#want to watch some dramas before i make my 2023 dramas awards

[tytangfei]

brb, gonna start the ingenious one

[respectthepetty]

Reading the (Visual) Rainbow Awards

Now that 2023 is officially wrapped up, I'm delivering awards to the QLs that gave the best visual narratives in 2023. In order to be considered for these awards, the series 1) had to air during 2023, and 2) had to finish airing by December 31, so out of the 108 BLs I watched this year, 14 are still ongoing and cannot be considered for these awards. Out of the remaining 94 QLs, 67 had some degree of consistent color coding.

*If a show is mentioned with an asterisk, it means the show was not considered in the nominations for not meeting the required criteria.

But before I begin the award ceremony, I must stay on brand and deliver one award for my namesake.

Petty Award: Only Friends & I Feel You Linger in the Air

This award goes to a show or shows that had great visual narratives but I refuse to write about it because I'm petty. Cinematographers Rath and Jim never fail, and they both delivered beautiful visuals in their shows, but these series know what they did to me, so now we got beef. Cutie Pie and Bad Buddy finally broke out of Petty Prison this year, so Only Friends and I Feel You Linger in the Air now join I Told Sunset About You behind bars for making me want to fight them in the parking lot of a Texas Chicken.

Now for the ceremony to begin!

Stats Awards [These awards are based solely on numbers]

Most Popular: Blue Boy

This award goes to the color that was most popular in a pair, number-wise. The stats: A Blue Boy was part of a color-coded pair 26 times this year. The next color-coded boy was a Black Brooder who was a part of 15 pairs.

The Best Blue Boy was Bed Friend's King. He is actually bi-colored with blue and black, so he represents both of the most popular color-coded boys well. He was loyal, dependable, sensitive, and a little arrogant, but always sincere, which made him a King among men, and he truly deserves the title of "Best Color-Coded Boy of the Year."

Most Popular Pair: Light x Dark

This award goes to the color-coded pair who were used the most in the year, number-wise. The stats: The Black x White dynamic was consistently used for 9 couples, and the Happy Human (Multicolored Menace) x Brooding Boy dynamic was used 3 times. A Yellow/Orange Oddity x Blue Boy pair was used for 7 couples, a Green Guy x Blue Boy were used for 6 couples, and Red Rascal x Blue Boy were used for 6 couples as well.

The Best Light x Dark Couple: Tew x Guy from My Dear Gangster Oppa perfectly represent what makes this color dynamic work. Tew was an actual gangster who murdered people and only wore black, while Guy was an innocent college student who only wore white, yet they both ended up owning a bar on a beach and wearing stripes of the other's color to show that everyone needs to find a balance within himself and his relationship.

The Outlier: Star Struck

This award goes to a series that delivered a colored-coded pair that no other series did. Korean drama Star Struck gave us the ONLY Black Brooder x Red Rascal pair of the year. The leads were color coded as children into adulthood, and the show included color-coded accessories and a color exchange.

Visual Rhetoric Awards

Best Boundary/Barrier/Bars - My School President

This award goes to a series that best displayed an internal conflict with a physical barrier between the two leads. My School President did this several times and each time was different, but throughout the sixth episode, as the boys recreated the music video for Tilly Birds' "Just Being Friendly," the line between friends and boyfriends was clearly represented. Both boys struggled with their feelings and the physical barriers were there as a reminder that one of them would have to cross the line in order to move forward. However, when Blue Boy Tinn finally did, it was after confirmation that Red Rascal Gun felt the same, and it was a gentle move which was true to his character and the high school context.

Best Balance - Between Us

This award goes to a series that best used the scene to outline the balanced dynamic between the leads. My Beautiful Man 2 did a fantastic job of slowly showing Hira and Kiyoi's evolving power dynamic by Hira going from laying down to kneeling in front of a sitting Kiyoi, but Between Us showed that Win and Team were a balanced pair from the very first episode during their sexual encounter. That scene stated that neither boy was being taken advantage of, and this visual continued throughout the show. Both boys were afraid of their feelings, yet both boys loved each other, equally.

Best Background (Noise) - Our Dating Sim

This award goes to a series that best used the background details to strongly reinforce the ongoing plot. Our Dating Sim's plot revolved around a company creating an interactive game that would serve as a dating simulation, and that basis played directly into the former friends-to-lovers' conflict. The very first scene involved Eddy inputting code into his computer to "FindProblem; ResetTime; BackToStage; RestartGame" then the company Ian was applying to and the one Eddy worked at was called RE:TRY with a controller that had a heart as one of the buttons. However, every episode had some degree of background noise speaking directly about the plot including additional game simulation scenes where an unidentified player would have to select future moves based on the boys' previous experiences.

Best Use of Clothing - Never Let Me Go

This award goes to the series that made the best use of clothing to show the evolving dynamic between the leads. Never Let Me Go wins because Nueng began the series in dark solid colors while Palm was in colorful patterns. As their relationship progressed, Nueng's colors became lighter, and patterns were introduced. Yet in the end, both boys stayed true to themselves and each maintained their style while incorporating components from the other. Palm's color darkened but remained patterned, and Nueng opted for neutral colors with patterned ties.

Colors Awards

Honorable Mention - Oh No! Here Comes Trouble

This award goes to a series that had a great visual narrative but could not be considered for these awards because it wasn't marketed as a QL (even though it's canon to me). If Oh No! Here Comes Trouble was marketed as QL, it would easily be nominated for the Best Overall Award. The use of the color red as a continuing reminder of the thin red thread of destiny, alone, would win it a spot on this list, but the show also included ample amounts of visual rhetoric, a "kiss of life," and color-coded matching outfits which deserve to be recognized.

