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ausetkmt · 6 months

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A brave new voice has emerged on the independent film scene. Meet Nazenet Habtezghi, a Black creative who’s carved out a niche for herself as a documentary filmmaker. Her latest project, where she serves as both director and producer, is “Birthing A Nation: The Resistance of Mary Gaffney” (MTV Documentary Films). It’s a story that takes the audience on an emotional rollercoaster as Habtezghi carefully unpacks the life of an enslaved woman who’s hellbent on preventing her enslavers from controlling her reproductive future. While the subject somewhat eerily mirrors some of the issues of agency that women are facing today, Habtezghi is able to keep the integrity of the era in which Mary Gaffney lived using testimonies from formally enslaved people. The film is only 19 minutes long, but each second grabs you in such a way that you’ll be thinking about Mary Gaffney many moments later.

The Brooklyn-based journalist-turned-filmmaker is a nurturing, compassionate storyteller who takes pride in disrupting the system. Habtezghi took her time to ensure she could frame Gaffney’s story in the most impactful way.

“It was important for me to say her name," said Habtezghi. “I like to say that Mary found me. I came across her testimony, and I was initially fixated on the part where she talked about chewing cotton root. I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? The thing that you’re being forced to pick on the plantation is what you’re using to control your fertility,’" said the first-time director.

Gaffney’s audaciousness in defying her slave breeders is what makes her so badass and she wasn't the only one. There were others who also chewed on the cotton root as a "natural" contraceptive, exercising control of their own reproductive futures. “I was lost in that part of her testimony. It was just so incredible."

Habtezghi was working at Firelight Films, producing, researching, and developing a different project about the Transatlantic slave trade, when she came across the archival testimonies from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a government work release program that provided 8.5 million jobs to Americans during the Great Depression in 1935. Most of what she discovered were detailed interviews with 2,300 formerly enslaved men and women.

“After reading buried testimonies of enslaved people, enslaved women, and enslavers talking about how they raped women, I was in this emotional space,” said Habtezghi.

She later explained how a mentorship with historians Dr. Jennifer L. Morgan and Dr. Daina Ramey Berry, both of whom are featured in the film as experts on the enslaved, helped her gain a greater understanding of the relationship between Black women’s physical labor and their reproductive labor and how, when combined, it emphatically dictated and sustained slavery in America through the 19th century once the Transatlantic slave trade market was no longer an option.

“It fueled slavery and gave rise to capitalism in the United States," said Habtezghi.“Capitalism could not have existed if it wasn’t for Black women. It’s Mary’s story but it’s also the collective [story] right? It’s important to be rooted in her resistance but then become empowered by it.”

When COVID-19 happened, the project was put on pause. As luck would have it, another opportunity presented itself through Firelight Films and MTV Documentary Films. They were looking for filmmakers to create short films that could speak to the forgotten or unknown parts of Black history. Habtezghi knew exactly what story she wanted to tell. It took almost two years to bring details of Mary Gaffney’s life to light. Now, the film has been nominated for a Black Reel Award in the "Outstanding Short Film" category.

Habtezghi’s connection to this story goes even deeper. Her emotions get the best of her as she describes her personal journey as a young girl, fleeing her home in the war-stricken African nation of Eritrea and migrating to the United States. She grew up in Dallas, Texas, and would graduate with a B.A. in Journalism from Oklahoma University. In time, she landed her dream job as an editor at ESSENCE magazine.

Habtezghi has earned her bones by contributing to documentaries that have been featured on PBS, Netflix, and HBO. She co-directed The ABCs of Book Banning with esteemed documentarian Sheila Nevins for MTV Documentary Films. Nevins, who has produced hundreds of projects for HBO, is also a 32-time Emmy winner.

In her next project, Habtzghi is set to produce and direct “American Problems, Trans Solutions,” a docuseries in partnership with transgender activist Imara Jones. She has made quite an entrance in the documentary filmmaking arena with Mary Gaffney’s story, masterfully breathing life into a buried tale and giving a voice to an otherwise unknown Black woman whose secret defiance in the face of slavery deserves to be told.

#Nazenet Habtezghi Unravels the Untold Story of an Enslaved Black Woman’s Bold Decision To Control Her Own Destiny #Birthing A Nation: The Resistance of Mary Gaffney #Mary Gaffney #formerly enslaved #Black Women #Nazenet Habtezghi #Black Women Filmmakers #Youtube

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the-celluloid-correspondent · 1 year

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Beau is Afraid

Following the sudden death of his mother, a mild-mannered but anxiety-ridden man confronts his darkest fears as he embarks on an epic, Kafkaesque odyssey back home.

After over a week of contemplating Beau is Afraid, I am finally ready to put my thoughts into words. Many thoughts went through my head over the past week about this film. Was this one of the most ambitious and creative films of 2023, or was it the worst? Whatever my debating thoughts, I always respected this film. I respect its ambition, creativity, and out-of-the-box filmmaking seen here. Though the film might not succeed in all aspects of its story and pacing, I still have reverence for it.

