#they filmed it specifically for me (biggest parallels enjoyer)

[cubedmango]

episode 1 // movie

[filmadaydiary]

2/17/20

Swarm Season — Sarah Christman, 2019

So I don’t like bees. One of my earliest memories is of playing outside when I was very young, and a bee crawled into my ear and I could hear it buzzing inside my head. I also really don’t like volcanic mountains in Hawaii, as much as I love the rest of the state. On a trip there with my family, I tripped and cut my knee open and it necessitated a trip to the nearest emergency room. So I have very valid reasons to dislike these two incredibly specific things that this film is about. That being said, I didn’t hate this film. I think seeing it in a showcase setting, with a Q&A with the director afterwards, helped my enjoyment of the film. It also drew some interesting parallels between the lives of the bees and the lives of the humans.

My biggest criticism of this film is that it doesn’t actually draw any conclusions. It just presents you with disconnected information and leaves you to make of it what you will. I will be honest, I prefer my symbolism a little bit more on the nose, just because I like to feel smart. The more the movie lays things out for me, the easier it is for me to piece together and feel like I’ve realized something important. When it’s pure symbolism, it’s harder for me to pick up on things. Maybe I’m just lazy, or easily bored. I felt like there definitely was something there, and it was more of a conventional narrative than the films we usually see at the film series it screened at. But overall, I felt like I didn’t have enough information to enjoy it as much as I could have. 

[buzzdixonwriter]

A Long But Not Pointless Ramble In Which We Discuss Sci-Fi Flicks

We’re gonna ramble around a bunch of connected topics, so pour yourself a cuppa and enjoy the ride.

. . .

I’m a big fan of 1950s sci-fi B-movies.

Years ago, when I was chatting with the late film historian Bill Warren on this, he made a pertinent observation:  1950s sci-fi B-movies tend to be more fondly remembered than most better mounted and more professionally executed sci-fi films that came afterwards.

There’s a couple of three reasons for this:

The shock of the new -- most of those films pioneered a brand new genre and style, looking far different from previous genre offerings such as Flash Gordon or Things To Come.  As such, they score branding points by being first, even if later examples are better made.

They possess a certain naïve charm -- by and large they’re not sophisticated nor exceptionally well thought out (though when they do demonstrate flashes of intellect, it’s always a delight).  One feels these films are being made up on the fly (and in a certain sense, they were; see (1) above) and in an odd manner they prove more innocent and thus more fun than those that came later.

Most of them were cheap -- this combines with points (1) & (2) to force most 1950s sci-fi B-movies to focus tightly on one idea / one image to sell the film.  As a result there’s a startling clarity of vision in even the most flimsy of productions that’s lacking in later, more elaborate movies.  The weaker examples of this genre are those films trying to cover more ground than their cheaper cousins.

. . .

Two cases in point:  Jack Arnold’s Tarantula for Universal is a technically better made movie than Bert I. Gordon’s The Spider for AIP, but Tarantula loses focus, dawdling about on character development and sub-plots instead of concentrating on the big ass spider.

The Spider is far weaker in the script / performances / production value departments, but who gives a %#@& ? -- it’s got a big ass spider tearing up the countryside for most of the picture.

Not to put down Arnold and his effects crew’s efforts; they ingeniously figured out a way to not only get their tarantula to realistically crawl over uneven landscapes but actually cast a shadow as it did so, heightening the realism.

Gordon, conversely, simple shot his spider in front of still photos; the shots look as crude as they sound.

But The Spider delivers what Tarantula only teases:  An attack by said big ass spider on a population center.  Tarantula famously ends with an uncredited Clint Eastwood napalming the monster in the desert on the outskirts of town; The Spider actually goes rampaging through its town, and features one of the most iconic shots of any sci-fi movie:  As the big ass spider bears down on her, a terrified woman slams her car door shut on her skirt and in her panic tries to tug it loose instead of simply opening the door again.

George Lucas crowds the screen with thousands of furiously dogfighting CGI starships and that lacks the gut punching impact of that one simple terrifying shot. 

. . .

An even more pertinent example can be found in the oeuvre of Irving Block and Jack Rabin (I know, you’re going “Who?”  Patience, young jedi; all will be explained below).

Block and Rabin (along with Louis DeWitt, their silent 3rd partner) ran a small special effects house in Hollywood in the late 1940s-50s with an interesting strategy for drumming up business.

They’d devise an interesting yet inexpensive (i.e., clever but cheap) special effects technique, build a story around it, then pitch that story to low budget movie producers with the proviso their firm would be hired to do the special effects for the final film.

This resulted in a number of low budget sci-fi films built around the kernel of an interesting visual, and while they night not have been great examples of the cinematic art, hey certainly created a number of memorable scenes and images from little more than scotch tape and rubber bands.

Unknown World was their take on Jules Verne’s Journey To The Center Of The Earth (no dinosaurs but then again, no Pat Boone, so they came out ahead on that one); Atomic Submarine pitted the US Navy against a UFO; Kronos featured a wholly unique alien invader; and War Of The Satellites staged an epic space opera on a bargain basement budget.

All noteworthy 1950s sci-fi B-movies, but ironically it was the film where their strategy failed -- or rather, only proved 50% successful -- that stands out.

Figuring out how to make footprints appear as if by magic, Block and Rabin devised a story about a spaceship landing on a planet of invisible monsters (as they pointed out, the great thing about invisible monsters is that even the cheapest production can afford millions of ‘em).

Their agent sent the pitch around to all the usual suspects at that time in the low budget indie film universe but, learning another studio not know for low budget sci-fi wanted to hop on the band wagon, sent it there as well.

That studio bought the idea, thanked Block and Rabin for their input, but said they’d let their own B-movie unit team handle the special effects,

And that’s how MGM made Forbidden Planet.

