#we have always known willem dafoe | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thenoisethatkeepsmeawake · 2 months ago

Note

Hi there! It seems like you watch a wide variety of horror movies. Could you recommend some interesting or unique vampire films that have caught your attention?

Hi there anon,

I'd sure like to help. Since you say "interesting or unique" I'll skip over the widely praised usual things. Vampire basics like Bram Stoker's Dracula (looks gorgeous, great cast, perfect soundtrack), The Lost Boys (peak 80s style) or Blade (great vampire action).

Only Lovers Left Alive - vampires are somewhat immortal and living long enough brings its own bag of emotions. Dread, depression, nihilism. Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston play longtime married vampires living mostly apart and drifting back into each other's life for a bit. Also blood sucking isn't all that fun with todays diseases. (IMDB)

Near Dark - this is a classic, but sometimes it gets overlooked. Director/writer Kathryn Bigelow tells a sorta western story, but there are vampires in it, except we don't even call them that. It starts with young dude means a beautiful woman, and oops she bites him and then he falls in with the crowd she hangs out with. Lots of violence in this one. (IMDB)

Stake Land - I really enjoy the film "Daybreakers" about a world with vampires being the dominant species and the problems it causes, that is a wider known film of that variety. "Stake Land" is like the discarded sibling, focusing on a post-apocalyptic atmosphere. A vampire hunter finds a survivor who just saw his family being slaughtered and they drive cross-country to hopefully find a safe place. If you like typical zombie-apocalypse genre conventions, then this is a nice vampire version. (IMDB)

Shadow of the Vampire - really not a hidden gem, but I have to mention it. This film tells the story of the filming of Murnau's 1922 "Nosferatu", but in this the lead actor Max Schreck is actually a vampire. Willem Dafoe gives a wonderful performance and it's just film history wrapped into vampire drama. (IMDB)

What We Do in the Shadows - this was definitely unique when it came out and hey, it spawned a whole tv show. A mockumentary about vampires just living in the real world. Just fun to watch. (IMDB)

Cronos - this is Guillermo del Toro's first feature film and tbh it's been forever since I've seen it. There is a device that grants immortality, but the side effects are pretty much turning into a vampire (the hunger for blood, not going out in the sun). An old man finds the device and a not so noble businessman desperately wants it. Fun to see early del Toro and his use of monsters vs human evil. (IMDB)

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night - an Iranian black-and-white film, about a female vampire who is drawn into some family drama about addiction. Not an easy watch, very stylistic (influenced highly by spaghetti western), but also really interesting with the themes of desire and danger. Unique for sure. (IMDB)

We Are the Night - if I'm really honest, I'm not sure I would even call this a good film. There is so much I'd like to change. BUT I also absolutely adore it for being unapologetic about a group of women doing what the fuck they want - as vampires. And there is a reason they don't turn men. This is something that can be build on. (IMDB)

Byzantium - full disclosure, I saw this once and didn't enjoy it much, but I want to give it another shot, because I think I was in the wrong mood back then. Director Neil Jordan is good with visuals and being weird like in "Interview with the Vampire", "The Butcher Boy" ot"Breakfast on Pluto". And here he tells a long interwoven life story of a mother and daughter vampire duo. In a world where vampires have a strict code and used to be mostly noble men. So there is class and gender in the mix, lots of sexuality (there is rape and prostitution) etc etc. Maybe this could be for you, idk. (IMDB)

Let the Right on in - always to be found on a list like this. There is the Swedish film (based on the book) and an US remake that made a few choice changes, but is overall still worth watching. Kinda a bummer to put it out as a vampire film right away. When I read the book I thought it was just a serial killer story and the twists and turns of who is who was a wild ride. There is a young boy who gets bullied at school, but befriends the new kid in the neighborhood who seems to live a weird life. Heavy themes about grooming and the true horror only sets in at the end. (IMDB)

As for simple vampire action, I do love the "Underworld" series. This year's "Abigail" shouldn't have revealed it was a vampire film at all, but it's very bloody and funny, so a quick watch. Also a bloody good time is "30 Days of Night", and I stand by my belief that red blood looks fantastic on white snow. If you like animated films, the anime "Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust" is a great gothic vampire love story. There's lots to find.

#anon ask #ramblings

5 notes · View notes

thorntonkrell-blog-blog · 10 months ago

Text

Through the grapevine I leaned about Poor Things a few months ago when I first heard raves about Emma Stone's performance in a film that might be coming to a theater near me. If I was in Rochester, no doubt that the film would be available because we have the always reliable Little theater to release movies that have a limited release due to the "artiness" of their presentation. Artiness tends to mean their distance from the marvelous and the pursuit of popularity.

I like Emma Stone. I was glad she won a Golden Globe for her performance as best actress for her role in Poor Things. I'm also a fan of Willem Defoe and Mark Ruffallo who were also nominated.Aside from that I knew nothing about the film so I was pretty sure that I would be surprised by the film. I didn't expect to be astonished/flabbergasted.

I didn't expect such an orgasmic performance from Emma. If I put on my prude hat, I can honestly say Poor Things is the that this is the Filthiest movie ever to be nominated for so many awards so apparently prurience is on the rise.

Taking off that heavy hat, what's the problem with full frontals and female orgasms.

Nuthin' wrong with any of that.

Poor things is like a combination Frankenstein, Edward Scissorhands, Bride of Frankenstein, mixed somehow with steam punk, extreme brash humor and sexual liberation.

Emma plays Bella Baxter. Bella is the recreation of Godwin (God) Baxter played by the great Willem Dafoe who portrays both Doctor and monster Frankenstein who guides Bella through her awkward, stumbling Elsa Lancaster stage of development although unlike Elsa, Bella is not horrified by her manufactured state but rather enbraces it with a splendid awkwardness as she lurches around breaking glass in the privacy of God's London townhouse. Also unlike Elsa, Emma is seeking human connection which leads hr into the arms of Duncan Wunderburn (played by Mark Ruffalo. Duncan takes Bella on an uncontrollable journey of debauchery highlighted by a trip to Paris where Belle gets a taste of the oldest profession and she loves it (particularly the furious jumping)which demolishes Wunderburn and leads her back to God and her betrothed.

Yeah

Poor Things has a built in Oscar advantage to balance out the disadvantage of fornication, full frontalism, penises and pubic hair. The advantage is that Poor Things despite the eye popping costumery, snappy editing, hallucingenic cinematography is not going to draw a big crowd. It's too poetic to be popular in spite of Emma's stagggering performance.

When the movie ended I semi-whispered "Whoa".

The other male in the audience raised my "whoa" with "I wasn't expecting THAT!" THAT includes Emma/Belle experiencing multiple orgasms which are captured up close and personal as he batttles against the power of patriarch towards her eventual liberation through innocent impudence and child like abandon.

Yeah

Poor Things sure ain't Barbie.

I preferred Barbie, myself but ....

Whoa.

Yorgos Lanthimos seems delighted in depicting extreme behavior within pristine settings, whether it’s the quiet suburbia of “Dogtooth” or the clinical lab of “The Lobster” or the opulent grandeur of “The Favourite.” That glaring contrast between the expectations of decorum and the messy truth of humanity seems to fascinate him endlessly.

Willem Dafoe on God's relationship with Bella at the 'Poor Things' premiere in NYC

Nowhere is this conflict more exaggerated and entertaining than in his latest film, and his best yet, “Poor Things.” Everything here is wonderfully bizarre, from the performances and dialogue to the production and costume design. And yet at its core, as is so often the case in the Greek auteur’s movies, “Poor Things” is about the awkwardness of forging a real human connection. We want to know each other and make ourselves known. The figure at the film’s center, Bella Baxter, seeks to achieve enlightenment, become her truest self, and establish enriching relationships with people who genuinely love her and don’t just want to control her. The nuts and bolts of this story may sound familiar: A young woman embarks on an odyssey of exploration and finds her identity was within her all along. The execution, however, is constantly astonishing.

It's Victorian London, and Emma Stone’s Bella lives in a tasteful townhouse with the mad scientist who also serves as her father figure. As Dr. Godwin Baxter, Willem Dafoe offers a gentle presence beneath his scarred visage. Bella is a grown woman but behaves like a toddler at first, grunting out words and throwing plates and dancing gleefully around stiff-legged. She calls him God, and that’s actually not hyperbole. We will learn the backstory behind all of this in time, and I wouldn’t dream of giving any of it away here.

Godwin is one of several men who try to mold Bella over the course of her development; one of his students, Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), is another. Max moves in with the intention of assisting Godwin in his research but ends up falling in love with Bella and asking her to marry him, and Youssef brings an element of warmth and reason to this otherwise mad world. But he’s no match for Mark Ruffalo, an obvious cad with the very proper name of Duncan Wedderburn, who whisks her away on a lavish world tour. This consists mostly of vigorous sex in a variety of positions—which Bella calls “furious jumping” in her rapidly maturing mind—and it’s a key element to both her independence and the film’s brash humor.

Reuniting with Lanthimos after “The Favourite,” Stone gives the performance of a lifetime in a role that has a staggering degree of difficulty. This could have gone horribly wrong; instead, what she’s doing is wildly alive and unpredictable in ways large and small. Watching her start out big and broad and fine tune the character little by little, physically and verbally, as Bella evolves is a wonder to behold. She’s doing such technically precise comedic work here, especially during the character’s childlike origins, but eventually she’s captivating when she’s fully in command as a sexually liberated woman. Enormously likable, she quickly wins us over to her side even when she’s being an impudent brat, and she keeps us rooting for her in the face of increasing patriarchal oppression.

Ruffalo, meanwhile, is hysterically funny in a way you’ve never seen him before. He’s both a charismatic Lothario and a preening buffoon. He’s also unexpectedly sexy, and, in time, amusingly pathetic. Also among the stacked supporting cast are comedian Jerrod Carmichael and German legend Hanna Schygulla as traveling companions who give Bella a boost in her quest toward self-possession. A sly bit involving a book on a cruise ship is particularly funny. The petite but powerful Kathryn Hunter, so startling recently as the Witches in Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” provides a spicy, spiky presence as a Paris madame, but even that small role includes shading you might not expect at the outset.

So much of what is pleasing about “Poor Things” comes from the specificity of the language. In adapting the novel by Alasdair Gray, Tony McNamara’s screenplay begins in intentionally disjointed and stilted fits and starts, but it has a rhythmic poetry about it. The dialogue becomes more florid as Bella blossoms in her intellectualism, and it’s a joy to watch Stone seize upon the complexity of her proclamations. McNamara’s writing here isn’t as deliciously mean as it was in Lanthimos’ “The Favourite,” but it bounces along with a witty bite all its own.

In creating the grandiosity of this world, Robbie Ryan’s cinematography is stunningly beautiful in varied textures and hues. “Poor Things” begins in grainy black and white when Bella is more childlike, with plenty of fish-eye lenses and peepholes to keep us off balance and urge us to lean closer. But it steadily opens up into lush, wondrous color as Bella comes into her own; the nighttime skies during the ocean voyage portion of her journey are particularly awesome. This evolution may sound obvious, but it feels like a magic trick he’s pulled off right before our eyes.

The costume design from Holly Waddington convincingly tells Bella’s story in detailed, vibrant ways. Simple white nightgowns in her girlish state give way to puffed-sleeve explosions, each more elaborate than the last. And the production design from Shona Heath and James Price—where to begin in singing their praises? From Godwin’s slightly off-kilter house to a luxurious Lisbon hotel to a cramped Paris brothel, each new setting imaginatively reinvents the kinds of historical images we might think we know, only through an outlandish prism with hints of Escher and Gaudi.