Best Color Exchange - My Personal Weatherman

This award goes to a series where the leads were color coded and switching their colors demonstrated more than their love being mutual. My Personal Weatherman owned this category. The series was riddled with miscommunications between the leads regarding the love they felt for each other, but after Mizuki's possessiveness ramped up at the end of the seventh episode, the love was made clear, through bondage. Yoh, wearing Mizuki's blue, felt the love Mizuki had for him when he was tied up and being, essentially, held hostage by Mizuki. And yet by tying up Yoh, Mizuki could finally physically reinforce the way he felt for Yoh. He wanted Yoh. All of Yoh. To himself. And Yoh needed that to be made clear with a color-coded bonding moment (hehe).

Best Kiss - The Eighth Sense

This award goes to the series that best used a kiss to support the color narrative of the story. The Eighth Sense waited until the second-to-last episode to deliver this extraordinary color-coded kiss, but the wait was well worth it. Jae Won was color coded as a Brooding Boy (dark) and Ji Hyun was color coded as a Happy Human (light). After an accident involving the two, Jae Won was the darkest he had been, color-wise and mentally, so he isolated himself. But after several episodes apart, Jae Won walked out of the darkness, straight to Ji Hyun's, and kissed him on the street with all the colors of the rainbow pulsing around them perfectly showing that Ji Hyun was the color in his dark world, but that Jae Won also brought color to Ji Hyun's life and directly to his doorstep.

Best Pink - Be My Favorite

This award goes to the series that best used the color pink to demonstrate the love between the two leads. Normally, shows use pink lighting, pink clothing, or pink blankets to display this visual, but Be My Favorite used pink wisteria delicately hanging behind Pisaeng comforting Kawi. The flowering plant symbolizes friendship, love, and longevity and perfectly tied into the show's themes of valuing friendship and putting in the effort day-after-day to make any relationship last.

Best Heart - Love Tractor

This award goes to a series that best represented love by using a tangible item to symbolize a heart. Even before Yechan realized he loved Yol with the physical representation of Yechan's red gloves sprouting out from his left chest pocket in Love Tractor, Yechan let Yol know that he could be trusted with Yol's heart. During the third episode, Yechan taught Yol how to pick strawberries. He advised Yol to be gentle, to not use force, and to not put too much pressure on them or they would bruise or break. Yechan proceeded to use this method with Yol, and continued to give Yechan red fruits to enjoy as a means of encouraging Yol to experience things he had truly not before, like fresh strawberries, stolen fruit, and unconditional love.

Best Accessory - I Cannot Reach You

This award goes to a series that best used a color-coded accessory to support the ongoing plot. Usually, color-coded accessories are physical items such as a phone, a shirt, or a mug, but I Cannot Reach You instead color coded feelings via a bokeh effect. Blue Boy Yamato tried to deny his feelings for his best friend, Yellow/Orange Oddity Kakeru, but the colors don't lie, and the bokeh effect snitched on him each time. When Kakeru was tending Yamato's wound or when Yamato thought of kissing Kakeru, the bokeh effect would show both boys' colors to let the audience know that Kakeru was on Yamato's mind. But the biggest moment was when this phenomenon happened to Kakeru, which finally showed that he felt the same for Yamato. [GIF by @my-rose-tinted-glasses]

Best Blinding Light (of Love) - HIStory 5: Love in the Future

This award goes to the series that best used a blinding light to emphasize the overwhelming feeling of being in love. Taiwan and its long-standing HIStory series win this award because Taiwan showed everyone else why it's the expert. HIStory 5: Love in the Future waited until the last episode to use this with an established couple, which is why it deserves the win. Vincent had already quit his job and moved to the beach, where his boyfriend Wynn would visit, but in the last episode, Wynn quit his job as well and ran to the beach because he finally realized Vincent was the reason all his dreams came true. Vincent told Wynn he never planned to tell him because he didn't want Wynn to believe he owed Vincent, and Wynn told Vincent his love was genuine regardless of what Vincent had done for him. They kissed, and the blinding light hit as they solidified their love. Therefore, the light wasn't just for love, but for understanding what that love meant and where that love came from.

Best Lighting - Moonlight Chicken

This award goes to the series that best used lighting to support the story's narrative. Cinematographer Rath, who has regularly partnered with Director Jojo and Director Aof, never misses. Not once. And Moonlight Chicken is a flawless example of that. Warm and cool lighting were used to show the difference between neglect and care, isolation and warmth, and a house versus a home. The characters' development could be directly seen through the lighting surrounding them and projected on them. Heart's entire storyline is a beautiful progression through blues and oranges and reds, and we see that although Jim did not realize he was the heart of his community, the lighting made sure that the audience understood how important he was to each character he interacted with, even Alan.

Best Cinematographer: Nid Nidchaya - Dangerous Romance, Love in Translation, My Universe*

This award goes to the cinematographer who best supported the story through visuals without distracting from the ongoing plot. Thailand dominated this competition with Joy (The Promise, The Warp Effect*); Rath (Never Let Me Go, Moonlight Chicken, Our Skyy, Only Friends, Last Twilight*); Jim (Step by Step, Hidden Agenda, I Feel You Linger in the Air); and Suthipong (609 Bedtime Story, Our Skyy, Chains of Heart, My Dear Gangster Oppa), but only Nid deserves this win.

