as a teenager.

Who are your biggest influences?

Andrea Arnold, Lynne Ramsay, Celine Sciamma, Asghar Farhadi, Ruben Ostlund, Claire Denis, Maren Ade, Kelly Reichardt, Sofia Coppola, Debra Grafik, Abbas Kiarostami, Paul Thomas Anderson, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Xavier Dolan.

The biggest film influences on Hala were 35 Shots of Rum, Fish Tank and A Separation.

Can you take us through a typical day on set?

Every day is different depending on what I’m scheduled to shoot that day. If it’s an early call time, I head to set early with the cinematographer and go over our shots. We walk through everything together and then include the assistant director in our conversation. Then, I check in with my actors—to make sure they feel comfortable with what we’re shooting. Once I’ve done all of that, we read through the scene, block it, and the actors go away to get dressed while the various departments work to bring the scene to life. When the actors return, I usually do a rehearsal and once I feel that it’s ready, we shoot. I like to keep things moving and reset instead of calling cut, or do a few takes in a row so that the actors’ momentum isn’t lost. We finish a shot and if it’s good with everyone, I move on. The usual day on Hala required us to shoot five or six pages a day with multiple location moves, so imagine doing all of this at a relentless pace all day. Once we hit twelve hours, we call it a day.

What’s next for you?

I’m working on a film that centers the live of children, and specifically, the friendship between two nine-year old boys. It’s set in 1992. I’ve spent the last two years, on-and-off, taking a very journalistic approach to this story, spending a lot of time with people whose lived experiences I’m hoping to reflect in the final film. It’s a labor of love while I work a day job writing television.

Thanks for taking the time, Minhal! Hala is now available on Apple TV+. 

[letterboxd]

How I Letterboxd #12: Joe Lynch.

Self-described cinedork and Mayhem filmmaker Joe Lynch tells Horrorville’s Brett Petersel about cinematic sausage, getting to direct Creepshow episodes and being a three-star starter on Letterboxd.

“Even when I watch what I would think is a real stinker, I also consider that there were many people involved in that film who didn’t walk on set going ‘okay people, let’s screw this up today!’” —Joe Lynch

It is always a pleasure to find film directors lurking on Letterboxd. Joe Lynch is a bona fide, OG member, having racked up more than 1,500 diary entries, giving half-star reviews to his own work, and creating lists of the movies that have influenced the making of his films.

There are the films that were in Lynch’s subconscious when he made Mayhem, a workplace splatter led by Steven Yeun and Samara Weaving. There are the movies he watched while researching the Salma Hayek-starring Everly. And this just in: films that influenced The Right Snuff, one of Lynch’s two episodes for the new Creepshow series—based on the 1982 horror-comedy classic and its sequels—which premieres on Shudder April 15.

Like so many of us, Lynch took time during the pandemic to catch up on films he had neglected to watch in spite of a previous career as a video-store clerk (a Criterion Channel subscription helped him get on top of the backlog). In this edition of ‘How I Letterboxd’, Lynch discusses how those classics have informed his craft, who his Letterboxd faves are, and why the horror genre is the future of the industry.

Steven Yeun and Samara Weaving in Joe Lynch’s ‘Mayhem’ (2017).

How long have you been on Letterboxd? Joe Lynch: I remember when Letterboxd was in its beta phase way back in good ol’ 2012 and I couldn’t wait to sign up, breathlessly waiting for an invite to the party. At the time, I had a digital database where I would log movies I’ve seen, but it was always subject to whatever laptop or device I had handy and would just be a mess of titles with no rhyme or reason.

When a member follows you, what should they expect? I put it right up top in my description: “I am not a critic”, just a lover of cinema. At first I didn’t want to write “reviews” in the description, especially since I first started using the service whilst in the throes of a horrible experience making a film that I thought would bury me and I’d never work again. I was like, and I still feel this way, “who am I to rip on a movie when someone can throw it right back at me? Like ‘dude, you directed Knights of Badassdom, sit down’.”

I’ve always had the highest regard for filmmakers who can get anything made. So even when I watch what I would think is a real stinker, I also consider that there were many people involved in that film who didn’t walk on set going “okay people, let’s screw this up today!” but instead were trying their best and circumstances just got in the way, which always happens. Having made a few films and TV now, I’m fully aware of the trials and tribulations that go into making a movie and have all the respect in the world for anyone who can steer that ship to completion. It’s hard making movies and even harder making one that is your original vision [and] that is widely embraced by an audience.

I have very weird tastes so don’t be shocked if you glance at my recent activity and you see Casablanca, The Silence of the Lambs or Bigger Than Life right next to The Legend of Billie Jean, Con Air or Candyman 3. I’m usually bouncing all over the place in terms of what kinds of movies I’m screening. From films recommended to me, to films that I may be watching for research, or even just how I’m feeling that day and maybe need a good laugh or a good cry or to be scared stiff. I like that kind of variety. There’s something out there for everyone and every emotion. If anything, I’d say expect the unexpected when it comes to my viewing habits.

What’s your favorite feature to use and why? One of the residual effects of working at video stores as a kid was my desire to siphon people’s tastes in movies and possibly recommend films to others as well, so my favorite feature is the ease of use in logging films and being able to quickly recall those films as well in the event someone asks me “what’s something I should watch?”. Getting older, the “employee’s picks” in my head is getting a little harder to cross-reference than usual so to have the ability to whip out my phone and say “oh man, I just watched Possession and it was awesome!” is exponentially helpful to a cinedork like myself.

‘Big Trouble in Little China’ (1986)—a five-star film says Joe Lynch.

How do you rate the films you watch? For example, what type of film is worthy of a five-star review? Funny, I always start out on three-stars mainly because I’m so proud of the filmmakers actually getting it completed! I’ve been there! I’m somewhat biased in my reflections because I’m always rooting for the artists and from there, it’s usually gauged on both an emotional level and a technical level. I always get made fun of while watching movies because I can point out hidden cuts or when a shot is reversed but [I’m] not trying to point out flaws, it's just how my brain is wired at this point. When you pull the curtain back enough to see how the cinematic sausage is made, it's harder and harder to objectively watch a movie without trying to dissect how it was done. I try so hard to shut that part of my brain off to just passively enjoy a movie but it’s tough. I usually skew towards the positive.

The films I’ve given five-stars are movies that have continually affected me over the years and have inspired me as a person and a filmmaker, which is everything from The Empire Strikes Back, Dawn of the Dead and When Harry Met Sally... to Big Trouble in Little China, The Blob, The Last of the Mohicans. I looked back at my five-stars and it’s mostly movies that made a significant impression on me from an early age and continue to do so, maybe even more so as I get older and I view these movies in a different light.

The anthology show Creepshow returns to Shudder this month. Tell us about the two episodes you directed for the series, ‘Pipe Screams’ and ‘The Right Snuff’. Both Creepshow and Creepshow 2 were important films in my youth and even today, they were some of the first movies I remember where I wasn’t quite sure if I was supposed to be scared or laugh. These films proclaimed we could do both! As a disciple of George A. Romero, Stephen King and Tom Savini, Creepshow really shaped how I watched movies and how I made them—consider the anthology I did a few years back, Chillerama, as a prime example. So when Shudder announced the show, I had to do everything on my part to convince them I could take the baton from these masters of the macabre and do them and the many fans proud.

To come to the table and say “I want ‘The Right Snuff’ to feel like 2001: A Space Odyssey crashed into The Andromeda Strain, and ‘Pipe Screams’ is my homage to The Blob and Delicatessen”—and then everyone just immediately getting it—was a dream. Between the casts I was lucky enough to work with and the amazing crew, especially the FX geniuses at KNB, it really was one of those dream jobs I’ll never forget. I hope audiences dig the madness we conjured up on those!

Season 2 of the Shudder series ‘Creepshow’ returns to the horror streamer this month. A third season has been ordered.

If you were to expand the Mayhem universe, what would it look like? We tried! I pitched the producers the idea of the ID-7 virus in other locations and situations because in essence the idea of being uninhibited by mental and emotional constraints is so ripe. My favorite was the idea that it would get loose in a Wal-Mart or a mall on Black Friday when consumers swarm to these department stores for the best deals. You’ve seen the videos, it’s just mass hysteria. The footage already out there would have been perfect to use already and those people aren’t even infected!

Sadly it didn’t come to pass, mainly because they asked “how do we get Steven and Samara back?” and I didn’t want to force those characters into that scenario, Die Hard 2 style. Plus they’re both huge stars now and likely unavailable for the next twelve years. But the ideas people have thrown out to me show that it was impactful enough to warrant variant scenarios in a “what if?” way that’s really exciting. Who knows, maybe the ID-7 virus could find its way onto the set of a movie production…

What excites you about the future of filmmaking, especially in horror films? The world is embracing new faces and voices more than ever and it means we’re getting stories that may not have ever had the chance to flourish and be seen and heard before. For the longest time the system was much more rigid because executives and producers thought that the audience was much less accepting of a wider world view in cinema and I think the last ten years has proven them wrong. There shouldn’t be any more “token” character or “strong [insert non-white-male] character” descriptions in development meetings. I hear it less and less, which is great because that’s not our world and since cinema—especially horror—is and always should be a reflection of our culture and times, it should reflect these evolutions as well.

When I made Wrong Turn 2: Dead End, the discussions over how one of the characters—a Black character played by Texas Battle—survived at the end was not in the original script but I pushed for it mainly because it was rare for the Black character to do so in a horror film. That shouldn’t be an anomaly! Why can’t there be a ‘final guy’ or have the survivors be LGBT+ or a POC and not the usual stereotypes?

I think now it’s more commonplace to see this and it excites me for the future of the genre that artists are being more welcome to express themselves without it feeling like it’s a gimmick or a twist on the norm.

I think generations of kids growing up with horror now are gonna see these strides in the storytelling—and who’s telling the stories—and push it even further. Places like Netflix and Shudder are willing to take chances with new voices more than the studio system, now more than ever, and that’s only going to produce some great stories now and in the future.

Erica Leehrsen and Texas Battle in a scene from ‘Wrong Turn 2: Dead End’ (2007).

How has the pandemic affected your creativity and influenced your work moving forward? Aside from losing a bunch of gigs due to the shutdown and being delayed on shooting Creepshow—which was a blessing in disguise considering the time we took to further develop the scripts and design of each episode—one of the main effects of the pandemic was how it gave many of us the time to catch up on a lot of films, mainly older ones. As you’d see from my diary entries on this very site, my viewing habits changed from a lot of modern films in that rat-race of catching up with the latest release, to mainly watching films I loved in the past and a lot of ’40s to ’70s films that I never got around to.

We have the tendency as film lovers to keep a mental list of films we’ll eventually get around to as if we have all the time in the world, but with the threat of the apocalypse and no real new content coming our way at the usual rapid clip, it was so gratifying to buy an annual subscription to Criterion Channel and start watching films like The Old Dark House, The Crimson Kimono, Contempt and many others.

All of these films impacted how I view film now and have bled into future projects I’m working on—especially on the technical side, when the world wasn’t influenced vicariously through MTV coverage and letting scenes play out in masters or longer takes, relishing in the performance or the mise-en-scéne. So, silver linings!

Before we go, who are some of your favorite follows on Letterboxd? I’m a big fan of Sean Baker, who I’ve known for almost 20 years now! We worked together in NYC and I was already a big Greg the Bunny fan but our mutual appreciation for fringe and exploitation films, especially international horror and genre films, seems to have bonded us for life. I love when he posts what he’s watching. Even if he’s just saying he screened something on Blu or streaming, his thoughts on cinema are always enjoyable and engaging.

In the same breath, filmmaker Jim Cummings has the best perspective on modern filmmaking and he’s clearly a big fan of using Letterboxd, so whenever I see peers like them using the app it makes me feel less like an obsessive movie dork myself, who should be getting back to work.

Some of the other follows I really enjoy are cineastes like Elric Kane and Brian Saur, who are the hosts of the New Beverly podcast Pure Cinema. Writers Anya Stanley, David Chen, Walter Chaw and Lindsay Blair Goeldner, musician and filmmaker Brendon Small, writer and critic Brian Tallerico, author Glenn Kenny, filmmaker Rodman Flender—just to name a few people who clearly love film and love sharing their thoughts on films in a very thoughtful way.

More times than not, I’m getting some great advice for what to watch next in my “new from friends” section! Because, like being at the video store, it’s casual conversations like the ones on Letterboxd that I love and always steering me to new films or revisiting old ones with a new perspective.

Related content

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Office Workplace Horror: J Cara’s list of office horror and workplace thrillers

Follow Brett on Letterboxd

Follow Horrorville—the home for horror on Letterboxd

[onestowatch]

Your Grandparents Manifest a Cinematic, Soulful Debut Album With ‘Thru My Window’  [Q&A]

Photo: Jordan Perez

Inspired by everything from ‘90s boom bap artists like Digable Planets and the Pharcyde to modern funk legends like Outkast and D'Angelo, Your Grandparents have quickly proven themselves to be their generations' torchbearers for the psychedelic soul movement. 

Using a variety of recording techniques to get the desired effect for their genre-blending debut album Thru My Window, the group credits their uniquely cohesive sound to their years-long friendship, which began in their early teens. With their lush grooves, breezy, clear vocals, a sonic aesthetic built on unwavering authenticity, and of course, a deep love for their roots and deep musical traditions passed down from their grandparents, Your Grandparents embodies what it means to be an artist to watch.

Ones To Watch had a chance to talk with the trio, comprised of DaCosta (vocals), Jean Carter (vocals), and Cole, aka ghettoblasterman (producer), to discuss their inspirations and the long days and nights that went into creating their debut album.

When you last spoke to Ones To Watch, it was for the release of your single "So Damn Fly," and now, a year later, here we are talking about the release of your debut album, Thru My Window. How are you all feeling, and what have you learned about yourselves in this last year through the album-making process?

DaCosta: From a personal outlook, I've learned that making music is heavily dependent on my mood, or just how I'm feeling and what's going on in my personal life. When things are a little too stagnant, it's a little harder to write. On the other hand, when things are flowing, and life is being lived, it's easy fuel. It's good fuel. It doesn't burn too quickly.

GBM: I've learned that no idea is too wild. It's usually less wild than I think it is.

Jean: Yeah, it's better to start at the extreme and take away. I realized I feel like a lot of artists feel like they have to put themselves through turmoil or allow certain situations to write meaningful things. Like it's not necessarily good music, but it's something that means a lot to them. I think I realized that that's not the case and inspiration comes in many different forms. It could be a person or something completely random and inanimate that makes you feel something.

What were some of those inspirations?

Jean: Definitely films.

GBM: A lot of films!

Jean: Yeah, we're all pretty big film people. We do all our own videos pretty much, and it just comes from this love of film that we've had that got nurtured in high school. We were blessed enough to have a really dope film program that Sony funded and stuff, and so we got like an impromptu film education before we graduated. So by the time we graduated, we knew how to get our own projects done without reaching out to someone else and then taxing us because they want to hire their friends and all that stuff. So because of that, we had complete creative control. I've also been watching a lot of Korean movies lately. Not during the album—wait, actually, during the album, there were a lot of old kung fu movies and blaxploitation movies from, like, the ‘70s. Also, my friend got me this Curtis Mayfield record, and "So Damn Fly" is definitely heavily influenced by that whole record.

GBM: I feel like the ‘70s in general, the ‘60s and ‘70s, definitely had a big inspiration on the aesthetic and the kind of sound we were going after. Especially with "So Damn Fly" and "Tomorrow" and those kinds of songs.

Do you feel like this album has a linear story the same way a film does, or do you feel like it's more of an anthology of the band's personal experiences?

GBM: It's kind of a mix of both.

Jean: Yeah, it started off as an anthology, and then we pieced together the story, which was largely done by Cole by sitting there and being like, “Hmmm.”

DaCosta: Yeah, it was a lot of Cole dissecting the words and putting them on the tracks.

Jean: When we're writing the words and trying to be free-flowing and expressive and stuff, we're not fully conscious of a bigger picture situation. Instead, Cole is sitting there producing everything and putting in the music and being just more of a listener than anyone else could. So he has the context, and he could find a story that we didn't know we were doing together with our three minds and in our three different lives.