. . .

Today Forbidden Planet is a much beloved classic of the genre, but when released it proved a bit of a disappointment.

Oh, it made money (then and now, studios refuse to fund a production unless they already know in advance they will recoup their expenses and make a profit in advance of actual production) but it didn’t do anywhere near the business they hoped.

Part of this was timing -- it came out after dozens of lesser / cheaper films crowded the market -- but part of it is paradox:  It’s just too damn good.

No bones about it, Forbidden Planet was a B-movie for MGM.

In terms of overall quality, however, any MGM B-movie is bound to look like an A-picture from any other studio, and that’s exactly what happened here:  A literate, dynamite script; solid performances; top notch production values; bursting at the seams with ideas and incidents and details.

Sci-fi fans loved it, mainstream audiences not so much.

What sci-fi fans perceived as a groundbreaking classic, mainstream audiences viewed as:  Flying saucer something something something robot blah blah blah invisible monster.

What audiences today remember when they think of Forbidden Planet is the single most iconic element of the film.

Robby the robot.

He’s what sticks.  Robby made a big enough impression to star in his own follow up feature a few years later (The Invisible Boy) as well as guest star appearances on The Twilight Zone, Lost In Space, Columbo, and scores of other movies / TV shows / personal appearances.

Pick an iconic element. Stick with it.

. . .

The trick to doing memorable sci-fi movies is keeping the key visual elements down to as few sharply defined items as possible.

Star Wars (i.e., the unnumbered original release) is even more crowded in detail than Forbidden Planet but it holds its iconic visual elements down to a crucial handful:  Masked villain in black.  Laurel & Hardy robots.  Friendly yeti.  Glow swords.  Big bad artificial planet.

Every other visual element serves those, and while they provide detail and texture, they aren’t distractions.

Seriously, jettison the plot of the original Star Wars and reconfigure it from the ground up with those elements and it still winds up pretty much the same film, just set on different worlds.

This is why later films in the series, despite bigger and bigger revenues, lack the memorable freshness and emotional clarity of the original (getting cluttered up with superfluous characters and vehicles inserted just to sell toys doesn’t help, and I post this as one of the original writers for the G.I. Joe and Transformers series).

To reiterate: If you want to make an impression, less is more.

. . .

We’re going to amble on over to a parallel path and talk about ultra-low budget / no budget / homemade / hand-crafted / DIY film making, particularly in the sci-fi arena.

I watch a fair amount of lo-to-no budget sci-fi on Amazon Prime and YouTube.  Many of these are done for pure love of the genre and the film making process, and from that POV of producers and participants just wanting to have fun, they’re modestly enjoyable.

From the POV of actual good film making and sci-fi…not so much.  (There are exceptions and we’ll get to one of those; patience, young jedi…)

The overwhelming bulk of these films -- features and shorts -- are pretty derivative.

I don’t mean “unoriginal” the way 80-90% of professionally produced media is unoriginal, I mean “derivative” as in trying specifically to re-create something someone else did first…

...and better.

And this is in addition to the plethora of Star Trek / Star Wars / Dr. Who / superhero fan films out there; those are a separate though related phenomenon.

Rather, it’s the unmpeenth Alien ripoff / the 400th E.T. variant / the latest Mad Max clone / the most current example of last decade’s biggest hits.

They’re generally not that good taken on their own, no matter how much fun the makers are having.

For me the nadir of such films are those done by film makers imitating bad movies by deliberately making a bad movie.

Don’t do that, folks. 

Please. 

Don’t squander time and talent doing substandard work.

I’m not saying don’t make the kind of film (or draw the kind of art, or write the kind of story) you want to make; I’m just saying don’t deliberately make a piss-poor job of it.

Block and Rabin may never have made a truly good movie but not because they weren’t trying!

Cheap films?  Yes. Exploitable films?  Yes.

But films meant to be as good as they could make them.

There’s an MST3K notorious bad 1950s sci-fi movie called Teenagers From Outer Space.  Tom Graef, its writer / producer / director / editor / co-star was a former film student wanting to break into the big time so he made this cheesy movie to the utmost of his ability.

And lordie, it ain’t good…

…but by gawd, he was trying.

The folks who make deliberately bad pastiches of substandard B-movies were always a sore point for Bill Warren.

“The original film makers weren’t trying to make a bad movie!” he’d rave.

So please, don’t do deliberately shoddy work and try to explain it away by calling it a “parody”.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a parody, and everybody in it is aiming for the centerfield fence, turning in A-level performances.

I know it’s fun making models and cobbling together costumes and props and sets from junk, and recruiting friends and family to have fun making a movie, and if your audience is just going to be those friends and family, fine.

But if you want to be seen and appreciated by a wider audience, have some respect for them…and your own abilities as a film maker.

. . .

All of which brings us in a roundabout fashion to The Vast Of Night, a recent ultra-low budget sci-fi film that asks the non-musical question “What would a Twilight Zone mash-up of X-Files and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind look like?”

“Pretty impressive,” is the answer.

Let’s start with the Achilles’ heel of most lo-to-no budget DIY productions:  The cast.

The Vast Of Night enjoys impeccable casting, a;; the way down to the most minor roles.

I can’t stress enough how important this is for small productions.

Actors give you more bounce for your buck than anything else on your budget.  Good actors can make mediocre material bearable, they can bring good material to full blown life.

In The Vast Of Night’s case, the two leads -- Jake Horowitz as Everett, an all night DJ in a tiny late 1950s New Mexico town, and Sierra McCormick as Fay Crocker, the local substitute late night phone operator -- play off each other with delightful on screen chemistry.

No kidding, I’d watch these two characters go grocery shopping for an hour and a half, that’s how well Horowitz and McCormick play off each other.