Director Ari Aster described Beau is Afraid as a "Jewish Lord of the Rings," which it somewhat is. Moreso draws inspiration from its episodic storytelling, with the film being broken up into four parts. Each part peels back a layer of anxiety and trauma of our protagonist. It's a fascinating character study of the consequences of parental abuse. It tells this study through a comedic yet anxiety-inducing lens that no one but Aster can do. He lets his creativity run wild with him trying to induce new anxieties and fears within his audience. However, in this epic of penis-monster proportions, you feel the three-hour-long runtime. Though I personally didn't mind, the general audience will feel the drag. Because of the drag, not all the elements of the story were fully polished and dragged points. Because of this, Beau is Afraid is definitely not a movie for everyone.

Aster always knows to bring the best out of his acting ensemble, and here his directing delivers. Joaquin Phoenix gives a fantastic performance as the forever-traumatized Beau. He conveys all the layers and mannerisms of anxiety, depression, and mania perfectly. If this wasn't so far out there, he would be in Oscar contention. Patti LuPone shows up and delivers an Oscar-worthy performance. She masterfully deserves her character's abusive and psychopathic nature. She is intimidating and owns every scene she is in. Nathan Lane and Amy Ryan look like they are having so much fun with their performances. Richard Kind also gives a commanding performance even though being in the film for only a few minutes.

As with all A24 films, they know how to maximize their budget. The production design is outstanding and filled with an insane amount of detail. I could spend hours studying the vandalized street of Beau's apartment. Furthermore, the animated sequence in the middle of the film was absolutely stunning. The cinematography, again, is fantastic and masterfully showcases the stunning production and visual storytelling. The score is minimally used and, when used, masterfully elevates scenes. For $35 million, this film looks better than most blockbusters.

Overall, Beau is Afraid is definitely not for everyone. Personally, I am still conflicted and require another rewatch to fully formulate my opinion. However, I still respect this film for what it is.

I am giving Beau is Afraid, a B.

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dodounchained · 7 months

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I have a genuine question: wouldn't it be better to practice creating your own art, rather than using these image generators? to each their own, but considering how many people struggle creating their own art because of depression following this "ai" boom, I know I personally would not want to contribute to something that makes other people feel bad about creating things by hand.

Hey, thanks for the questions and the chance to dive into these overdue thoughts from a personal angle, because you phrased them so well :)

The straightforward reason I don't practice drawing and create things with my own hands is that I simply don't have enough time to learn a new skill while working a 9-to-5 job while taking care of the family. Fandom is my escape, and there's only so much I can dedicate to it. Learning to paint demands significant effort, time, and talent, and unfortunately, I don't possess those gifts at the moment.

Let me be clear: "AI-generated imagery" can't replace traditionally painted arts, whether on canvas or through digital tools like Wacom or Procreate. They're not even in the same ballpark. Fun fact, I wanted to be a painter as a kid because my mom was one, but she shunned it because it didn't work out well for her. In the game industry I'm in now, Art directors and artists are still highly sought after and are crucial to any successful project. At the moment, AI generation can't precisely interpret what we envision or tell a client that, no, black is too dark for a 70 pt bold logo in a children's game with predominantly pastel colors. It can't even add weight to a line or create a simple walking animation. Returning to the point, we live in a time where both Photoshop skills and traditional oil painting are appreciated, where calligraphy and typewriting are both practiced, and where sculpture and 3D printer skills are both taught in schools. I hope for a future where AI imagery and the drawing community are not at odds but appreciated in their own ways.

For aspiring artists struggling, I can't comment directly as I'm navigating the same path. But I know the struggle is real, justified, and will pay off in the end. If you ask me to feel bad for them, it's like asking a working person if they feel guilty towards Uber drivers. The analogy falls apart because AI and creative artists aren't competing for the same limited real-life resources right now. If someone felt guilty for being able to do something others can't, they'd be living with guilt every moment.

If I sound a bit defensive, I hope for your understanding. I have imposter syndromes (deserved or not), being a woman in tech and an AI image generator (let's not stretch for the word AI artist). This blog goes on hiatus when I'm so depressed that I can't even open the page. I'm enraptured in the R&D process, but there's no one I can talk to about it. It's a different struggle, but I have terabytes of failed models, wasted hours, and spreadsheets documenting what might have gone wrong before the model reaches its best likeness. What's worse, there's little community for us. AI imagery gets a bad rep because there are mountains of perverts doing unspeakable things I witness every day on forums and servers while looking for the newest style or training method. I'm scared to tell people this is what I (can) do. Perhaps in the '90s, people denied going on the internet because it automatically equated them with being a porn-watcher. That'd be funny.

If there's anything to feel bad about, it's the copyright issue in the AI community. I try my best to use models trained over "ethically" obtained images, but one can never be sure. None of my work has ever been used commercially either.

This response has probably gone on a tangent for too long, and I'd like to appreciate your attention if you've reached this far. Fandom is my escapism, and I have so many headcanons that would otherwise be fleeting posts that vanish in a second. Now, I'm gifted with this new tool to indulge in them, and I feel truly lucky.

#discussion #text post

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nevermindirah · 3 years

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director's cut: not a gentle laughter, anything you'd like to talk about!

It took me like a whole damn week to reply to this ask (I'm sorry about that!) because I just have so many feelings about this fic.