GBM: It's like a puzzle almost, because I'll be sitting there at like 2 a.m. in my bed, listening to the songs, and I'm like, "Ok, Kyle said, that in the hook, so this song has to go before that," and so on and so forth. It's like a storyboard kinda.

Right, to keep the record's "plot" cohesive and self-referential.

GBM: Another big consideration was playlists. I love making playlists, and I know Kyle loves making playlists, too, so it needed to flow. It just has to flow. We didn't want songs that juxtapose each other or have opposite vibes be back to back.

DaCosta: Yeah, I think we even switched around the playlist a couple of times before we had it set in stone.

GBM: There were like fourteen songs originally, and then we got talked down to ten.

Jean: Fourteen tracks woulda went crazy!

I'm sure fans would love a deluxe version of the album at some point! So what were some of the rough draft ideas before you set these ten tracks in stone?

Jean: There were more modern-sounding tracks. The more time we spent on a project, and this being our debut, we wanted to be true to the name. We wanted to be true to the artistry that had gotten us to this point.

DaCosta: There were a couple of heavier hip-hop tracks there too.

Jean: We had been doing that, and a lot of people haven't even heard those because they're like heavy hip-hop stuff from when we were in high school and like early college.

Were there any tracks on the record that challenged you?

Jean: "Intoxicated" challenged me. I had a whole different verse. The conception of that song—I was just venting about whatever I was going through at the time, and one of my homies was like, "It's not sexy enough!" So I was just like, "What? No! I've done sexy stuff on all the other songs. Just let me vent!" So I tried another verse, and we ended up going with that one instead.

DaCosta: I mean, it worked out great though...

Jean: I mean, yeah, it sits nicely on the song, and now I have a verse for something else one day when it's time for it.

GBM: Yeah, that song went from being all of ours and everyone on our team's favorite song to our least favorite song. I will say that recording the instruments for the album was fun, but there were definitely some long hours. We had a drummer and bassist come through, and they played for like twelve hours straight doing all the songs. So the songs that have live drums on them were all done in that one day, and they even did songs we recorded that didn't make it on the final record. I think we started at 1 p.m. and we ended at 1 a.m. It was crazy.

What song are you most excited for people to hear when the album drops?

Jean: I think people are gonna like "Comfortable" a lot. Honestly, I haven't listened to the record in a while because it's existed in our world for a minute. We had just posted the visuals for that song today, and I was feelin it.

DaCosta: I think people are gonna really like "Digest." For me, it gives me that "it" factor.

GBM: I think "Red Room." It's my personal favorite and one of the more fun ones to me. It's just a good time!

You mentioned earlier that you try to maintain creative control when making your music videos and coming up with concepts for visualizers. What is your creative process like?

DaCosta: We definitely sit down, and we go through everything from storyboard to shotlist and just take and grab inspiration from all over the place. For "So Damn Fly," there was that That 70's Show shot where they're all sitting around the table, and it's spinning. So there are all types of really cool influences, and we just try to use those and make everything unique to us.

GBM: I think we kind of go through a three-step verification. The idea has to go through all three of us before it becomes something else or moves on to actually being tested out or put into picture. So that kind of attributes to the very solid identity we aim for.

It sounds like that impromptu film education you mentioned earlier has really set you up for success in creating your videos.

Jean: Yeah. My high school film teacher, Miss Butler, I took that class for two years, and then when I couldn't take it anymore, I became a TA. So then I took the after-school class, and I just spent hella hours pretty much ruining the way I enjoyed cinema and teaching myself like—she would have us look and watch these classic movies and be like, this is what they did wrong.

Can you give me an example of a classic film you would watch and critique?

Jean: The first one that comes to mind is Rear Window. I watched it a few times, just because I had taken the class a couple of times. She talked about how the set that they made and the world that they created, they had full control over. Just seeing older films and how simple things were a lot more complicated then. Like you can't just delete a take and wipe your card. Everything had to be so planned out and so intentional. You gotta do shit on purpose. It's just a lot of thinking and planning, and sometimes, I feel like it's more challenging to have more people involved in a film production sometimes because of the growing degrees of communication. With the small groups that we usually keep, everyone's on the same page as us. All of us took this same class, so we all have a similar workflow.

DaCosta: Yeah, our organization when it comes to films, we're all pretty much on the same page. You know, with what was going to happen, who's doing what, who's in charge of what, etc.

Jean: And pre-production is the biggest thing and finding the right team because we can't shoot it and be in it. Although Cole can somehow!

GBM: I'm in one scene, and I'm like, "I'm just gonna kill this scene right now, and then I'm gonna jump back." That's why I'm only in the last scene.

Because he's doing everything else!

Jean: Yeah! Then as soon as the scene cuts, it's like, I go back to directing people, and Kyle goes back to making sure we got the next shot set up.

GBM: There were only seven people on set.

DaCosta: And four out of seven were crew members

GBM: Yeah, the DP was the only person that wasn't actually a casted character. Everybody else is like multitasking.

You'll be making your first-ever festival appearance at Day N Vegas in November. How are y'all feeling about it? 

GBM: It feels incredible!

DaCosta: I'm so so excited!

Jean: If I get excited, I get nervous. So I just aim to be focused, or I don't think about it at all.

After the release of Thru My Window, what are some long-term or short-term goals y'all are manifesting?

Jean: I think for the next album, I want it to get Best Rap Album. We went R&B on this one, but nobody knows the way that we—like yes, we rap on it, but nobody knows our actual rap potential. So I feel like that's something that needs to be lived out on the next project. It's been a minute since we were rapping, bro. There are cool people out here doing the rap thing right now, but not many people have impressed me.

GBM: I kind of want this album to open up the door to doing a lot of travel. When we got back from Paris in 2019, what we experienced during that summer gave us fuel to start this project. So I feel like if we just keep that kind of like tradition going, we just travel somewhere and just make stuff, I think it'll never get steered wrong.

DaCosta: I think I want the album to just open up doors in general. I know it's kind of a broad thing, but like, we're so diverse, and between the three of us, we can do literally anything I think in the world if we put our minds to it, and we kind of plan on doing everything that we want to do. So, I kind of want this album to open the door just so that we can you can start striding towards whatever, whether it's directing movies and videos and fucking scoring—

Jean: Or directing other people's videos!

DaCosta: Yeah, all types of shit.

Thru My Window is available everywhere you can stream it. 

[plague-of-insomnia]

Fave Kuro moments

I sent an ask about this to @chromehoplite and she suggested others answer as well, so here goes.

I’m going to list my ten favorite moments, broken down by arc. I really didn’t get hooked on the manga until the circus arc, so that’s where I’m going to start.

(Warning in advance, this is a long post.)

Circus Arc

1. Ciel shooting Kelvin is one of my fave moments because it shows that he isn’t going to rely on Sebastian 100%. Just as he had said when they formed the contract, he is willing to kill—with his own hands—when necessary. Although Sebastian is the one who finally ends Kelvin’s life, and this entire scene is controversial, I also picked it because this was when I really began to relate to Ciel as a character. As someone with PTSD myself, the moment he begins to lose himself really clicked with me and he began to feel like a fully fleshed character for the first time. When he says shortly after that there are two types of people, “those who steal, and those who are stolen from” (anime translation), I felt like that really hammered home who Ciel has become. He no longer sees things in terms of morality but rather survival. Either you kill or are killed, simple as that.

2. The scene at the orphanage is one of my absolute faves in the manga. I related to Ciel so much here because my instinct was also to laugh at the futility of the circus troop’s lives and deaths, and I love Ciel’s little speech. I love Seb’s reaction. I love how Yana subtly shows Ciel’s guilt (not just by having him go, but having him go dressed in mourning), and how he “lets go of that guilt” at least partly when the ribbon comes off and blows away.

Murder Arc

I prefer the movie bc it’s so much funnier, so a lot of my fave moments of Seb and Ciel teasing each other aren’t actually in the manga (at least in the English translation). I could probably do my ten fave moments in this arc alone (since it’s my fave) but I’ll just pick one for now.

3. I absolutely go nuts every time I watch this scene, where Bard forces the other servants to remember their duty. It’s the first time we really see him as more than just comic relief, as the leader he is (and probably one of the reasons he was hired, though I do hope we find out when we get to his and Lau’s part). This scene was an enormous inspiration for how I write WDH Bard.

Campania Arc

This arc also has a lot of great moments, so it’s hard to narrow it down. I love Seb’s cinematic record, but since I’m keeping this to 10 moments, I’m going to skip that for now.

4. My one absolute favorite moment in the arc is Seb collapsing in the boat. (Obviously, since I love whump and I wrote “Affinity & Agony. “) It’s the first time we really see Seb “defeated” and truly in pain. I also love how it highlights how he risked his life for Ciel... and he didn’t have to do that. It shows how he’s changed subtly from the demon in the flashbacks who handled Ciel like a rag doll.

Weston Arc

My favorite part of this arc is the whole Professor Michaelis thing, but it’s also how devious Ciel is. So while I know a lot of people find the cricket part boring, I love it bc I absolutely love how it shows how far Ciel will go to get what he wants.

5. So if I want to condense to one moment, it’s when he gets hit in the head and his and Sebastian’s performance in front of the crowd vs when they’re alone in private. I love it so much, especially bc I feel like even in private we’re able to see how their relationship has changed subtly.

Green Witch Arc

In some ways this is my least favorite arc, but I still love a lot about it, like seeing another side of Ciel, and how his PTSD affects him, which felt like the first time since Circus we’ve really seen that, or ofc Finny being awesome and protective. I also enjoyed seeing Seb’s jealous side quite a bit. But if I had to pic just one or two moments, it would be these.

6. The panel where Sebastian has the semiconscious Ciel in his arms and is rushing for help is a huge favorite of mine because of the expression on his face. The demon who made the contract wouldn’t look like that. He’s changed. Ciel is still a meal to him but this is more than just “oh no my meal may be damaged.” The fact that Seb was willing to do anything to save Ciel, even to the point of risking exposing their secret, was a huge inspo for my canon fic Deadly Nightshade. The end of this scene, when Ciel begins to “wake up” and flashback was also an enormous inspiration for WDH. I love the detail here of Ciel’s fingers scratching so hard he tears the flesh of Sebastian’s arm.

7. The first time I read the scene where Sebastian snaps Ciel from his flashback, it felt like a slap in the face. Why? To me, it seemed like the character progression I had seen in the Campania arc had disappeared. But then when I stopped to reflect on it I realized this was a good way of Yana reminding us that even if he’s changed, he’s still a demon and he still plans to eat Ciel. The way Yana drew this, with all of Sebastian’s inky tendrils ensnaring Ciel influenced me heavily for Deadly Nightshade.

Blue Sect Arc

Definitely my least favorite overall. It’s also really long, but I won’t break it down, I’ll just pick the moments that really stand out in my memory.

8. The negotiation of the contract. I love this because after so many years we finally got to see how Sebastian and Ciel hammered out the details of the contract. I absolutely adore seeing this version of “Sebastian” where he’s not the devil who first appears in his black nebulous shape-shifting form, nor is he the butler we come to love later, but somewhere in between. I absolutely love how his posture is so relaxed and casual (and apparently rude in Japan?), which is a stark contrast to his stuff, formal, and seemingly subservient posture he adopts later. I adore adore adore the feral way Yana drew him here, especially bc it’s such a contrast to the seemingly genuine emotions of sorrow and anger we see in this arc with Agni’s death and RCiel’s reappearance.

9. This scene is so great. We get to see Bard as the calm leader again. I love the little panel showing Bard putting his hand out to silence/stop Finny in a wordless way of saying “I’ve got this.” It also shows that either he and Sebastian had worked out some kind of signal at some point prior, or he has worked closely enough with Sebastian to know that the demon would understand what he was really saying here. I’m also very excited to learn more about how Bard came to the manor.

10. I geek over this moment bc it’s so important narratively. Ciel has a huge inferiority complex throughout his life because of his abusive and manipulative older brother, and this shows he is accepting that despite RC’s return, he is the earl and he’s accepting who he is. I firmly believe that before we can get to the final arc, where Ciel goes after the culprit who ordered the attack on the manor, he must “kill” his brother so that he can fully bury his past and accept who he is and what he must do before he dies (by Sebastian’s hands, as he agreed).

〰️〰️〰️

Feel free to chime in with your fave Kuro moments!

[buffynha]

Naya Rivera: A Film Critic’s Appreciation of a TV Star

https://medium.com/@tomcendejas/naya-rivera-a-film-critics-appreciation-of-a-tv-star-8857ddf4e69

Naya Rivera: A Film Critic’s Appreciation of a TV Star.

I was much older than the target demographic for ‘Glee’, but I watched it semi-faithfully for these reasons: A) the intentionally diverse casting and primetime representation of many marginalized groups B) the clever reinvention and integration of pop songs and C) Naya Rivera.

Truth be told, since the show could be so wildly uneven, Rivera was often the ‘A’ reason I tuned in, always hoping she’d get a scene or a number.

Naya Rivera portrayed Santana, the tart-tongued (to put it mildly) captain of Glee’s cheerleading squad. By casting an Afro-Latina actress in the part, the show’s producers were already trouncing on stereotypes; by the year of the show’s debut, curtly dismissive cheerleaders were a staple of teen-centered entertainment, but they were usually white and hetero. As the show progressed, Santana fell for her teammate Brittany, came out to her family and friends, graduated from high school, tried to make her way in the big city, and eventually married Brittany. As a queer Latinx young woman with entrenched defense mechanisms, the character of Santana had to bear a lot of ‘representation’ duty, like an extended cheerleading ‘shoulder sit.’ But here’s the thing: Naya Rivera made it all seem as if it were as easy as a pony-tail toss.

Re-watching the early episodes, with Santana barely getting a cutaway, it’s easy to believe Ryan Murphy that the producers didn’t realize the size of talent they had on their hands when they first cast her. Rivera didn’t so much fight for more screen time as her talent compelled it, willed it. She’s mostly background in the first few episodes, until Santana and Brittany (Heather Morris) get drafted by Jane Lynch’s villainous cheer coach Sue Sylvester (the show does not lack for antagonists) to infiltrate the new Glee club and destroy it from within. From her earliest numbers and ultra-snippy encounters with the other kids, Rivera’s Santana starts to steal scenes.

This wasn’t just a function of the writing and directing. In fact, as clever, campy, sincere and delectably witty as ‘Glee’ could be (rewatching it this week, I chuckled at lots of throwaway lines) it could also be clumsy and over-reliant on whimsy and parody, sometimes in the same scene. In order to make the repeated point that Santana was caustically tough on the outside because she was hiding deep anxiety on the inside, the writers gave her so many withering and cruel things to say that emotional reality was often sacrificed on the altar of ‘Bitchy Quirkiness’ and frankly, because you imagined the writers were cracking themselves up at the saltiness of their latest insult. (Some were classics; too many of them hung on the lower rungs of humor, including easy body function jokes.)

But here’s the next thing: no matter how ridiculously florid the abuse Santana hurled at a classmate or teacher, Naya Rivera delivered the lines with alacrity and impeccable timing. And that’s what really made me sit up on my sofa and take notice.

Here was an actress who seemed to have the range of the marquee women from Hollywood’s ‘Golden Age’ of the 30s and 40s. The tumble of words the ‘Glee’ writers gave her didn’t faze her; she could deliver them with the rapid screwball comedy chops of Rosalind Russell or Jean Arthur. In an era of more tentative, introspective actors, Rivera had the steely drive of Bette Davis or Joan Crawford. Her larcenous way with a wry line was reminiscent of the great character actress Thelma Ritter; her ‘brassiness’ recalled Joan Blondell; the blaze in her eyes felt like the one emanating from Ida Lupino. (The comparisons had a visual equivalent — Rivera’s red-carpet personal style often favored form-fitting pencil skirts, modern iterations of a forties ‘dame.’)