But none of these exquisite technical elements matter if we don’t care about the woman at the center of them. And we do. Bella remains kind and optimistic even as she sees the truth of the outside world, but she’s also learned enough to assert her newfound power when necessary. It’s as if “Barbie” were actually about Weird Barbie, but even that idea doesn’t quite do it justice. A more apt description is: It’s the best movie of the year.

Willem Dafoe on God's relationship with Bella at the 'Poor Things' premiere in NYC

0 notes

librarycard · 2 months ago

Text

@shrimplysleepy Basically everything on the internet is NOT shelf stable and the older it gets the more it rots like actually rots (see data rot wikipedia page) in some way, especially if it’s not maintained, plus as the internet rapidly evolves and sheds its skin websites go down left and right, meaning we’re (depressingly) in the prime age of lost media. whether it’s games, movies, shows, videos, audio, web pages, informational sites (yahoo answers for ex.), etc. we are losing shit all the time.

think of it this way. whatever crazy shit You (royal you; plural) said about willem dafoes penis is straight up going to the void when tumblr kicks the bucket one day. Gone forever.

the only way to mitigate this is to archive web pages, which is why i always say to people if there’s something on the internet you love and never want to lose; save that shit on the way back machine or, if you’re more familiar with the process or want to be, even using a .warc file and emulator to maintain it in your personal storage. this, or pirate that shit. Save it on your computer, save it on drives, save multiple copies for christs sake and remember to keep an eye on these files for rot especially if it’s exclusively using external storage. hard drives as another ex. can sometimes literally melt your information if it has even a small bug!

here’s a quick breakdown of digital archival theory and what those in my field are thinking about all the time:

- how do we save shit from being spontaneously and sometimes quietly killed

- how do we recover shit we lost (usually we can’t if no one saved it somewhere privately)

- piracy is if not an already growing professional practice it is going to be. think of the shows that are being erased at the whim of streaming services or companies that acquired the rights to them. a serious example of this is rooster teeth, a 21 year old media production company responsible for popular media series such as red vs blue and rwby, as well as the first people to ever create (or rather refer to by title) what is now known as Let’s Plays, meaning being funny/silly/conversational on camera while you play a game. And they were put on the chopping block this year after being acquired by warner. after 21 years. and the only reason we still have some of their stuff is because someone went through and saved everything they could before the website disappeared and put it in a digital archive. but so much is gone that i loved and that innovated the gaming industry, just like that.

- This is something archivists are asking each other themselves. We are having to evolve quickly under extreme pressure to keep up with the changing internet and what it means to digitally preserve something. There are still people in my field who don’t even know that the internet isn’t permanent, and that’s why the society of american archivists and similar organizations are revising their expectations/code (think hippocratic oath; essentially, most librarians and archivists “take” one by getting their masters/etc) to include keeping up with new innovations in our field especially regarding the digital landscape.

- what you need to understand is that archivists will likely not think to save your favorite site, images, music because we don’t know about it. if you want to keep something, do it yourself (most easily done on wayback). if you think it is important in some way, get in contact with digital archivists and ask them what you can do to make sure something is preserved.

- another example of why this is so important is censorship. in the time of intense racial violence and genocide we are watching people’s documentation (videos/pictures/etc.) being taken down in real time. save this shit yourself. you never know what they decide should go next—but you can predict it by monitoring the ways that social movements such as the Black Lives Matter movement are going to be suppressed not just in our physical world, but also our digital one.

i’ll shut up now even though i could keep going. i hope you found this informative! i am not an expert in my field, just a grad student, and don’t know everything, but this is what i do know: so many things i love about the internet are gone. so many things i love about the internet are going to face the same fate. but i sure as shit will be ready.

every time someone makes a comment about a permanent digital footprint web devs and digital scholars take a shot and choke on it because they cant help from bursting into uproarious laughter

#im hungover helping run a conference right now so im sorry if this isnt the best explanation. but thank you for asking

154 notes · View notes

ledenews · 2 years ago

Text

Eli Lambie: It’s the Smiles That Measure His Success

He was 15 years old – and looked maybe 12 – when he timidly introduced himself to live music fans throughout the Upper Ohio Valley, and that’s because he had decided he was ready to perform in from of more people than his family, friends, and his classmates at Wheeling Park High. His name? Eli Lambie … and wow, one must ask themselves, who does the kid look like? Since then, Lambie has performed the platinum tunes from back in the 1960s-70s, he’s composed and performed classical arrangements with the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra, and while it has always seemed he can play every existing instrument, he has fine-tuned his vocals to “Wow, who’s that?” levels. Now, Eli is an award-winning music educator in Marshall County that parents feel lucky to have in their school district. It was his peers and administrators who voted for him to receive the 2023 Society for General Music Teacher of the Year, and he’s been the music teacher at Washington Lands Elementary for the past five years. It did not take that long, though, for Lambie to reach a different milestone, one connected with his career as a live performer and as a band leader here in the Upper Ohio Valley and beyond. For a few years after emerging onto the live and local music scene in the Wheeling area, Eli was a piece of someone else’s orchestra, but now he’s the conductor of his very own, Eli and the Mojo Kings. THAT’S IT! Right? You’ve got it! That’s when it finally comes to you! The look-alike! It’s that movie actor, the one from Spider-Man and The Lighthouse, Aquaman, and Platoon … that Willem Dafoe … that’s who looks just like Eli Lambi. Wow, lucky actor ... lucky Uncle Willem, that is. Lambie has been the featured performer with the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra. What do you cook really well and how do you know you do? I wish I could say I cooked something well, but I am an awful cook. Here’s a brief anecdote to sum up my abilities as a chef; When I was a kid, I followed my mother’s cookie recipe while I was at home on a snow day. I used confectioners’ sugar instead of flour and…. well… you can imagine how that turned out. Today, I take great pride in my ability to make a mean peanut butter and jelly sandwich on an English muffin. I’m fortunate to have a family and friend network of fantastic cooks, and I eat very well when I’m on the road for shows. If I’m invited to a dinner and need to bring something, I’m bringing the wine! (I’m known for always bringing great wine to dinner parties thanks to Corey at Casa di Vino in Center Market.) What musical genre do you prefer the most, and why? I don’t have a single genre that I prefer most. My tastes are always changing, and I go through phases of playing and listening to different types of music. One genre I always seem to come back to is classical music. I love listening to Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Liszt, and other Romantic period composers. Their music is timeless, elegant, and beautiful. Eli and the Mojo Kings play several gigs each year in the Wheeling area, but they perform outside the area as well. For what reasons did you form the Mojo Kings, and do you feel the band has been as successful as you thought it would be? As a young musician, I had the honor of playing with many talented artists. I enjoyed being a part of their projects, but I was ready to start my own. Our valley is saturated with talented musicians, and I’m fortunate to have eight outstanding musicians in my group. Success is difficult to measure, and there is always room for growth. I don’t know if I knew exactly what to expect going into the Mojo Kings, but I have really enjoyed how the journey has unfolded for us thus far. I am proud to say that we have brought happiness to a lot of people through our music. The group gets better and better every year, and I can’t wait to see where our journey takes us next. Why do you believe you’ve experienced so much success as a music educator? When I was in school, I had many tremendous music educators that inspired me to pursue music. They modeled how bringing the gift of music to their students can change their lives for the better. Without their positive example, I wouldn’t be the teacher I am today. I love what I do. Making music with my students brings me great joy. We are always singing, dancing, moving, and playing instruments. Keeping students engaged in class helps them to grow a love and passion for music. When I was in school, I was not the easiest student. I was creative, off the walls, and always thinking/acting outside of the box. These quirks have become an asset in my teaching. My wild lessons use music to take students everywhere. When students enter my room, they never know where they’re going to end up. We could end up in a foreign country, on the face of the moon, or in the middle of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. When students leave my room, they leave with smiles on their faces, a greater sense of connection to the world and the people around them, and a love of music. Eli enjoys collecting cool cars when he's not creating original music. If you could play one role your uncle has played in a movie, what role would it be? I don’t think my acting skills would ever come close to measuring up to my Uncle Willem’s. If I could do anything, I’d love to write the film score for one of his movies. I love writing for orchestra and believe that great music can make or break a movie. Read the full article

0 notes

theharpermovieblog · 2 years ago

Text

#HARPERSMOVIECOLLECTION

2023

I re-watched Anti Christ (2009)

Hated and loved and forever controversial.

After the death of their child, a couple known simply as She and He, experience brutal guilt and grief to the point of shocking brutality.

The controversy surrounding this film, comes mainly from it's horrific elements. It is absolutely a horror film in every sense of the word. From it's most mystical fantasy moments, to it's gore and it's reflections upon human nature, Anti Christ is a very difficult watch, never relenting it's viciously somber tone.

There has been talk of the film being misogynistic. I very much don't agree. While the story does have direct correlations to adam and eve, it's not as clear cut as that. I see in this film, as within almost every Von Trier film I watch, a male character full of narcissistic behavior and brutality that exists only for his own ego. It was the same with Matt Dillon's character in The House That Jack Built, as well as Kiefer Sutherland's and John Hurt's characters in Melancholia. Men with no actual care or love for women, just a desire to feel superior to them. He isn't caring for She because he loves her. He wants to fix her because it will give him an ego trip. He gets her to stop taking prescribed medications, almost jealous of her getting help from another man, her doctor. At the same time he holds her, feigning care and compassion for her feelings of guilt. It's all for him. Yes, she is the one seen perpetrating what could be considered the real horrors here, but if He had truly cared about her, he would have put his ego aside. He may believe he loves her and she may believe he doesn't, neither are correct.

As the film moves on, otherworldly animals come into play. The famous line by the fox, "Chaos Reigns", expressing an inability to deny ones own chaotic nature, because we are animals and we are nature. There is no escaping that. The loss of their child is due to He and She having sex and not constantly watching their child. It's not their fault, but it is their fault. It is Chaos. Are either of them evil for what they have done and what they will do? No, they have no real control.

Soon comes the violence. The violence is brutal and sexually driven. She wants to destroy his and her sexuality as it is what she sees as the cause of their child's death. What she does to Him and to herself is an attempt to take some form of control over their very nature. An attempt to end the chaos.

There's a lot more here I want to talk about, but I just don't think it can all be discussed in a short write up.

As are all of Von Trier's films, Anti Christ is an absolute visual masterpiece. Whatever you think of the film's themes or it's moments of extreme violence, you can not deny that this director is technically incredible.

On top of that, the acting from Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg is incredible. The kind of acting that is purely an art.

The film doesn't only shock, it buries you in atmosphere. It doesn't care about your enjoyment as a film goer. It's not made to be enjoyed, just seen and experienced. It's a film about pure depression and sadness and it wants you to feel that as the characters do, before it shows you pure horror and repulses you.

And it should repulse you. This isn't the kind of horror violence you should be excited to see. It should make you sick and you shouldn't want to see it.

I'm a big fan of Lars Von Trier. His films are deeply challenging stories melded together with a ton of technical talent. Whether they are horrific, dramatic, comedic or as close as they come to unwatchable, they are always worth my time as someone who loves film.

All that being said, I don't think I'll be watching this movie again anytime soon. Its absolutely devastating, and as much as that's praise to Von Trier's talent, there's only so much a fan can handle.