Next, the story.  Obviously story and screenplay come before casting, but in the final analysis an okay story is far better served by a good cast than a good story by an okay cast.

Screenwriters James Montague and Craig W. Sanger do a good job with their script for The Vast Of Night.  As noted, it’s far from original but is fleshed out with enough distinctive elements to let the cast find plenty to work with.

For aspiring film makers, the script is typically the least expensive part of the process, and if you don’t like your draft you can always chuck it out and start afresh,

Finally, it’s okay to look inexpensive but don’t look cheap.

You can get away with a stark cinema verité style if that’s what the material calls for but you need to keep a consistent style and tone throughout.

A lot of DIY films do themselves a grave disservice by spending a lot of time / energy / money on a prop / costume / special effect that calls undo attention to itself by being so much better than everything surrounding it.

Director Andrew Patterson keeps things stylish while clamping a lid on its budget; this good pre-production planning pays off with a consistency of style and tone that helps keep the audience engaged, their disbelief suspended.

The Vast Of Night is what I refer to as a “minimum basic movie” i.e., the lowest bar you should shoot for with your own film making.

It’s far from a deathless classic, but it’s a fun ride.

And speaking of fun rides…this ramble is o-v-e-r.

  © Buzz Dixon

[sofilms]

Anna and the Apocalypse

Okay, let’s give the relevant part of Anna and the Apocalypse (2017) first shall we? It’s a musical, horror, teen, Christmas zombie movie set in Scotland. The blurb said it’s High School Musical meets Shaun of the Dead, and that’s not a bad description.

The movie is fun, enjoyable and energetic. Having a bunch of teen characters sing while zombies are attacking is a pretty fun conceit, and generally the characters are likable, there’s some decent humour, neat set pieces and the story... well the story is “get youself and everybody you love to safety”, this is a zombie movie, there’s no innovation in that regard.

So if that’s your thing, go watch it.

Right, so with that done, let me eviscerate this movie like the much like the antagonist itself. Spoilers ahead! You have been warned

Right, so lets cut into the biggest problem with the movie. It gets worse in its second half. First up is the tone change. Having a movie that starts bright and cheerful and gets dark and depressing can work... but c’mon, this is meant to be a Christmas film! Instead we end with the remaining survivors escaping the city having no clue what to do next and thinking about all the (many) people they’ve lost. Yes, this move has “apocalypse” in the title, but this is a movie that started with characters singing about how they were going to break away and turn their life around. To go from that to shell shocked might be completely realistic, but maybe doesn’t count as much as entertainment. It doesn’t help that some of the deaths seem pointless or contrived.

The moment I think the movie goes from the good half to the second half is when our group of characters are like “shall we take this incredibly dangerous shortcut or not?” They do, and the two most expendable characters die instantly. So predictable. The next death is less predictable admittedly, but it also immediately makes things much darker. So we’ve got a downward tone shift, badly contrived writing, and clichéd deaths (partially due to the writing) all in one scene. And because the bad writing led to the deaths, we know that the writers specifically wanted these characters dead. In a Christmas movie. And the emotional death still doesn’t effect the plot substantially except by having less characters in subsequent scenes.. Yeah, this is definitely the part the movie goes downhill. More and more somewhat contrived yet emotional deaths are right ahead, until you’re beaten down as much as the characters by the end of the movie and mentally remove this film from the “Christmas movie” category.

The songs themselves are generally decent to good, gets you into the mood. There is a bit of a “sameness” to them, but not too bad, though I will say they miss the classic musical trick of having a refrain of some description. No song that’s early in the movie and then sung again with a different quality later on. This makes sense because as I’ve said the movie has very different halves which imply the writers didn’t fully know what tone what they were going for and didn’t know how to properly tie the beginning and end of the movie into a cohesive whole theme-wise.

Seriously speaking, the main character wants to leave the city and go to Australia in the opening of the movie, and does leave the city in the closing, but the movie never tries to actually develop this parallel. What’s more, the main character is told “you always know what to do” so you think that will be relevant, but at the end of the movie the main character is asked “What do we do now?” and she just doesn’t answer. Things set up, but not resolved. I though they would have had the main character reply to that question by going “We go to Australia.” Which would have tied it back to the start of the movie; continued her character development; teased at a possible sequel; given the movie a slightly more upbeat ending AND actually gave truth to the final song which was about continuing on when things seemed bleak. It would have been such a solid way to end the movie (if a bit reckless, considering its an insane trip to make), but of course the moviemakers didn’t do that.

So, as I said, the last song is about continuing on when things seem bleak and hope seems lost, and yet its not fully reflected in the movie. This is an unfortunate trend in the movie. Some songs are dead on. An early song about teens wanting to break free makes sense. And the song about another group taking glee in killing zombies also works well. But then you’ve got that’s about how social media is preventing face to face communication... right when the internet connection is spotty at best and everyone is pretty much right in front of eachother. The songs seemed designed to be generic so that they can be sung even outside of the context of the movie, but there also seems to be a gulf between some songs and their movie context.

One song is about someone saying “hey, if I die here I’ll go with some spectacular fighting”, but they sing this in the context of trying to rescue someone.... If you’re rescuing someone, shouldn’t the song be kinda directed towards them, rather than admitting the strong possibility that you’ll fail and they assumedly will die?

Decent song on its own, bad song in its original context, doesn’t flow with what’s going on. Kinda like the musical equivalent of ludonarrative dissonance.

There’s one really chipper song the character sings right at the outbreak. It’s one of the strongest songs because its hilarious to see the character upbeat, singing, and oblivious to the zombie carnage happening around her... however there’s no clear reason why she’s suddenly so upbeat. She had a bad day yesterday and wakes to find herself late to school. You just have to go along with it that she now feels good for no apparent reason.