My Universe consists of twelve different stories, and each has had a slightly different visual presentation, but it's Nid's work in Dangerous Romance and Love in Translation that show off his true skill. When Red Rascal Sailom was drugged and attempted to call Blue Boy Kanghan, the bathroom was lit in blue as Sailom fell down from the purple, and when Kanghan cried while pinning down Sailom, they were surrounded by their colors. When Phumjai and Yan Feng kissed in their store, their colors enveloped them much like the colors would combine as they had sex in the same spot a few episodes later. The colors and the love were always present even if it was overlooked, which only reinforced the on-screen drama of failing to notice the ways love is always present, even when in conflict.

Best Rainbow - I Became the Lead in a BL Drama

This award goes to the series with the best use of a rainbow. There were many rainbows this year featured in opening credits and several more that were nominees of this award such as Our Dining Table's rainbow over the smiley face sucker, Dangerous Romance's rainbow over Kanghan's heart, Past-Senger's rainbow paper hearts in a jar, and Wen's office Pride flag in Moonlight Chicken, but I Became Lead in a BL Drama's rainbow in the opening credits of the first episode swooped in right before the clock struck midnight ending 2023. The reason it stole this award at the last minute is simple - it's queer. Regardless if a kiss happened or not, this series was still about two men falling in love, and that's pretty gay. But how the rainbow was used in the opening credits of the first episode with the Blinding Light of Love as the clapperboard hid the leads' kiss is what gave it the edge in this category. We only saw one practice kiss because the scripted one was never for us. That kiss was for the audience of the fictional BL drama, and the real kiss between the actors was just for them. It was gay. It was meta. It was Japanese BL.

Best Surprise - La Pluie

This award serves as a catch-all for a series that delivered a color-coded surprise while still incorporating it well within the plot. Several series offered color-coded surprises in 2023, but La Pluie, the show about soulmates, splendidly reinforced its plot through the two color-coded brothers at the center of the series. Tien was a Yellow/Orange Oddity who believed in the power of destiny, yet he ended up in blue with a person who wasn't his soulmate, and his brother, Blue Boy Tai, who never wanted a soulmate, ended up with his and embracing more yellow in his life. The story is more complicated, and so are the colors, but for a series about bucking fate, it resisted every common use of color-coding techniques in order to support that theme. Life is unpredictable, and so were the colors.

Best Group Effort - Destiny Seeker

This award goes to the series that best color coded a majority of its characters. Destiny Seeker had consistent color coding throughout the entire season, but it really excelled at color coding each of its three couples. The youngest couple color coordinated, the second pair were yellow x green, which is usually reserved for friends and not lovers and went well with their plot, and the main characters were the traditional Thai blue x red. The show gave three different color-coded pairs yet provided something new and fresh while still hitting each stop on the BL history tour, and no couple was wasted. Each one, and their colors, perfectly added to the story, and gave a nice depiction of the rainbow of colors that queer love can be.

Best Consistent Color Coding - Tie: What Did You Eat Yesterday? 2, My Beautiful Man 2, Naughty Babe

This award goes to the series that had the most consistent color coding throughout its run. However, this year we were blessed with sequels and additional outings from some of our favorite series and color-coded couples. Therefore, this award goes to THREE shows for not only having consistent color coding but for also openly using those colors as part of the plot:

Shiro x Kenji [What Did You Eat Yesterday?] - Shiro was always a Brooding Boy (dark colored) and Kenji brought color into his life, but the second season directly addressed this. Shiro wasn't ever going to be a colorful person, but he didn't need to be because the show repeatedly stated that relationships are about balance. Kenji loves Shiro because he is practical and saves for their future. Shiro loves Kenji because he is upbeat and optimistic. They have different colors, but they are the perfect match, just like their aprons.

Hira x Kiyoi [My Beautiful Man] - Hira was a loyal and reserved servant (blue) to his god Kiyoi (white). Yet the second season and movie continued to show that Kiyoi was not a god, but instead a man lacking love and color, and because of that, Hira had to learn to give his color to Kiyoi rather than mindless devotion. Both men shined the brightest when it was clear that Kiyoi loved Hira for his stalker tendencies, and Hira thrived knowing that the best way to show Kiyoi love was by being himself and doing exactly what he loved, which was taking care of Kiyoi with all his color.

Lian x Yi Kuea [Cutie Pie, Naughty Babe] - All polycule jokes aside, Lian and Kuea had a complete color-coded story in Cutie Pie, so Cutie Pie 2 U felt like a repeat of the first season, but then came Naughty Babe. The boys wore more of the other's color which proved they were very much still in love as husbands, and at their best friends' wedding, these husbands stood in red and took a serious moment in a season full of hijinks and shenanigans to look directly at the audience and state that "Love Always Win." Domundi has been beating this Marriage Equality drum the hardest, and it continues to use its characters to emphasize the importance of QUEER family and rights. The Next Prince and Love Upon a Time when?

Best Overall - Kiseki: Dear to Me

This award goes to the series that did it like nobody else to claim the ultimate prize, and no other show can even compete with Kiseki: Dear to Me. The promo material, as shown above, outlined the light versus dark dynamic the two couples would have in the show. The main couple would be the lighter love and the second couple would be the darker version. It also showcased that the main couple would be the loyal blues, and the second couple would be the defiant reds. Before the show even started, it told us there would be balance. One couple with their baked treats would be sugar and sweet, while the other couple with their torture tactics of chili peppers would be spice and everything-not-nice. It would be a group effort.