Probably no greater compliment I can give is to say Rivera reminded me of the legendary Barbara Stanwyck. Able to navigate romantic comedy, drama and detective noir with husky-voiced fervor, Stanwyck could be devastating when she was furious yet hard to resist when she worked her charms. She was slight of figure but imposing of presence. Rivera had those cinematic assets as well. Because she started as a child actor, on ‘The Royal Family’ and especially on the great ‘The Bernie Mac Show’, by the time she got to ‘Glee’ she knew how to work a camera, as self-possessed and confident in her talents as Stanwyck was. Why this is important is that when an actor is too self-critical or tentative, we get uncomfortable or pulled out of the story. Reading testimonials from her cast mates (Chris Colfer says he sometimes was so in awe of her performance he’d forget he was in the scene with her) we see they also marveled at her self-assurance, and Rivera cannily used it to make Santana both poised and poignant.

Where Naya Rivera carved out her own space, different from most of our past silver-screen sirens, is that she could sing, and she was Afro-Latina, multi-racial, far from the whites-only casting of the Warner Brothers and MGM eras. That meant something to me; as a Chicano man of a certain age, I can remember times when I was a kid when my family would count all the ‘Latin’ movie stars we could think of and we often stopped literally with the fingers of one hand.

As someone who studies and loves writing about film, my head was nearly scratched raw from trying to figure out why Naya Rivera wasn’t swooped up from ‘Glee’ by the 2010s studio gatekeepers and given the chance to be a film superstar in vehicles that were worthy of her, bypassing the B-movie stage. She didn’t even get the big-screen ‘best friend’ parts in Hudson or Witherspoon rom-coms, which is what actresses of color with comic chops were often relegated to in the 2000s. Why this oversight happened, and I’m sure there’s a lot of background showbiz politics and personal reasons as to why, the result is we were denied someone who could have been a major screen star and given us the pleasure of an above-the-title, singing-dancing-acting triple-threat. If Rivera had been white, the big-screen star-making machinery would have overcome all obstacles to not just take a risk on her, but bet on her.

It really felt like Naya Rivera could do it all. Stanwyck and Davis had formidable talents, but singing wasn’t considered one of them, so that made Rivera a modern-day extension of their bravura, as though they’d been reincarnated in a child actress who was bristling at the confines of Disney channel and tv screens.

And Rivera had that voice! Some of us have our own version of a sort of ‘opposite ASMR’; we derive pleasure from singers who have a husky rasp in their voice, and rather than whisper, know how to belt. In this regard, Naya Rivera was a godsend. It gave her the ability to tackle songs associated with Tina Turner and Amy Winehouse and Stevie Nicks, no small feat. Yet Rivera could also narrow the grit in her wide voice to just a few flecks of hurt and hope, as in the poignant moment when she confesses her love to Brittany in a plaintive version of Christine McVie and Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Songbird.’ (This will sound like sacrilege to other Fleetwood Mac fans — I’ve seen the band in concert many times — but I just never really responded to McVie’s performance of her song except in cool, admiring ways. But I found Rivera’s vulnerable cooing of the song transfixing.)

Rivera’s musical performances on ‘Glee’ traversed many genres, but nothing seemed to catch her off-guard. I enjoyed many of the singers on ‘Glee’ —the show had over 700 musical numbers! — but if Rivera was given the lead, you knew you were about to get a showstopper, complete with signature focus, considerable ebullience and precision as a dancer. These gifts were captured best when ‘Glee’s’ hyper-active camera and editing stood still and just let her perform.

Rivera tackled Turner’s ‘Nutbush City Limits’ with ferocity. It’s too bad that the way she was filmed — with the aforementioned slice-and-dice, even leering editing — forever leaves us with a case of ‘what might have been.’ We get precious snippets of seeing Rivera singing, while the musical filming style of ten years ago, influenced by ‘Moulin Rouge’ and ‘Chicago’, attempts to whip us into an erotic frenzy with close-ups of halter-top abs and pom-pom zooms. This was a shameful miscalculation, because it has the opposite effect. If the camera had just stood planted and simply recorded the performance, Naya Rivera would have delivered the sexual fire and then some.

The best musical numbers with Rivera showcase all her talents — the ability to act out a lyric, the Fosse-flavored choreography, and a singing voice alternately tender and roof-raising. Her performance of Winehouse’s ‘Valerie’, in which she gets to ditch the ‘Cheerios’ uniform and stomp the stage in a party frock stands out as one of ‘Glee’s’ best and most effortless songs overall — it really looks like a romp that captures teenage brio and which would be electric to see live. (Later in the show, when Rivera sings ‘Back to Black’, you even got a glimpse that, as criminal as it might seem to suggest to purists, there’s a helluva Amy Winehouse jukebox Broadway musical waiting in the wings somewhere, and Rivera could have easily been its star.)

As commanding as Naya Rivera could be as a solo singer, her duets were full of a delicious tension. The job in a duet is to share the scene as democratically as possible while still bringing out the best in your partner and elevating the song. These were skills many in the cast had, though they occasionally had to juggle the meta-element that when the show became a phenomenon, the behind-the-scenes who-likes-who, who-hates-who gossip that fascinated early social media audiences could be at odds to the show’s scripted plot (though it seems the show’s creative team also deliberately worked the real-life stuff into the fictional stuff. A notable example of this was when Rivera and Lea Michele, who were rumored and since confirmed to be clashing backstage personalities — and as recent reports show, Rivera wasn’t the only one to find Michele difficult — sing a sweet song called ‘Be Okay’, almost as though they were ordered to by the network. Both are thoroughly professional, and by the end you don’t just think that maybe Santana and Rachel are really friends, but that Rivera and Michele had buried all their hatchets in a Fox studio wall as well.)

The duet partner for Santana I liked best was provided by one of ‘Glee’s’ other volcanic vocalists, Amber Riley. As Riley has since shown in her London West End role as Effie in ‘Dreamgirls’, and in TV productions of ‘The Wiz’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’, she is a formidable talent. Yet watch one of their songs together, ‘The Boy is Mine’, and see if your eyes don’t want to stay just watching Rivera’s performance in its entirety?

To see a more dynamic and perfectly matched dual performance, ‘Glee’ gave us the galvanic gift that is Amber Riley and Naya Rivera alternating and harmonizing into their own ‘wall of sound’ on the Tina Turner classic, ‘River Deep Mountain High.’ Turners vocals on the original are so singular, nothing can touch them. Just the way she crests the first line with a jagged crag in the middle of a note lets you know this is going to be sung from a place of both ache and power.

The ‘Glee’ version leans into the power angle. Santana and Mercedes brim with the ‘girlpower’ term used at the time, the youthful brio of being able to dream of scaling mountains. The choreography then counter-points and really gets it right by giving the singers the dance moves reminiscent of 60s girl-groups, and while it starts out sort of cute and ironic, by the end the choreography becomes mature and electrifying. When Riley sings the first verse, she has gospel runs and exquisite phrasing. She could easily overwhelm anyone. Rivera’s choice is to find her own place to put the appealing but melancholy cracks in her voice, harmonize beautifully, and then release her own blasts of power. The performance says more about ‘empowerment’ than pages of script could. ‘River Deep Mountain High’ is also notable for giving Rivera a chance to be charming in ways she usually didn’t get to be with all her ‘mean girls’ posing; when they get to the part about the ‘rag doll’, both singers mug, but Rivera’s brief clownishness when acting out that rag doll is unexpectedly loose and charming.

Of course, the journey for Santana on the show, and you’ll find many ‘Glee’ fans and pop culture critics who will argue that the show ultimately was about Santana, crucially centers on the classic ‘finding your voice’ view of young adulthood, and central to that, the relationship between Santana and Brittany. Nearly any news or lifestyle site of the past week that had a space for pop culture featured the heartbroken, deeply affected voices of many lesbians and queer people writing about the deep connection they felt towards the relationship and the visibility and identification it gave them.

Of more than passing interest, depending on how transgressive you thought of it, was the pairing between an Afro-Latina character and a white blonde cheerleader who could have stepped out of the background of a Taylor Swift video. Think of where we were in 2009 and that still would have been pushing boundaries. (The show was one of the first to normalize same-gender kisses.)

In Rivera’s scenes with her non-accepting Abuela (the great Ivonne Coll), she is as real as it gets — not only deeply hurt, but uncomprehending in the way so many gay kids can be when they are rejected simply because of their orientation. “But I’m the same person I was a minute ago.” One can imagine these scenes (and the contrapuntal ones between Kurt and his more accepting father) provided a lifeline to young queer people themselves caught up in the process of making decisions about how to come out, and in particular, to Latinx queer people, who found representation and resources hard to come by and certainly not in the media.

And in real life, Rivera, who did not identify as gay, proved to be a significant ally. She responded to queer fans, particularly young women, and she represented by hosting the GLAAD media awards, advocating for The Trevor Project and by speaking responsibly and articulately about what her fans had confessed to her.

The way the show frequently featured LGBTQ imagery was playful and willful. They weren’t representing all queer women; they were representing these two using a particular transgressive iconography. Teen lesbian cheerleaders weren’t invented with ‘Glee’; the queer film ‘But I’m a Cheerleader’ was released in 1999. But by keeping Santana (as well as the other ‘Cheerios’) in their squad outfits 24/7, Rivera started to look like it wasn’t just her cheer attire, it was her superhero uniform. You have your masked and fully-covered marvels; here was a fearless teen titan in sleeveless emblematic mini-skirt cutting through the hallways. Her superpowers? A withering glare that could refreeze the Arctic, an ability to shoot insults like a laser beam, and a pinkie-finger-linking with Britney that could heal your heart. Most of all, a voice that could fill a canyon and fleet feet that could leap over all calamity.

Until she couldn’t. When superheroes die, mere mortals look to the sky and feel, perhaps unreasonably but still undeniably, abandoned. Shocked, stunned, grievous. We look backward, because looking forward has just been removed as an option, and the realization of what will never be is too excruciating.

I couldn’t figure out what happened to Naya Rivera after ‘Glee’, given my hopes and expectations. She released quite a catchy single, ‘Sorry’, and later a memoir, ‘Sorry (Not Sorry.’) I didn’t realize she had joined a new show, the Youtube continuation of the ‘Step Up’ series, but now I do and she’s terrific in it. But to those of us who dropped our eyes from her a bit, I just remember it was because it seemed like there was tabloid stuff, personal tumult, a few seemingly misguided appearances or comments here or there. I was a hopeful, hopeful fan of her talent, not slavish to any TMZ notorieties — but those great female stars of the 30s and 40s? They were no strangers to splashy headlines either.

When I did watch ‘Turner Classics’ or my library of DVDS with some of those ‘Golden Age’ actresses, more than a few times I’d think of Rivera, search IMDB to see if she was getting that Oscar-worthy role yet. Or when there were increasing public discussions that called for better representation of people of color in media, I’d think: Naya Rivera! What’s she doing now? Why isn’t she in a big movie, headed for her superstardom? How did Hollywood’s famously white-screen blindness eclipse even gifts this generous?

So I’d check in the way we do now, with her IG feed or in passing hear about the occasional tweet. There would be a picture of her beauty, sometimes posed in the ‘sexy’ currency that builds and keeps ‘followers’ entranced and ‘promotes content.’

But occasionally Naya would post a picture with her son Josey, who she eventually was raising as a single mom. As many of her followers saw, in those fateful days of early July, I ‘liked’ a beautifully tender picture with Mom and Josey, eyelash close, captioned ‘Just the two of us.’ It seemed so peaceful. This must be what she wants to be doing, I thought. Happy for her. One of the miracles of ‘Glee’ was how they put on hour-long musicals once a week for six years, with 18-hour days. Who could begrudge anyone some rest after that?

But selfishly I also still wanted that album, that movie, that new film directed by her, something more from the force of nature that is, was, Naya Rivera and I gave more than a passing thought that with today’s reckonings, with greater sensitivity to the racism that undergirded so many institutions, the world would finally open up to her in the way it did for so many white actresses before her. It was her time.

Until it wasn’t.

That’s hard to reconcile. We’re supposed to say, as fans from afar, our grief is nothing compared to that of her family, friends, cast mates and of course that’s true. But it’s also true that the grief of a fan is not nothing. Those of us who didn’t know her personally, but were in awe of her talent, shouldn’t shut feelings of loss down. I think it honors Naya Rivera to mourn publicly the way so many fans have, ‘Gleeks’ or not. She was someone who had such hard-won achievement yet still such potential. And for some reason, the power brokers that be didn’t see it or find a place for it in time. We can grieve that mistake, and that which can’t be brought back or won’t be left as a long-career legacy.

That someone with so much soulful presence could suddenly disappear from this earth, at a time when we are all so careful not to lose each other, was wrenching. In consolation, I turned to a lot of Rivera’s performances from the show, though now of course they all carry a melancholy, stinging twinge. (For more on this, just look at the many comments on the pages where the videos are originally posted.)

You hear Naya Rivera sing Winehouse, and it’s hard not to think of how they both died young. You see her love for Brittany acted so convincingly, you think about Heather Morris, the actress who played her and wonder how she will weather this — thoughts that are none of your business, but you still have them. I found myself thinking of Kevin McHale who played ‘Artie’ on the show, and who seems so clear-headed; what would he say? You read Chris Colfer’s tribute to her and shed more than a few tears. You hear her sing ‘If I Die Young’ in tribute to Corey Monteith, and you recall that Rivera’s body was finally found on the day that Monteith died. It’s a lot.

There’s a memorable moment in the early run when Monteith’s Finn stops Santana in the familiar Glee alley of lockers and linoleum. She’s annoyed that he has outed her, and indeed he’s done her wrong. But the character is also written as sincere. Finn’s logic may be that of a teenager’s but he tells Santana that he didn’t ‘out’ her to hurt her, but to help her realize that she would still be accepted. He’d heard of someone who recorded an ‘It Gets Better’ video but later killed himself. He doesn’t want that to happen to her; ‘you mean something to me.’ He tells her that if something ever happened to her and he didn’t do everything in his power to stop it, he could never live with himself. Santana is left speechless at the tenderness, even as she’s furious — Rivera could convey both in a single look.

The context we have now in 2020 makes the brief scene heavy with portent and sadness. In actuality, Rivera was saddened that she couldn’t do more to stop Monteith’s untimely death from a drug overdose. That would be subtext enough. But now, with the timing of her death and the anniversary of his? It’s shattering. But I kept watching, and there was something that reminded me of my own experience teaching high school. A few minutes later, or a few episodes later, the kids are singing and dancing and throwing ‘Big Quenches’ at each other, and seldom has the show’s mission to show the fullness of life seemed so clear. I’ve found that to be true when I’ve gone through difficult times, or my school has, and still had to walk through the classroom door. No matter how sad I’ve been, there’s always a student offering, well, cheer.

Maybe we did get the movie Naya Rivera was on this earth to make after all. Because that scene between Santana and Finn was early in the show’s run. By ‘Glee’s’ end several years later, Santana didn’t hurt herself. She survived high school, she stumbled a little but recovered, she found her way, she was able to get onstage at a Broadway audition and sing ‘Don’t Rain on My Parade’ and give us a big, big moment of triumph; maybe she’ll get the part, she’s definitely going to get the girl. Just like an old musical.

And that’s why I wrote this: we talk about ‘Glee’ as a TV show, but maybe it was one long film. If you go back and watch ‘Glee’ with a particular focus on Rivera, you’ll see an extraordinary rise-and-fall-and-rise-again achievement; she’s one of the major leads of an epic. Sure it’s a movie full of silliness, toss-aways, occasional meanderings or repetitive plotlines, but it’s also full of heart and compassion. This seasons-long coming-of-age starred this African/Latina/Queer Ally/Queen who reigned with a crackling laugh, a stunning beauty and vivacious spirit.

If that’s all we were fated to get of Naya Rivera, she hit her mark — the line where enough and not enough meet. Maybe the silvery phantoms of Bette Davis, Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford and Barbara Stanwyck, who all knew their own injustices within the Hollywood system, maybe they were all waiting in the wings as she sang the curtain down. “Come on kid,” they might say, in old movie parlance. “You went out there a youngster but you came back: a Star!”

✍️The Couch Tamale✍️

Film, Music, Peak TV, Diversity— Tom Cendejas is sitting on a sofa and unwrapping Pop Culture with a Latino eye, one husk at a time.