So those are my major gripes with the movie. There’s a lot that does work well, and some sequences are fun, but ultimately I feel it gets too needlessly dark towards the end and the songs could do a better effort of jiving with the film proper. Still, I appreciate the huge amount of work put into it, and it does seem like we’re dealing with people trying to genuinely create something they love. So more power to them and hopefully I’ll enjoy their next movie better.

This is Sofox, signing off.

[briangroth27]

Mini-Reviews: Ralph Breaks the Internet & The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part

I’ve gotten behind on reviewing movies I wrote down thoughts on but never posted, so here’s some quick thoughts on some not-so-recent releases.

Full Spoilers for both of these films…

Ralph Breaks the Internet

Ralph Breaks the Internet is a fun, solid, enjoyable film with a strong message about friendship (and its limits)! I didn’t think Wreck-it Ralph needed a sequel and this doesn’t quite reach the highs of the first film, but it proved itself worthwhile and I was pleasantly surprised when it took things in a completely different direction by inverting Ralph’s (John C. Reilly) goals. Instead of trying to belong with the other denizens of his game by proving that he can be a hero, here Ralph becomes the villain by fighting to keep things the way they are with Vanellope (Sarah Silverman). I liked how big her role was here and I was rooting for her to move past the confines of Sugar Rush, since she’d outgrown it and needed to keep developing.

The marketing made it look like this would mainly be focused on internet gags and Disney IP mashups, and while most of that worked (especially the Disney Princess crossovers and Ralph’s attempts to go viral!), the character work between Ralph and Vanellope was much deeper than I was expecting. That aspect formed the emotional core of the movie and was by far the standout element of the film. The idea of a friendship turning toxic and possessive here was well-explored and definitely a story worth telling. Ralph absolutely goes too far—to the point where he nearly accidentally gets Vanellope deleted to keep her with him—and I’m glad the movie didn’t let that slide or write it off as not a big deal. Gal Godot’s Shank character was also a cool addition and I really enjoyed the effect she had on Vanellope while becoming a rival for Ralph.

I was definitely sorry to see Fix-it Felix Jr. (Jack McBrayer) and Sergeant Calhoun (Jane Lynch) get next to no screen time here, as they were both standouts in the first film. The subplot about them being new parents was fun, but I would’ve rather seen them join Ralph and Vanellope in the internet (and they could’ve still done babysitting jokes while they tried to help Ralph). Their reactions to the internet would’ve provided a greater range of jokes than just Ralph and Vanellope’s did, and their absence was the biggest negative for me and the thing that felt the most off about this sequel.

I thought the first movie could’ve explored more styles of video games and I kinda have the same feeling about the internet here, but ultimately the acting, humor, and character development in both films won out. If there’s a third one, I’d like them to explore the relationship between the video game characters and the people in the real world: I’m satisfied with the explanation that it’s just their job to play the game along with the players, but I wonder if there’s something more to explore there. Whether we get Ralph 3 or not, Ralph Breaks the Internet is definitely worth watching, worth learning from in terms of its message of healthily letting the people closest to you move forward (even without you), and is another really good entry into this franchise!

 The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part

While not quite as novel as the first LEGO Movie or The LEGO Batman Movie, this sequel was definitely a worthy follow-up! The change in scenery to a Mad Max-inspired LEGO wasteland was fun and it was nice to revisit this offbeat cast of characters. Expanding the universe from Bricksburg to the “Systar System” was a fun way to bring in a variety of new characters and environments, keeping things fresh. The constant threat of “Armamageddon” was a solid end-of-the-world plot that touched on Toy Story-esque ideas while feeling fresh and specific to this franchise. It also pulled the real world and the LEGO realm together nicely, feeling like something kids’ imaginations would come up with under parental disciplinary threats.

I was very happy to see The Second Part deal with what I always thought was the first film undercutting its own message in its final seconds: The LEGO Movie established that anyone could play and everyone’s ideas/imagination were valid, only to add that this did not apply to the little sister in the family, since her Duplo blocks’ arrival in Bricksburg was treated like a terrifying invasion. While that’s an outlook a lot of brothers have when they’re young, the first movie played it as a joke at the last second, making it the final word and that always sat wrong with me. Here, that becomes the entire premise and the reveal that her attempt to play with her big brother got her vilified and turned into the “villain” was an excellent commentary on toxic masculinity. Rex Dangervest (Chris Pratt) continued that trend, embodying a super-masculine parody of Chris Pratt’s roles in the MCU and Jurassic World franchises to hilarious effect. I’m glad the movie showed us he was the real villain and that Emmett’s regular personality was the healthier one, rather than supporting the “cooler” Dangervest. Rex being left under the dryer was a clever parallel to the complaints that white male audiences are being “left behind” as more women and minorities take the center stage in movies like Star Wars and the MCU (though while Emmet/Rex was literally left behind, those complaints are vast overreactions…there are still hundreds of male protagonists out there). Rex turning Emmet into a more “badass” action hero like himself is also a cool way to use the time travel aspect to depict toxic masculinity infecting even the kindest of hearts. Rex’s plan to trigger Armamageddon also felt a lot like these angry fans crying that their favorite franchises have been ruined and are “over,” trying to cancel what they previously loved (or freeze it in amber…or a storage tub) so no one can have these characters if they aren’t the center of things.