#antichrist #lars von trier

0 notes

biglisbonnews · 2 years ago

Photo

Willem Dafoe Let Emma Stone Slap Him 20 Times Emma Stone slapped Willem Dafoe 20 times on the set of AND. How does it feel to know someone else is living your fantasy? But Dafoe didn’t do it for love, he did it for the craft. We all know Dafoe is an unrelenting actor. For The Lighthouse, he grew a beard, learned to knit and smoked a pipe to perfect his role, but he’s also willing to go to great lengths — specifically arm lengths — for others to achieve the most captivating performance. In a profile of Dafoe for The New York Times, Stone revealed that she slapped Dafoe 20 times while shooting a scene that Dafoe does not even appear in. The off-camera slap would ordinarily be struck against thin air, but Dafoe insisted on stepping in to achieve the most genuine gesture. He took the hit, albeit in a staged manner, 20 times before they wrapped the scene. Little is known about the plot of AND or the scene that required Stone to slap Dafoe twenty times, but the film's director, Yorgos Lanthimos, weighed in that Dafoe’s commitment was fundamental to filming. Dafoe was also described as “self-motivating to set” in that he showed up on days he wasn’t required.“That’s what you want from actors,” Lanthimos told The New York Times, “to want to be part of it in any way.”And Dafoe had a hand in it all (and a Stone-sized handprint on his face). “There’s this instinct to perform that many actors have — the ‘look at me, look at me!’ kind of performer,” Stone said. “He’s the opposite of that.” But Dafoe conceded that his ego hasn’t always been so bare. His approach to acting has moved inward over time; as Stone put it, he went from “‘I to ‘We,’” or, as Dafoe shared, acting has become “like a spiritual thing — to find your connection with all things.” The premiere date of the spiritual slap film has not been announced, but with Lanthimos and Stone’s last collaboration (The Favourite) earning 10 Oscars, the Greek director’s Dafoe-fronted project is highly anticipated. Photo courtesy of BFA/ Virisa Yong https://www.papermag.com/emma-stone-willem-dafoe-2659498549.html

#Emma stone #Willem dafoe #Yorgos lanthimos #Film #Kenna McCafferty #PAPER

0 notes

pascalina · 4 years ago

Text

The brothers' movie

11/07/2015

They don't use the same last name, but they are siblings. Pedro Pascal (40) the Chilean actor who starred in Game of Thrones and now has a starring role in the Netflix series Narcos, uses his mother's surname because it is easier to pronounce in English. 17 years younger, Lucas Balmaceda Pascal (23), also an actor, debuted in Los 80 and today stars in the TVN series Juana Brava. Here, both talk for the first time about their relationship, their love for cinema and their mutual admiration.

José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal was born in Chile, but a few months later he had to go into exile with his parents and his older sister, Javiera, to Denmark. It was the end of 1975. Thanks to the Rockefeller scholarship granted for his father, the doctor José Balmaceda Riera, a year later they moved to the United States: first they lived in San Antonio, Texas. Life there was just beginning and it was not easy.

Seventeen years later, in 1992, Lucas Balmaceda was born in Orange County, California, into the comfort of a family that was financially in its prime. His dad was at the peak of his career: as a fertility specialist and director of one of the University of California's reproductive health centers. But suddenly they moved back to Chile when Lucas was three years old and his brother Nicolas was eight. The two older ones stayed there. Pedro was already studying drama at Orange County High School of the Arts. Then he went to New York to study theater at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.

After a couple of small appearances in TV series, in 2014 he took the big leap in his career: he played Prince Oberyn in Game of Thrones, which made him world famous. Today, he has a starring role in the series Narcos. He is also filming a movie with Matt Damon and Willem Dafoe.

Fame came early for Lucas. After leaving Saint George High School in 2010, he studied theater at the Universidad Católica, and he began to shine: in year fourth, he starred in the theater play "La noche obstinada", by choreographer Pablo Rotemberg, and got a role in the successful television series Los 80 and today, in his last year, he is the co-star of Juana Brava, the new TVN nighttime series.

Scene one:

Lucas appears in Pedro's life

P: "I was 17 when Lucas was born. He was a baby when I left to go to university. I remember my first visit back and Lucas, who was not even two years old, was already the owner of the house. I remember those looks, wanting to tell me: 'I don't know who you are, but this is my house, mate.

To this day I have never seen that personality in another child. It was fascinating to see that wit in someone so small. Since he was a kid he had that fierce intelligence... The four siblings, Javiera, the eldest and the queen of the family; Nicolas, the doctor; Lucas and I are like a compact and consistent unit. I can't imagine life without them".

L: "Pedro was studying at the university in New York when I was born. When he went home for vacations to see the family, as I didn't know him, I thought: 'who is this guest, who is this weirdo who kisses my mother? She's mine!'. Back in Chile, every year Pedro came to visit us. It was the most entertaining thing in the world for me. He was much older and he would come with all the coolness, with all the culture of cinema, with horror movies that were not available here. Then we would watch them and play them out, we would do sketches. We would play that Pedro was a murderous monster and we would escape from him. We were each a character. He was very funny, he did voices, he impersonated people. He gets mad when I tell him, but I've always found that he has a Jim Carrey thing about him, he manages to make some impressive faces. When he came on, I couldn't stop watching him, he was too entertaining. We are all big movie buffs thanks to my dad. When I was three years old, he took my brothers and me to see Batman. I remember crying hysterically. I was very young, sensitive, and being in the cinema was like entering to another reality: loud noises, giant screen. I didn't understand anything.

Scene two

Transplanted

P: "What's Chilean about me and what's gringo about me is a very interesting question, because I don't think even at 40 years old I've been able to figure it out. I was raised and educated in the United States and socialized a lot with American pop culture, but Chilean pride has always been unwavering. My parents were exiled for eight years. So our visits to Chile were regular. My whole life I have lived in the United States and my whole life I have visited my relatives in Chile. However, since my siblings were raised in Chile, my connection to the country is much stronger today and it is something I am grateful for. Something that happens to me a lot is that when I say I've been in the U.S. my whole life, they say, "Well, you're a gringo then! And after a conversation in my fluent Spanish with a clear Chilean accent that same person turns around and says: I've been listening to you, you're Chilean!

L: "I am Chilean because I lived and grew up here since I was three years old, but at the same time I have a cultural disconnection: my parents lived 25 years in the United States, my brothers are gringos. My visual culture is super gringo, the TV shows I watched when I was a kid or the movies I watch to this day I understand them from that place: as an American. More than being born in the United States, I feel it's because of my family's background".

SCENE THREE:

The performance

P: "There were good years and bad years (when I started my acting career in the United States). Many years I was a waiter to supplement my income. But from a very young age I was auditioning for professional jobs. In my late twenties my career in the theater was relatively consistent. Then, when opportunities in television arose, I was consolidating and it became much easier to pay my expenses. I think that struggle, going through those situations, empowers you a lot and it's one of the things I'm enormously grateful for. And Game of Thrones was an incredible gift. It's the best role I've ever played and they're the best people I've ever worked with."

L: "It's Pedro's fault that I wanted to be an actor. But when I told him I wanted to study theater it was hard for him, more than anything, because he cares about me and studying theater is hard. You have to be very wise and have a super high self-esteem to take care of yourself. Pedro went through many things. If there is an actor who doesn't have contacts in the United States, it's him. Everything he has achieved is because of his work. That's why when people ask me why I don't go to the U.S., it's a resounding no. Being Pedro Pascal's little brother is not going to get me around the corner; I would have to be Tom Cruise's twin to achieve anything. Even so, Pedro had many failed career starts. In 2011, for example, he was offered a starring role in a series called Wonder Woman and it was eventually canceled. That's why, when Games of Thrones came up, I was like, wow! We were all freaking out, because Games of Thrones is like a worldwide trending topic. All the episodes he was in, we were all watching them together at my house, eating pizza or sushi."

SCENE FOUR:

Mutual lessons

P: "I try not to get too involved in anything Lucas does or how he does it. He has single-handedly created each of his experiences and is one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen. He loves his work and is continually developing his skills for television and theater, and eventually film. He executes like a real artist and, to be honest, it is more common for me to learn something from him than for him to learn something from me. I mean that very sincerely. Lucas reminds me to work hard and keeps me inspired. When I saw him in Los 80 I was incredibly proud, but not surprised. I was seeing something I had always known. The only advice I've given him is to not be such a workaholic, to take care of himself and to be proud of what he's accomplished and what he still has yet to accomplish. Deep down, I'm always going to be the protective big brother."

L: "Pedro is an object of admiration for me. What he says is law for me. Sometimes I ask him: 'Pedro, did you see that movie?' and he says: 'Yes, I didn't like it'. I tell him: 'Oh, I didn't like it either'. The nice thing about our relationship is that it happens so sporadically, once or twice a year, that the moments when we see each other are very intense. We either fight a lot or we love each other too much, but it's always like a story, like a movie. While he's there and I'm here, we talk a lot on WhatsApp and Facebook".

P: "With Lucas we always keep each other up to date on what movies to watch, what TV shows are good. I bug him all the time asking him about what's going on in his life and I'm always asking him about his perspective on things. Despite being away from each other for a long time, Lucas and I are very close and always have been. I see Lucas at the beginning of an amazing career, with an unwavering curiosity and passion. I love it when he confides in me about things he is enjoying or situations he is dealing with."

L: "I've never seen Pedro in theater, but I've been told he's tremendous. On camera, I find that he has a very intense look. He also has, and in that we are very similar, a very strong visual culture, the fact that we have always liked horror movies. He plays characters that hide something, dark characters. A great strength is that he is very sensual, he knows how to handle himself well from seduction".

P: "Lucas is brave, he's fearless. There's nothing he's not willing to try, he's never going to give up on a challenge, he's never going to leave something halfway, no matter what that means to him. Lucas is unstoppable.

Link interview

#pedro pascal #lux pascal #siblings

175 notes · View notes

elysian-entries · 4 years ago

Text

One film, two visions; The Justice League

It’s 2017; the highly anticipated “Justice League” film, directed by Zack Snyder, is set to be released later in the year as a continuation of the DCEU.

A blockbuster movie showcasing the biggest DC characters uniting. Taking down the ultimate super villain; bound to fulfil millions of past and present children’s, as well as current adults and elderly dreams.

Then a fork in the road appears, Snyder and his wife, Deborah, step down from the colossal project due to the incredibly woeful loss of their daughter, Autumn. News hits the fans like a brick. Resulting in Joss Whedon and the Warner Bros. Studio stepping up to the mantle. Or at least attempting to.

Whedon's theatrical cut lost Warner Bros. Pictures approximately $60 million dollars. With overall painfully negative reviews and reception. Breaking the hearts of DC fans everywhere.

4 years, campaigns, hashtags, sky banners, petitions, and billboards later; I can’t say how many of us would have predicted receiving the holy gift that is the “Snyder Cut”, in its full 4 hour running time glory (in a 4:3 ratio, which somehow adds to the grandeur). 4 years of dedicated, passionate and determined people helping in any way they can for the cause. It was a journey to behold.

A large section in Snyder’s 4 hour venture is used to build dimension and depth in the characters. Making an absolute world of a difference. Something that was sorely lacking in Whedon's cut. The film had a completely different feel and atmosphere instantly.

There's no better example of increased depth in characters than Cyborg's (Ray Fisher's) narrative. I was engaged, and intrigued by his story. In Whedon’s cut, he isn't even given a second thought. His entire backstory was cut as well as his father's important role also being stripped. His scene where he sacrificed himself in order for them to find the mother box was gone. And it took away such an important, integral part in Cyborgs story, and in the film in general I believe and also realised having seen the two movies; the complicated but delicately developing relationship between father and son. And just the whole story in general made such a difference in Snyder's cut, it really is almost indescribable the difference it made. It just felt so much more genuine and heartfelt. Like a real developed and executed narrative.

In Snyder's cut we were shown detailed flashbacks that fully fleshed out his character, his morals and his relationships. Creating a much needed deeper connection with the audience. We experience his conflicting journey to accepting his responsibility, accepting the past, the "gift he has", and his purpose in the league. Leading into receiving closure. He was given great and meaningful importance and purpose in this cut.