[fearsmagazine]

Interview with Director/Screenwriter MAURO IVÁN OJEDA  on his film THE FUNERAL HOME.

Argentinian director and screenwriter Mauro Iván Ojeda offers viewers a supernatural thriller with his film THE FUNERAL HOME.

Bernardo, played by Luis Machín, is an undertaker/funeral director, who runs his mortuary business on the same location as his family’s home. While part of his job is aiding the families to coupe with their loss, it seems that some of the “dearly” departed have not moved on and taken up residence in the family’s quarters. Bernardo, his wife, and daughter, manage to coupe with their “guests,” their presence adding more chaos to an already stressful home life. Things begin to spiral out of control when a darker, sinister spirit makes itself known. Bernardo turns to a local psychic, who has guided him in the past, to help his family in hopes of protecting them and removing the ghost that is terrorizing them.

Mauro Iván Ojeda is a talented filmmaker who serves up a compelling supernatural tale that is steeped in the cinematic tradition of such films as The Legend of Hell House, The Haunting, and Poltergeist. THE FUNERAL HOME is a smoldering tale that is flavored with some of traditions of Argentina that give it a fresh perspective.

We had the pleasure to ask Mauro Iván Ojeda about his film via email, as well as what he might have in the works for his next project.

FEARS: From what I could find on the internet, it appears that this is you first feature film. Is that correct? If so, why did you decide to make your debut with a horror film?

Mauro Iván Ojeda: Yes, The Funeral Home is my debut film. I like all genres, but since I was a child, and then in one of my jobs in a video club watching all the movies there, I’ve felt really attracted to the horror genre and the whole fantastic universe.

FEARS: What is or are the most important elements of a story you decide to make as a director; plot, characters, genre, budget, etc. Could you see yourself making a musical?

Mauro Iván Ojeda:  The script is a very important pillar for me; the story must be original, powerful and must really have something to tell. The characters are the heart of each story, and if the heart does not beat, there is no life: the characters are fundamental. A musical?  Yes, I would like something like The Wall by Alan Parker.

FEARS: How difficult was it to get a genre film made in Argentina?

Mauro Iván Ojeda:  In Argentina you always find yourself dealing with the difficulty of the budget, especially for genre films. There are many factors that influence, and one of them is our national currency instability, which forces you to do your best ticks with all the teams to achieve a great film that has good production standards. Genre cinema in Argentina is increasingly solid, with very interesting filmmakers, good teams in all areas, bold actors and actresses, and great films are emerging. In this case, with Del Toro Films we teamed great, they have experience with horror films that have been part of many international film festivals, and have been distributed worldwide, that added a lot to this production.

FEARS: As a storyteller, who or what films would you say are your biggest influences on THE FUNERAL HOME?

Mauro Iván Ojeda:  The films I’ve watched, some from my childhood, and that have inspired me in the universe of The Funeral Home are: Poltergeist, The Entity and some elements of The Conjuring.

FEARS: THE FUNERAL HOME has a lot of supernatural elements going right from the start. I was wondering what was the core idea that first inspired you to write the screenplay?

Mauro Iván Ojeda:  The core idea of the script starts from the premise that the funeral home business that shares the same space with the family's home, slowly engulfs everything until the funeral business and the house become the same. Human relationships and family bounds are dying, inert, withering, coffins piled up as household furniture, scattered wreaths, the presence of corpses roaming the house and the naturalized interaction of the family with them, all that opened a door for me to the world of the “uncanny,” defined by Freud as: incidents where a familiar thing or event is encountered in an unsettling or eerie context, in which the familiar turns strange, or strange turns familiar, or both realities in the same context

FEARS: With all these subplots in the story did you decide to not to explore them more as a result of budget or running time?

Mauro Iván Ojeda:  You choose the points of view and where to focus, those are decisions, obviously, putting in action the plot in a shooting schedule affects those decisions, sometimes, you have very little time to deliberate. In the case of THE FUNERAL HOME, there are many subplots that reinforce and strengthen the story, just as there are subtle elements that you can detect or not as a spectator.

FEARS: Is this story over for you or if you have the resources would you make another film set in this universe, with these characters? Because it seems like you have so much material here what are your thoughts in terms of long format like a series?

Mauro Iván Ojeda:  It happens a lot to me, that people who watched the film, tell me that they would like to know about the beginnings of that house, how did all began. They tell me that they would like to see that world from its genesis, or, that I should place the second part a few years in the future and know what happens with this and that character. For now I don’t have in my projects to write something about LA FUNERARIA, but I don’t rule out that I can explore other formats such as series, or a second part.

FEARS: You have a great location; it’s like another character in the film. Did you find exactly what you were looking for, and other then the portable toilet, did you have to add/build anything to it?

Mauro Iván Ojeda:  It took a huge search to find the ideal house, several months, almost a year, until one day I visited this house that would be the definitive one. I examined the house several times and it had everything I needed to tell the story. But it was not easy. There were several elements that were difficult to put on the set: the portable toilet (which seems to be the more obvious), but also there were a lot of coffins, there were about ten, and some were turned into flowerpots, then, painting the entire house and the location with the red lines that divide the area for the family, and creating the area for the presences with all its elements. All that had its degree of difficulty and cost.    

FEARS: There are some great scary moments. There are a lot of what I assume are particle effects. I’m a fan of particle effects. Was that choice budget related, you didn’t have a CGI artist available to you, or, maybe, it was something else like schedule?

Mauro Iván Ojeda:  There are many effects throughout the film, it was a nice challenge. There is a mix with VFX, and on set actions to make them look more real. It was my decision; I am one of those who believe that the special effect must be realistic, because if it looks fake it takes you out of history.

FEARS: I loved the daughter character, Irina, and the actress who played her. How hard was it to cast the part?

Mauro Iván Ojeda:  Camila Vaccarini, the actress who plays Irina, was a great find. A casting was held, and then hours and hours spent analyzing footage and rehearsing scenes. Every time I saw Camila, it convinced me more. She had the talent and that high level of rigorousness and performance that her character required, from screaming and chasing, to enormous dramatic challenges.

FEARS: Irina adds a bit of comic relief to the film. Was that something that was in the script or something that developed once that part was cast?

Mauro Iván Ojeda:  The script had small hints of humor, very dosed, and Camila added certain characteristics to the character of Irina, that added a lot to the film.

FEARS: With THE FUNERAL HOME completed and being released, do you have other projects you are working on, anything you might already be in production on?

Mauro Iván Ojeda:  While reaching our world release date in US and Canada, and waiting for the release of THE FUNERAL HOME in Argentina and other territories, I continue creating. I’m already engaged in two new projects. They are a crossover of horror and fantastic genres, written by me, and we are in developing stage with producers. This is a particular and difficult year due to the pandemic, but little by little we are advancing as much as possible. I hope soon I can get back to you with some news.

THE FUNERAL HOME Review: https://bit.ly/3oKF7bq

THE FUNERAL HOME Trailer: https://youtu.be/nnWvVwKJG3s

Interview by Joseph Mauceri

[aion-rsa]

Helstrom: The Comic History of Marvel’s Son of Satan

https://ift.tt/33Vbv3V

On Oct. 16, Hulu will be releasing the latest Marvel tie-in series Helstrom. It’s not so much like one of those upcoming Disney+ MCU shows that feature high-profile superheroes telling stories that will be important to the overall fictional universe. It’s more like Daredevil or Runaways where quality be damned, you’re never going to hear anyone in the movies make anything close to a reference to it, but it counts as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe anyway.

The series is about siblings Daimon Helstrom and Ana Helstrom, who have seemingly normal lives, but oppose demons and evil people on the side. Their mother is institutionalized, which is fairly true to the comics, but their father is also referred to as “a powerful serial killer.”

In the comics, things are a bit grander. Their father isn’t just any serial killer, but a variation of Satan. Marvel has a bunch of guys whose identities are “basically Satan, but not really.” Instead of suits and turtlenecks, the two have comic adventures where they dress like they shopped off the sexy Halloween costume rack at Party City.

Daimon Helstrom (played by Tom Austen) gets both L’s in the comics as Daimon Hellstrom, but also has the rad nickname of Son of Satan. Shockingly, he’s a good guy! Mostly. Even when bare-chested with a glowing pentagram over his torso. Even with a magical pitchfork as his weapon of choice.

Son of Satan and his sister Satana are essentially the Marvel versions of Dante and Vergil from Devil May Cry. Both are half-human/half-devil and they lean on opposite sides of their genetics.

So let’s say you want to get into Hellstrom’s comic book exploits. Well, you’re in luck because we have a list of his main character runs since showing up in 1973.

The Early Spotlight (1973-1975)

Hellstrom made his first appearance in Ghost Rider #1. In the first two issues of that series, Hellstrom was hired as an exorcist to help deal with a missing woman who had been possessed. Interestingly enough, they never gave a clear look at Hellstrom in those two issues other than the demonic birthmark on his chest.

Initially, Hellstrom had a Jekyll and Hyde gimmick to the point that he told the woman’s loved ones to lock him up in a dark room and not let him out no matter what he said. Unlike the supporting characters in Young Frankenstein, the bozos didn’t take that to heart and let Hellstrom’s more maniacal personality Son of Satan loose.

Sidenote: His adventures were originally going to be called “the Mark of Satan” with more emphasis on Satan as the antagonist, but doing comics focused on Satan was deemed a little over-the-line, so they changed it.

Second sidenote: I did not hit her, it’s bullshit, I did not hit her, I DID NOT! Oh hi, Mark of Satan!

Read more

TV

How Helstrom Became One of Marvel Television’s Last Shows Standing

By Alec Bojalad

Son of Satan’s adventures continued into Marvel Spotlight #12-24. It didn’t take long for Marvel to realize that giving him a double-identity was kind of a lame idea and instead had Satan Sr. magically handwave that away and make Son of Satan just one dude. Definitely for the better as he no longer felt so blatantly like Marvel’s answer to Jason Blood/Etrigan.

Hellstrom continued to fight against ghoulish enemies while opposing his father’s ways and dated some generic woman whose name I couldn’t tell you if you paid me a million dollars. It all culminated in a really strong finale issue where Hellstrom fought against and with his sister Satana, but maybe ignore the part where Hellstrom had a dream about the two of them making out.

Striking Out Solo (1975-1977)

Son of Satan had his own self-titled ongoing series that only lasted eight issues. From the beginning, Hellstrom went to Hell to basically tell off his dad as a way to say that this series wouldn’t be about their rivalry. Instead, it was Son of Satan dealing with a bunch of random villains that nobody would ever really remember.

There was one ridiculous enemy named the Possessor (not to be confused with the Elder of the Universe) who wore a mask to hide the fact that he had demon faces where his ears are supposed to be. Too bad he never showed up outside of this series.

It was a trippy outing, but ended before it could find its footing.

Demon Defender (1981-1983)

The Defenders are, of course, the bundle of heroes who don’t quite fit in with the Avengers, Fantastic Four, or X-Men but need people to hang out with. Guys like Hulk, Dr. Strange, Namor, Valkyrie, etc. Son of Satan became a regular ally in the team’s early days, appearing to help out every now and then. Most notably, he was part of a storyline where the Serpent Society kidnapped the Defenders and Clea put together a second team to rescue them, featuring the likes of Son of Satan, Daredevil, and Luke Cage.

Then again, the only thing anyone truly remembers about those issues is a very bizarre and legendary scene of a random guy getting killed by an Elf with a Gun.

As the series reached its 92nd issue, Hellstrom finally joined the team. On one hand, having Son of Satan on the team meant the Defenders had to take on the occult more than usual. On the other hand, Hellstrom soon fell in love with fellow Defender Hellcat, who was regularly dealing with constantly being possessed and turning into a scantily-clad demoness.

When Defenders hit its 100th issue, they did a really climactic storyline where a handful of the various Marvel Devil guys invaded Earth and Son of Satan had to take on Father of Son of Satan for the fate of Earth. The conclusion is rather surprising.

Prince of Lies (1993-1994)

Okay, so Daimon Hellstrom and Patsy Walker have been married for ten years (our time). It’s a fairytale romance where they’ve made a few guest appearances here and there, but have otherwise retired, happily ever after. What could POSSIBLY taint such true love?

90s comics. That’s your answer.

Welcome to Hellstorm: Prince of Lies, a 21-issue ongoing series where every issue looks like a Nine Inch Nails video and they try to see how much lanky nudity they can get away with showing in a Marvel comic. Like, holy crap, there has to be a world record for shadowed-out junk in this series. They even edit in some obvious, hastily-drawn underwear on characters at times as if the editor has realized they’ve gone too far.

It’s a gritty and grimy series that you’d expect from a 90s comic where much of it is written by Warren Ellis and the main character is Satan’s son. Lots of spikes, sharp teeth, long hair, suffering, insanity, and so on. It’s most definitely a product of its time.

Plus it’s called “Hellstorm” instead of “Hellstrom.” Scout’s honor, I didn’t notice the difference until my editor pointed it out.

Maximum Hellstorm (2006-2007)

Ah, Marvel MAX. The days when Marvel decided to give R-rated comics a shot and just threw everything at the wall. Hellstorm: Son of Satan was one of them, going for five issues. By this point, we’re in the mid-00s, so Hellstrom has a more down-to-earth look and is constantly talking to his father on a cellphone and tries so hard not to remind us what he looked like in the 70s and 80s.

But because it’s Marvel MAX, it means that his adventure is filled with lots of curse words, ultra-violence, gross demon boobs, and explicit Jesus imagery you normally wouldn’t see in a comic like this.

While the whole “Hellstrom messes with Egyptian underworld deities” storyline is a bit high concept, it still feels more like the new Hulu show than anything else.

Zombie Slayer (2009)

Speaking of gritty Marvel trends, there’s Marvel Zombies! While the initial Ultimate Fantastic Four storyline and the first two volumes of Marvel Zombies dealt with the happenings of a doomed universe, the next few volumes went slightly more uplifting. After all, sometimes you need to have people to root for who can back it up.

In Marvel Zombies 4, the Black Talon and the Hood (under the influence of Dormammu) try to use the decapitated head of Zombie Deadpool (otherwise known as Headpool) to bring forth the zombie apocalypse in the regular Marvel universe. Yes, we actually have canon stakes this time.

To prevent this, we have the Midnight Sons, made up of Son of Satan, Morbius, Jennifer Kale, Werewolf by Night, and Man-Thing. It’s an incredibly badass group working through an incredibly badass adventure. Too bad the team doesn’t last.

On a similar note, around this time there was a miniseries called the Last Defenders where Son of Satan was a major character. It’s just that by the time the team came together, they were an immediately-forgotten afterthought, so there’s no use in giving it its own entry.

Ghost Riders in the Sky (2009-2010)

Jason Aaron had a really, really, really great run on Ghost Rider. Most definitely read it. It’s pure grindhouse and I love it.

The whole run finished with Ghost Riders: Heaven’s on Fire. This culmination featured Johnny Blaze and Danny Ketch working together against a corrupt angel, the anti-Christ, and a group of villains from earlier in the run teaming up.

At least they have Daimon Hellstrom there to help out. Unfortunately, Hellstrom looks outright goofy with a bald head and Fu-Manchu mustache. The story brings back Jaine, his EXTREME love interest from the 90s series who he ended up with after his relationship with Patsy went very south.

Anyhow, Jason Aaron’s Ghost Rider run. Read it!

Strikeforce (2019-2020)

Much like how X-Men had X-Force as the team that would do the really dirty work, Avengers had a spinoff team called Strikeforce. Made up of Winter Soldier, Angela, Blade, Spider-Woman, Wiccan, and Spectrum, the team soon brought Hellstrom into the fold. Which is just as well, since he was working for Baron Zemo for a little while and really needed to get his head back on straight.

Unfortunately for Hellstrom, 1) he retained his bald look from Heaven’s on Fire and 2) the series didn’t last all that long. Only nine issues, sadly. Eh, it was fun while it lasted.

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At least he’s joining the Savage Avengers next! And they’re giving him his hair back!

The post Helstrom: The Comic History of Marvel’s Son of Satan appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/31dX5KF

[thedeaditeslayer]

Running Time Restored Interview: 1997 Josh Becker and Bruce Campbell Indie Gets a New Life in 2K.