And once the fun got started, we got several color-coded cameos from couples in other well-known Taiwanese BLs, the Blinding Light of Love for both couples, and the pink light of love.

But it didn't stop there! The series gave the traditional color exchange between Blue Boy Zong Yi and his devoid-of-color future-husband Rui, but true to his word and actions, Zong Yi never took his color back. He was serious about his love and gave it ALL to Rui, which was also depicted by Zong Yi opening a bakery that specialized in strawberry goods, because in case it wasn't clear, strawberry =💗= love.

Even with all that, the second couple still stole the show for most viewers. Perhaps it was Eddie's rainbow cardigans and sweaters. It's possible it was Eddie's cat collars combined with Chen Yi's dog tags or the body pillows of each other that watched the other's back as they slept. Maybe it was the graffiti behind Chen Yi that stated he was "no good at goodbye" when he was lying to Eddie about needing him to help with business issues or that they continued to wear each other's clothing which WERE COLOR COORDINATED THE ENTIRE TIME!

Regardless of the exact reason people preferred one couple over the other, Kiseki: Dear to Me continued to serve a visual narrative that underlined the plot and provided additional context for both couples and the overall story. Color-coded boys in love get happy endings, and this series proved that.

Before the show even began.

[kverything-official]

20 Most Anticipated K dramas to watch in 2024

Without a single doubt 2023 has been a prosperous year for us Kdrama fans. Starting from Crash Course in Romance in January 2023 to Gyeongseong Creature in December, the entire year of 2023 has brought us several unique stories, fantastic plots, sometimes sad endings and sometimes fairly-tale like “happily ever after”. 

Even though there were a fair amount of Korean Dramas that were disappointing in 2023, but trust me when I say it, 2024 is certainly not going to disappoint you at all. Even when 2023 has delivered back to back hits like The Glory 2, Good Bad Mother, Moving and many more, 2024 stores sequels to hit kdramas along with some fresh new stories ready to blow us kdrama fans out of our minds.  

So, without wasting any more time, let’s get into the list.

20 K dramas to watch in 2024

1. Squid Game 2

Episodes: 6 (Not confirmed yet)

Expected release date: Around October 2024

Genre: Thriller, action, mystery

Squid Game redefined the place of Korean Dramas in the global entertainment industry. This drama became the first non-English act to win six Emmy awards as well as gained the title of the most watched Netflix series ever. And to level up the death game even more, Squid Game season 2 is all set to be released in October 2024. 

This season promises Eight additional cast members, making the anticipation even more exciting. So, are you ready to witness this intense gory thriller in 2024 or not?   

2. Marry My Husband

Episodes: 16

Release date: 1st January 

Genre: Drama, Romance, Fantasy  

This fantasy romance then takes us 10 years back before Kang Ji Won was even married. While she gets to choose a new life for herself, we get to enjoy this star studded drama full of angst and romance.  

3. Aema

Episodes: 6

Expected release date: Yet to be confirmed 

Genre: Comedy, drama

Next in the list is the comedy drama Aema, which is all set to feature Lee Ha-Nee, Bang Hyo-Rin, Jin Sun-Kyu, and Cho Hyun-Chul as the main cast. The backdrop of the drama is set in the 1980 as it tells the story of Jung Hee Ran a top actress, who is casted as the protagonist of a movie titled “Madame Aema”. 

This drama will certainly be a fun watch with an intriguing plot. Thus, don’t forget to add it to your list of K dramas to watch. 

4. Everything will Come true

Episodes: 12

Expected release date: Not confirmed yet

Genre: Fantasy, romance, drama 

Who didn’t like Uncontrollably Fond aka one of the saddest k dramas to watch? Only recalling the amazing chemistry between Shin Joon Young (Kim Woo Bin) and No Eul (Bae Suzy), makes us want to scream and cry for the couple. But don’t worry, Woo Bin and Suzy’s upcoming Korean drama Everything will come true will have a much lighter tone with a sprinkle of fantasy to it. 

Woo Bin here plays the role of an emotional genie who meets Ga Young (Bae Suzy) and promises to grant her three wishes. But everything that’s free often comes at a price. However, we hope it’s not a broken relationship this time.   

5. The Trunk

Episodes: 8

Expected release date: Yet to be confirmed 

Genre: Romance, melodrama, mystery 

Gong Yoo is returning with romance and melodrama and it won’t be in your watchlist? How is that even possible! The Trunk is certainly one of the most anticipated k dramas to watch in 2024, not only because it’s Gong Yoo and Son Ye Jin casted as the main lead, but also because this drama is an adaptation of 2022 novel The Trunk by C.M. Castillo. 

The intriguing plot of this drama takes us inside the life of No In Ji, the head of a fixed-term marriage agency and Han Jung Won, a music producer. Both of them despise the idea of getting married but eventually fall in love as the drama progresses. Interesting.. Isn’t it? 

Read more

[invidiosa]

The untold story of Last Night, Don McKellar’s Canadian classic, 25 years later

from a Globe & Mail Article for TIFF 2023 first published Sept 3, 2023

If it were your last night on earth, what would you do and who would you do it with?