Similarly, Ezra Miller's Flash was too given a largely more meaningful and impactful role that left quite the impression on me. His character was light-hearted and charming but still had those important, emotionally impactful scenes. Which were painfully lacking in Whedon's cut. I was left loving Barry Allen a lot more than I already did. Barry's scenes with his wrongly convicted father were hard hitting for me. They also play a large part in making later scenes more impactful. Like his detrimental importance during the final fight. In Whedon's cut his big hero moment was saving a Russian family. The overall the inclusion of the family was superfluous and extraneous, along with the robber at the start and many other things. Not only that but Whedon's cut gave the Flash a silly, attempted comical relief role. To be fair he attempted to give everybody a comical relief role. Which hardly worked because none of the attempts were actually funny and were at time agonizing. It ultimately lacked substance and came across as almost immature. The scene where Barry went on about brunch was painful. Leading me to ask, why? Why was this so important to film Whedon?

After re-watching Whedon’s version, I had gained a new found appreciation for Snyder's representation of Barry. '"Make your own future, make your own past"; he echoes his father’s words. "Your son really was one of them, the best of the best," as his theme "At the Speed of Force" plays in the background of this pivotal moment. A powerful scene reflecting Barry's ulterior motive, doing his father proud. Which invoked many tears. And still does whenever I re-watch the scene or listen to the song. As if it were the first time experiencing it. Thomas Holkenborg's soundtrack truly amplified emotion and made the scenes much more powerful, It makes for one of the absolute best scenes in the movie; I'd say one of, if not my absolute favourite.

His job in charging up Victor was completely removed and I have to wonder why. Instead Barry was left to participate in "bug duty" (bugs being one of his fears also). Barry's role in Snyder's cut, and that one incredible scene where he broke the rule was arguably better than Whedon's Justice League as a whole.

I think the only scene in Whedon's cut involving Barry that I thought was actually meaningful was where he was faced with his first real mission. And he was confronted with his fears of "obnoxiously tall" beings. He appeared anxious and frantic. Fearful. Communicating to us his inexperience. And Batman simply told him to just "save one". To which he then, without struggle, saved them all. And was also able to participate in the final battle. The "save one" scene made those achievements more meaningful.

The scene after they won the battle, showcases the victorious team standing proud; and Barry with a sweet, goofy, golden retriever-esque smile plastered on his face. What a loveable smile.

An interesting contrast is the scene in where Barry reveals to his father his new position at an “actual job”. In Snyder’s cut the father was absolutely over the moon, shouting at the top of his lungs, "his foot is in the door!" repeatedly in excitement. It tugged at my heart strings; his shameless pride in his son. Making me wonder how he would have shown his pride if he found out Barry saved the whole Earth and humanity. We can assume Barry had that unequivocally powerful underlying thought too. Contributing to his saccharine reaction. In Whedon’s cut the reaction was softer and more timid but nonetheless a sweet moment. Barry becoming bashful.

It was a sweet touch to have Cyborg and Flash finally fist bump during that victorious scene after Victor rejected Barry's initial advance in Whedon's cut. Ezra Miller improvising that “racially charged” line, acknowledging the possible racism attached to a fist bump I assume. The whole fist bumping being "racially charged" was not included in Snyder's cut. The grave digging scene was entirely different. Which I far more preferred. It was a group excursion. With a little positive interaction between the Atlantean and the Amazonian. And funnier, more light-hearted dialogue between Barry and Victor.

Aquaman’s contrast was interesting. In Whedon’s cut he actually sought out to obtain the trident to help the league (although he was always disagreeing with them). Compared to Snyder; where he was apprehensive and had to be hesitantly persuaded by Willem Dafoe’s character Vulko (who was completely absent from Whedon’s cut). This was also an importantly established relationship by Snyder. Arthur first makes his desire to help the the team known saving them from the water rushing from Gotham Harbour. He isn't acknowledged in the theatrical cut but in Snyder's cut Diana notices and takes a moment to take in his presence (I assume?). Then Barry asks who that guy is. And of course we all know, it's Aquaman.

I particularly liked how Snyder chose to include Barry asking for Arthur's opinion on military hats. It's an odd, minimalistic thing to include - the reasoning as to why I like it. I also thought it was quite charming.

A scene I think deserves a mention is when Aquaman is first introduced, and then rejects Bruce's offer, he then makes his way back into the ocean. A farewell song is performed. This was quite early in the film and I think the voices being hauntingly beautiful, yet slightly eerie/poignant set the perfect atmosphere. A well done scene.

His overall character was also contrasting. He became a genuine hero who was proved capable of more than water powers and silly moments. Including that god-awful lasso of truth scene. In the theatrical cut he was bitter, a bit of a joke, not caring too much about the events that were unfolding. He had more of a heroes’ sense of purpose within Snyder’s cut.

Gal Gadot did not gain too much from the extra scenes. Though different to the theatrical cut, Snyder had paired her with a repetitive character establishing theme. It could be referred to as ancient lamentation music. Hauntingly beautiful. Something I could only assume would be the battle cries of the Amazonian warriors and the Amazonian warrior inside Diana. In some ways possibly over used, though I thought it was brilliant. It has a special place in my heart because I love that type of soundtrack. The almost eerie, maybe poignant but overall emotion provoking type. Especially her introduction scene where she faces off against the terrorists )which was overall better in Snyder's cut) The haunting warrior moans fade into her classic theme to create an incredible atmosphere. And that atmosphere was definitely missing in Whedon's cut, in more than just that one scene. It was also sorely lacking the lamentation music. We also didn't get that sweet interaction between Diana and the little girl.

When Diana began detailing Steppenwolf and the mother boxes past to Bruce, the cuts were very strange and abrupt/awkward in some way. And it felt silly and rushed; and I think that perfectly describes the whole film.

Whedon's cut also included uncomfortable scenes. Almost forcing characters to be funny where it was just completely out of place and character. Or just downright inappropriate. To be fair, Whedon is known for the Marvel movies in which fourth wall dimension breaking and odd self ware/ironic jokes are heavily used. One of the main reasons I don't particularly enjoy them, but rather enjoy the darker, more meaningful DC movies. I say meaningful in the way in which we are completely transported into this universe; where it's taken seriously and has obvious effects and meaning to the characters. Compared to Whedon's Marvel films in which the threat is joked about and the characters make fun at their expense.

Another negative contrast is the colour grading and overall shots. A good example is the conversation between Lois Lane and Martha Kent. In Whedon's version the colour is poppy, reminiscent of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or The Office. As if it were an empty shell of a TV show. Lacking any artistic or symbolic aspects. Whereas Snyder's conversation between Martha Kent (who was actually Martian Manhunter) and Lois Lane was beautiful. The lighting was dim, with steam from their hot coffee creating a brilliant shot and conveying the perfect mood. Almost a piece of art. A lot of Snyder's cut looked as if it were ripped straight out of an incredible graphic novel. His talent when it comes to filmmaking is grandiloquent. Compared to Whedon's over saturated and flat scenes as if it were from a cliché sitcom.

Whedon also made the Justice League a lot more dysfunctional than it needed to be.

The scene where the team unanimously come up with the plan to revive Superman seemed really silly and lackluster in Whedon's cut. In Snyder's cut it was a genuine moment. A "wow" moment where the penny dropped. It gave me goose-bumps. The way it was implied, the explanation/analogy with the house, and then Cyborg creating a Superman visual as the team, standing around the table, stared at it in awe. All thinking the same thing. Without even having to say it (as Barry pointed out) It was a uniting moment. Whedon's version was just, disappointing. Lacking any impact at all. And it made the team seem disconnected in a way. Whereas in Snyder's scene the league's thoughts were in unison.

There was also an agonizing amount of Wonder Woman praise. I think praise is a...well...nicer way of putting it. It was more so adolescent boy humour, immature if you will; with her being the butt of the joke. To the point where it was little uncomfortable and borderline unnecessary. And to another point where Gal Gadot refused to do a scene, (the one where Flash lands on her) and Whedon insisted so much on still including it - that they used a body double. A scene so stupid and pointless it actually hurts. Why, Whedon?

Superman's main feature in this film is his moustache. Or, lack thereof. At the beginning of the theatrical cut, we witness the infamous Superman film scene, where we are introduced to his CGI moustache…then “Everybody Knows” by Sigrid plays as we see the aftermath of his death. I really enjoyed this scene, the song and the atmosphere. I think it was a strong start, setting the poignant mood. But of course it all goes out the window and downhill from here.

The biggest difference between the two Superman’s was the elimination of the godforsaken CGI removed moustache and the introduction to the “Recovery Suit” in Snyder's cut, which was a brilliant touch. We actually see Clark stumble upon the suit. A scene where various voices from his past, echo in his mind. An equally important and impactful scene; where he flied up into the universe, overlooking the Earth he is to protect.

I also really liked the whole, "Lois Lane is key" setup, with the eerie premonitions and glimpses into the “Knightmare”. Adding yet another deeper layer to the narrative. Setting the scene for Snyder's envisioned sequel.

In Whedon's cut during the first confrontation where Clark is confused immediately after his resurrection - the previous BvS battle is implemented more. With the "Do you bleed?" question being revisited. Giving us an unwanted closer look at the strange looking $3 million dollar CGI.

I liked Snyder's first confrontation better. It included more action and participation of all parties. And it was just a longer scene, making it seem more plausible and less silly. Before Clark reached Bruce he went through every member. Resulting in a little appreciated interaction between Arthur and Barry. I also thought Whedon’s scene showing Superman throwing Batman away like a ragdoll added to the ridiculous nature.

During the final battle. (Not mentioning how uncomfortable the colour grading was causing an unlikable atmosphere. Especially when it became daylight, taking away the exciting and intense atmosphere.) Whedon's Superman's entry was a little plain. Maybe cliché. Banging on about "truth" and "justice". Which isn't necessarily bad. It's just, maybe, too Superman? We then see the relieved faces of all the members. Batman's giddy smile was by far the best. It was nice to see genuine happiness and I think that played an important role in communicating to us Bruce's character arc. From lowest of lows, and his conflicting attitude towards Superman in BvS, to Superman giving him incredible hope. Though it slightly made me uncomfortable.

Snyder's entry of Superman was brutal in the best way. Appearing just before Cyborg was chopped to bits. Giving us that epic moment of 'He came.” Superman mercilessly rips into Steppenwolf for the next minute or two. No breakaways. Which was a great choice. It perfectly showcased his abilities. Though in the theatrical cut he was shown to be the only capable one of saving the world and being the real “hero”, in Snyder’s cut, especially The Flash, they were all shown to be powerful with meaningful parts to play.

Bruce Wayne appeared more guilty and conflicted about what happened in BvS in Whedon's cut. Though he was overshadowed in terms of writing by Superman and Wonder Woman. He also was the one who brought in the "big guns" a.k.a Lois Lane as a contingency plan in case the Superman resurrection went awry. In which it did. In Snyder's cut it was coincidence, or the doing of Man Hunter in that mysterious scene. Bruce was also quite tense and wasn’t too much a bright beacon of hope as he was in the Snyder cut. Even despite Snyder's vision of him being reminiscent and heavily inspired by Frank Millers version; darker, older, broken and violent in a way (which is brilliant) he still had this character arc. The lover’s tiff he suffered with Diana was irritating and what I thought was superfluous. Creating an unnecessary disconnect with the group. It wasn't an interesting sub-plot/complication at all .

Bruce's character arc (from the dark BvS time, to the hopeful present) was more thoroughly shown in Snyder’s cut compared to Whedon's. I briefly mentioned Bruce's schoolgirl grin when Superman arrived right on time. Though Snyder more effectively showcased this positive rise through his obviously increased in optimistic attitude. When the team are off the defeat Steppenwolf once and for all Alfred asks Bruce how he can be so sure of the Man of Steel’s arrival. And Bruce replies full of vigour, “Faith, Alfred, faith!” And in another instance Barry questions their strength against Steppenwolf due to the amount of demons he has won against. Bruce declares that, “He’s never fought us. Not us united.” It was a powerful statement that heavily elevated excitement for the final fight.