You can read the full interview on the upcoming release With Josh Becker, Bruce Campbell, and Don May Jr. from Diabolik Magazine below. 

In 1995 on New Year’s Eve, Josh Becker had an idea. Born out of a session pondering Alfred Hitchcock’s legendary, true crime classic, Rope, he decided that he was going to improve upon the master of suspense’s legendary concept of shooting a film in real time. A daunting task but Becker was up to the challenge.

What resulted was perhaps one of the most ambitious efforts to ever grace the silver screen, Running Time. This neo-noir thriller about a heist gone wrong and a small-time criminal who rekindles his love affair with his high-school sweetheart was a hidden gem that didn’t get the recognition that it deserved. Written expressly for Becker’s childhood friend and Super 8 cohort, Bruce Campbell, the pair were once again, doing gonzo-style filmmaking just like when they were growing up in Michigan with the likes of Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert.

Josh Becker was and is an adventurous soul who does things his way, just like the director gods of old. When I think of his work, the names of John Ford, William Wyler and John Huston readily spring to mind. There is something admirable about his driven determination that was the heart and soul of this black and white throwback to another era which is ultimately endearing. Yes, I have a special place in my heart for Running Time because it is honest and not filled with “tentpole” tendencies. At the core of it is the written word. The end result is one of the most overlooked masterpieces of both Becker’s and Campbell’s careers.

What is truly amazing is that this flick was shot in two weeks and that everyone went home early. It was like having a 9 to 5 job. No 18-hour-days, just fast, efficient, run and gun style filmmaking that resulted in a production that could stand toe to toe with noir classics from a bygone era like The Petrified Forest and Desperate Hours.

Prior to Running Time, Bruce was known predominantly for his work in the horror and science fiction genres which can sometimes be limiting for an actor. Becker gave him an incredible script to work with that really showcased his range as a thespian. Behind the smart-ass quips and bravado lies a talented individual who takes his craft seriously. He is capable of creating complex characters and he is most assuredly fit to be a romantic lead.

I had the chance to sit down with the major players in the restoration of Running Time (Josh Becker, Bruce Campbell, Don May, Jr. and Gerry Kissell) to reminisce about the journey of this film from its humble beginnings to preserving this indie classic for future generations.

The Director and His Muse

Diabolique: Bruce, I have to start off by telling you that Running Time is my favorite out of all of your films.  

Bruce Campbell: It’s a cool, little flick. Too bad it sort of escaped, it wasn’t released as the old joke goes.

Diabolique: What I like so much about it is the neo-noir aspect. It’s a throwback to the 40’s and 50’s. In Josh’s book, Rushes, he talks about how he convinced you to be in the film. You weren’t getting paid and you invested in it. What was his pitch, how did he sell the concept to you?

BC: The pitch was that it was NOT McHale’s Navy. I just spent 11 weeks in Mexico just sort of bullshitting our way through that film where we would make up our lines of dialogue because there was nothing written for us. In the script it would say things like, “McHale and his guys get off the boat,” “McHale and his men go to Cuba.” Which means they hadn’t thought anything up for you. I did it because I liked the show as a kid. It was a very popular thing; it was from Universal. It made sense at the time. It was just a case of when something is underwritten, the problem that it causes actors. I had just come off of that, and Running Time was very ambitious, low budget it was meant to be this conceit of being done in one shot so it was cinematic. So, I was like, okay, yeah. It was like the anti-studio movie, small crew, fast moving and yet no money. Basically, I invested the money that I was paid back into the movie in order for them to make it. It was definitely for a love of the movie type deal.

Josh Becker: I’ve known Bruce since we were twelve and I’d seen him in a number of plays. I knew that he had a much bigger range as an actor than he’d had a chance to show at that point. Plus, he’s a pleasure to work with. Once I pitched him the idea, he was all for it, partially because the long takes are a way for an actor to really show their ability.

Diabolique: Thinking about your filmography, Bruce, you haven’t played a traditional romantic lead. Do you see Running Time as a love story of sorts?

BC: What’s funny is Josh had Carl come back. In a proper film noir, he would have gone, you would have heard the tires squeal and she would be sitting there crying and the credits would roll and that would be it. It would be bleak, but Josh deep down is a sentimentalist and I think I am too. We had no issue with the happy ending. We wanted to make the audiences think for quite a long period of time that it’s going to be a sad ending. She packs her bag and then she unpacks it. The whole thing is quite an extended piece but I thought it was well worth playing just to kind of throw a little wrinkle in it. Maybe even in a criminal story you can have a happy ending.

Diabolique: In terms of the storyline, Josh, we all know that Rope was the blueprint for Running Time. You hadn’t made a film in 7 years. What was it about that production that captured your imagination besides the challenge of the “long take”?

JB: Part of my inspiration was simply getting another feature film made after seven years of working in television, which was never my goal.  But as I thought about Rope, I wondered why the continuous, real-time concept didn’t really have any impact on the story. Then it occurred to me that there was no time element involved.  Two young men—ostensibly Leopold and Loeb—have killed another young man for the fun of it, put the body in a chest, then invited people over for a party, including a cop. Well, if the chest was spring loaded and had a timer on it so that at some point it would pop open and reveal the corpse, that would be a time element. So, I thought, how do you use the real time technique and add a ticking clock? The first story that came to mind was a heist which generally has a time element—we’ve got to get the money and get out of here before we’re caught.

Diabolique: Running Time was shot in sequence like a play. Did it pose any challenges for you as an actor?

BC: I liked what Josh was trying to do. These long uninterrupted takes from an actor’s point of view, you know stuff can get really choppy these days. My complaint from Burn Notice is they wouldn’t let a full sentence stay on camera; they would have to cut away to somebody else. It felt like they had to keep cutting, cutting and cutting. This movie was no cutting for like ten minutes at a time. It’s great from an actor’s perspective because you can feel the juices flowing. It’s like a play. You can work on the pacing; you can have something build over a period of time and minutes to play out in literally real time. It’s a real time crime drama. I liked it conceptually and it was challenging. There was a fair amount of dialogue because my guy, Carl is calling the shots. I thought it was a good premise. Guy gets out of prison turns right around and robs the prison because he knows how the prison laundry system works. I thought that was pretty sound. I am always sympathetic for the low budget independent movie. I always will be.

Diabolique: Were there any other films that influenced you and your writing partner, Peter Choi? The entire concept is very noir and the desperate situation that Carl finds himself in is reminiscent of any number of films from the 1940s.

JB: My main inspiration was Straight Time with Dustin Hoffman, an overlooked movie from 1978. And though I didn’t think of it at the time, several folks brought up Joseph Lewis’s Gun Crazy after it came out, and I do see that. The film has one long take in it during a bank robbery, and even though the camera stays in the backseat of a car, it has that same feeling of a real time event.

Diabolique: I know you are a fan of classic movies, Bruce and in a sense Running Time reminds me of Desperate Hours or The Petrified Forest especially when the robbery is botched and the situation is escalating in the enclosed office. Did you find any inspiration from the noir genre for your portrayal of Carl?

BC: No, but the classic tough guys were always awesome. We loved them all, Bogart and Robert Mitchum…the fact that Josh shot the film in black and white was perfect. Because it really helped lend itself to a look of that time period when Jack Palance was a leading man.

Diabolique: In your book Rushes, you talked about your decision to shoot in 16 mm Kodak ASA 64 black and white stock. You get sharper images due to the finer grain of the film, but did that pose any problems in terms of showcasing your work at that time since most people weren’t shooting in black and white?

JB:  I didn’t think of it regarding showcasing my work. I thought it was appropriate for the subject matter and that it would be visually striking.  Also, moving the camera from inside to outside in color posed the problem of adding or removing filters which would not be an issue with black and white.

Diabolique: You shot over a period of 10 days which was unheard of even back in the 90’s. How were you able to keep things moving along?

JB: It was based on pre-planning. I knew exactly what I wanted. We rehearsed the film and the actors were all very comfortable with the dialogue. Then it was just an issue of getting the complicated camera moves in regard to the actor’s blocking to work right, and that didn’t turn out to be all that difficult.

Diabolique: As an actor, did you enjoy working on an accelerated timetable?

BC: It was exciting to do and so different. The toughest thing was the technical demands. It wasn’t like there were explosions and stuff like that. But in order to do blocking inside of an apartment, the camera is moving in circles, well, the crew had to move every object behind the camera before it got there and then had to put it back before the camera saw it again. So, there was a lot of voodoo, a lot of magic. We would rehearse and rehearse and rehearse and we could never get it right. Finally, we were like fuck it. Let’s just start shooting because everyone gets a little more alert when you shoot. That did it. That allowed us to conquer the impossible. After 3 or 4 takes if we got it, we were done even if it was 10:30 in the morning. I don’t think we spent more than two thirds of a day getting that particular shot. The end result is cool. I’ve seen the cleaned-up version without all the scratches and the dust marks. You can’t even tell what year it is. It almost seems like its videotape transferred like those teledramas of the 60’s that were done on TV. There were moments in the film that weren’t perfect, and that’s okay.

Diabolique: When I revisited Running Time recently, I was impressed with how well it holds up because some efforts don’t. With the 2K restoration, Bruce, this will give your fans a chance to see it. For some, it might be their first time. Do you have a scene that you are particularly fond of?

BC: There’s some scenes that are fun to do. After I get shot, I am in Janie’s apartment and she’s trying to put me together, that fainting on the toilet while she’s trying to patch me together it felt kind of real, playing shot and being delirious. Stuff like that. Just fun to be able to take the moment to do it.

Diabolique: Josh, do you feel shooting in black and white made the 2K restoration more challenging?

JB:  Slow speed black and white film stock has a lot of silver in it which creates an inordinate amount of static electricity. When I did the initial film transfer back in 1997, the negative kept getting covered with dust, causing us to have to stop and clean the film every 30-60 minutes. Since the transfer was $375 an hour—in 1997 dollars—I could only stop so many times before it became financially prohibitive.  Dust on a black and white negative shows up as white dots. Using the newest technology, Don May was able to remove all of the dust digitally. Therefore, the film has never looked as good as it does now.

Diabolique: What excites you the most about Running Time getting restored, Bruce?

BC: I am always happy when something gets re-released which means in this case, it gets preserved. It will look fantastic in 2K. That’s why with all these reissues fans are like, “Why should we care?” Like well, if you care about preservation, this means it will be the latest version of a movie that is fairly obscure. Sometimes a movie can die on the vine because no one will pay the money to keep it current. Now, we can show the sucker, hopefully, anywhere.

Diabolique: Josh, do you have any plans to showcase Running Time once the restoration is completed? This is a great film that fans should definitely see.

JB: We have no plans at the moment, but then the film isn’t out yet. When it’s done, we’ll see what happens.

Breathing New Life into Running Time: The Art of Restoration

Don May, Jr. along with Jerry Chandler and Charles Fiedler created Synapse Films in 1997. Known for their work in preserving unique genre classics, May had previously collaborated with Josh Becker when his company restored the director’s 1985 production, Thou Shalt Not Kill…Except.

Gerry Kissell was the official artist on Running Time and will be reprising his role for the 2K restoration. He has been friends with Josh since the Freaky Film Festival where he and Bruce premiered the film on the University of Illinois campus.

Both gentlemen were kind enough to take time out of their busy schedules to talk to us.

Diabolique: Were you able to obtain the original negative for Running Time?

Don May, Jr: Yes, thankfully. Josh Becker is a true movie fan and loves the filmmaking process, so we were fortunate to work with him. He kept everything stored properly in a climate-controlled vault, as a man who cares about his movies should.

Diabolique: Can you talk about the scanning process for 2K?

DMJ: The 16mm negative was separated into A/B rolls, so we had to scan a lot of reels separately at Prasad in Burbank, CA. Luckily, because of the actual nature of the “one-take” aesthetic Josh utilized, there were only a total of about 30 cuts in the entire film… hidden in editing, of course. So, we basically scanned the 30 separate shots, and then assembled them digitally using DaVinci Resolve. We had to be VERY careful the way we put the 30 cuts back together, making sure the shots were frame accurate and of the proper length. Unlike a film that has a conformed negative separated into 10- or 20-minute reels, Running Time was all in separate pieces, with each shot edited on separate reels. It was a challenge, but we were able to use a previous master as a reference and most of it went together without a hitch. Being shot in B&W also helped in color correction to hide the edits properly to make the real-time aspect as seamless as possible. Once the film was properly assembled, we were able to ship everything off to India for restoration. Because Josh had everything stored properly for decades, the negative itself was fairly free of a lot of dirt and scratches, but we did carefully sonically clean all the pieces before scanning commenced.

Diabolique: How long does it take the digital artists to fix debris or scratches on the original negatives?

DMJ: There’s a lot of data wrangling involved. Copying data for safety. Making backups, etc. But we have a great working relationship with Prasad. They have worked on such classics as Lawrence of Arabia, How the West Was Won, A Fistful of Dollars, Gandhi, The Red Shoes, etc. They do the lion’s share of my output, and I put a lot of trust in them. They’ve never failed me. We do ship the film scans to India and that takes time. I think Running Time took about 4-5 months. I let them take their time, though, because I don’t want to have to keep sending things back for fixes. With Running Time, they did an excellent job, right from my first restoration test reels. But, again, Josh had taken very good care of his materials, so it wasn’t much of a challenge.

Diabolique: Gerry, what artwork did you originally provide for Running Time and what can we expect from you for the 2K restoration?

Gerry Kissell: I did promotional art that ended up on tee-shirts. It included the shot of the three main characters, which I called Tres Hombres, on one, Jeremy Roberts aiming the pistol at the camera on another, and the last, which you’ve seen of Bruce’s mug all heroic and chinny. All of the art was done on Bristol cold press illustration board. The new painting for the Synapse release is me, 20+ years later, a tad bit better at drawing and painting, lol.

Diabolique: Besides the idea of preserving Running Time, Don, what attracted you to the project?

DMJ: We had worked previously with Josh on Thou Shalt Not Kill…Except, and we had a lot of fun with that one. I like working with Josh. He’s a great guy, and I love that he’s so passionate about film. He loves movies, and he loves MAKING movies. It’s so great to see people like Josh doing things like Running Time, back when using computers to do a “one take” approach was non-existent. You see things today like the film 1917, which is a fine film in its own right, but they cheated a lot of its “one take” aspect using computers. Josh did Running Time, but used his brain, and actual organic film splicing and editing to achieve the same result. He’s smart, funny, talented and I love working with people like him. It also doesn’t hurt that Running Time stars Bruce Campbell, so… yeah… of course, we jumped at the chance to do it.

Diabolique: When can fans expect to see the Running Time 2K restoration?

DMJ: I would imagine late summer/early fall 2020. We’re wrapping up extras and artwork now.

[colony22graphics]

            ❝Shine on,                  diamond.❞

◆ member since: nov. 22, 2013 ◆ longest character: alexander donovan ◆

@alexander-donovan, Well, here we go. 

Rory, there's no way on earth I could possibly describe what you've done for this community. Aside from making it all in the first place, constructing the post-apocalyptic sandbox we all hold so dear, you also pay attention to how it's executed---from basic principles of operation and how we ought to respect each other as players, down to the smallest, weirdest headcanon. It matters to you---which I think is probably the best way to summarize your energy and wisdom, the Rory-ness of it all: 

Things matter. People matter. Caring matters. 

In a world where we're pretty damn used to moving from one diversion to the next at a moment's notice, you make something that's absolutely set apart by saying, resolutely and passionately, that what we do here really matters.

And you're right, to think that. If you need any further proof that you---Rory---matter, you can look at me writing this damn letter (and swearing every three sentences, sorry). But you in your extremely Ro way, said hey, six years fucking matters, and so do all the people we play with, so let’s get mushy on the main and tell them. And I can tell you to your face you're right and this was a stellar idea because... I do that now. Because of your influence, I'm a better person, one who does actually try and tell people what I think. 

You challenge people to care, and to translate their caring into something others can recognize, and reciprocate. You’re never afraid to point out the importance of saying things and leaving a meaningful mark, becoming an active part of our community instead of staying in our own heads (as introverts on the internet are prone to doing).