WyldStyle (Elizabeth Banks) was awesome as always and I liked that she got to see the real world as well this time. That she was the one to figure out what was really going on was a nice beat too, especially since it was pointed out that she did a lot of the work in the first film but Emmet got the credit. Queen Watevra Wa’Nabi (Tiffany Haddish) was a great “villain” & I liked how they animated her shape-shifting. Her relationship with Batman (Will Arnett) worked really well for me & felt like the sort of thing a little sister would do with her brother’s action figures. I think it’s important that Batman and Whatevra still get married after Finn (Jadon Sand, Graham Miller) and Bianca (Brooklynn Prince) patched things up: ultra-cool Batman—who could easily be another bastion of toxic masculinity—doesn’t settle down just because he’s been captured and forced to, but gets married after the sibling rift is mended and the toxic anger Rex was manifesting (from Finn) is gone. The blended LEGO world of Bricksburg and the Systar System—Syspocalypstar—was a cool mix of the siblings’ personalities and a great message that we can still make room for each other in our lives, imaginations, and fandoms.

The songs are catchy and fun, the animation is great, and the pacing is brisk. It didn’t feel like they relied on cameos from other IPs in this movie (even Batman’s reduced role works better now that he’s had his own movie where he can be the focus) and the message is solid. I’m not sure where they go from here, but I would definitely watch another LEGO Movie! Until then, check The Second Part out!

Check out more of my reviews, opinions, and original short stories here!

[bbclesmis]

Variety: ‘Les Miserables’ Team Talks Importance of Victor Hugo’s Tale as ‘Story for the World’

When Victor Hugo wrote the 1900-page tome “Les Misérables” in 1862, he gave the world a transcending and sweeping tale that dissected the division of class while breathing life into complex characters spanning decades. Unfortunately, no matter what your stance on musical theater, much of that tome has since been lost in Broadway and big screen iterations.

Given that the book is one of the longest ever written, that comes as no surprise.

Enter the incoming six-part PBS Masterpiece limited series “Les Misérables,” a music-free offering aiming to introduce the novel’s intricate themes and plots to new and older audiences alike in a more intimate setting. Dominic West, David Oyelowo and Lily Collins star in the ambitious Belgium-shot production, which already aired across the pond on the BBC.

Retelling a classic that’s been told so many times certainly comes with its challenges, but Hugo’s story was one producers and scribe Andrew Davies felt was important to tackle in today’s political climate. Here, Variety talks with Davies and executive producer Faith Penhale to discuss those challenges, recreating memorable scenes in a new way, and why now is the time for “Les Mis” to return.

Penhale: We all felt that we knew the book and thought there was an opportunity to tell the story as Hugo intended with a serialized adaptation. Instead of having 90 minutes or two hours at most to tell the story as a musical or film, we had six hours to really dive into all of the themes and all of the characters as Hugo originally intended. It’s a vast novel. One of the beautiful things about working on a television adaptation, and in the serialized form, is you get the space: You get the opportunity to really tell stories with the breadth and the depth that you just don’t always get when you are working within a much shorter timeframe. That was one reason, and also if you really dig into the story of “Les Misérables” and look back at when Hugo wrote the book, he wrote it with a very clear intention in mind. He wrote it to really tell the story of the underclass who were living with no safety net. He wrote it not just about France, but he wrote it as a story for the world. Some of those themes and questions that he emphasized in the story really resonate today in the challenging times we live in. It also felt as though we had the opportunity by having the story to really connect with today’s modern audience.

Davies: There are parallels between Paris then and London or America today. There seems like a widening of the gap between rich and poor, a society where we have seen homeless people begging in the streets as opera-goers step over them. It just seemed that it was a good time to do it again. I guess another reason why is I wanted to show the book as a whole as distinct from the slice of it that we get in the musical. I started working on this before I ever saw the musical so I already had my version in outline before I went to see it. And I was kind of startled by how shallow and partial the presentation of the book in the musical was — how little drama in fact there was in it. It seemed like there was a big opportunity and a chance to either introduce the story to people who didn’t know it or to show people who only knew the musical there was a lot in the book that they haven’t seen.

Specifically what got lost in the translation to the musical that you’re able to bring back here?

Penhale: Fantine’s story is one that really struck us. In the novel you get a sense from the beginning of a girl who has her life ahead of her, who she has a sort of optimism of a young woman embarking on the rest of her life. As you follow that story and [learn] what happens to her you begin to really feel and understand the story of a young girl living with fallen circumstances where society and all levels are working against her. I’ve never felt that story has been really brought to life in a way that we’ve been able to do with this adaptation. You’re really able to get under the skin of these characters.

Davies: Recreating [the early bits with Fantine] and putting it on the screen it felt a bit like the world of a Renoir painting. Renoir, Degas, working class pleasures. Boating on the Seine, open-air picnics, pretty girls and wealthy students. … The other bit that I find particularly engaging and moving was Jean Valjean’s relationship with Cosette. A man who had never really learned to love finding out what love was all about through adopting this little girl, and how intense and happy their relationship was. And then having to let her go, which in a way is emblematic of something all fathers know about, certainly I do. Watching Dominic play that relationship and having to let his daughter go was very powerful for me.

How did not having the musical requirements open up casting?

Penhale: We approached this as a really premium, quality piece of drama and for us where this was hugely exciting is we could really think about the casting in terms of who are the most exciting actors working at the moment and who was right to come into this. It was an enjoyable process of looking for the best actors.

What other challenges did you face in bringing this story to life for the small screen?

Penhale: One of the biggest things you feel when you take on an iconic piece of literary fiction is this huge responsibility to deliver the story really powerfully and well for the audience. There are iconic moments in “Misérables” that everybody knows, everybody is aware of. Everybody knows of the barricades. You have to be able to really deliver that to the audience. So part of it is that we set the bar very high for ourselves. You have to do that really well and you can’t disappoint.

Davies: There were huge moments in the book and they were what I set out to dramatize. They were also what I was interested in — bringing out all of the interesting connections in the way the characters link up. The chronology of the book is quite eccentric and I thought it would be valuable to straighten it out and begin the story with the aftermath of The Battle of Waterloo.

What did shooting in Belgium add to the project?