Quarantine has been really, really hard on me. I think it's zero percent an accident that The Old Guard spoke to so many of us so deeply last year — their tragedy is that any social contact they might have with a mortal could lead to a picture or a story on social media getting picked up by a CIA agent that could lead to them getting locked in a cage for eternity. Social connections outside their group are high-risk, just like in-person social contact is high-risk for us these days.

Booker speaks to me so much as a character because he was profoundly isolated even before he got exiled. Booker struggles to actually communicate about his needs with the people who care about him. Jewish Booker speaks to me so much because it's the mark of antisemitism to assume you won't be wanted, to assume you'll be exiled if you're not useful enough or entertaining enough or whatever enough. I'd love to not know so intimately how depression and trauma fuck with your brain and make it hard to believe people care about you, let alone ask them for what you need, but I do, and here's this character who's seemingly hand-made for me to work out this shit through.

And Jewish Booker speaks to me because I don't have much in the way of Jewish community these days. I'm coming up on another High Holidays that I'll be spending alone, when there are certain prayers you can't say by yourself, and knowing that this niche headcanon of this fictional character is alone too makes it a little easier.

So I sat down to write "5 times Booker gets wasted on Purim and one time he doesn't" and instead all these FEELINGS came pouring out. Feelings about what it would mean for a small group of immortals to be the only long-term source of human connections for each other. Feelings about being able to spend time with an ancestor who survived. Feelings about how beautiful it is when we get creative and find new ways to keep going, as Jews in the face of violence and erasure, and just generally as people in the face of traumas big and small.

Once I accepted that this wasn't gonna be a silly romp and started writing in earnest, I started having a lot of feelings about how Nile might relate to all this. Which led to one of my favorite passages in the fic:

There's a hell of a lot more between the two of them now than just the shared life experience of modern immortals who carry the weight of their ancestors, but it's still one of the things she treasures the most about their friendship. Sometimes she carries her ancestors like a teddy bear, dangling them by the hand as she runs off to explore everything the world has to offer, or clutching them to her chest for comfort. Sometimes it all feels like an albatross around her neck, all these boundaries and expectations for her life set long before she was born, and to ignore it would be naive or a betrayal but maybe a relief as well. It's not the only or most important thing about her, but it's there, all the time, an essential part of her. Booker is the only one of their little family who understands.

That imagery is inspired by this post by @victimhood that I like to think of as the Book of Nile Manifesto 2.0. So much of our understanding of ourselves and our experiences of the world are intimately linked to our context, what's happening around us in the times and places where we live. Booker and Nile were born into a world that had so much context foregrounded for them, and Nile and Jewish Booker are members of diasporas who were forcibly disconnected from so much of their peoples' original contexts. That's a RADICALLY different experience of the world than Andy and Quynh and Lykon, or even Joe and Nicky. The older immortals lived through things that were foregone conclusions before Booker or Nile were even born, and now they're each a diaspora of one as a result of their immortality, but first living a mortal life of longing for impossible connections? It all hits different for our baby immortals.

Telling stories is the very most human thing. Telling stories about what awful things happened to us and what we learned as a result and how we're choosing for it to shape us — that's the crux of so much Jewish storytelling. And I think that survivor's outlook on telling stories would speak deeply to Nile.

It's not an exclusively Jewish way of telling stories, of course. And we even get some of it in the movie, when Andy tells Nile, "You come from warriors." I don't think she's talking about the Marines there — she's talking about what it takes to fight for your survival.

Anyway, I just have a million diaspora feels, and I think that Nile would learn from Booker about Jewish rituals and Jewish ways of telling stories and she would have her own pile of diaspora feels about it. Nile walked into a family in crisis, and she shouldn't have to fix anyone else's shit, but she deserves agency in shaping the next iteration of this little broken family she's been forced into, and I think she'd see all the mess that came from people not fucking talking to each other, and she'd continue to be rightfully pissed that Andy welcomed her to immortality with a bullet to the forehead, and she'd take everything she learned from her parents and grandparents and church elders and everyone else she might've looked up to growing up, and she'd take everything she's learning from Andy and Joe and Nicky, and she'd take what she's starting to learn from Booker, and she'd start building into her life rituals to help her feel connected.

And as much as there's pain in diaspora, there's beauty in it as well. Writing non-Jewish Nile seeing the value in these Jewish practices makes me feel a little more understood and wanted, a little more connected myself.

Thanks so much for asking about this fic, friend. <3

#fandom friends #my writing #jewish things #jewish booker #antisemitism #book of nile #tog

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allaboutve · 3 years

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FAVORITE MOVIE REVIEWS: #10 DREAMS, Akira Kurosawa

Dreams earns a spot as one of my favorite movies because it inspires childlike wonder and mature reflection in me. Its images inspire wonder in me that I only ever seem to feel within my own dreams. At the same time, I am moved by the movie’s careful treatment of its main theme--how to live in a world where the only certainty is our own mortality.

Dreams is a thematic sequel to Ran, the 1985 epic period film that earned Writer-Director Akira Kurosawa an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. Several critics have described Ran as pessimistic and nihilistic. Some have even interpreted the film as evidence of Kurosawa’s depression during the later part of his career.