You're also a hell of a writer, which is inspirational in itself, and I can’t leave that out of it. Your dedication to your characters, to their motivations and struggles, shines through in every post you make, and you don't let fear or insecurity take root or stop you from doing what you love. You know it's not about achieving perfection, but about collaboration and growth. The way we write is an exercise in discipline and embracing the joys of language, it's not meant to be fine art (though a lot of the stuff you come up with off the cuff blurs the line between the two on a regular basis.) It's really very rude how talented you are. 

I won't talk too much more about you and me personally because you already know it pretty well, but I will mention that when I offered to help out with tech stuff, you don't even know how impossible being a full mod felt for me, at the time. I'd just come out of some rough experiences and was ready to never do that again. But over the years, you gave me steps that I could take only when I felt comfortable, and let me accept only the responsibility that I thought I could manage (though you always told me you knew I was more than capable of handling it). In a very real way, with your patience and understanding, you gave me back my confidence, and my willingness to be vulnerable. That's something I won't ever forget.  

You have my respect and my friendship, always.

And dear lord, if Tumblr has managed not to self-destruct in the next five or ten years, I really hope we're still around doing this shit. No place I'd rather be.

Love you, Ro.

<3 Lottie.

(Oh, by the way, I took the liberty of adding something else, under the cut. I knew that I would never be able to cover everything, and that I’d run out of words, so I turned to others to fill in the gaps and maybe it’ll help convey it all a little more properly. Many thanks to everyone.)  ❤

         —-     Happy Colony 6th Anniversary      —-

     RO, YOU ARE AN ABSOLUTE GIFT. I’m incredibly grateful all those years ago I saw that Bones bio and decided to join this crazy little family because that is exactly what you have created with the Colony: You have made a family. You have always been a pleasure to write with, a hard-working and careful admin, and now this second go-round I'm happy to call you a good friend. I wanted to mirror your sentiment on my anniversary post, it is amazing how time rewards our patience with this second meeting! I owe you a very real debt because thanks to this group when a friend let me down whilst I was on a different goddamn continent, thanks to you, I found Cassie there to help me out! The group is an extension of you: thoughtful, kind, emotional, and funny as hell.                                                                                                             - Nicola

     Rory, your dedication to the Colony (and previously Belvedere) astounds me every day. Writing with you is an absolute joy, thank you for all that you do for us!!                                                                                                             - Cassie

     RO HOLY COW!! It's insane to think of being part of something so wonderful for so long, I can't imagine how proud you must be to call this place home. I absolutely love writing with every character I've gotten to interact with, you approach your characters and this RPG with such a passion, it's always made getting to be part of it all the more special to me! To many years to come!                                                                                                              - Molly

     The things I admire most about you are your kindness, your compassion, your understanding and the way you always make the best of a situation. You've been nothing but welcoming and kind to me since I've had the privilege of joining this insanely talented and incredible group, and every day I am in awe of the love and care and detail you pour into the rpg. You have been so supportive over these past few months, every day I consider myself insanely lucky to have met you. I adore you and I'm so happy for you that you've come so far in your own personal journey, you truly do deserve all the happiness in the world.                                                                                                             - Lou

     Ro, you’re an absolutely wonderful mod and person. I’ve never met a more dedicated and creative mod in all my years on this website. You’re an astounding writer and creator who leaves me wanting to be better. You’re a wonderful person to write with and an even better friend. I love you and all the work you do for everyone in this group. Thank you for creating this fantastic place and starting this wonderful family.                                                                                                              - Lee

     Thanks for always being so open and welcoming! It's been such a blast writing with you.                                                                                                             - Ren

     Your commitment to this game and its players is absolutely next level, and it shines through in literally everything you do for us. I haven’t felt so at home and so comfortable in an RP in such a long time, possibly ever, and I know so much of that has to do with the amazing environment (both IC and OOC) you’ve spent such a long time painstakingly and lovingly cultivating. This RP wouldn't be the incredible space it is without such an incredible and dedicated team of mods. I hope you know how much I appreciate all you do, and how much I flippin' love ya!                                                                                                              - Alex

     Rory, you're a perfect admin and an amazing friend! You've always made me feel so welcome here, from day one, and my heart feels warm and fuzzy when I think of you. I utterly adore all your characters and your writing is just brilliant, it's always so much fun to brainstorm and write and plot with you. Thank you, thank you, thank you!                                                                                                              - Ellie

     When an rp has a lifespan of not just a year or two, but SIX FREAKIN YEARS, you must look to your leader. Ships don’t sail without a captain, and you have been the most loyal, loving, and adventurous captain to your crew. Congratulations on this amazing accomplishment, love. xoxo.                                                                                                              - Amy

     Rory, I just wanted to thank you for how welcome you've made me feel since I joined the group. It takes a special person to be an admin (dedicated, patient, and just a little bit weird), and the six years you've been running this group is a testament to how well you do it. You've got incredible creativity and passion, and I know I'm not the only one that feels so lucky to write with you in this world you've built. Congratulations on six years! Here's to many more.                                                                                                             - Nick

     RORUUUUU. I literally have no idea where my life would be now if I'd never met you. I've said it before and I'll say it again, you inspire me to be braver and stronger and more self-loving. Thank you for being my friend even after all these years.                                                                                                             - Mika

I don’t think I can concisely put into words how much you mean to me, but I’ll try: we first met in 2012 and through all these years you’ve continually inspired me with your talent and hard work. You’re more than just an incredible friend, you’re an ICONIC leader that has the determination and talent to keep this group running for six amazing years (with the help of your equally talented and wonderful co-mod, naturally, wink wonk). The Colony is a family to me, and I think to all of us, even before it’s a writing group. It couldn’t be what it is today without someone as tirelessly understanding and creative at its helm. You’re an absolute gift, you’ve been there for me through thick and thin, and I’m grateful every day that I get to call you a friend.                                                                                                             - Maddie

     Ro, you have been so kind and amazing since day one! You have this astonishing energy and a kindness that honestly makes the colony feel like another home. You’re such a phenomenal writer, and have made this rp a community like no other. I can’t quite put into words how much I appreciate you, and how much effort you put into everything you do. You’re so talented and I feel incredibly lucky to say I’m a part of this community. Thank you for being you. xxx.                                                                                                             - El

     The Colony has been a living, breathing world in which to create, and the key piece - creativity - is embedded in your DNA. You aren't just an enthusiastic mod. In some aspects you are the Col. I know you want everyone to feel included and allowed to be inspired by the writing of others rather than hemmed in by rules and egos so many other groups have. Thank you for throwing all your characters at me when one of mine has some wild scheme. I've said before your writing is cinematic in its expression and it always challenges me to want to (try to) write on a higher level. I'm grateful to have you as a sounding board when I get stuck in the mud of my own self-doubt with writing. Thank you for just being a friend as well and letting me ramble too. It is impossible to sum up this wildest of rides out of all my writing adventures so, much love, as always. xx.                                                                                                             - Cat

[abybweisse]

Sorry if this has been discussed before, but I'm wanting to know if Queen Victoria has a secret something within the actual Tower Bridge, that she'd kill for, and maybe already have. Does Undertaker know, or suspect who has slain Vincent and Racheal? Why is Undertaker's plan of whatever it is. taking so long to happen? (UT enjoying his tea parties with Doll Ciel?) How did Prince Albert die, both in manga/anime, and in real history? Was Vincent still alive when Mey Rin was an assassin? (part 1)

1. It’s possible, but idk. The historical timeline for Tower Bridge is different than in the Kuroverse. Historically, the decision to build it didn’t come along until 1877. The developers accepted plans from anyone who wanted to submit one, and they didn’t choose one until 1884. Construction began in 1886. In the Kuroverse, plans were in place as early as 1875, but construction didn’t begin until the end of 1885 or start of 1886; this allows for the entire project delay to match up with the first ten years of the twins’ lives... in other words, to line up with their birth to the attack and fire that destroyed the Phantomhives ten years later.

I can say this, though. Historically, the very first stone of Tower Bridge was laid by Albert, Prince of Wales... the eldest son of Queen Victoria and her late husband, Prince Albert. I have a feeling that the Kuroverse version of its concept, plan, and construction are more dear to Victoria’s heart than they historically were. Though both versions of Queen Victoria are quite into displaying and increasing Great Britain’s influence and power.

2. I am pretty sure Undertaker has suspects in mind, but I’m not too sure he knows for certain. That’s one of the reasons why it was smart for whoever burnt the manor down to completely destroy Vincent’s body, which includes his cinematic records. Otherwise, Undertaker would have gotten a lot of easy answers as soon as he arrived on the scene.

3. Of course, some of it is plot convenience; you have to figure out a way to make loose ends not tie up so fast. Same goes for why the contract between our earl and Sebastian is taking so long. Where would the story be if they figured it out too quickly and got all their revenge right away?

But, aside from that, Undertaker probably has to deal with certain obstacles, just like when he arrived in time to collect real Ciel’s body... but didn’t arrive sooner to stop the sacrifice. Very strong opponents are in his way, including the entire reaper organization. John Brown is likely another one. Sebastian is also a doozy that has been more recently added to the mix. There is also the possibility that everyone involved is dealing with a prophecy... even if they are unaware of that. So, things just have to play out as they play out.

4. We don’t know yet what the cause of Prince Albert’s death was in the Kuroverse. But historically, it was recorded as typhoid fever. I say “recorded” because this was probably an incorrect diagnosis. From the Wikipedia entry on him:

(Yes. Prince Albert died in the Blue Room....)

5. Oh, definitely. Mey-Rin was being trained as one as early as 1877. Not only was Vincent alive, but he was the Queen’s Watchdog at the time. As I’ve said in other recent posts, Haku worked for a lord and lady who were probably in Vincent’s network of evil nobles. Vincent likely knew, at least vaguely, of Haku’s actions... and allowed it....

Of course, there was roughly a month between Vincent’s death and our earl’s return to the ruins of the manor. It took a while longer before our earl was officially bestowed with the title of Earl and the responsibility of Queen’s Watchdog. Between Vincent’s death and our earl officially becoming watchdog, no telling what Haku, the evil nobles, and the rest of the British Underworld were getting away with. Depends on whether anyone served as watchdog in the interim. Heck, until our earl started putting the screws to Haku and the other opium dealers, even he might have known about some of these assassinations... who was ordering them... and didn’t mind.

6. Probably not a coincidence. They aren’t related, but Double Charles might have been selected in part because they look “good”. The whiteness/paleness goes along with John. The queen wants a look that suggests goodness and purity, because the appearance of her staff reflects on her (at least to her mind) to the British people. And, if John Brown turns out to be an angel, well.... Kind of reminds me of s1’s Ash/Angela and their obsession with purity.

7. Oof. Well, she has brought some of them back in his feverish nightmares. Also, Kelvin turned out to be an old enemy our earl didn’t even know he had. Undertaker could eventually bring out bizarre dolls of circus troupe members, but I really sort of hope not. The only point to that would be an attempt to make our earl regret his actions... and perhaps to turn Snake against him.

8. Soma has already turned villainous, in my opinion. I believe it was his path, all along, according to his Mother3 theory parallels to Pokey Minch. However, I am hoping he gets turned around... just like Kali got calmed down by Shiva....

9. 🤔 We have seen the aftermath of it once, so far. Yes, I think we will get to see Soma create a path of destruction, or at least we should get to see part of it. If nothing else, we should get a scene of it when he confronts either our earl or real Ciel.

10. Not that I’ve been able to find, no. Hopefully, we will get the full story on their first meeting, some day... or year.

11. Keep in mind that while Mey-Rin and Ran-Mao are in Yorkshire, trying to deal with Baron Heathfield, Jane, and whomever else... Snake and Finny are infiltrating an orphanage, our earl and Sebastian are infiltrating a resort in Brighton, and Bard and Lau are infiltrating a sanitarium (mostly for war veterans). Each part of this operation to stop the blood supply will get its events shown. Not only is Lau getting off his ass, but we should finally see him in real action... and some form of suffering. 😔 Eventually. Like, in a year or two? 😭

[tisthenightofthewitch]

GHOST // Arise From Leviathan’s Shadow

Mar 25, 2019 / WORDS Tom Valcanis / PHOTOS Elizabeth Sharpe

At Download Australia this year, Ghost had the toughest gig of all. Playing at the same time as Slayer. At the last time Slayer would ever play. Ouch.

Tobias Forge, aka Cardinal Copia, must have marshalled all his diabolical powers to pull punters away from the last chance to experience Raining Blood or Angel of Death. Ghost’s singular blend of pop and apocalyptic metal is a sight and sound to behold. The flock is shepherded by the mesmeric Cardinal Copia as bandleader and high priest of sin. Cardinal Copia might be a character in an elaborate charade; but what of the man behind the vestments? Talking to Tobias Forge out of uniform and relaxing against a boudoir-like velour booth trimmed in a royal purple, he sits cross legged, wrapped in leather battle-jacket. He’s unassuming. He wears well-combed hair that doesn’t touch his ears. Ripped jeans at the knees and a Voivod Dimension Hatross t-shirt. If you didn’t know what he looked like, you’d never guess he led a worldwide congregation of metal fanatics. Even so, Ghost’s many influences he wears on his lapel: King Diamond (of course), Kreator, and a mandatory Slayerbadge. So what lent Mr. Forge such reverence for the arcane and black arts? We find out in a post-Download audience with the Cardinal …

How were the shows? Playing up against Slayer must have been a rare honour and challenge.

It was what it was. We did this for a higher purpose, and that is to come back and do the full thing.

Was it a success giving Australian fans a live taste of Prequelle?

I think it was successful because we came down here, rekindled our relationship with the promoter, and rekindled our relationship with media again, and to the fan base that we had, that it seems to have expanded even though we haven’t been here for five years.

Wow, it has been a long time.

The goal was to get back here and get the promoter to understand that you need to get us back and not play a festival. That was my only goal of coming.

In Prequelle, the album touches on the black death and apocalyptic themes. The end times. With so many crises happening around the world today, would you be forgiven for thinking the same thing today?

Yes, but I don’t think it necessarily has to be apocalyptic. I hope that there are enough people in the world believing in a fruitful, peaceful society, that would actively or are actively working for the apocalypse not to happen, the apocalypse being, I guess, the end of the world. I even think so even with presidents in charge. If he was really, really, really dangerous, for real, no one is that stern of a believer in democracy that they would just, “Oh, but this is the president you chose. He can do whatever he wants in the name of democracy.” If he was really, really, really, really, really close to destroying the world, they would shoot him in the back of his head.

Do you think it’s just divisive rhetoric? People talking tough?

I think the guy in charge as of this moment is obviously a great example of worsened rhetorics. I think that the risk of having him around is obviously multiple different things, but I think it’s the idea of refraining from sophisticated sort of politics talk that is sometimes still needed. There is a certain code, there’s a certain mannerism that I think is worth learning. This goes from everything from a 12 year old talking to a 90 year old. You just need to shape your lingo in order to be able to manoeuvre yourself between different age groups and different people. I speak to, in one way, if I talk to my buddies, I speak in a different way than if I talk to a 65 year old executive. I think that that is an art form, and that most people should master it in some way or form.

I think that if you have a so called master in charge who looks down upon that, shuns away from that, I think that that’s remarkable. Now I’m obviously just talking about rhetorics and linguistically, but I’m talking about the, as you say, rhetorics and how you speak to the world. I understand that a lot of people like politicians that say direct things and is witty and all that. Yes. Let’s move forward, but I think that there’s also a level of levelheadedness that I think a politician should do. I think that this is just a side step. It will probably go back a little bit to what it is in the rest of the world and what it has been before.

Ghost talks about fire, hell, and brimstone—is that a place you have thought about? A physical manifestation of hell?

Ever since I was a very little kid, I’ve always been interested in religion, and specifically obviously Hebrew religion, just because I grew up in a Christian country. Cinematically as well, I grew up watching a lot of biblical films. I’m talking about The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, stuff like that, The Temptation of Christ. So, I’ve always been very fascinated by things like that. When I came into adolescence and started getting fascinated by occult and satanic themes, of course, I’m an imaginative person, so I do have a lot of visual fantasies about what it is or could be. But my fantasising aesthetic younger self is also holding a little bit more of a rational grown up person, and we’re struggling together to try to figure out how things are. But I could sit here and ponder ’til my dying days, because I have no idea. No one else knows, anyway.