Penhale: Another challenge is you don’t have a limitless budget to draw on and so you have to have conversations around how are you delivering this authentically and cinematically. That’s a process. [Director] Tom Shankland had a clear sense of how he wanted to portray the world on screen and how he could achieve that and hats off to him for doing the most epic and cinematic job, but at the same time really focusing on performance. We took the decision early on that we wanted to shoot on location as much as possible near to where the story might have played out, so we shot in northern France and southern Belgium so that we could basically capture the feel of these French towns and the French countryside and make it feel as real as possible.

Was six hours enough time to properly tell this story?

Penhale: Six hours is a great length for the story. This will cover 17 years, you have a lot of time to cross and a lot of characters that grow with you.

Davies: As it turned out, that last episode ran an hour and 20 minutes in the U.K. Even then a lot of scenes had to go down in time in the edit; it could’ve been eight hours easily.

How else might themes of “them” versus “us” play out in the wake of Donald Trump’s wall or Brexit?

Penhale: “Les Misérables” tells the story about a whole sort of society finding a voice and speaking out and challenging the establishment. That’s essentially the skirmish that you see that leads to the barricade. It’s about a whole community of people standing up for what they believe in and fighting for a better world. You just have to look around, even beyond Britain or America. It’s a global phenomenon at the moment and much talked about in the news, the connections between those who are making decisions and those who have to live with those decisions on the day-to-day. There is absolutely a rift and gulf between the establishment and the society that people are living in in the world, and this absolutely echoes the sentiment and challenges that we struggle with today.

PBS Masterpiece’s “Les Misérables” debuts Sunday, April 14 at 9 p.m.

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[cupidsbower]

The Last Jedi

I really enjoyed this movie a lot. No major spoilers until the cut.

When I saw The Force Awakens, I didn’t know what to expect of this new series, but after seeing it, I had a pretty clear expectation of what the rest of the series would offer:

A re-interpretation of the main themes of the original trilogy through a new generation of characters. This includes clever and sometimes ironic riffs on iconic moments.

Enjoyable action/adventure.

Engaging characters.

With that in mind, I had a couple of specific expectations for The Last Jedi. The main one was this: it would be a tragedy, have a negative story climax, and an ironic complication, all through the lens of the memories of The Empire Strikes Back.

And that is exactly what I got.

This was perhaps the biggest task in this new trilogy, especially as Empire is generally considered the strongest of the Star Wars movies. It’s a lot to live up to. How do you have a genuine negative climax, which can be intrinsically disappointing if you hit the wrong beats, but still remain true to the themes of Empire, do something new, and have a good amount of action/adventure and character development?

I really wasn’t sure how they’d pull this off, and I was careful not to get spoiled so I could watch the movie fresh and give it the best chance to work. I do have a few quibbles, but overall, the creative team did a really strong job of hitting all the right notes.

SPOILERS AFTER THE READ MORE!

SPOILERS!!!

I want to start with the story thread I thought was weakest, which was Finn and Rose going off to find a code-cracker.

This sequence didn’t add a lot to the overall plot of the movie, and the pace didn’t match up well with what was happening with the fleeing rebel fleet, or Rey and Kylo’s plotline. For that reason, it dragged in places. There was still a lot to like in this sequence -- I loved that the scoundrel (the ironic riff on Han Solo) ended up being a scoundrel through and through. I loved the payoff of the boy at the end, staring up at the stars. I liked both Finn and Rose. But that’s about it. The rest just felt like pleasant enough padding with no thematic goal, until they get to the First Order’s ship and the sneak-in-and-blow-it-up plan finally fails. Ha! I really loved that. And that’s when this plotline really started to bite; I just wish it had got there sooner, or the casino stuff had more teeth. That said, I didn’t want less Finn on the screen, I just wanted his role to have more depth. Where was his development, the questioning of what it means to be an individual, to make his own choices? Hopefully we’ll get to that in the final movie. I’m also kind of hoping we get Lando in the third movie, and maybe that tie-in everyone thought would be part of Rey’s story will end up being part of Finn’s -- a much better thematic match, as far as I’m concerned.

Other than that, I loved pretty much everything, but I think my favourite part was Luke, Rey and Kylo.

Luke has always been a pivotal role in this series, and my god was The Last Jedi clever in how it reinterpreted that. As a young man, Luke was completely sure of his own righteousness -- that is what helped save Vader. But that righteousness tends to wear away along with youth, when you see the price of your mistakes. Poe, making just that kind of hotheaded mistake in the fleet arc, seeing how it nearly cost everything, seeing how it was borne of good intentions, was a gorgeous and ironic contrast to Luke’s horror at the consequences of his actions.

But more than that, an older, more world-weary Luke flinching from Ben at just the wrong moment and so causing a flip to the dark side? Gorgeous storytelling. Just spectacular. That is so bitter. It’s the absolute antithesis of the “new hope” that Luke symbolised in episode IV. Luke rejected Vader and his dark power in Empire, and that was the heart of the negative climax, the thematic linchpin, the thing that made the movie so fantastic and unexpected. Of course Luke rejecting Ben and his dark power is what created Kylo, and it is the ironic dark heart of The Last Jedi. It’s not out of character for Luke (or Anakin) to react badly to someone they love when power is in the mix. The counterpoint of Rey rejecting Kylo’s power, but not rejecting Ben, sets up the act to come in the next movie beautifully.

I also loved Rey in this sequence. I thought the riff on Luke’s journey into the cave, with Rey’s hall of mirrors was fantastic. That sense of no family, no past she carries into the future, but just herself and what she makes of herself -- so creepy and lonely, but so thematically on point, especially in the way it contrasts with the Skywalkers.