Twenty-five years ago, Don McKellar’s debut film Last Night screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it was awarded Best Canadian First Feature. The poignant, perceptive drama about an unspecified imminent apocalypse, which also won McKellar a prize at Cannes, was acclaimed internationally as inspired counterprogramming to the loud American sci-fi disaster films of the same year, Deep Impact and Armageddon.

At the beginning of Last Night, the character played by Sandra Oh enters a deserted store looking for some wine for her final dinner. Among the looted shelves, two bottles remain. After deliberating between them, she picks one, while politely placing the other vintage back where she found it.

“That’s how you know it’s a Canadian film,” former TIFF executive director Wayne Clarkson said later.

That representation of Canadians – decorum in the face of doom – is key to Last Night’s considerable charm. “I wanted to tease the Canadian perspective but also validate it,” says McKellar, who also wrote and acted in the film. “Instead of Americans writing off Canadian cinema as passive, I wanted to say that there is value in reflection and moderation and community and tolerance.”

The film was recently digitally restored and will soon be released in its new 4K form. To celebrate its 25th anniversary, The Globe and Mail spoke with McKellar and others involved with the production of a Canadian classic which just might be the most civilized movie to watch on the last night of the civilized world.Open this photo in gallery:

The representation of Canadians – decorum in the face of doom – is key to Last Night’s considerable charm.Cylla von Tiedemann/Handout

Last Night was commissioned in 1997 by Paris-based production company Hout et Court for an international anthology series marking the turn of the millennium. Though it was supposed to be a one-hour television show, McKellar and Canadian co-producers Rhombus Media decided to make a feature film instead.

McKellar: I did make an hour version which had to be broadcast first on television in some territories. But, then, when the full feature film went to Cannes, it caused some friction. I thought Hout et Court would be excited, but it was very bureaucratic in France, and the government money was coming from the television side, not the film side. There was a bit of a conflict.

The French anthology project (2000, Seen By...) was intended to spotlight young directors – the new wave for the new millennium. Representing Canada was McKellar, a well-known actor and writer who previously directed the 1992 short Blue.

Canadian co-producer Niv Fichman: I wasn’t fazed by Don’s lack of experience at all. We were all boldly entering a new era. Originally, Don wasn’t sure he would be the lead character, but I really encouraged him to do it.

Although the film’s casting went smoothly, one famous Canadian actor was briefly in the running for the role of Craig Zwiller, who spends his final hours fulfilling a sexual bucket list.Open this photo in gallery:

The film is about an unspecified imminent apocalypse.Handout

McKellar: Everyone in the film was my first choice. But I had a bit of pressure on me to consider Keanu Reeves for the role I wanted for Callum Keith Rennie. I knew Callum – he was exciting. But out of obligation I approached Keanu. He said no, but that maybe he’d be interested in my part.

Rennie was well known for his punk-rocker role in Bruce McDonald’s Hard Core Logo and as a cast member on the CTV series Due South. He had not been in many sex scenes.

Rennie: It’s a bit intimidating. These scenes are delicate and fun and sensitive and weird. My brother told me I should have given him a bare-behind warning before he saw the film. I’ve done a lot more killing than kissing on screen in my career. It’s either the nature of the business or it’s the nature of my face, I can’t tell.

The character played by Sandra Oh is told that she “looks like a movie star.”Open this photo in gallery:

The film was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival 25 years ago, where it was awarded Best Canadian First Feature.Handout

McKellar: I’d met Sandra at a film festival in Taiwan, and I knew I wanted to work with her. She was on the HBO comedy series Arliss, but I thought she had romantic-lead potential.

Cinematographer Douglas Koch: When we were shooting these really emotional scenes between Sandra and Don, we were shooting over Sandra’s shoulder. She was off camera for all intents and purposes. With the camera on Don, tears would be pouring out of her eyes. She was totally giving it to the actor, Don, who was actually on screen. I’d heard of great actors doing that, but to see it was incredible. You realized this was an actor who does not stop.

The great Canadian director (and occasional actor) David Cronenberg was cast in a role that was to die for.

McKellar: I was representing Canada with the film, and it was set in Toronto. I always thought of David as representing this very contained Canadian personality type that had something dark going on behind. And, also, because of his own films, he represented something important to me about Canada.

Koch: We all enjoyed filming the death of Cronenberg’s character. We don’t see his death, but we do see the gory aftermath. I remember the camera above him as he was lying on this weird shag carpet in a huge pool of blood. We were all thinking, ‘We killed David Cronenberg – this is fantastic.’Open this photo in gallery:

Those who made Last Night recall a golden era of Canadian independent film.Handout

McKellar: At one point, I was seriously considering calling the film Whimper. I think I even had it on the script at one point until Cronenberg said to me, ‘You’re not seriously thinking of going with that, are you?’

The film was made for $2.3-million.

Rennie: I was still green. I was blown away working with David Cronenberg, Geneviève Bujold and Sandra Oh. There was the unity on set of doing a good thing on a shoestring budget.

Fichman: Actors always think the budgets are shoestring. Maybe they think there wasn’t enough water in their trailer. The budget wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t shoestring.

During the last hours of mankind, a radio DJ counts down his favourite 500 songs, including the Guess Who’s Glamour Boy, written by Burton Cummings.

McKellar: I love Glamour Boy. I was very pleased that when the Last Night soundtrack album was released, a British magazine trumpeted the song as the discovery of an unheralded glam-rock classic. I met Burton Cummings at a dinner and I told him how much I loved that song, but I felt he doubted my sincerity.

The film attracted a lot of notice at Cannes, where the now disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein was given his own screening.