The limited view of Scandinavian spirituality, we get from black metal. The Hel Vete circle. Church burnings. Those on the outside assume Scandinavia is this region steeped in Christian dogma and practice.

Yes. From a greater political point of view, Christianity has not been very dominant in Sweden in the modern day and age, but more on a local and municipal level. Where I come from, there were and there are still more mundane forces in society that is controlled by church or churches. They’re more private churches like that.

So it’s not like Poland, where Catholicism is so intertwined with civil society. Which makes Nergal of Behemoth such a vocal anti-theist, I suppose.

From a little person point of view in a little city, there are definitely things that I have, throughout my life, been rebelling against. But Sweden is nowhere near … we don’t really have the same Christian church presence from a law making point of view that they have in Poland. I come from a pretty secular country where you can basically say almost anything you like.

Almost anything.

Yeah. There are obviously some PC things that sort of makes certain things not okay, but anything that has to do with Satanism and all that, that’s fine.

Satanism seems to be a bit old hat now. People are shocked by seemingly more mundane political things these days.

Yes. I mean, of course. This is a conversation that I have more than often when I am outside of Scandinavia, because I’ve never regarded Ghost as being that provocative. Because I come from, again, a secularised country where freedom of speech is quite cherished. I come from a country where metal has always been very strong, where black and death metal had a big proving ground. Also, it’s part of my DNA, since I’ve been a rock fan for as long as I can remember. I’ve been a black and death metal fan ever since I was 11 years old, something like that. For me, writing Satanic lyrics and throwing around upside down crosses and pentagrams and goats and all that, for me, is so natural that it’s not as much of an appliance as it was for people in the Satanic panic, 1969. Because then it was something that you did because it was groovy with your 20 year old friends. You were also 20 years old, and two years ago you didn’t even know what Satanic was.

So, for me, it was never meant as a, “This is a way to upset mainstream media.” Never, because I didn’t even thought that we were going to be in anything remotely like any mainstream media. Whereas in America now when we have achieved some sort of mainstream following, they regard sometimes our image and my choice of presenting myself and then the band as radical, provocative imagery.

Really? Still?

Yes. I understand intellectually, of course, that it’s regarded like that, but that was never the intent. I find it more mind boggling that a lot of the provocation that we cause is actually within the metal realms of people who are puritan and have a hard time labelling us what we are and why we are metal or not.

So the puritanism comes from certain sections of metaldom itself; thou shalt not mix pop with metal. That kind of thing.

From a progressive point of view, yes. But if we were talking about old school death metal, I would be very opinionated in a way that would probably come off as similarly closed minded. So, I completely understand where those tendencies come from, so I don’t grieve that someone doesn’t like us because we don’t sound as metal as Mercyful Fate does. It’s like, “It’s fine.”

We’ll be touring consecutively ’til the end of the year, and then I’m due back in the studio in January.Between January and May, I hope that we will be doing a few minor tours, possibly returning here. That’s my goal for at least here, to come back within this album cycle and do it properly. Happy?

I think I am, Tobias. I think I am.

ALL RIGHTS OWNED BY HYSTERIA MAGAZINE

[dweemeister]

NOTE: This review contains full spoilers.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

The ninth installment of the Skywalker saga is not only the conclusion to the Star Wars sequel trilogy, but to a decade where the Walt Disney Company has asserted itself as the most powerful entertainment company that has ever existed. The company, led by Chairman and CEO Bob Iger, is unrecognizable from where it was a decade ago, with Walt Disney Motion Pictures dominating, if not outright monopolizing, theater screens internationally. Unlike the movie moguls of yore such as Darryl F. Zanuck (20th Century Fox), Mack Sennett (Keystone Studios), David O. Selznick (Selznick International), or Jack Warner (Warner Bros.), Iger has a business background, not an artistic one. His respective $4 billion purchases of Lucasfilm and Marvel were decisions not made from cinematic considerations, but financial ones. The conservative artistry seen in Disney’s films in 2019 – including that other enormous blockbuster of the year, Avengers: Endgame – has evidenced where the company’s soul is. This is not the House of Mouse of Walt Disney, which ceased to be in 1968 after the final films Walt produced before his death were released to theaters.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is directed and co-written by J.J. Abrams (the other co-writer is Chris Terrio), who directed The Force Awakens (2015). The film goes out of its way to repudiate Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi (2017), which – though valued more than its predecessor by yours truly – unleashed a torrent of intra-fandom acrimony rooted in racism; sexism; and an unhealthy, uncritical merger of personal identity and pop culture franchise. This is not to absolve The Last Jedi of its plentiful shortcomings, but to comment on where the Star Wars fandom is upon the release of The Rise of Skywalker. The Rise of Skywalker is more of a continuation of The Force Awakens, and this includes Abrams’ propensity to craft variations on existing material. Yet even the most creative decisions in this ninth Star Wars episode are hampered by poor filmmaking, two-and-a-half films worth of plot stuffed into one, dreadful writing resulting in thematic inconsistencies and canonical contradictions that will be  explained away in some novel or video game, and an obvious lack of planning. The most concerning thing is that Star Wars’ reputation – despite my description of the series four years ago as, “a pastiche and always has been” – as an innovative force in cinema (even the prequels) has been lost. This is not the Star Wars of George Lucas, which ceased to be after Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm.

Without warning or foreshadowing, the opening crawl immediately states that Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) – who appeared to have died in Return of the Jedi (1983) – has broadcasted an ominous message to the galaxy. This message, which you can hear exclusively on Fortnite (this is not a joke), has caused widespread anxiety but, most importantly, has led Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) to Palpatine’s whereabouts. Palpatine has been orchestrating everything to seduce Kylo to the dark side, also revealing to the erstwhile Ben Solo that he has commissioned a fleet that will bolster the First Order’s by ten thousand-fold – a fleet that will send shivers down the spines of accountants anywhere. Elsewhere, Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher posthumously) is finalizing Rey’s (Daisy Ridley) Jedi training as Finn (John Boyega) and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac; whose character is now Leia’s successor apparent) learn of the name of the planet where Palpatine is hiding, thanks to a well-placed spy. What follows is a series of fetch quests with the three central sequel trilogy heroes, accompanied by Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo), BB-8 (operated by David Chapman and Brian Herring), and C-3PO (Anthony Daniels).

The film features many others, most notably Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams), Resistance ally Jannah (Naomi Ackie), First Order General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson), Allegiant General Pride (Richard E. Grant doing his best Peter Cushing impression), Poe’s friend/acquaintance/Abrams and Terrio’s written excuse to make him straight Zorii Bliss (Keri Russell), and R2-D2 (Hassan Taj and Lee Towersey). Lupita Nyong’o’s Maz Kanata returns in a glorified cameo; a handful of deceased characters make postmortem appearances.

Rose Tico made Kelly Marie Tran the first (and only) non-white actress to play a lead role in a Star Wars film. The character, along with John Boyega’s Finn, was given a poorly-written C-plot in The Last Jedi – Tran (who was subjected to online abuse prior to and after The Last Jedi’s release) and Boyega did their damndest in some of the worst sequences Star Wars has. The filmmakers (it is not exactly clear who is responsible, whether it is the screenwriters or the producers) have capitulated to the online trolls who attacked Tran (and her character) for her appearance, gender, and race. Her exclusion and other decisions in this film dispose entirely The Last Jedi’s antithesis that one need not be from a hallowed bloodline or an exclusive order to exemplify the bravery, compassion, and service to others that is celebrated within and beyond Star Wars. Rose Tico, described as, “the heart of [The Last Jedi]”, is an embodiment of the idea that the consequences of the multigenerational violence initiated or inspired by the Skywalkers – and, by extension, the centuries-old conflict between the Jedi and the Sith – are felt most by those without Force capabilities, military or political power. The Rise of Skywalker, through its treatment of Rose Tico among other storytelling choices, openly rejects this commentary and opportunity to present an untold perspective in favor of dynastic interests and expositional excess.

For Finn and Poe, The Rise of Skywalker represents another missed opportunity for character development. Finn, from the moment he appears onscreen, is too busy speaking expository points. Poe is given a lady friend so that homophobic censors around the world do not give Disney’s distribution managers a difficult time. The interest surrounding Rey (whose arc, as a mythic hero finally realizing her horrible family history as a Palpatine, comes to a merely satisfactory conclusion in The Rise of Skywalker) and Kylo Ren/Ben Solo – and yes, that includes their bewildering relationship that Abrams himself cannot coherently explain – will be endlessly debated in greater detail by others with a greater emotional affinity for Star Wars.

As the embodiment for the First Order for almost all the sequel trilogy, Kylo Ren’s/Ben Solo’s about face to the light after being stabbed in the stomach by Rey is unconvincing. This is a character who has been presented with numerous opportunities to renounce the ways of the dark side of the Force and has spurned each opportunity – even after becoming Supreme Leader of the First Order in The Last Jedi, with no authority figure influencing his conduct, and fully understanding the difference between right and wrong. He has acted predatory towards Rey in the form of physical threats and has demonstrated no willingness to change. Abrams and Terrio’s solution is to have Kylo Ren hallucinate a forgiving Han Solo (Harrison Ford, uncredited) to inspire this change – they might as well have had an angel and devil on Kylo Ren’s opposing shoulders because it would have been just as believable.

Too many aspects of The Rise of Skywalker depend on fanservice. The appearances of individuals like Lando Calrissian and Luke Skywalker’s Force ghost (Mark Hamill) are welcome, but do not add enough to the film from what the filmmakers are intending. The introduction of new characters in the final film of a sequel trilogy is additional bloat that will be better developed in a future Star Wars book, television series, or video game. This is an irritating development, as ancillary Star Wars media is not guaranteed (okay, with Disney’s money it is probably a certainty) and probably will not be consumed by the masses (especially in several decades’ time) – these characters and other subplots should stand independently within the film they appear. Abrams and Terrio’s attempts to provide a morsel of character development to these secondary and tertiary characters should have occurred in earlier films or scaled back for The Rise of Skywalker. Death is apparently a reversible thing, robbing scenes of emotional power and exemplifying how gutless the screenplay is – certain developments in how the Force works have opened dangerous precedents for future Star Wars media, making it resemble more like superhero media (where only Bruce Wayne’s parents and Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben remain deceased). It is further evidence that, as has been widely speculated, that Abrams and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy approved this sequel trilogy without a comprehensible three-part story or, at the very least, a general idea of how to develop a logical story arc for this project.

Other questions raised but not developed across The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi linger. The sequel trilogy dispenses with the tried-and-tested theory of the three-act narrative structure if analyzed from the entirety of the Skywalker saga – a trilogy of trilogies. Films and cinematic trilogies do not always adhere to this paradigm, but given how the previous eight episodes are told and how rigidly J.J. Abrams has kept to this structure in his career, it is stunning how the ninth episode completes the sequel trilogy’s incongruence with all that has come before. Episodes I, II, and III (“Act 1″) are the catalyst: with his fear unchecked and exploited by Palpatine, Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader and the Republic is overthrown by an authoritarian Galactic Empire. The Jedi Order is almost destroyed. Episodes IV, V, and VI (“Act 2″) sees the light confront the dark: Luke Skywalker becomes a Jedi and the Rebel Alliance lands a fatal, but not final, blow to the Galactic Empire. Anakin, “the Chosen One”, fulfills the prophecy of bringing balance to the Force.

Episodes VII, VIII, and IX (“Act 3″) – if we are assuming the traditional three-act structure that Star Wars has adopted in each of its films and the two preceding trilogies – should see how the protagonists create and maintain order leading up to and/or after the fall of the Galactic Empire. Thus, the sequel trilogy should see the reconstruction of the Galactic Republic and Jedi Order. More politics may not be what Star Wars fans want to see, but post-revolutionary/post-war states tend to be unstable politically and militarily. A post-Galactic Civil War period could easily see the violent death throes of Imperial and Sith-y remnants amid the restoration of the Republic. To quote from The Battle of Algiers (1966): “It’s hard to start a revolution. Even harder to continue it. And hardest of all to win it. But, it’s only afterwards... that the true difficulties begin.” Instead, this sequel trilogy is nothing more than a contemporary rehash of the second act. It is another dramatic second act confrontation, an escalation of the second act because we learn little about the post-Galactic Civil War period within the films. Palpatine’s zombified resurrection (Abrams’ responsibility) and defeat at the hands of Rey does not flow naturally from The Last Jedi and makes the final minutes of Return of the Jedi (which it partially copies in its climax) a lot less consequential than it should be. What should be the Skywalker saga’s third act is shoveled into the final ten or twenty minutes of The Rise of Skywalker.

The maximalism of The Rise of Skywalker requires it to juggle too many plotlines for an overlong fetch quest. It is not aided by the editing of Maryann Brandon (2009′s Star Trek, The Force Awakens) and Stefan Grube (The Force Awakens, 2016′s 10 Cloverfield Lane). In a series that has contained remarkable examples of film editing, The Rise of Skywalker is a franchise-worst – even the prequels had the decency to stay on certain shots for a few seconds to allow the audience to bask in the landscape, a certain character or creature, or a lightsaber duel. The film switches cameras too quickly, positioned too close to the characters. It occurs in the film’s quieter moments and during the climactic battles (the gold standard of editing in Star Wars battles is Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi v. Darth Maul in 1999′s The Phantom Menace; note how few cuts there are compared to most of today’s action movies and how Lucas is not afraid to pull his camera to a wide shot to let the scene feel larger than life as well as making spatial sense).

The Rise of Skywalker still feels like a space opera epic, with exciting action sequences abound here and there. The “secret sauce of Star Wars”, George Lucas will tell you, is not in the new worlds and aliens and those who use the Force. It is composer John Williams; The Rise of Skywalker is his final Star Wars score. This is not Williams’ best Star Wars score, but it is a masterful capstone to forty-two years of work. The newest and most fascinating musical ideas are both contained in the cue “The Rise of Skywalker”. Williams, whose motivic-heavy scoring relates ideas and grows alongside characters, provides a general main theme (0:00-0:54) and a friendship motif (beginning at 0:54) appearing in scenes where the bonds between Rey, Finn, and Poe are depicted. These few minutes exemplify how wondrous Williams’ ability to add complex harmonies underneath his soaring melodies is. Few other film composers living, if any at all, can have these two new musical ideas (these motifs are abnormally, but welcomingly, longer than usual for Williams) intermingling and in contrapuntal conversation to such mesmeric heights. 

The Emperor’s theme, as first heard in Return of the Jedi, makes its predictable and always-unsettling return here. But the other major motif introduced for The Rise of Skywalker is “Anthem of Evil”. This, introduced by choir, is expanded upon in “Approaching the Throne” and is befitting a being neither fully alive nor dead. The unsettling bass notes and low choir seem more appropriate for a horror film, but is entirely deserved for this film. One can also find excellent cues online (a favorite is “Falcon Flight”, which demonstrates the best of Williams’ action scoring) as of the writing of this review that do not appear on the initial commercial release album, but an album provided to Hollywood insiders for awards consideration (that album contains the best statement of Kylo Ren’s motif). This is a valedictory score, yet contains some of the best film music work of the year. We will give John Williams a pass if he is in a celebratory mood.