During this final fight, Batman basically goes out on a suicide mission. Then the rest of the league join him for a family reunion. The Snyder cut better represented this with an astounding freeze-frame, slow motion shot of the team. It nicely established the power of unity in this case.

The way in which Steppenwolf was defeated was vastly altered. Changed completely. Mostly due to Darkseid’s absence in the theatrical cut. Darkseid added an important extra layer of looming fear, and even gave Steppenwolf more depth. It gave him an important reason as to why he was doing what he wasy doing. As we saw his utter dedication to Darkseid. It alerted us of the larger dangers that were present. Steppenwolf’s death in Whedon’s cut was ultimately debilitated after seeing Snyder’s version. Instead of being anti-climactically eaten alive by his bug minions as the sun rose; (maybe it’s a personal preference but I heavily dislike the daylight, especially for action scenes) his head was chopped off, first horn by horn, then from the neck. His decapitated head thrusted back through the portal into his own world, landing at the horrifying Darkseid's feet, along with the terrifying parademons. Engulfed by a fiery hellscape. The horror that Earth could have faced. But still could face. It reveals the deeper and darker enemy, beyong Steppenwolf looming just beneath the surface.

A sinister tune plays, as we see the victorious Justice League looking back at them. The portal then closes. Although a victory, we can’t help but wonder what the demonic and powerful entities, far more powerful than Steppenwolf, have in store for Earth’s future.

The Knightmare vision being apart of that future. It's set up from BvS to the very end of Justice League. It's a very intriguing part of Snyder’s vision. The moment where you can link up and see the connections between all the post-credit scenes and the “premonitions” is an epiphanic moment. It’s a whole other narrative on its own that you can analyse, hypothesize and discuss. It’s a very intriguing/exciting concept to think of what would have been Snyder’s future movie where Barry (as we saw previously reverse time) goes back to warn Bruce that “Lois Lane is the key”, to avoid the whole disastrous scenario. We can gather that he is referencing what we see at the end of Snyder's cut, Superman turned evil. The death of Lois Lane, whose skeleton we saw Superman cradle previously, we can assume had a hand in that, and possibly the Anti-Life equation too. It's an incredible narrative, and there are few things I would love more than seeing the Snyderverse come to life on this epic scale again.

We also finally get a glimpse of Snyder’s joker. A very exciting moment for me. Seeing any new iteration of the Joker is an exciting moment. Could Jared Leto somehow redeem himself?

Well, it sure was infinitely times better than the Suicide Squad rendition. This Joker was actually eerie and unsettling. I felt almost uneasy watching these scenes, and his odd laugh caused shivers to form down my spine. Jokers comments about “boy wonder”, whom we find out was indeed Bruce’s adoptive son, were heartbreaking (I believe he was actually referring to Dick instead of Jason surprisingly as his grave was once seen in a previous movie) Leaving me holding my breath, wondering what Bruce would say next, or what other wretched thing Joker could say. Of course the "reach around" comment was a bit off, but I’ll just brush over that.

We also learnt of Arthur Curry’s death, Harley Quinn’s death. Proving that Snyder had such a colossal plans for all the characters, dead and alive.

It’s a poignant feeling; to see this incredible, vast narrative, just beneath the surface, unfold. Knowing that we won’t be able to see it fully developed. As of now.

While watching these two completely different cuts of the same movie; it occurred to me and I am sure many other people, that attempting to produce such an in depth narrative intensive movie on the small scale that Whedon attempted, will commonly end in a painful, empty and superficial representation. Or maybe that really was just Whedon's vision.

As the epilogue ended, the credits rolled. Hallelujah began playing, sung by Allison Crowe. And as they rolled, in big letters the words; "For Autumn" took center focus. White against black. Clear as day. Like a bus, it hit hard. The reason I was sitting on that couch finally having the great honour to watch such a film. The courage it must have taken to continue and finish such a project is beyond admirable, it's heroic. Also non-profit. It only further proves what we already knew, that the intentions were pure, as no one ever doubted.

Also acknowledging the giant billboard on one of the buildings promoting the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. A very important cause, especially to the Snyder’s. To date fans have raised over half a million dollars to the AFSP in honour of Autumn. A truly incredible feat.

When looking at the two movies side by side, it blows my mind to see the difference that I do. The emotion, meaning, the depth. It all just made sense in Snyder's cut. The emotion was palpable, absolutley unmistakable. Things mattered more. The people mattered more. There were reasons, and purpose. It was a genuine journey for every one of the characters, and I felt it. There were so many little scenes that made so much difference that added depth and meaning, emotion.

And I cannot say such words for Whedon, though I won’t put all the blame on him. Warner Bros. is about equally responsible. .

The true, original and intended Justice League; expatiated heroes, people, stories and journeys coming together on a grandiose scale, executed with passion and care. But also giving us a bittersweet taste of Snyder’s epic trilogy that could have been.

The end of the saga; and the rest of Snyder’s visions, are left unfulfilled; as of now. But regardless, remains as one of the things I hope to see come to life. Watching this movie, and the feeling I had during and afterward is indescribable. I want to say a massive congratulations to Zack Snyder. The film was beyond breathtaking. It really is so special and it will forever have an important place in my heart.

Though I think the most important thing to take away from the Snyder's incredible work is Autumn's story.

Thank you Zack Snyder.

For Autumn.

www.imdb.com/title/tt12361974/

29 notes · View notes

marvelloussynergy · 3 years ago

Text

REVIEW - Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

Director: Jon Watts Screenplay: Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers Running Time: 148 minutes Cast: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jacob Batalon, Jon Favreau, Jamie Foxx, Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, Benedict Wong, Tony Revolori, Marisa Tomei

One of the great things about the Spider-Man films set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that fans get to see Peter Parker progress through high school and deal with the challenges of being both a teenager and a superhero. This reflects the character’s early comic book appearances and made the character stand out in the ever-expanding MCU. Finally, in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Peter Parker is on the verge of adulthood and with it must face his greatest challenge yet.

Picking up right where Spider-Man: Far From Home left off, we find Peter (Tom Holland) panicking after the whole world finds out that’s he’s Spider-Man and is accused of killing Quentin Beck. Luckily, he has his girlfriend, MJ (Zendaya), and best friend, Ned (Jacob Batalon) who support him. With his life—and those closest to him—affected, Peter turns to Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) for assistance. Strange agrees to help the web-slinger by casting a spell that will make everyone in the world forget that he’s Spider-Man. As expected, Holland, Zendaya, and Batalon all put in strong performances, with Cumberbatch’s irascible Doctor Strange proving to be an entertaining foil.

It’s soon revealed that Peter’s tampering with the spell saw villains from other realities enter the MCU. This here has to be one of the film’s biggest draws—the return of Willem Dafoe as the Green Goblin, Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus, Thomas Haden Church as Sandman, Rhys Ifans as the Lizard, and Jamie Foxx as Electro. While Molina and Foxx remind us what made their characters so great in Spider-Man 2 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2, respectively, it’s clear Dafoe had the most fun in reprising his role. There’s a sadistic glee to the Green Goblin; you can’t help but be transfixed by everything Dafoe says and does. Everything that made Norman Osborn so memorable in 2002’s Spider-Man has been dialed up to eleven and one only wishes he received more screen time. (Sadly, Sandman and the Lizard don’t get as much attention, but this can be forgiven given the large cast the film has to juggle.)

Although it may seem the trailers have shown a lot, the film really does have plenty of surprises in stall for audiences. Viewers who have seen all the previous Spidey films—and are up to date with the MCU—will get the most out of the numerous Easter eggs and callbacks (visually, verbally, and in Michael Giacchino’s score) in No Way Home. The film never gets bogged down in nostalgia and every instance of fan service is done with the utmost thought and care.

Where the film falters is its action sequences. Apart from the visually spectacular Doctor Strange versus Spider-Man fight, they’re largely serviceable but don’t offer anything truly memorable. The tussle between Spidey and Doc Ock on the bridge, for example, lacks the vertigo-inducing heights and hard-hitting impact of the sequences in Spider-Man 2. Where No Way Home truly shines is in its writing. The dialogue scenes are laden with emotion and Peter is genuinely tested as he’s put through the wringer. The poor kid can’t catch a break as he’s constantly trying to do the right thing. But that’s what makes the character so beloved—he’s always striving to live up to the fact that “with great power there must also come great responsibility,” despite the personal costs involved. That isn’t to say the film is completely dour; we’re talking about a character known for his wit after all.

Epic and ambitious, Spider-Man: No Way Home is undoubtedly one of the best Spider-Man films ever made and possibly the best action flick of 2021. Amazing, sensational, spectacular—this is a movie that will make you cry and cheer in equal measure.

Score: 8/10

#Spider-Man #review #Marvel #Marvel Studios #MCU #Marvel Cinematic Universe #Spider-Man: No Way Home #Tom Holland #Zendaya #Benedict Cumberbatch #Willem Dafoe #Peter Parker #Doctor Strange #Green Goblin #Doctor Octopus

5 notes · View notes

melancholiads · 4 years ago

Text

tbh i don’t understand the whole obsession with making harley and the joker young and sexy? and thats not getting into the part where harley was the only non-sexualised major female bat-villain with how ivy and catwoman are overly objected which makes it a bit more disappointing. i always see comic joker as 40s / 50s and harley late 30s / early 40s bc they would bring in an experienced psychologist for someone like the joker not someone just out of school.

my choices for actors; for mistah jay, willem dafoe is such a clear choice to me. i could also see robert carlyle and william h macy. for harley, i love margot robbie’s iconic performance OF COURSE and it would be hard to find a similar role defining powerhouse. my pick would be ruth wilson (of luther + his dark materials fame) or shirley henderson (best known as moaning myrtle and the woman who marries a serial killer in prison in happy valley - thats the energy we need for harley). i also would love kate walsh, joan cusack, or, going a little younger, emmy rossum / jane levy (i’m a shameless fan can you tell). i also threw in a sheryl lee / ray wise pic bc as a twin peaks fan i would LOVE that. and they have the talent to back it up

22 notes · View notes

mermaidsirennikita · 5 years ago

Text

movie sex: valid or not valid?

Because I have nothing better to do and am the resident movie sexpert, I’m going to rate every single sex scene in this Buzzfeed List of Supposedly Hot Movie Sex Scenes based on its validity (which probably isn’t much).

1. Queen and Slim. Off to a shameful start in that well I have not seen this, however as Jodie Turner-Smith is involved I’m gonna preemptively say it’s valid.

2. Swimfan. I have not seen this either but the guy is ugly. I only tolerate so many people I don’t find attractive. Not valid.

3. Titanic, the scene where Jack lost his virginity. EXTREMELY VALID. The sex steam! “You’re trembling”! The way he had no idea what her plan was until she made him grab her tit!

4. Chloe, the scene with Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried having mommy issues sex. I would say valid, but in fact this movie is pretty problematic and plays into the psycho lesbian trope and is a remake of a movie that DOESN’T, so not valid.

5. Dirty Dancing. Valid, because she touches his butt and also because every time you watch this with someone who grew up in the 80s they’re GUARANTEED to be like “and this part this part THIS PART” when he carelessly tosses her shirt aside.

6. Brokeback Mountain, the tent scene. Loses points for the lack of lube, but I don’t think archive of our own existed back then so they wouldn’t have known their mistakes. Also, easily the hottest tent sex. Valid.