Kurosawa’s later life certainly contains elements of tragedy and hardship, but Kurosawa’s outlook should not be described as nihilistic. Ran ends with a moral that human folly, not divine will, caused the film’s human tragedies.

Dreams continues this theme. It explores the subject of mortality and fear of death and seemingly concludes that this fear is the cause of human folly, and its crimes against nature.

Dreams shares many creative elements with Ran and Kurosawa’s earlier film Kagemusha. These elements are worth an entire treatment in and of themselves. Instead, I will discuss the themes and artistic aspects of the movie that make it one of my favorite films.

Dreams is part of a subgenre of movies that are anthologies of dream sequences--a genre that includes some of the most famous films by Luis Buñuel. Even though Buñuel was a surrealist with an interest in dream interpretation, Dreams may be a clearer window into its artist’s psychology than are Un Chien Andalou or The Phantom of Liberty. This is because Buñuel created structure in his scripts by inserting conscious political themes and dream sequences provided by his collaborators--Salvador Dalí and Jean-Claude Carrière.

Kurosawa frequently attempts to replicate the experience of his dreams. His most frequent device is to end each dream sequence with a cliffhanger, which he does in dream sequences “Sunshine Through the Rain,” “The Tunnel,” “Mt. Fuji in Red,” and “The Weeping Demon.”

Kurosawa also tries to elevate the dreamlike quality of each dream sequence. The most successful instance is in “The Tunnel,” when Kurosawa as a soldier sighs with relief after walking safely through a tunnel path. There is no reason stated reason for apprehension, except that a dog illuminated in a red aura blocks the soldier from walking any other direction.

Details like these communicate Kurosawa’s experience within the dream. Another device with the same effect occurs at the opening of the dream sequence “Crows.” Kurosawa studies the Vincent Van Gogh painting The Langlois Bridge at Arles with Women Washing. The sequence cuts to a live action image of the painting and Kurosawa steps into the foreground from outside the frame, implying he is walking into the painting. Later in the sequence, Kurosawa runs through several of Van Gogh’s unfinished paintings, searching for the artist.

For reasons I will elaborate further below, Kurosawa’s attempts to replicate the dream experience sometimes fall short and weigh down the movie. Yet they are most effective where they distort space and time. One of the best examples is in “The Peach Orchard,” which I will return to below.

Some details of Akira Kurosawa’s biography inform the meaning of Dreams. Kurosawa paid attention to detail regarding his childhood home and his mother’s mannerisms in “Sunshine Through the Rain.” Kurosawa is also said to have taken mountain climbing as a hobby as a young man, which informs the sequence “The Blizzard.”

The movie’s themes of artistry, suicide and the Pacific War all affected Kurosawa’s life. Yet although Kurosawa was a soldier in “The Tunnel,” the real Kurosawa never served in Japan’s Imperial Army.

Kurosawa’s career has at times put him at odds with Japanese culture. His early films were at times criticized for emulating a Western style. He did draw on literature by Shakespeare, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. And was also quoted saying the Occupation changed the Japan’s film industry in some positive ways. It’s conceivable his critical relationship with the Japanese film industry may have contributed to Kurosawa’s industry struggles between 1965 and 1985.

The theme of suicide in Dreams suggests Kurosawa’s tone may also be an example criticism directed toward Japanese social values. Kurosawa was born in 1910 during the Imperial Period of Japan, where ideals of militarism and Samurai culture would have still been preserved.

In “Sunshine Through the Rain,” young Akira is shut out of his home by his mother and told to either commit suicide or to find kitsune, spirit foxes, and beg their forgiveness. Walking away from his home, the camera zooms out so he remains the same size in the foreground while the background shrinks. Literally, young Akira is growing up. However, he is leaving his home to beg forgiveness, not to commit suicide.

If “Sunshine Through the Rain” was an authentic dream, Kurosawa as a child may have emotionally understood suicide in its cultural context. And this is supported by details at the end of the dream sequence.

In every dream sequence Kurosawa rejects suicide when given the choice. Yet Kurosawa himself attempted suicide in 1971. Japanese ritual suicide (seppuku) is referenced in this sequence as he is given a dagger to disembowel himself.

Seppuku is referenced in one other sequence--“The Tunnel.” In that dream sequence, Kurosawa tells the spirits of several dead soldiers that as a POW he felt like dying, that it would have been easier. The statement refers specifically to the expectation during World War II that Japanese POWs were to commit suicide--by seppuku or by other means.

Other references to suicide in Dreams do not involve sepukku. But Kurosawa’s understanding of suicide as a child, when he presumably first dreamed “Sunshine Through the Rain,” would have come from his cultural context as Japanese. Although Kurosawa may not have intended to criticize social norms regarding suicide directly, as far as he was criticizing suicide itself he was doing so from his own cultural context.

The theme of suicide is a small part of the larger theme of Dreams--fear of mortality. Western critics tend to misunderstand this theme within the movie and believe Dreams as ‘misguided’ environmentalist preaching.