McKellar: While we were waiting for him to come out of the screening, his second-in-command turned to me and said, ‘If Harvey wants your film, can I tell you something? Don’t give it to him.’ I asked him why. He said, ‘Just trust me, you don’t want to work with this man. He’ll take your film and he may never release it. He just wants to own it.’ I thought it was very strange.

Those who made Last Night recall a golden era of Canadian independent film.

McKellar: At the time, we were still battling for cinemas. We felt an obligation to make films that Canadians would respond to at the box office. Now Canadian cinema has given up on that, and so has Telefilm.

Rennie: It was such a great time to be doing independent Canadian films. It was a graceful set with a lot of ease, and asking questions and getting answers. There were opportunities to experiment. I thought it would be that way forever, but it wasn’t.

[freifraufischer]

For my legacy followers before I became a gymnastics blog... here is the drama:

Several American Olympic medalists from Tokyo are competing on NCAA college gymnastics teams right now (along with Olympians from other countries and world championship medalists...). The ability for college athletes to make money while still competing has changed the dynamic of the sport.

One of these gymnasts is Jade Carey who is the reigning world Vault gold medalist and the reigning Olympic Floor champion. She choose to go to Oregon State which has a good gymnastics team but is not one of the traditional powers in the sport (only 7 schools have ever won the NCAA national championship and Oregon is not one of them). Because she has continued her elite gymnastics career she has continued to do more difficulty in college gymnastics than is required on some events.

Part of the reason is because she wants to maintain those skills for elite and part of it is because she has been getting high scores than her execution might otherwise merit because of something called "difficulty forgiveness". Difficulty forgiveness in gymnastics goes way back in the elite world as well when the 10.0 system required judges to compare simpler but cleaner routines against much harder routines with small errors. Many of the most famous sporting battles of the 1970s-1990s are stories of the tension between these two.

This isn't really a thing in the elite world anymore because they have shifted to an open ended scoring system that awards difficulty and execution separately but in college gymnastics they kept the 10.0 system and so difficulty forgiveness remains an -unwritten- part of the sport. It's not supposed to happen. But it does.

Now Carey is a lightening rod in the elite gymnastics fandom as it is because she won her Olympic floor gold medal with the lowest execution score in the field entirely on the bases of her high difficulty tumbling. In fact the lowest non-fall execution score in I believe the history of the open code in an Olympic floor final.

But back to NCAA in the year 2023. Carey is doing elite level difficulty for a school whose other gymnasts are nowhere near her in scoring potential. But one of the other components is that NCAA gymnastics scoring in 2023 has become truly bananapants. Teams across the country are setting school records and there is a recognized epidemic of score inflation. It has a lot of reasons it's happening and I don't know that it will be fixed but one element is that regular season win loss records don't matter. Which is probably good because the judges performance reviews are written by the college coaches that they judged. The only thing that regular season performance matters is placement into the post season.

Carey was being overscored in the regular season. There shouldn't be any debate about that. But EVERYONE was being overscored. NCAA gymnastics fan debates have become a question of who is being overscored more or less (and that may entirely be based on whose meets you happen to be able to watch to be more or less aware of their overscoring). But one of the things about Carey is that she is so much better than the rest of her team, doing so much more difficulty that she is being given a LOT of difficulty forgiveness in those regular season meets. And so coming into the post season she was ranked as the top AAer in the country. But remember we're talking about gymnsts who are not competing in front of the same judges and the judging system is well known to be broken and more broken in the regular season than the post season where there are at least some breaks on how drunk the judging panel can get (though they are still very drunk as it turns out).

This weekend was the regional qualification round to the national championships. The format is simple: There are 4 regionals at which 8 teams compete and 2 teams advance from each regional. From the teams that do not advance (and some individual athletes whose teams did not make it to regionals) 5 gymnasts advance from each region, one on each piece of apparatus and one all arounder. They use the scores from the first day of the regionals when all the gymnasts are competing before teams start to be knocked out.

Oregon State was not likely to advance out of their regional and on the first day of the competition Carey was beaten in the AA by a gymnast from LSU and Michigan. In part this is because she did not do particularly well on vault that day with several very noticeable landing errors on her vault (which was of a higher difficulty than is needed to start from a 10.0 in college). Here were her placements and the schools of gymnasts who finished ahead of her as an individual:

VT: tied for 24th

UB: tied for 6th (behind Michigan, Denver, UNC)

BB: tied for 2nd (behind Denver)

FX: 2nd (behind Michigan)

AA: tied for 3rd (behind LSU and Michigan)

So by Sunday Carey is in a position where she's either hoping her team advances (which it did not) or that both Michigan and LSU advance so that she becomes the highest placed AAer not from an advancing school.

People noticed the danger as soon as the Friday competition was over and while most people expected there to be a fight for if LSU might advance, most people assumed Michigan would (including me). They did not.

And so now all those Michigan gymnasts who did not advance with their team but finished ahead of Carey advance as individuals.

The TLDR of this being: The highest ranked gymnast in the country during the regular season who is a current world and Olympic champion came in 3rd in the AA at her regional and because she is not on an otherwise strong team she does not get to compete for a national title on any event other than beam. Which she is not generally seen as strong on.

And there is a lot of coping from her fans.

[crowdvscritic]

round up // NOVEMBER 23 + DECEMBER 23 + JANUARY 24: CROWD vs. CRITIC vs. CHRISTMAS!