7. Unfaithful, the stairwell scene. FUCK YES HELL YEAH GOOD SHIT GET IT. Very valid cheating sex.

8. Indecent Proposal, Demi Moore has sex with her husband, not billionaire Robert Redford. Lol what a bait and switch, I watched this because it’s my dream to get paid a million to have sex with someone and I have to watch Woody Harrelson have sex? No thanks. Not valid.

9. Anna Karenina, when Anna and Vronsky like, dance-fuck? Fuck-dance? I don’t know. Vronsky’s hair is absolutely atrocious, and his mustache makes me feel like he shouldn’t be allowed around children, but this scene is very pretty. Also, if you’re asking God for forgiveness after sex you probably did it right. Valid.

10. Out of Sight, Clooney and JLo. One of those sex scenes that’s like, intercut with the convo leading up to the sex, which can be hit or miss but it’s very sultry and 90s here. Valid.

11. Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the threesome scene. First off, lol, WHAT SCENE, you don’t even see shit. Second, Woody Allen probably got his rocks off to this so instantly NOT VALID.

12. The Girl on the Train. On Buzzfeed, this is described as, “when Luke Evans goes down on his wife”, and I agree. VALID.

13. Monster’s Ball. ............... Halle Berry is very good in this movie. Is the movie a good movie? Is this a good sex scene? Also Billy Bob Thornton is there? The debates about storytelling and realism can go on and on, but in terms of what I’m judging things by, which is good sex scene-ness, not valid.

14. Black Swan. Natalie Portman fucks herself but it’s actually Mila Kunis. You know how things can get when one knows oneself. Very valid, as is the entire movie.

15. Body of Evidence. I haven’t seen this movie, but the person who submitted it to Buzzfeed describes it as “the oral and then penetrative sex”, so I don’t trust them first off. Second, Willem Dafoe and Madonna? I worry. Not valid.

16. Roadhouse. Another movie where every woman who was a teenager in the 80s brings it up like “Have you seen Roadhouse?” with That Gleam in their eye. Valid.

17. Conversations with Other Women. I’ve never seen this movie and the cap Buzzfeed chose is absolutely ghastly, truly devastating for Aaron Eckhart, who I do not trust because he is not cute. Not valid.

18. Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the kitchen fuckfight scene. Listen kids, marriages don’t always work out but you can always look back and watch the moment when Shiloh was conceived!!! We love witnessing the death of a marriage with brutal boning, QUITE valid.

19. Atonement, the library scene. Yes!!! A thousand times yes!!!! Knightley’s foot gradually lifting off the ground, the “I love yous”, the entire mood getting killed when her kid sister walks in? Perfection. Valid.

20. Rocketman, Elton John bones Richard Madden. So valid! It’s very sweet and loving even though you know Richard Madden is bad news, and also I totally get why Elton almost lost a career over him. Same, bro!

21. Y Tu Mama Tambien, the threesome. Y’all can fuck a Goldfinch, actually attractive men (Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna) actually make out with their actual lips and consummate their erotic friendship while the dying woman they’ve been roadtripping with blows them simultaneously. Get your fucking shit together. VALID.

22. The Mountain Between Us. I.... I feel like a fraud here, but I did not like this scene. Idris is very hot, but he looks like he’s crying during? And I mean maybe that’s appropriate considering the fact that they almost died on a mountain, but that’s not my style. Not valid, but gently. Tearfully.

23. Her, that scene when Joaquin has phone sex with a robot. I think that says it all. Not valid.

24. The Piano, the scene where Harvey Keitel and Holly Hunter finally bone. Like, am I attracted to Harvey Keitel? No. Let us get this disclaimer out there. Is there some weird shit in this movie? Yes. But you can like.................. hear the vigor with which he’s going down on her in this scene......................................... ladies this was directed by a woman and you can TELL. Valid.

25. A History of Violence, the stair scene. This movie is very weird to me in so many ways, but like. That shit. That shit was..................... something. Valid.

26. Crimson Peak, Tom Hiddleston fucks his wife when he wants to be fucking his sister. I made this entire list because I saw the screencap of this scene for the article and laughed aloud. Oh. OH, Hiddlesstans. Y’all think this was sexy? His pale ass, the way he tried to snakedance his way up her body? Oh. Oh, my children. Watch some other scenes, I beg of you. Not valid, but a decent effort.

#idek what to tag this as #movies?#movies #films #me rating someone else's list lol

25 notes · View notes

ryanmeft · 5 years ago

Text

Ryan’s Favorite Films of 2019

A stuttering detective,

A top hat-wearing vamp

A forced-perspective war,

A bit of Blaxploitation camp

Prisoners on a space ship

Having sex with bears

A writer goes remembering

Whenever his pain flares

A prancing, dancing Hitler

A gambler high on strife

Here will go cavorting with

A mom who becomes a wife

A family plot with many threads

Three men against their own

A stuntman and his actor

A mobster now quite alone

Doubles under the earth

Two men in a tall house

Are here to watch a woman who

Is battling with her spouse

A family’s plans for their strong son

Go awry one night

A man rejects his country

Which is spoiling for a fight

A house built by his grandpa

(Maybe; we’re not sure)

Looks out upon three prisoners

Whose passions are a lure

All these are on my list this year

It’s longer than before

Because picking only ten this time

Was too great of a chore

What are limits anyway?

They’re just things we invented

I don’t really find them useful

So, this year, I’ve dissented

You may have noticed this time out

That numbers, I did grant

Promise they’ll stay in this order, though?

Now that, I just can’t

I’m always changing my mind

Because, after all, you see

Good film is about the heart

And mine’s rather finicky

There are a lot more I could name

(And I’ll change my mind at any time)

For now, though, consider these

The ones I found sublime

20. Motherless Brooklyn

I’ve got a (hard-boiled) soft spot for 90’s neo-noirs like L.A. Confidential, Red Rock West and Seven, and Edward Norton’s ‘50’s take on Jonathan Lethem’s 90’s -set novel can stand firmly in that company.

19. Doctor Sleep

There’s something about Stephen King’s best writing that transcends mere popularity; his work may not be fine literature, but it is immune to the fads of the moment. So, too, are the best movies based on that work. This one, an engaging adventure-horror, deserved better than it got from audiences.

18. Jojo Rabbit

There was a time when the anything-goes satire of Mel Brooks could produce a major box office hit. Disney’s prudish refusal to market the film coupled with the dominance of franchises means that’s no longer the case. If you bothered to give Jojo a shot, though, you got the strange-but-rewarding experience of guffawing one moment and being horrified the next.

17. By The Grace of God

I’d venture this is the least-seen film on my list; even among us brie-eating, wine-sniffing art house snobs, I rarely hear it mentioned. Focusing on the perspectives of three men dealing with a particularly heinous and unrepentant abusive priest and the hierarchy that protects him, it’s every bit as disquieting and infuriating as 2015’s Oscar-winning Spotlight.

16. Waves

You think Trey Edward Shultz’s Waves will be one thing---a domestic drama about an affluent African-American family (and that in and of itself is a rarity). Then it becomes something else entirely. It addresses something movies often avoid: that as life goes on, the person telling the story will always change.

15. Transit

You’re better off not questioning exactly where and when the film is set (it is based on a book about Nazi Germany but has been changed to be a more generalized Fascist state). The central theme here is identity, as three people change theirs back and forth based on need and desire.

14. American Woman

Movies about regular, working class, small-town American usually focus on men. This one is about a much-too-young mother and grandmother, played brilliantly by Sierra Miller, dealing with unexpected loss and the attendant responsibilities she isn’t ready for.

13. Marriage Story

There is an argument between a married couple in here that is as true a human moment as ever was on screen---free of trumped-up screenplay drama and accurate to how angry people really argue. The entire movie strives to be about the kind of realistic divorce you don’t see on-screen. It is oddly refreshing.

12. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Quentin Tarantino’s love letter to 70’s Tinseltown is essentially a question: What if the murder that changed the industry forever had gone down differently? Along the way, it also manages to be a clever and insightful study of fame and fulfillment, or lack thereof.

11. High Life

Claire Denis is damned determined not to be boring. Your reaction to her latest film will probably depend on how receptive you are to that as the driving force of a film. Myself, I’m very receptive. I want to see the personal struggles of convicts unwittingly shipped into space, told without Action-Adventure tropes, in a movie that sometimes misfires but is never dull.

10. Dolemite Is My Name

And fuckin’ up motherfuckers is my game! Look, if you don’t like naughty words, you probably shouldn’t be reading my columns---and you definitely shouldn’t be watching this movie. Eddie Murphy plays Rudy Ray Moore, the ambitious, irrepressible and endlessly optimistic creator of Blaxpoitation character Dolemite. Have you seen the 1975 film? It’s either terrible and wonderful, or wonderful and terrible, and the jury’s still out. Either way, Moore in the film is a self-made comic who establishes himself by talking in a unique rhyming style that speaks to black Americans at a time when black pop culture (and not just the white rendition of it) was finally beginning to pierce the American consciousness. What The Disaster Artist did for The Room, this movie does for Dolemite---with the difference being I felt like I learned something I didn’t know here.

9. 1917

Breathless, nerve-wracking and somehow intensely personal even though it almost never takes time to slow down, it is fair to call Sam Mendes’s film a thrill ride---but it’s one that enlightens us on a fading historical time, rather than simply being empty calories. Filmed in such a way as to make it seem like one continuous, two-hour take, for which some critics dismissed it as a gimmick, the technique is used to lock us in with the soldiers whose mission it is to save an entire division from disaster. We are given no information or perspective that the two central soldiers---merely two, in a countless multitude---do not have, and so we are with them at every moment, deprived of the relief of omniscience. I freely admit I tend to give anything about World War I the benefit of the doubt, but there’s no doubt that the movie earns my trust.

8. Ash Is Purest White

Known by the much less cool-sounding name Sons and Daughters of Jianghu in China, here is a story that starts off ostensibly about crime---a young woman and her boyfriend are powerful in the small-potatoes mob scene of a dying industrial town---but after the surprising first act becomes a meditation on life, perseverance and exactly how much power is worth, anyway, when it is so fleeting and so easily lost. What do you do when everything that defined you is gone? You go on living. This is my first exposure to writer-director Jia Zhangke, an oversight I must strive hard to correct in future.

7. Knives Out

The whodunit is a lost art, a standard genre belonging to a time when mass audiences could appreciate a picture even if someone didn’t run, yell or explode while running and yelling every ten minutes. Rian Johnson and an all-star cast rescued it from the brink of cinematic extinction and gave it just enough of a modern injection to keep it relevant. Every second of the film is engaging; Johnson even manages to have a character whose central trait is throwing up when asked to lie, and he makes it seem sympathetic rather than juvenile. The fantastic cast of characters is backed up with all the qualities of “true” cinema: perfect camerawork, an effective score, mesmerizing production design. As someone who didn’t much care for Johnson’s Star Wars outing, I’m honestly put out this didn’t do better at the box office than it did.

6. A Hidden Life

After a few questionable efforts and completely losing the thread with the execrable vanity project Song to Song, Terence Malick returns to his bread and butter: meditative dramas on the nature of faith, family, and being on the outside looking in, which encompass a healthy dose of nature, philosophy and people talking without moving their lips. That last is a little dig, but it’s true: Malick does Malick, and if you don’t like his thing, this true story about a German dissenter in World War II will not change your mind. For me, what Malick has done is that rarest of things: he had made a movie about faith, and about a character who is faithful, without proselytizing. That the closeness and repressiveness of the Nazi regime is characterized against Malick’s typical soaring backdrops is a masterstroke, and the best-ever use of his visual style.