Yet the environmental themes in Dreams are not as cohesive or detailed. The theme regarding mortality is present in “Sunshine Through the Rain,” “The Blizzard,” and “Crows.” The only other dream sequence with only an environmental theme is “The Peach Orchard.”

Both themes are presented at the same time in “Mt. Fuji in Red,” “The Weeping Demon,” and “Village of the Watermills.” I believe this caused critics to misunderstand Dreams. Kurosawa was concerned about the environment and probably wanted to advocate for a harmonious relationship with nature. But his message about morality is the more consistent and more clearly articulated theme in Dreams.

As far as Dreams is an authentic representation of Kurosawa’s inner life, it also provides insight into the way he saw women throughout his life. This is important because Kurosawa has been criticized for his representation of female characters throughout his filmography.

The first three dream sequences heavily feature women. “Sunshine Through the Rain” shows young Akira Kurosawa intruding into a Foxes’ Wedding. His mother responds by refusing to let him into the house.

An important detail is that the Foxes’ Wedding is a traditional Japanese wedding and the female and male foxes are separated based on gender. For a young child, this detail represents an understanding of sexual difference. And that understanding separates young Akira from his mother.

“The Peach Orchard” contains a similar theme. However, young Kurosawa instead leaves his sister to chase after a young girl who is in fact the spirit of a peach sapling.

In “The Blizzard,” Kurosawa is now a young man climbing a mountain during a snowstorm with three male companions. When Kurosawa finally succumbs to exhaustion, he is visited by a Yuki Onna (literally “Snow Woman”). He pushes her away as she tries to comfort him and as the storm subsides Kurosawa and his companions make for camp.

Female characters only feature heavily in two of the remaining dream sequences in Dreams. This fact strongly suggests Kurosawa’s emotional life was not as strongly influenced by women after adolescence, a possible explanation why women are frequently not protagonists in Kurosawa’s filmography. More than that, female characters in Kurosawa’s dreams are all either family or magical creatures until the dream sequence “Mt. Fuji in Red.”

One last theme worth discussing is the role that Vincent Van Gogh played in Kurosawa’s career. Vincent Van Gogh appears as a character in the dream sequence “Crows.” Kurosawa was well known as a painter and used his paintings as storyboards. His paintings have a wild quality and use a surreal, vibrant color palette--which influenced his use of color in Kagemusha and Ran.

Embarrassingly, it took me a few years and several rewatches of Dreams to realize Van Gogh was Kurosawa’s primary influence as a painter.

Dreams is one of my favorite movies. However, it is Number 10 because it has some fundamental flaws.

I have mentioned that the movie attempts to replicate the experience of a dream with mixed success. The failures are mostly in scenes when the protagonist observes and responds to his surroundings. The device works in dream sequences such as “The Tunnel” because the script viewer shares the character’s apprehension. The tunnel is shot pitch black and a threatening dog emerges from the tunnel before Kurosawa enters.

Other sequences are less successful. In “The Weeping Demon,” Kurosawa walks from the ruins of a city onto a desolate slope. There is no shot establishing what Kurosawa sees as he changes his path from one direction to another. This goes on for several minutes before any payoff.

Other dream sequences have the same problem with pace. “The Blizzard” opens with approximately ten minutes of Kurosawa and his companions hiking through a snowy mountainscape. Although we learn that the men are lost, no dialogue or action establishes that the mountaineers are lost or confused. I must confess that I have fallen asleep more than once in the early parts of the dream sequence “The Blizzard.”

Another sequence with this problem is “Crows.” The second half of the sequence shows Kurosawa chasing after Vincent Van Gogh while inside the artist’s unfinished paintings. Unlike “The Blizzard,” this sequence does not harm the narrative of the dream sequence because the first half already established two things. It established that Kurosawa is inside Van Gogh’s paintings and that he is chasing the artist himself.

One possible reason the film makes these mistakes is budgetary. Shooting vast landscapes would have required the resources to shoot on location or create large elaborate sets. Some sequences do exactly that--“The Peach Orchard” and “Village of the Windmills.”

Dreams had a large budget for a Japanese movie of its time. But at approximately $12 Million US, the budget would have limited what could be done.

The mistakes regarding the pace in the end fall onto the screenwriting. The runtime of Dreams is 119 minutes. Trimming “The Blizzard” and “The Weeping Demon” would have solved these problems and still kept the runtime over 90 minutes.

Critical characterization of Dreams as self indulgent is probably correct, and is the best explanation for these decisions. But it is also a creative decision Dreams has in common with the earlier Ran and Kagemusha. Both run nearly three hours and include several lingering shots--a stylistic trademark of Kurosawa’s later films. The criticism that Dreams is self indulgent is less an indictment on this style than it is on the quality of the movie itself.

However, Akira Kurosawa’s self indulgence is forgivable because Dreams is such a pretty movie to look at. Many sequences were Kurosawa’s first experiments with digital special effects, which are never used in a distracting way.

Beyond that, several shots in the movie are made using experimental cinematography to great effect. One shot is in the sequence “The Peach Orchard.” Young Kurosawa is confronted by the spirits of several cleared peach trees in the form of hina-ningyo--ornamental dolls representing the Japanese Imperial Court. When young Kurosawa expresses his grief for the trees, the spirits respond by performing a traditional dance for young Kurosawa.