Finally, I loved Kylo in this movie, which was an utter surprise. I thought he was just going to be a whiny white boy, and he is, but that’s actually what makes him so great, because it’s so knowingly done that way. The climactic scene between him and Rey was so damn clever -- a brilliant inversion of the “I’m your father scene” from Empire, with bitter ironies threaded all the way through it. I think it was the highlight of the movie for me. I didn’t think they’d be able to make Kylo interesting, but he’s actually the perfect bookend for this whole saga, a cracked double of Anakin, with the sandwich of Luke in between. The same flaw runs through all three of them, playing out in different ways. All the facets of white male privilege, and the way that nature/nurture acts upon them.

This is a much subtler playing out of the theme than I expected from this series, and I really, really like it.

The battle between Kylo and Luke was a satisfying resolution after that build up. The gorgeous little things -- the salt planet that looks like Hoth, the riff on Kenobi’s fight with Vader, the fact Kylo left footprints in the salt and Luke didn’t. But also the bigger things -- Luke letting Kylo be angry, using it to the Rebels’ advantage, but also just letting him have his moment of vengeance for Luke’s lack of faith. Luke’s failure as a teacher, just like Kenobi and Yoda before him. Kylo’s pettiness and lack of self-awareness, and his raging insecurity. The way Luke’s journey ended with him looking up at a setting sun.

Ahhhhh.

This film really was at its absolute best with the Luke, Rey and Kylo sequences. I’m very much looking forward to how that arc is resolved in the next movie.

Finally, there’s the fleet sequence, which I also enjoyed a lot. Let’s start with Poe. I loved two things in particular about his arc -- that Poe was wrongheaded from almost beginning to end, but that his need to test authority was admired by his commanders, even while his actions were castigated. They are the Rebels, after all, and what is a rebel but someone who questions authority?

Poe could have been another Kylo, just without the Force aptitude. But he wasn’t. He made a mistake, he eventually realised he made a mistake, and he wasn’t rejected for it, or backed into such a corner there was no way out for him but to break everything and flee into the night.

And the reason for that? Leia. General Leia and Vice Admiral Holdo. It is no accident that they are both women. They were tough, determined, forward-thinking, and compassionate. Binary thinking was not part of their command strategy. Where Poe was so sure of his rightness he didn’t listen to anyone else -- if he was right, everyone else was wrong -- Leia and Holdo demonstrated a more mature self-assuredness, one not threatened by the mistakes of youth, even while recognising it and dealing with it.

Poe’s lesson was one that Ben didn’t get the chance to learn, and it’s a lesson that will make Poe a better person, and a better leader.

I really loved Carrie Fisher and Laura Dern in this section of the movie, and could have watched about an hour more of them commanding the rebel alliance.

I’m glad they didn’t kill off Leia now. Apart from the fact it would have weakened the ending of Luke’s arc, I like that Leia is still alive out there in a galaxy far far away, that she’s the last survivor of the original trilogy, even though Carrie is gone. Still kicking ass, and taking names, as well as building bridges and leading the way.

In all, The Last Jedi was exactly the negative climax I expected it to be, but in a subtler way than I had hoped for, especially given that so much of the movie plays out in over-the-top action sequences. It was less overtly tragic than Empire, but far more ironic and bitter, which is fitting for 2017, which is a more ironic and bitter age than the 1980s. It was about the destruction wrought by male privilege, with a clever stripping away of heroism and nobleness from the tragic male figures, and a parallel investment in a more compassionate heroism in the women.

It was a good movie. I really liked it, and I have high hopes for the next one.

[nickflit]

I was inspired to write this back and bicep’s workout off of “Johnny Two Plates,” Blog where he has some good workouts, along with an often very humorous delivery.

I’ve never been one to neglect my biceps (this isn’t completely bragging, keep reading).

It’s always the first thing most people notice when looking at an athlete, or talking about how strong someone is, and I was not different, plus it’s also usually noticeably engaged during a sports specific movement; think Bo Jackson carrying a football, or Kirby Puckett swinging a baseball bat; or Bo Jackson breaking a baseball bat.

This bicep favoritism goes back to when first starting to lift weights, after purchasing my first weight set in about 4th grade from Kmart off mowing Oma’s lawn, in the early 90’s, (which you can see pictured below off to the left in the handstand picture,) all the way up until when I first started personal training professionally in 2011, (the social anxiety and disdainful view of training sales, kept me away for about five years after attaining the training diploma from the N.P.T.I.)

As you can see, I was a leg day skipper in my youth as well.

This focus on the biceps for many years wasn’t ideal unfortunately, as the tricpes were being neglected in comparison; which wasn’t smart because there are more muscle heads on your triceps (three, hence the word tri, than biceps, which have two, hence the word bi).

It wasn’t until muscle mentor Nick H. (the first personal training manager at the gym I started at,) gently reminded of working the triceps equally (chest/triceps workout coming in the future, stay tuned).  I forgot what he said, I think it was, “biceps are for the bros, triceps are for the girls.”

Before then I must have assumed that by working my biceps twice as hard, my triceps would get bigger by osmosis. Nick H. by the way is seen in the video below for a partner workout that we did together our first year training together, (he’s the one with the larger muscles).  Though I did the filming and editing, it should be added that a lot of the exercises were the other Nick’s creation (he’s really creative when it comes to freshening up the workouts).

Gradually I started working the triceps equally, then slightly more so even, which is good because balance is important for everything, especially when having a good resistance training program.

Enough about the triceps though, the focus today is on the biceps, and my go to bicep workout, which also combines the back, which is commonly done as both back and biceps involve pulling movements, so they work synergistically.

Some work back and biceps together as they are both exercises that are pulling (usually the way I’ve done biceps) some devote a day just to focus on arms, which I’ve done only recently in the past few years.  I find that both work equally well, though the arms get the biggest in the moment you’re lifting and a few minutes after when doing bi’s and tri’s together on the same day (wish the “pump” would stay longer, but as long as the strength is there, who cares).