5. The Lighthouse

Robert Eggers is a different kind of horror filmmaker. After redefining what was possible with traditional horror monsters in The Witch, he returned with something that couldn’t be more different: an exploration of madness more in the vein of European film than American. Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe are two men stranded in a lighthouse together slowly losing their minds, or what is left of them. The haunting score and stark, black-and-white photography evoke a nightmare caught on tape, something we’re not supposed to be seeing. It’s not satisfying in a traditional way, but for those craving something more cerebral from horror, Eggers has it covered.

4. Us

I have become slightly notorious in my own little circle for not thinking Get Out was the greatest film ever made, and now I’ve become rather known for thinking Us just might be. Ok, so that’s definite hyperbole: “greatest” is a tall claim for almost any horror movie. Yet here Jordan Peele shows that he can command an audience’s attention even when not benefiting from a popular cultural zeitgeist in terms of subject matter. It’s a movie with no easy or clear message, one that specializes in simply unsettling us with the idea that the world is fundamentally Not Right. I firmly believe that if Peele becomes a force in the genre, 50 years from now when he and all of us are gone, his first film will be remembered as a competent start, while this will be remembered as the beginning of his greatness.

3. The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Ostensibly about urban gentrification, this story of a young black man trying to save his ancestral home from the grasping reach of white encroachment is a flower with many petals to reveal. Don’t let my political-sounding description turn you off: the movie is not a polemic in the slightest, but rather a wry, sensitive look at people, their personalities and how those personalities are intertwined with the places they call home. Though the movie is the directorial debut of Joe Talbot, it is based loosely on the memories and feelings of his friend Jimmie Falls, who also plays one of the two central characters. If you’ve ever watched a place you love fall to the ravages of time and change, this movie may strike quite a chord with you.

2. Uncut Gems

When asked why this movie is great, I usually say that it was unbelievably stressful and caused me great anxiety. This description is not usually successful in selling it. The Safdie Brothers have essentially filmed chaos: a man self-destructing in slow-motion, if you can call it slow. Howard Ratner has probably been gradually exploding all his life; he strikes you as someone who came out of the womb throwing punches. He’s an addictive gambler who loves the risk much more than the reward, and can’t gain anything good in life without risking it on a proverbial roll of the dice. His behavior is destructive. His attitude is toxic. Why do we root for him? Perhaps because, as played by Adam Sandler, he never has any doubt as to who he is---something few of us can say. He’s an asshole, but he’s a genuine asshole, and somehow that’s appealing even when you’re in his line of fire.

1. Pain and Glory

When I realized I would, for the first time, have the chance to see a Pedro Almodovar film on the screen, I was overjoyed. His movies aren’t always great, but that was of little concern: he’s one of the handful of directors on the planet who can fairly call back to the avant-garde traditions of Bergman or Truffaut, making the movies he wants to make about the things he want to make them about, and I’d never seen one of his films when it was new and fresh, only months or years later on DVD.

It seems I picked right, as his latest has been almost universally hailed as one of the best of his long career. An aging, aching filmmaker spends his days in his apartment, ignoring the fans of his original hit film and most of his own acquaintances, alive or dead---he tries hard to put his memories away. Throughout the course of the movie, he re-engages with most of them in one way or another, coming to terms with who he is and where he’s been, though not in a Hallmark-movie-of-the-week way. Antonio Banderas plays him in the role that was always denied him by his stud status in Hollywood. It isn’t simply him, though: every person we meet is engaging and, we sense, has their own story outside of how they intersect with his. Most engaging is that of his deceased mother, who in her youth was played vivaciously by a sun-toughened Penelope Cruz. Perhaps Almodovar will tell us some of their stories some day. Perhaps not. I would read an entire book of short fiction all about them. This is the year’s best film.

48 notes · View notes

letterboxd · 5 years ago

Photo

Love: Anton.

“Anyone that has a creative bone in their body can relate to him and will be inspired to do more.” As the documentary Love, Antosha comes to streaming services, filmmaker Garret Price talks to us about his directorial debut, and what made Anton Yelchin a once-in-a-generation talent.

When Star Trek star and indie film hero Anton Yelchin died in a tragic accident in June 2016 he was just 27 years of age. At the time, he had been preparing his directorial debut, Travis. The feature-length documentary Love, Antosha isn’t interested in exploring Yelchin’s death, however. It is a film about his life, about his boundless talent, which would have led to a long and varied creative career, and about the effect he had on his fellow cast and crew, including Kristen Stewart, Chris Pine and the late Martin Landau.

The deep well of footage in the film was collected throughout Anton’s life by his parents, the Russian-Jewish couple Irina Korina and Viktor Yelchin. They were star figure-skaters for the Leningrad Ice Ballet for fifteen years, before migrating to America to escape religious persecution. Anton was terribly close to his parents and the film takes its title from the sign-off he used in his affectionate letters to his mother.

Love, Antosha premiered to glowing praise from fans and film lovers at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and again upon its August cinematic release. “This is the only time I’ve fully sobbed in theaters,” Letterboxd member Steven Thomas wrote. While “it [may] not be reinventing the wheel or doing anything new” said Mitchell Beaupre, “it is a really touching and impactful tribute to a tremendous actor, and by all accounts a tremendous person.”

Yelchin’s parents first approached director Drake Doremus to make the documentary, because he had grown close to Anton after the Sundance 2011 smash Like Crazy. Doremus, whose new film Endings, Beginnings had its world premiere at TIFF 2019, felt the project needed a more objective eye. He pulled in Garret Price—primarily known as a film editor for documentaries such as The Director and the Jedi and Janis: Little Girl Blue—with the idea that it would be the perfect project for Price’s first time as a director.

We talked to Garret Price on the eve of the film’s streaming launch.

This film is a celebration of Anton Yelchin’s life, but the knowledge of his death certainly haunts the film. How early on in the process did you decide to not focus on his death until the closing minutes? Garret Price: From the beginning. As I started digging in and learning about him, then talking to everybody, I knew this was a movie about life and how short it is. To me, the death is part of the story, but it’s not what the story is.

I didn’t know Anton, so I was learning about him as I was making this film, and I had to start at the beginning to understand who he was. There were surprises around every corner for me and I wanted to reflect those surprises in the film itself, for people who don’t know much about him, and add layers to somebody who’s already a layered individual.

What do you think it was about Anton that made him stand out in his generation as an actor so uniquely identifiable? As you say, he’s a generational talent. I don’t think you can say he’s just a natural performer. He put the work in. He just studied everything. Anyone that has a creative bone in their body can relate to him and will be inspired to do more like he did.

Also, he never wanted to be the star. He would just be at peace with it all. He was always looking under the hood, constantly talking to the production assistants, the gaffers, the directors of photography, the first assistants. He learned a lot on set.

In the film, Anton rants to his camera about how “you don’t get to make the cinema you want to make”. Is this a sentiment you largely agree with? Yep. Though for him, I don’t think it was necessarily a ‘one for me, one for them’ type thing. He loved making movies. A lot of those bigger films he made did afford him to take more risky projects that were personal, but at the same time it’s tough when you’re putting all this work in and no-one’s seeing it, or it gets bad reviews. It’s gonna eat you alive inside a little bit.

That’s what I loved when we got Willem Dafoe talking about him, because they’re very similar. Willem shared the same feelings, about how just because you take the road less travelled doesn’t mean it’s the road to travel. I think it’s a perfect way to sum up the feelings Anton felt about his choice of projects.

Along with his provocative photography hobby, he was starting to choose melancholic, seedier projects such as Only Lovers Left Alive and Green Room. What do you think drew Anton to the darker side of life? He loved people of all walks of life. He just really latched onto all of the stories and he wanted to find a way to express them. So many people I’ve talked to in this process, especially his friends, would tell me how he would just stop to talk to anyone in the street and ask them questions. He was so present and such a listener.

It’s something about the people’s stories that you don’t get to hear about that he was drawn to, and one way of getting closer to them was the photography. He was taking photographs his whole life but never considered himself a photographer, just like he never considered himself a musician. It was just another outlet for him to express himself.

I assume you watched all of his films. Which was the most impressive of Anton’s performances for you? The one that gutted me the most was Alpha Dog. It’s such an amazing performance. He was fifteen years old at the time and in the documentary we show Anton getting drunk and filming himself to prepare for that role. I was like “wow”.

He was having these life experiences, like getting drunk or having his first kiss on set. He’s a coming-of-age story through the love of making movies and that really interested me. For me, Green Room was showing who he would become as an actor in the years to come. It breaks my heart he couldn’t do that. Also: don’t tell Drake I chose Green Room.

Do you know if there are intentions to complete Anton’s Travis film? Would that simply be too personal for anyone to take over? It’s only 50 pages long and the rest of the movie is in Anton’s head, so he’s the only person who could finish it. Everything he ever did in this business was leading up to directing and if he were alive today he would already have done twenty more movies. He was so prolific.

The late Anton Yelchin, subject of ‘Love, Antosha’.

These types of home-video documentaries should become easier to make with the advent of constant cell-phone footage. But on the other hand, I can’t imagine it having the same warmth as the physical video of the 1990s and early 2000s. How do you feel about the way technology shifts the feel of footage after a certain point in time? I think now, with cellphones, people are always performing, so it doesn’t feel real and authentic compared to the footage I’ve had to work on, even from fifteen to twenty years ago. There’s much more of an emotional connection to these home videos, and not just of Anton, of all of us.

There’s too much narcissism now with selfies and stuff like that. It was a different time with more true-to-life moments. You couldn’t just delete something and do it over and over again until it’s perfect. You weren’t meant to do that, and that’s the beauty of it. I can’t imagine making a portrait-type movie for this generation with the same emotion.

Do you intend to make fiction films or remain a documentarian? I’m an editor by trade. I probably do more fiction than I do documentaries. I’ve been working as a film and TV editor for fifteen years and I go back and forth. I actually think they inform each other, and that freedom is making me a stronger filmmaker.

A lot of fiction films are becoming more documentary-esque, and documentaries are becoming more like fiction films. People like to pigeon-hole certain types of filmmakers and that’s crazy; it’s all storytelling.

What was the film that made you want to make films? That’s tough. Almost Famous was the one that made me think ‘I wanna make movies’. I think that’s my favorite movie of all time. It has everything I like about filmmaking.

‘Love, Antosha’ is available to rent and buy on iTunes and other streaming platforms. Garret Price’s Letterboxd profile is here.

22 notes · View notes

sweetsmellosuccess · 5 years ago

Text

Sundance 2020: Preview

Earlier in the month, as I frantically made my selections for the limited public tickets Sundance generously makes available for the press, I was struck by just how much of a crapshoot the whole process was. That’s the thing about this particular festival, virtually no one outside of the filmmakers and Sundance programmers have seen the films yet. It’s a great unknown (and, yes, Cannes is also similar in this way, but whereas Sundance is selecting primarily indie films, the festival on the French Riviera gets to choose anything they damn well please, from big Hollywood studio fare, to auteur International work), which leads to lots of hunch choices, based on gut feeling as much as anything else.

As you might imagine, one’s hit rate on such matters is volatile. I looked back to previous years’ selections, and found, on rough average, choosing solid (or better) films at about a 45% clip. That is to say, of the films I deemed most worthy of my attention, about half of them were less — or even far less — than I hoped. To be fair, randomly watching regular studio films opening from week to week at home in Philly, I would imagine that percentage would be a good bit lower, so there’s nothing inherently wrong with Sundance’s percentages.

Still, it does speak to the embracing-of-the-unknown ethos that this festival instills in you. We pays our money, we takes our chances, etc. Having said all that — and perhaps having chiseled down the enormous boulder of salt with which to read this piece — here are our best guesses for what looks like (on paper, at least) some of the more interesting films in this year’s fest. We’ll see how it turns out.