The dance takes place on a hillside that is not especially steep. Yet the spirits appear at the same approximate distance from the viewer, as though they are on the same display as a hina doll set. Such a shot is obtained by using a strong telephoto lens, which tends to compress the depth of frame in a shot. For this effect, Kurosawa would have had to shoot this image from at least 250 meters away.

“The Tunnel” is another surprising sequence for its cinematography. Specifically, the dog that emerges from the tunnel is illuminated in a red aura that contrasts with the color palette of the rest of the scene.

Modern viewers might assume this was accomplished with simple digital editing. In fact, the red light comes from a street light that is barely visible throughout the scene. It does not shine brightly until the dog appears and is barely visible as faint glare on the street gravel.

How this shot was made confuses me. I am certain that the effect is caused by increasing the brightness of the light because the red aura touches Kurosawa’s protagonist in some shots. But I am not certain the shot could be illuminated from a street light unless the set was already shot in low light. Other details suggest the sequence was shot entirely in low light.

These and other sequences in Dreams create surreal visual splendor that is only glimpsed in the earlier Ran and Kagemusha. Although Dreams was not nearly as commercially successful, it is less trapped by its genre and is one of the best movies to look at.

Some of the sequences appeal to me personally because they are things I have only seen in my dreams, such as the mob of crows at the end of “Crows.” Other images remind me of what I imagined as a child or the paintings I would have wanted to make when art was a greater part of my life. For these reasons, I recommend Dreams to any viewers who look for that certain visual quality in what they watch.

But Dreams also has an important message about mortality and loss. For that reason, I recommend Dreams to anyone dealing with grief and recovery.

-ve

NEXT POST--#9: THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR (dir. John McTiernan)

#akira kurosawa #dreams #dreamscape #movies #cinema #cinematography #90s #japan #japan aesthetic #photography #painting #kagemusha #ran #luis bunuel #salvador dali #vincent van gogh #van gogh

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introvertguide · 3 years

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Duck Soup (1933); AFI #60

The next film on the AFI top 100 is a throwback to before the Golden Age of Hollywood when "talkies" were new, Duck Soup (1933). This film was the last attached to a 5 feature contract that the Marx Brothers had with Paramount pictures. It was moderately well received at the time but has since become the most critically acclaimed of the Marx Brothers films. The movie is only 68 minutes and is absolutely packed with gags. It is not, however, packed with a storyline or plot. I want to very briefly go over the summary because that is not what this movie is known for. Let's unnecessarily start with...

SPOILER ALERT? THIS MOVIE HAS NO PLOT. IT IS ALL ABOUT SITE GAGS AND SET PIECES. READ AWAY!!! IT WILL NOT DO ANYTHING TO HURT THE EXPERIENCE!!!

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The film starts off with the wealthy Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont) insisting that a man that she is sweet on, Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho), be appointed leader of the small, bankrupt country of Freedonia before she will continue to provide much-needed financial aid. Meanwhile, neighboring Sylvania is attempting to annex the country. Sylvanian ambassador Trentino (Louis Calhem) tries to foment a revolution and to woo Mrs. Teasdale, and he tries to dig up dirt on Firefly by sending in spies Chicolini (Chico) and Pinky (Harpo).

After failing to collect useful information against Firefly, Chicolini and Pinky are able to infiltrate the government when Chicolini is appointed Secretary of War after Firefly sees him selling peanuts outside his window. Meanwhile, Firefly's secretary, Bob Roland (Zeppo), suspects Trentino's motives, and he advises Firefly to get rid of Trentino by insulting him. Firefly agrees to the plan, but after a series of personal insults exchanged between Firefly and Trentino, the plan backfires when Firefly slaps Trentino instead of being slapped by him. As a result, the two countries come to the brink of war. Adding to the international friction is the fact that Firefly is also courting Mrs. Teasdale, and, like Trentino, hoping to get his hands on her late husband's wealth.

Trentino learns from his femme fatale spy, Vera Marcal (Raquel Torres), that Freedonia's plans of war are in Mrs. Teasdale's safe and tells her to assist Chicolini and Pinky in stealing them. Chicolini is caught by Firefly and put on trial, during which war is officially declared, and everyone is overcome by war frenzy, breaking into song and dance. Chicolini and Pinky join Firefly and Bob Roland in anarchic battle, resulting in general mayhem.

After a fierce battle, the end of the film finds Trentino caught in a makeshift pillory, with the Brothers pelting him with fruit. Trentino surrenders, but Firefly tells him to wait until they run out of fruit. Mrs. Teasdale begins singing the Freedonia national anthem in her operatic voice and the Brothers begin hurling fruit at her instead.

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There are many exceptionally good and bad aspects of this film. On the good side, there are a couple of amazing set pieces that the Marx Brothers did like no other. The mirror scene in which Groucho and Harpo stand in front of each other and Harpo perfectly mimics his brother's movements was outstanding. Specifically, there is a point where Groucho stands outside the reflection and moves in a ridiculous way past what he thinks is a reflection. The mirroring between the brothers is exceptional. Add in the same dressing gown and cap to the actual resemblance (they are full actual brothers) makes for quite an effect. This mirror gag was first done on film by Charlie Chaplin almost 15 years earlier, but this is likely the most well known and best done example of the bit by real people. It was repeated by Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, The Pink Panther, Tom and Jerry, Scooby-Doo, and the Smurfs. That kind of mirror quality action was only repeatable through animation, apparently.