Williams has completed something that, in film history, only one other composer has accomplished. He stands alone with Akira Ifukube. Where Ifukube composed for Toho Company’s kaiju films/Godzilla franchise (from 1952′s Godzilla to 1995′s Godzilla vs. Destoroyah), Williams has composed for a multipart cycle of films released over several decades (nine films, like the nine symphonies of many classical music composers). Williams’ Star Wars cycle is the most popular example of what grand orchestral film music can do – how it lends greater emotional heft to images onscreen, its dramatic versatility, why it deserves a place in the concert hall and classical music history – among today’s audiences. The nine scores will be his defining work, but hopefully posterity will remember and see the genius of his compositions like Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Schindler’s List (1993), and even his strict classical music and jazz pieces.*

Kathleen Kennedy’s mismanagement of this sequel trilogy has been laid bare by The Rise of Skywalker. In four short years, Disney has somehow run one of its most prized IPs into the creative cinematic dirt by attempting to please as broad a base as possible in this ninth installment. The creative choices of the last several years and The Rise of Skywalker alone has made being a casual Star Wars fan exhausting. As someone who did not watch a Star Wars film all the way through until I was thirteen, has it always been this exhausting? One day that exhaustion will make way for relief, but that will be long after Bob Iger is hailed for his supposed moviemaking acumen with Star Wars and Marvel leading the way. Iger, as mentioned previously, has not been visionary but mercenary for the Walt Disney Company, with Kathleen Kennedy and Kevin Feige his enforcers. He will remain in charge of the Walt Disney Company until the end of 2021.

This Star Wars sequel trilogy, popular as it has been, has been an artistic misfire. J.J. Abrams, more of a hype man‡ than the B-director whose has never shaken off his television background, has somehow regressed from the ideologically bankrupt Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) – hey, Trekkies and Star Wars fans have something in common! The filmmakers chosen to bring The Rise of Skywalker and this sequel trilogy were baptized in waters created when George Lucas, Gary Kurtz, and others redirected the flow of film history with Star Wars. Star Wars may no longer be guided by Lucas’ vision, but the artistry that arrived in theaters in 1977 can never be washed away.

My rating: 5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

Also in this series: Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) and The Last Jedi (2017)

* These references to classical music history should not be construed as a claim that John Williams is an equal to Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, or Mahler - they are composing music in different artistic contexts (classical music for music’s sake is different from classical opera and both are contextually different compared to orchestral music written for a film). Instead, it is an acknowledgment that orchestral film music is gaining widespread acceptance as part of the classical music canon. Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1938′s The Adventures of Robin Hood), Alfred Newman (1962′s How the West Was Won), and Max Steiner (1939′s Gone with the Wind) created the vocabulary of film music in the early sound era and have - to varying degrees - been accepted into the classical music canon. The jury is out for the younger composers working in Hollywood in the twenty-first century.

‡ Abrams’ (and others as well) incessant teasing of LGBTQ+ representation resulted in a scene where two women we have no information about kiss in the background for a few moments after the Final Order’s defeat, surrounded by a bunch of Resistance soldiers also celebrating. Given the context, this kiss can be explained away as a moment of platonic affection that went further than it should (hypothetical: it’s nearing midnight at New Years’ Eve and folks are drunk everywhere... what do you think is going to happen?). Let’s not pat ourselves on the back now, filmmakers.

[letterboxd]

Common Language.

With her third feature, Lingua Franca, now on Netflix, Filipina filmmaker Isabel Sandoval talks to Valerie Complex about undocumented immigrant workers, sensual cinematography, taking narrative risks and Steven Soderbergh’s sexiest film.

“I’m not the type of filmmaker that is into crowd-pleasing and I think that resonates with audiences.” —Isabel Sandoval

Isabel Sandoval’s films have an auteur, European appeal; they take their time. Inspired by cinematic film legends including Chantal Akerman, Wong Kar-wai and James Gray, Sandoval is pushing forward in an industry reluctant to change, creating narratives that speak to her existence, and her experience.

After making two feature films set in her native Philippines (Apparition, Señorita), Sandoval relocates to her adopted hometown, New York City—or at least a small seaside corner of it—for her third film. Lingua Franca follows Olivia (played by Sandoval), an undocumented Filipina trans woman who is looking to secure a green card so she can continue to stay and work in the US. Olivia knows the only way to legal status in present-day America is through marriage, but struggles to find the right person to accept her offer.

Green-card marriages also cost money. Olivia takes a job as a live-in caregiver for Olga (Lynn Cohen), an elderly Russian woman living in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach neighborhood. She soon finds a love interest in her client’s grandson Alex (Australian actor Eamon Farren), and her future seems solidified. Or is it? As anxiety about deportation mounts, Olivia strives to maintain autonomy in a world that continually rejects her.

The slow, meditative nature of Lingua Franca has already found fans on Letterboxd. “Trans narratives are so often couched in dramatic twists and turns, but here we get something so much more gentle,” writes Connor. Sandoval’s turn as a woman searching for her truth while existing at the intersections of marginalization is also hitting home. “This is the hardest I've been struck by a performance since Jeon Do-yeon's masterful display in Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine back in 2007,” writes Joshua. “I really cannot believe this is Isabel's first performance and I certainly believe that it won't be her last.”

Sandoval instinctively injects concepts of immigration, loneliness, and displacement throughout Lingua Franca in a way that doesn’t overwhelm, but does force deep empathy. “Artfully plays with a lot of themes at once,” agrees Letterboxd member Oluwatayo.

Merriam-Webster’s definition of ‘lingua franca’—“something resembling a common language”—can be interpreted in various ways. For Sandoval, she aims to create her own common language of passion, pain and new beginnings. With migrant workers sharing a common language of homesickness in every corner of the world, I had to ask why she chose New York to be the setting for this emotional drama.

Isabel Sandoval (as Olivia) and Eamon Farren (as Alex) on Brighton Beach, New York.

Letterboxd: What is it about New York that made the setting work for you and Lingua Franca? Is it the diversity of the environment or…? Isabel Sandoval: You know, growing up in the Philippines, New York was seen as romantic. I wanted to put my stamp and unique views of life in New York City. I wanted to do two things with Lingua Franca: I wanted to do my own New York movie from the perspective and the gaze of a foreigner and an immigrant, and I wanted to make a different kind of film that was quiet and patient. I wrote the script around the time when Trump got elected president, which painted a perfect storm for the premise, story and view of the film. I was also influenced by the James Gray film Two Lovers, which was filmed in Brighton Beach.

That’s not an easy thing to accomplish in a New York movie, yet you manage to do that with such patience and quiet and subtlety. I was shocked. But, you know, New York is not all crazy. There are places that are quiet. Exactly! Especially in Brooklyn. I wanted to capture the different worlds that exist block to block in the film.

Your movie deals with a lot of themes: family, immigration and romance… I’m always drawn to stories with a socio-political point of view about women who are marginalized and forced to make intensely personal decisions. French filmmaker Jean Cocteau once said: “Filmmakers make the same movie over and over”. As you progress and make more films, and you’re being involved as a storyteller, you’re beginning to polish; your style becomes more evident and sophisticated. That’s just the story I felt attached to because it was one I was passionate about and it was the right time to create it.

How do you feel about being embraced by the film community, both domestically and abroad? Tribeca, Locarno, SXSW and Venice are among the festivals that have premiered your films. It’s vindicating to me. My first feature film shot and produced in the US screened internationally, but, with Lingua Franca, it’s come full circle. I think critics now embrace and know that I have a voice and a sensibility that’s worth exploring more. They want to involve a filmmaker with different views, especially in an industry where you need to conform to certain formulas and certain group things in terms of how we approach certain issues or certain things or certain ideas. It truly makes me feel independent.

Art-house film and cinema has long been associated, or at least for the last fifteen years, with really gritty, social-realist drama. I’ve received reviews of my film that criticize it for not being romantic enough. My film captures emotions that are not easy, obvious and straightforward. I’m not the type of filmmaker that is into crowd-pleasing and I think that resonates with audiences.

You are the director, the star, the editor, and the producer of Lingua Franca. How did you stay organized enough to manage all of those tasks? I have one job and that is to make a film and tell a story. I had a clear vision of what I wanted to accomplish, and honestly, it’s me being a stubborn auteur.

The camera work is really sensual and intimate. What conversations took place between you and cinematographer, Isaac Banks, and what, if any other films, were the inspiration for that look? He and I discussed patience and sensuality often, so that’s why Wong Kar-wai had quite an influence on my work with In the Mood for Love and also Christian Petzold, the German director, who directed Transit and Phoenix.

Lingua Franca places a particular lens on the fragility of Filipino, migrant culture. In the film, Olivia exists at the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, ICE and Covid-19—and you lay that all on the table here. What do you hope the audience will see in Olivia’s story at this time? She’s a trans woman, she is a woman of color, she is an immigrant, but she’s also more than the sum of these individual parts. I know my film demands a lot of intellectual and emotional labor, but it’s important that viewers think deeply and critically about Olivia’s motivations, which may seem contradictory and complex. I want Lingua Franca to be an emotional experience, even if it’s not the most comfortable to watch. If I get one audience member to do the emotional legwork of trying to understand where the main character is coming from, I will feel complete as a filmmaker.

What do you think is the must-see Filipino film, classic or new? [Peque Gallaga’s] Oro, Plata, Mata, which came out in 1982. It is a multi-generational tale set in central Philippines. It’s just a sprawling, dramatic epic, and it’s one of the films that made me want to be a filmmaker. It’s not the most technically polished film, but it takes risks narratively. At the end of the day, it’s not about how big the production is. It’s your willingness to be expansive and explorative as a filmmaker that counts.

What do you consider the sexiest film you’ve ever seen? Out of Sight by Steven Soderbergh.

Out of Sight?! I did not see that coming. Yes! That film doesn’t have any sex scene, but it’s the level of seduction for me. I think sensuality is not necessarily a physical encounter between bodies, but the patience and longing of the moment.

What is your all-time favorite comfort film? A League of Their Own by Penny Marshall. That was the first movie that I saw where I bawled in the last ten minutes of the film.

If I were doing a triple feature with Lingua Franca, what two films would you recommend to watch before or after? I would recommend Ali: Fear Eats the Soul by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, which is another interracial love story between a German woman and a Moroccan immigrant. The other one would be Two Lovers by James Gray, which is set by the beach.

Isabel Sandoval (as Olivia) and Lynn Cohen (as Olga) in ‘Lingua Franca’.

[Spoiler warning: The final two questions concern aspects of the film’s ending.]

I thought the ending of your film was powerful, because we’re right back at the beginning of Olivia’s journey. Sometimes things don’t work out and you have to pick up the pieces and move forward. Exactly! I also wanted to make a point that even though we are focusing on Olivia, I pulled the camera back to highlight bigger sociological themes. She is one of many immigrants in the script and their fates are not resolved by the end of this movie. I wanted that to be a subtle reminder this type of thing becomes cyclical. Life goes on, it’s just another day. Olivia is a displaced immigrant woman in America where Trump is president. Whereas Olga, who’s Ukranian-Jewish, left her home country fifty or sixty years ago in the aftermath of the Holocaust. I wanted people to see this connection.

Based on the meaning of ‘lingua franca’, was that your original choice or for the title? The definition really fits the story. The film is an invitation to the audience to really pay closer attention to language—the language of things said and unsaid. That probably was also a big point of decision for me to open and close the film with words in Tagalog, which is my native language. A lot of people have asked “why didn’t Olivia accept the marriage proposal?” at the end of the film. Sure, that would’ve been practical, but I invite the audience to look at the language between Alex and Olivia. I challenge them to look beyond Olivia as just an immigrant without papers or as a trans woman looking for love, but this is a woman who is taking her agency back and her ability to determine her life moving forward.

Related content

Leonora Anne Mint’s list of Films by Transgender Writers and Directors.

The Top 100 Filipino Films on Letterboxd.

Jojo Kuneho’s lists of Tagalog movies.

Philippines: The Ultimate List.

Follow Valerie on Letterboxd.

‘Lingua Franca’ is distributed by ARRAY Releasing and is available on Netflix.

[onestowatch]

little luna’s “shift & go” Is a Mesmerizing Debut

Here we are at last, gifted with the beautifully mesmerizing debut single “shift & go” from new Alt-pop artist, little luna. Inspired by her poetry, little luna has put the intense complexity of personal growth into words. It’s not easy finding your passion, but the true challenge is following your passion once found. little luna illustrates a conflict between feeling internally free and outwardly trapped; “freed little child on the inside, crying where have you been?”

little luna released a lyric video, coinciding with the original music video, that we were given the opportunity to premiere. The lyric video created for “shift & go” is anything but predictable. The text displaying the lyrics was not added in post-production, but rather projected onto the floor and walls throughout the video as a unique stylistic choice. The lyrical element of the song and story are very important to little luna. She wants the viewer to deeply feel and absorb what is being said and presented. The lyrics are far from an afterthought and that is apparent through the beautifully crafted video below. We are eagerly waiting to see what else little luna has in store for us. In the meantime, read our full Q&A to learn more about her.

Ones to Watch: Congrats on the release of your debut single, “shift & go”! For those who don’t know, who is little luna?

little luna: thanks so much! OTW is one of the few music outlets i look to for new music, so i’m over the moon about this interview – thank you for having me. little luna is rachael kathryn bell & rachael kathryn bell is little luna. for a long time i felt like they were separate parts of my personality; combining the doc marten-loving songwriting LL with the yoga-loving actress rkb. throughout making this music though, i’ve realized not only that i can be all of it at once... but i already am all of it at once. the exploration of music was what i needed to realize a) i am allowed to change & b) i’m going to continue to change.

“shift & go” was inspired by a poem you wrote. Would you say that poetry is a part of your writing process or is ‘shift & go’ unique in that way?

poetry is a huge part of my process; a majority of my songs are based off of poems i’ve written, some poems dating back to first moving to LA almost ten years ago. one day i’ll put them all in a book of sorts, but for now i just keep turning them into songs. whether my session has a co-writer, or i’m just working solo with a producer, i’ll normally take in a few lines from poems / melody ideas i’m vibing with that day and see if the other writer / producer vibes with any of them. everything is a collaboration.

What do you want your listeners to take away from the story of this song?

honestly music is so personal, so i’m not going to try & control the listener’s narrative. half the time i’ll listen to a song on repeat & have no idea what the lyrics are but the instrumentation alone tells me a story / makes me feel a type of way. with that being said, of course my hope is that upon listening to “shift & go” you’d feel like you are allowed to change. no matter how long you’ve fit into the label that has been put on you, or that maybe even was you for a period of time, that doesn’t have to be forever. take time to reconnect to your inner child & make decisions for yourself out of that place. making this music has been & continues to be my sonic journey through re- discovering my truest self, giving you sounds & words to support you as you do the same.

The visuals and music video are beautifully haunting, can you speak to the inspiration behind the imagery?

thank you! my visuals are created by myself & Jade Ehlers. actually, the lineage of our working relationship is amazing & a story for another day. Jade has helped me bring LL to life & really is a huge part of my journey. considering i grew up acting / studying film, for me the visuals within little luna needed to be on point to help tell the story. marrying sounds with visuals is one of my favorite things to do... like... i’m that person geeking out watching a film when the music supervisor has placed a song at THE perfect moment. any time i’m in-motion (driving, walking, on a train/scooter, etc) i feel like i’m in my own movie, blasting the soundtrack. the visuals to “shift & go” just tie into my love for cinematic expression in general.

What made you shift your path from acting into music? Are you still pursuing acting?

i discovered my love for acting & singing at the same time... a sixth-grade musical ha. it just so happens that acting was what i focused on first & then dove fully into from the age of thirteen to like, two years ago. i got to a point where i just wasn’t passionate about the pursuit of acting & would rather spend my days grinding in sessions than at auditions. there’s no bad blood & if a dream role came up tomorrow i’d love nothing more than to be on set, but i had & this unquenchable thirst to allow myself the time to give 100% into music, so here we are.

Can we expect more songs (possibly an EP) in the near future?

i’m sitting on so much music right now that i cannot wait to share with the world. my little (no pun intended) but mighty team & i wanted to give “shift & go” proper space to live & breathe. so, something could always change, but as of now we’re planning for back to back singles dropping in 2021 followed by my first EP.

What or who would you say has been the biggest influence on your music?

i have answers for both as they are both equally important to me. “what” has been the biggest influence on my music is lush forests, museums & the connection to my truest-self which i first started finding through practice of mediation & yoga. “who” is Bon Iver, James Blake, Etta James, & Stevie Nicks. my parents always had music playing in the house growing up, so my list could go on but i’d say these four have had the greatest impact.

Who are your Ones to Watch?

my Ones to Watch are YEИDRY, EVAN GIIA, & Lous and the Yakuza

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A post shared by rachael kathryn bell (@littleluna) on Oct 2, 2020 at 1:26pm PDT

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