November and December push me to the limit—how many movies can I fit in before the end of the calendar year? In 2023 (plus a few bonus days), the answer was more than 130 new releases. And who wants to skip all of their favorite Christmas movies? Because I extend my holiday viewing into January, I fit in almost 90 this year, adding a few more to my all-time must-watch list. Once the Oscar noms were announced, I was already back to my usual shenanigans and had watched my 400th unique movie on Turner Classic Movies. Whether these statistics are cool or pathetic (erm, don’t tell me), I’m grateful for the slowness of Dump-uary and the depth that comes with thinking about the same Oscar-nominated films for several weeks. (Too bad we need to revisit Melissa Villaseñor’s Oscars snub song from SNL.)

To help sum up these three packed months, I’m resurrecting Crowd vs. Critic vs. Christmas: five crowd-pleasers, five critic picks, and five Christmas treats. Who says you can’t make these holiday recommendations part of your February entertainment?

Holiday Crowd-Pleasers

1. SNL Round Up

Studio 8H is making up for lost time after those strikes: 

“Question Quest” (4906 with Emma Stone)

“Beep Beep” (4907 with Adam Driver) - #SoMidwest

“Weekend Update: Chloe Fineman’s Save the Last Dance Holiday Gift” (4907)

“Tiny A** Bag” (4907)

“Christmas Awards Cold Open” (4908 with Kate McKinnon)

"North Pole News: Killer Whale Attack” (4908)

“ABBA Christmas” (4908)

“Yankee Swap” (4908)

“Please Don't Destroy - Roast” (4910 with Dakota Johnson) - As one who still has yet to understand the appeal of the PDD guys, this resonated with me

“The Barry Gibb Talk Show: 2024 Election” (4910)

“Weekend Update: A Guy Named Ethan on the 2024 Oscars Snubs” (4910) - I am...probably only a few years away from turning into Ethan?

2. Triple Feature - Big City Crime Thrillers: No Way Out (1987) + Cop Land (1997) + Widows (2018)

The stars aligned on all of these! In No Way Out (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10), Kevin Costner is assigned to investigate the murder of his secret lover (Sean Young) in Washington D.C. The twist? The person who assigned him the case was also her lover, Secretary of Defense Gene Hackman. In Cop Land (9/10 // 7.5/10), Sylvester Stallone sheriffs a New Jersey town that houses a corrupt batch of New York City cops (including Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta, and Robert Patrick) that Robert De Niro is investigating. In Widows (8.5/10 // 8.5/10), Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, and Michelle Rodriguez are completing the heist that killed their husbands (including Liam Neeson) in a corrupt Chicago run by Robert Duvall, Colin Farrell, Brian Tyree Henry, and Daniel Kaluuya. All are twisty, gritty, and thrilling.

3. Godzilla Minus One (2023)

Oh no, there goes Tokyo—but at least it’s going to a spectacle as fun and well-crafted as this one. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7/10

4. Double Feature - ‘90s Matt Damon Dramas: School Ties (1992) + The Rainmaker (1997)

Because Matt Damon has always been good! Though he’s not always been the good guy: In School Ties (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 8.5/10), Brendan Fraser must hide his Jewish identity to survive at a prep school in the ‘50s, and bullies like Damon are who he’s most afraid of. In The Rainmaker (9/10 // 8.5/10), Damon is the good guy as a baby-faced lawyer who wants to protect Claire Danes, Teresa Wright, and Mary Kay Place from villains like slick lawyer Jon Voight. Here’s hoping Damon has another coming-of-age movie (as a teacher) and legal thriller in his future.

5. The Jerk (1979)

Not every moment of this movie would fly if made today, but Steve Martin’s episodic adventures in his first journey away from home gave me some of my biggest laughs in months. Crowd: 9.5/10 // Critic: 8/10

More Holiday Crowd-Pleasers: Three Men and a Little Lady (1990) reminds us how much fun it is to let three charismatic movie stars (Ted Danson, Steve Guttenberg, and Tom Selleck) cook // The Mrs. Doubtfire National Tour is fluffy fun // Maggie Moore(s) (2023) is a true crime story that makes me wish Tina Fey and Jon Hamm could become the new Myrna Loy and William Powell // Quiz Lady (2023) lets Will Ferrell live out his Alex Trebek dreams // John Mulaney in Concert Tour is making me count down till his next special is released to get memes about his grandfather, his bus driver, and his son // Reacher Season 2 is the perfect action show to watch with my dad // I’m not sure if Man of the Year (2006) was prescient about the future of politics or if it just understood human nature well enough to anticipate the populist movement and election fraud conversations we’re having today, but this Robin-Williams-as-Jon-Stewart comedy is underrated // The real-world implications of V for Vendetta (2005) are…confusing, but this literary-inspired adventure is still thrilling // Desperado (1995) is an over-the-top, shoot-'em-up Western

Holiday Critic Picks

1. The Best of 2023

2023: a year of products, greed, put-upon employees, and artificial intelligence—and not just in the actors’ and writers’ strikes! It was also a great year for movies, which is why I couldn’t narrow down my list to just 10. Read my top 10 picks for 2023 movies, as well as 28 honorable mentions at ZekeFilm, and then check out the accompanying list on Letterboxd.