The constant wardrobe changes during the frenzied war scene have caused full speculative articles to be written. Groucho starts out in a Union officer suit, then appears in a Confederate officer suite, then a British palace guard uniform, and then in what looks to be a boy scout officer suit, and finally a Davy Crockett hat? The deep cynicism and anti-war sentiment of the brothers was blatant. It is summed up by the line "while you're out out there risking life and limb through shot and shell, we'll be in here thinking what a sucker you are." The United States had just gotten out of a war and many militaristic leads felt the need to show off. This lack of care after feeling so dominant following WW1 was the mindset that in part led to the Stock Market crash and the Great Depression. There was turmoil brewing in Europe and many Americans wanted nothing to do with it after seeing so many young boys getting ripped apart by trench warfare and machine gun fire. The brothers were satirizing all of those figures that we use to teach boys to want to fight for their country. They also went after what they believed were the causes of many wars: money and moral indignation between powerful men.

Although the film gives the audience insight into the mindset of much of the population during those extremely turbulent times between wars, it also boasts some of the most unsophisticated humor of a new visual medium. The silly songs do not translate well and sound like something created by a child. With truly clever artists like Frank Zappa, the Dead Kennedys, and national treasure Weird Al Yankovic, the Marx Brother's songs just sound lame to me. I think the same of Groucho's one liners. With comedians like Mitch Hedberg, Paula Poundstone, Steven Wright, and Jimmy Carr, the work of Groucho Marx feels seriously dated and quite cringy.

The real let down for me in this particular film was the fighting between Harpo and the Lemonade salesman. In fact, the character of Pinkie was "The Joker" levels of psychotic. I know he represented the constant undermining of communism. That is fine and makes a good point. Practically speaking, though, he reveled in causing problems for no reason and he was a constant nuisance. I have been around a lot of teachers and they sat that students who act like that are the bane of everyone's existence. It may be witty, but it is not funny. I have seen movies like Borat and Jackass, who are at least very creative in the way they cause problems and mostly harm themselves. I legitimately hate the character of Pinky and find him devoid of any real humor beyond the mirror scene. I also realize that Chicolini is a play on Mussolini, but I didn't really find him funny either. I want to emphasize that these are my opinions and I welcome comments on why Pinkie and Chicolini are hilarious.

There are some things that I do forgive and almost find charming. Directors from the silent film era had to emphasize that their actors over dramatize their lines so that the audience could get even a modicum of tone. This over-the-top dramatic speaking continued with many actors into the era of talking pictures. You can tell that this film was made near the change over because a lot of the actors talk like they are making one continual speech. Just about everyone is projecting for the cheap seats, and I totally appreciate it and smile. I also appreciate that the Marx Brothers absolutely jam pack the film with gags. I don't think many of the gags are funny, but I acknowledge that the movie is 68 minutes of constant jokes and the Marx Brothers made a concerted effort to give their audience the most bang for their buck. Good for them.

So does this movie belong on the AFI top 100? I am actually going to say no. I think that Horse Feathers is a funnier film and has the iconic football scene that got a screen cap on the cover of Time magazine. If the AFI was going to choose a Paramount produced Marx Brothers film, this one seems to me to only be second or third choice of the five. Would I recommend it? Sure. It is definitely dated and the jokes will not make a lot of sense any more, but some of the scenes have become iconic and it is fun to see what has been so heavily referenced in current media. It is a pretty fun movie to sit back and just experience for an hour, so I would give it a shot.

#marx brothers #duck soup #afi films #comedy #black and white #1930s #groucho #harpo #zeppo #chico #mirror scene #introvert #iontroverts #one liners

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cyber-flight · 5 years

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Notes from the AHWM Explanation Livestream

This will be long, so fair warning! If you're on computer, you can press the spacebar to skip this post if you want!

There was CG smoke for the bomb

The last shot was running after the bomb goes off, filmed during the day

Many cursed images

(0:56 - Guns Blazing) November 5th = gunpowder treason & plot (a reference)

Ethan is the one yelling during the run

Helicopter/Car was filmed in a place formerly known as Spiderwoods (spiders, snakes, and bugs everywhere)

Mark's patented method to get rid of snakes is to tell them to fuck off

There was big black snake near the library

Chica snore-grumbles

Most of the choices were pretty evenly split in the video data

The guy who owned the field in Helicopter/Car also owned the helicopter

It was hard to get the cameraman to know that the camera is an interacting character

They filmed up to 10 pages a day

Prison was the first 2 days of shooting, as well as the part with the most characters/extras (12 people)

Mick gets typecasted in roles of authority

The Prison location is a functioning mental hospital

John was a Prisoner, first mate, and is a realtor IRL

There is no "why" to recording this to keep a broad audience and have fun after Mark was in a depression and made WKM