Downhill: The U.S. remake of Ruben Östlund’s 2014 Swedish film about a family on a skiing trip in the Alps, who experience serious disruption when a controlled avalanche terrifies the father of the clan to ditch his family in order to save himself. Normally, I would steer far clear of American remakes, but this indie remains intriguing, even if it is directed by a pair of actors (Nat Faxon and Jim Rash). Casting Will Ferrell and Julia Louis Dreyfus together as the parents is also a draw. We can only hope the film retains the razor-sharp acerbity of the original.

Falling: Viggo Mortensen, best known for all time as Aragorn from the Lord of the Rings triad, has many talents — he speaks French fluently, writes poetry, and paints with some apparent aplomb — but we’ll see how he handles writing and directing for the first time with this film, in which he plays a gay man living with his family in L.A., whose arch-conservative farmer father (Lance Hendrickson) comes to live with him. The set up sounds on the definite hokey side, but any film that casts David Cronenberg as a proctologist has got something going for it.

Horse Girl: An awkward loner of a woman (played by Allison Brie), with a predilection for crafts, crime shows, and, yes, horses, endures a series of lucid dreams that infiltrate her day-to-day existence. Sounding just so perfectly Sundanecian, Jeff Baena’s film nevertheless holds some attraction, especially because the director (whose previous film was the well-received The Little Hours) has a solid track record. He co-wrote this effort with Brie, a collaboration that might well lead to something more compelling than its initial description.

Kajillionaire: I guess you could call writer/director/actress Miranda July something of an acquired taste. Her previous films, including Me and You and Everyone We Know, and The Future are filled with a kind of creative whimsy, along with intense character insight. Her new film is about a pair of grifter parents (Debra Winger and Richard Jenkins) who throw together a big heist at the last second, convincing a newcomer (Gina Rodriguez) to join them, only for the newbie to disrupt their relationship with their daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), whom they have been training her entire life.

The Last Thing He Wanted: Working from a novel by the resplendent Joan Didion, Dee Rees follows up her 2017 Sundance rave Mudbound with another literary adaptation. Anne Hathaway plays a journalist obsessed with the Contras in Central America, whose father (Willem DaFoe) unexpectedly bestows her with proof of illegal arms deals in the region. Suddenly, a player in a much more complicated game, she connects with a U.S. official (Ben Affleck), in order to make it out alive. It’s a particularly well-heeled cast, which at Sundance doesn’t necessarily mean a good thing, but Rees has proven herself more than up to the challenge.

Lost Girls: At this point, I will literally watch Amy Ryan in anything — her exquisite bitchiness absolutely stole last year’s Late Night — so Liz Garbus’ film would have already been on my radar, but here, with Ryan playing a Long Island mother whose daughter goes missing, my interest is sorely piqued. Based on a true-crime novel by Robert Kolker, Ryan’s character discovers her daughter was part of an online sex ring, and goes through heaven and earth to draw attention to her plight, taking on the local authorities in the process.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always: Eliza Hittman has a way of adding lustre and temporal beauty to the otherwise roughneck scenes of the teens she depicts. Her latest film is about a pair of young women living in rural Pennsylvania, who find the means to escape their repressive town after one of them becomes unexpectedly pregnant, making their way to New York City. With a storyline eerily reminiscent of Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, Hittman, as is her want, has cast two relative unknowns (Talia Ryder and Sidney Flanigan) as the leads.

Palm Springs: Lightening things up a smidge, Max Barbakow’s off-beat comedy stars Cristin Milioti and Andy Samberg as reluctant wedding guests, who somehow find each other at the same time as some kind of surrealistic episode leads them to recognize that nothing really matters in the first place, allowing them to lay havoc upon the proceedings for their own amusement. Barbakow’s debut feature is stockpiled with strong castmembers, including J.K. Simmons and Peter Gallagher, and it’s always a treat to watch the continuing evolution of Samberg from mop-haired SNL performer to certified big-screen actor.

Promising Young Woman: The #metoo movement begets this revenge thriller about a once-victimized woman (Carey Mulligan) who works by day as quiet barista, but spends her nights seducing men in order to punish the living hell out of them for trying to take advantage of her. When she runs into a seemingly sweet old classmate (Bo Burnham), it would appear as if salvation is at hand, but apparently it’s not quite that simple. Filmmaker Emerald Fennell, whose outstanding work on the series “Killing Eve,” earned her a pair of Emmy nominations, makes her feature debut with a film that sounds appropriately searing.

Shirley: There were those critics at the 2018 festival who found Josephine Decker’s Madeline’s Madeline one of the best films of the year. While I wasn’t among them, there was still much to appreciate with the writer/director’s improvisational visions. Her entry into this year’s Sundance promises to be at least somewhat more grounded, if not still effervescent. It concerns famed author Shirley Jackson (Elisabeth Moss), writer of “The Lottery,” whose literary inspiration is stirred after she and her husband (Michael Stuhlbarg) take in a young couple to liven up their household.

#sweet smell of success #ssos #piers marchant #films #movies #sundance 2020 #park city UT #promising young woman #shirley #never rarely sometimes always #palm springs #lost girls #the last thing he wanted #kajillionaire #falling #horse girl #downhill

6 notes · View notes

cinemavariety · 6 years ago

Text

The Director’s Series: David Lynch

The director series will consist of me concentrating on the filmography of all my favorite directors. I will rank each of their films according to my personal taste. I hope this project will provide everyone with quality recommendations and insight into films that they might not have known about.

Today’s director in spotlight is David Lynch

#10 - Dune (1984) Runtime: 2 hr 17 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

In the year 10,191, the world is at war for control of the desert planet Dune – the only place where the time-travel substance ‘Spice’ can be found. But when one leader gives up control, it’s only so he can stage a coup with some unsavory characters.

Verdict: Most directors who make enough films will always have a few misses. Dune is almost unwatchable with its convoluted storyline that will confuse anyone who hasn’t read the novel. I’ll give it this - the set and costume design are out of this world, no pun intended.

#9 - The Straight Story (1999) Runtime: 1 hr 52 min Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1 Film Format: 35 mm

A retired farmer and widower in his 70s, Alvin Straight learns one day that his distant brother Lyle has suffered a stroke and may not recover. Alvin is determined to make things right with Lyle while he still can, but his brother lives in Wisconsin, while Alvin is stuck in Iowa with no car and no driver’s license. Then he hits on the idea of making the trip on his old lawnmower, thus beginning a picturesque and at times deeply spiritual odyssey.

Verdict: The only one of Lynch’s films that could be considered purely “heartwarming”. It also feels the least like a Lynch film, with the director never really foraying into his autuerist territory. It is a simple, cute film that didn’t exactly leave much of an impression on me.

#8 - Lost Highway (1997) Runtime: 2 hr 14 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

A tormented jazz musician finds himself lost in an enigmatic story involving murder, surveillance, gangsters, doppelgangers, and an impossible transformation inside a prison cell.

Verdict: Lost Highway has a few scenes that I find to be the most bone-chilling in Lynch’s oeuvre. However, I wish that the entirety of this film had the same effect on me. There are more than enough satisfying plot elements to this, but I also feel like Lynch utilizing a modern soundtrack more than Badalementi’s superb score really does make this film feel dated.

#7 - The Elephant Man (1980) Runtime: 2 hr 4 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man being mistreated by his “owner” as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of great intelligence and sensitivity. Based on the true story of Joseph Merrick, a severely deformed man in 19th century London.

Verdict: The Elephant Man showcases how cruel human nature can be. It is one of Lynch’s most sentimental works that manages to be both horrendous and beautiful. John Hurt’s performance as the “elephant man” is multilayered and one of the most impressive, humanistic feats of an artist embodying a character with the utmost ingenuity.

#6 - Blue Velvet (1986) Runtime: 2 hr Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

The discovery of a severed human ear found in a field leads a young man on an investigation related to a beautiful, mysterious nightclub singer and a group of criminals who have kidnapped her child.

Verdict: This is Lynch’s detective film, and I would say one of the best starting films for someone looking to get into his work. It has all of the surrealist plot motifs we come to expect from Lynch, but also has a pretty understandable storyline for the most part. Blue Velvet explores the dark underbelly beneath the fake “harmless” veneer of a seemingly quiet and peaceful small town.

#5 - Wild at Heart (1990) Runtime: 2 hr 5 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

Young lovers Sailor and Lula run from the variety of weirdos that Lula’s mom has hired to kill Sailor.

Verdict: Many might not see Wild at Heart as one of Lynch’s strongest works, but I personally find it to be the most fun film he has ever made. Lynch creates such a wide variety of scummy characters that truly make your stomach church (I am looking at you Willem Dafoe). It’s one of those so-bad-it’s-perfect movies and the Wizard of Oz allusions are a great addition to the story.

#4 - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) Runtime: 2 hr 14 min Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

In the questionable town of Deer Meadow, Washington, FBI Agent Desmond inexplicably disappears while hunting for the man who murdered a teen girl. The killer is never apprehended, and, after experiencing dark visions and supernatural encounters, Agent Dale Cooper chillingly predicts that the culprit will claim another life. Meanwhile, in the more cozy town of Twin Peaks, hedonistic beauty Laura Palmer hangs with lowlifes and seems destined for a grisly fate. Verdict: I think it’s a real shame that this film was held in such low regard by both critics and fans alike when it was released. These people seemed to be truly confused as to the types of films Lynch makes. Thankfully, it has developed into a real cult classic since then. This film, which also serves as a prequel to the iconic television series, abandons the campy tone of the series and is Lynch achieving the vision that he wanted from the show. It’s a beautiful, haunting, and heartbreaking story.

#3 - Inland Empire (2006) Runtime: 3 hr Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1 Film Format: Mini DV & 35mm

An actress’s perception of reality becomes increasingly distorted as she finds herself falling for her co-star in a remake of an unfinished Polish production that was supposedly cursed.

Verdict: Lynch has yet to make a feature film since this one, and it truly is the director going off the rails with his style in the best of ways. Inland Empire is almost completely impossible to describe because it is more of an experience than it is a structured narrative. It returns to Lynch’s often-used idea of “hollywood is hell”. To me, this is Lynch’s scariest film. It’s utterly hopeless and the pixelated DV cinematography exudes a very cold and artificial aesthetic. Laura Dern deserved an Oscar for her performance as an actress who confuses her own life to the character she is playing.

#2 - Mulholland Drive (2001) Runtime: 2 hr 27 min Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

Blonde Betty Elms has only just arrived in Hollywood to become a movie star when she meets an enigmatic brunette with amnesia. Meanwhile, as the two set off to solve the second woman’s identity, filmmaker Adam Kesher runs into ominous trouble while casting his latest project.

Verdict: You will very rarely find such a perfect masterpiece of a film, but Mulholland Drive manages to do that. It also seems to reveal new layers every time I revisit. Lynch blurs the lines between the dream world and reality so masterfully in this film that it really does linger in your subconscious afterward - much akin to a haunting dream that you can’t seem to shake. Naomi Watts is electric as an LA newcomer who gets involved in the dark recesses of Hollywood.

#1 - Eraserhead (1977) Duration: 1 hr 29 min Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.

Verdict: By no means am I trying to say Eraserhead is Lynch’s “best” film - but for me it will probably always remain my personal favorite. This was my introduction to Lynch’s work and it holds a very sentimental spot for me as this was the time in my life when I really began exploring experimental film. Eraserhead is set in a dystopia that could also serve as an alternate reality altogether. Henry Spencer has to deal with his demanding wife and deformed child while daydreaming of a singing woman in the radiator. This is Lynch at his most surrealist, his most uncompromising, and his most nauseating. It truly is one the most impressive low-budget films ever made. It manages a fine line between repulsion and transcendence.

80 notes · View notes