I also dug deeper into some of the films mentioned in my Best of 2023 in these reviews:

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes - ZekeFilm review

Maestro - ZekeFilm review

Priscilla -  ZekeFilm review, KMOV review, Do You Like Apples discussion, updated Letterboxd Sofia Coppola rankings

2. Double Feature - New Baseball Documentaries: It Ain’t Over (2022) + The League (2023)

I am not a Yankees fan, so who would have guessed that the Yogi Berra documentary It Ain’t Over (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8.5/10) would make me cry? And my baseball history knowledge always has room for improvement, so The League (8/10 // 9/10) is a phenomenal fix to many of my blind spots. Both are now inducted in my Baseball Movie Hall of Fame.

3. Triple Billing - Come From Away + Tina: The Tina Turner Musical + Funny Girl National Tours

Looking for a true story turned into an excellent musical? Try Come From Away, which captures the chaos of flights rerouted on 9/11 with the pathos you expect (and the comedy you don’t). Or try Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, which is one of the best—if not the best—jukebox musical I’ve seen because the songs are integrated into the story instead of just as a musical revue of a a well-known career. Or catch Funny Girl, which captures comedienne Fanny Brice’s life with the help of a powerhouse singer channeling Barbra Streisand’s powers. Better yet, I recommend not skipping any of them when they come to town if you can swing it.

4. Happiness Falls by Angie Kim (2023)

What do you do when your dad goes missing in the middle of a global pandemic and the only one who was with him when he disappeared is your non-verbal brother? That’s the central mystery of Angie Kim’s latest novel. Instead of an edge-of-your-seat-thriller, it’s a story that propels us forward with the questions that plague its characters.

5. Hollywood Victory: The Movies, Stars, and Stories of World War II by Christian Blauvelt (2021)

The Turner Classic Movies Library has yet to miss. Hollywood Victory doesn’t just provide an in-depth overview of Hollywood from 1933 to 1945. It’s an exploration of Hollywood’s inextricable relationship with American politics, its contributions that helped the Allies win the war, and a unusual but informative lens of movies and the war itself. It’s also a long set of additions to my watchlist—of the 260+ films referenced, I’ve only seen a quarter. Thank goodness for TCM and a DVR with unlimited space!

More Holiday Critic Picks: American Symphony, Chevalier, Fallen Leaves, Freud’s Last Session, and Master Gardener were all films in consideration for my Best of 2023 // Wes Anderson’s Roald Dahl short film adaptations Poison, The Rat Catcher, The Swan, and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023) are bite-sized, beautifully manicured delights // Debbie Reynolds paves the way the way for Kathy Bates’s Titanic role with her charismatic starring piece in the musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964) // Barbara Stanwyck is wonderful as always in the melodrama All I Desire (1953) // Hail the Conquering Hero (1944) is filled with some of Preston Sturges’s most fun mixups and hijinks

Holiday Treats

1. Ken The EP by Ryan Gosling and Mark Ronson

I don’t care if these are barely Christmas songs—let’s give Ryan Gosling seasonal updates of “I’m Just Ken” for all of 2024!

2. Mixed Nuts (1994)

Hot take: Steve Martin has not been in enough rom-coms. A kookier—but nonetheless delightful—brand of Nora Ephron stars Martin and Rita Wilson as co-workers at a crisis hotline who are clearly meant for each other. If only they—and Madeline Kahn, Juliette Lewis, Adam Sandler, Liev Schreiber, and Garry Shandling— could get out of their own way. Crowd: 7.5/10 // Critic: 6.5/10  

3. Fitzwilly (1967)

Christmas Ocean’s Eleven! Dick Van Dyke is as charming as ever and the vibes are as ‘60s as ever as he tries to pull off a heist at Gimbels on Christmas Eve. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 8/10

4. Metropolitan (1990)

Before Chris Eigeman was Jason Stiles on Gilmore Girls, he was essentially playing the same character in Whit Stillman’s comedy riff on The Great Gatsby. A young, bougie group is attempting to survive debutante season (also the Christmas season), debating the pros and cons of wealth and falling in and out of romance. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 9/10

5. The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944)

Hollywood Victory informed me I’m not the only who can’t believe this was allowed to play for audiences in 1944! Betty Hutton marries a soldier on a whim, but the next morning she can’t remember which one. Her BFF with an unrequited crush (Eddie Bracken) is the only one who can help her figure out who her husband—and the father of her child—is before the scandal gets out and destroys her reputation. Because this is a Preston Sturges feature, it’s actually a hilarious quest. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9/10

More Christmas Treats: Klaus (2019) is a hidden gem on Netflix // Okay, the ick factor in Susan Slept Here (1954) is real, but Dick Powell and Debbie Reynolds are just so darn charming! // 8-Bit Christmas (2021) is a better-than-it-needed-to-be update of A Christmas Story featuring a Nintendo instead of a BB gun // How did I never see Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) all the way through before this year? Once I realized I’d missed some scenes in my umpteen cable watches over the years, it shot up on my John Hughes rankings // Pocketful of Miracles (1961) is a delightful Cinderella tale that proves Bette Davis always had it 

Also this Holiday Season…

I reviewed even more new movies, including Next Goal Wins (ZekeFilm), The Marvels (KMOV), and the new Mean Girls musical (ZekeFilm)

The St. Louis Film Critics Association nominated and voted on our Best of 2023 films. You can see every winner and every film we nominated on Letterboxd, and you can read my summary of how I voted here on Crowd vs. Critic. Keep scrolling if you’re on the home page to my last post, or read it here.

Photo credits: Funny Girl, Happiness Falls, Hollywood Victory. All others IMDb.com.