I don’t think one way’s any better than the other, it’s all about the exercises you choose and the intensity you put into them.

One advantage of working the biceps and back together though is that you can potentially spend one less day working out, but have similar gains, thus potentially maximizing workout time if time’s a concern.

Speaking of maximizing workout time, if that’s something you’re interested in, definitely check out the post I wrote a few weeks ago; “5 Best Exercises to Maximize Workout Time.”

To keep it simple, as I’m prone to blathering on these posts, I’ll give an example of my typical back/biceps workout. I’ve switched it up over time, and still do (as variety is the spice of workout life,) but this is the one I usually go back to for the maximum pump!

It’s always best, (no matter the workout) to work your bigger muscles first, then your smallest, as the bigger muscles require more energy and are also typically more challenging, thus the back is focused on first for this workout, even though the biceps are involved in, even if to a small degree in any back exercise, though they’re not demanded of as much as they are when focusing on just the biceps.

Here’s the workout protocol:

Everything here for rest between each set is 90-120 seconds, and each set is fully completed before moving onto the next one, unless otherwise noted.

Rep’s are listed for each exercise, but typically fall between 6 and 12 for muscular failure. Muscular failure being defined as the inability to lift another rep without losing proper form.

The workout is simple but effective, it’s all about proper form and intensity, and consistency over time for maximal muscle and strength gain.

I consider proper form to be a number of things, but the most important being; perfect form, full range of motion, not using momentum to lift or lower yourself or the weight, always “fighting gravity,” on the negative portion of any exercise (should take at least 2 seconds to lower the weight, ideally 3-4 seconds if not more). The slower you go when strength training, the safer an exercise is, and the more focus that is put on the muscle the vast majority of the time.

Exercises

1st Set: Pull Up’s (3 sets supinated grip, maximum reps each set)

I’m all about super slow (at least on the negative portion of the movement,) full range of motion Pull Up’s. NO Crossfit “Pull Up’s” or movements are allowed in this workout.

Every time I see a cross fit Pull Up, I do a prayer for the elbows, and other joints of the person doing them.  In my opinion, Crossfit is terrible for the most part.

Here are the statistics on the chances of sustaining a major injury when practicing Crossfit, and they’re not pretty.  Even if you don’t think the stats are 100% true, even if they were half accurate that would still be a huge risk over conventional strength training.

Crossfit involves fast short term gains, in exchange of potentially short and long term.  Crossfit Pull Ups are especially awful and offensive to good form.

There is a reason the military, particularly the Marines, makes it’s soldiers do “deadhang” Pull Up’s or doesn’t count them. They’ve been doing more Pull Up’s, and (for a much longer period of time than anyone,) and there is a good reason why.  Also the world record books do not give credence to momentum based Pull Up’s.

Seated Row’s (5 sets, neutral grip 10, 8, 8, 6, 5)

Possibly my favorite back exercise, outside of Pull Up’s for building that V shape in the back.

Barbell Row’s (5 sets, supinated grip 10,8,6,5,4)

(45 degrees or parallel to the ground are the options here-I have no preference, and do both. A straight back is of prime importance whichever form is chosen. If you cannot do these with a perfectly straight back or feel back discomfort, you Inverted Rows instead).

Straight Barbell Curls (5 sets, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4)

Note: I don’t mind the curvy curl bars, but I prefer the flat bar. Very important note. You see people do this all the time, but DO NOT arch your back in an attempt to get more reps, that is a huge no-no. If you can’t lift the bar without maintaining perfect posture, your biceps are getting assisted (in a bad way).

Trust me on this, I’ve done it before, and once threw my back out for a few days on the last set of a workout doing that). Luckily it was a Friday, but walking around hunched over for an entire whole weekend, and the following day in a ton of pain, until I had a weird spasm that sent me writhing to the floor on the fourth day, lasting about 30 seconds isn’t enjoyable.  One of the most painful things I’ve experience in fact.  Oddly, after that spasm I felt 100% better, and didn’t have a recurring issue again, (nor did I “cheat” the curl again-lesson learned).

Resistance Band Finisher (2 sets 30 reps, 25 reps (60 seconds rest in between).

This is an exercise acquired from J.C. Santana, Instructor for the USA weightlifting team, and Level 1 track and field coach).

It’s a great bicep workout finisher, and really pumps your arms up, (if proper form and intensity is there). In fact all of these vanity pictures in this post were taken right after the band finisher.

Note; Though deadlifts are rightfully called the King of all exercises for inducing maximal strength, not only in the back but all over the body, they are a medium to high risk exercise, and should never be done unless you have the flexibility, and absolutely perfectly straight back form, which is a neccesity for reducing injury.

Even if you have perfect form doing them, I would still consider them to be at least a medium risk exercise, and can cause issues, and should definitely be avoided if you have any back issues, and possibly avoided even if you don’t.  It’s up to you, for me the back’s just not worth risking for the strength increase that follows, but everyone’s unique, regarding the risk they take when working out and their back mobility and health.

My goal when working out is maximum strength with minimal risk taking, and I do what appears to some to be some crazy things when it comes to risking the body outside of workouts, including climbing high trees and rock surfaces without safety apparatuses, and ski jumping large distances, all without health insurance, but I’ve worked up to that level of controlled crazy, and it’s not risky to me, though to the spectator it may appear so:

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With that in mind sometimes I’ll do deadlifts, but mostly avoid them.

If you do this workout, definitely let me know how worked out for you!

Also, here are some post back and bicep vanity picture from my own workouts:

        Back and Bicep’s Workout I was inspired to write this back and bicep's workout off of "Johnny Two Plates…