The Gregory Brothers / Schmoyoho made 2 renditions of I Don't Wanna Be Free (which is on Apple/iTunes/Spotify)

The musical was a production/recording nightmare on the 2nd day

They had 20 minutes max. to learn each segment; they had a choreographer helping them learn the dances

The original vocals didn't have the accent

Mark had to do the vocals, acting, blocking, etc. in 30 mins

Mick was supposed to cross frame during the top-hats-part, but they had already recorded it; the producers weren't comfortable telling Mark "no" yet, so they had Amy do it

The smashed bricks were styrofoam; Mark was typed to a rope that was pulled

The director of photography was Phillip J Roy; he took a pay cut to work on this project

Yancy's sleeve tattoo is the whole map again

Yancy's tattoos are Tiny Box Tim and Mark/Dark across his knuckles; those were Makeup's ideas

The Musical was only 1/4 of a recording day

There was 3 work weeks of shooting (15 days)

Day By Dave made a remix

Yancy was named "Prison Mark" until the fight scene started to be made in post-production, where he needed a name; Mark liked Yancy and Amy was very against it originally

Yancy killed both of his parents; Mark knew people were gonna fall in love with him anyway

"Yancy stans, go, march on"

Yancy has an emoji bandaid

Heapass (canonically) makes an appearance in Thanks and also Yes Please; he had "Heapass" on a cast, but it was on the wrong side from the camera

Holt Boggs (the cell guard) is an amazing man; he was overqualified ("soft hands")

The cell was in a green-screen soundstage, so there was more improve

Yancy was supposed to be hidden in the ceiling or beside the bed, but under the bed turned out better; he's hidden under the bed the whole scene

The Red Gemini was the camera that they used for this project

Mark just runs off frame in Thanks and also Yes Please

The audio-only part was very convenient for filming and fitting for a 1st-person perspective

Yancy's talk at the gate was Mark real-acting & the late shot of the 1st day of filming, which made all of them realize that the project could actually work

Yancy WANTS to be in prison; he knows all the ways out - he'd leave if he wanted to

The items in the box are more representational achievements

Mark needs our help to promote AHWM, through liking the video(s), commenting good things, and spreading the project; the performance of this dictates the ability to make another similar project

Mark worked for FREE for 5 months, taking no cut of the budget for himself

"Yancy is just Prison Mark with amnesia" "There could be a time-skip there; it could work"

Robert Rex, "a god walking amongst mere morals;" has always wearing the same thing; Mark didn't know that he was going to do different accents

Amy is the hand with the feather-duster

The Warden's desk moves into the hallway after a smash-cut

Mick's line had to be rewritten so it can be ambiguous; you can only tell if you were looking

The Warden embodies "big strong hands," something Mark writes into dialogue a lot (along with "trust you me"); everytime he touches something it cracks (his desk, Yancy's shoulder)

Pulling stuff from behind Mark's back was on-the-spot

The dirt joke was a prop-person and Mark throwing buckets

Mark helped Holt Boggs make a short video

HOLT BOGGS

The truck in Prison was a one-take-wonder; they actually bashed the truck through the wall in a such a cartoony, perfect way

The Bob/Wade skit was a reference to Prop Hunt

Mark comparing the disappointment of people not liking the video to a cup of dirt under the Christmas tree

The lid to the sewer says "a heist with markiplier"

The sewer was in an actual sewer treatment plant, which took about a week of filming; some parts were flooded so they couldn't film there; this place was scheduled to be torn down

Mark forces us to choose the Light Tunnel first

Cranbersher, GrittySugar, and Lixian collaborated for the Light Tunnel; it was originally going to be live action with a green-screen and a pre-made raft; Cranberser offered when he had a 3-month break from other projects

Amy notes that Mark did a lot of "falling"

Mark had to carry a 200 pound man and a heavy camera rig to carry Y/N

There was poison ivy, snakes, spiders, etc. on the island

The Game Grumps voiced the aliens; Erin originally was meant to play the Warden & Danny was meant to play one of the guards

Many roles fluctuated due to scheduling

Getting abducted is a reference to ADWM ("not again!")

Mark loves MatPat's scenes and acting (Build a Shelter)

There were so many mosquitos near the Cave and the actors couldn't put on bug spray because they had to preserve their makeups

There was a giant hole in the Cave from which grasshoppers rained down

They were a mile into the cave; they weren't able to staff them for 3 days, so they recorded for 2 days and had fo cut some shots

The Cave freeze-frame was unscripted; the camera director didn't tell cut and it was too funny

The Hermit was originally supposed to be Jacksepticeye but scheduling errors were in the way

Mick was originally supposed to be Crazy Ed

When the sound-guy didnt have a sound effect, one of them riffed something at the mic and it was modulated to fit as best as possible

Mark's camera loses signal/battery power

Mark has done the hot-wire-while-moving in Car before (van videos)

The blue flash during Car is you from the future/another timeline

Mark was actually driving the car; someone flashed the blue light so it was a bit dangerous

Tyler and Ethan make appearances as Zombies

Tyler actually let Mark hit him with a rock

There was a dead beaver in the shed during the Zombie Apocalypse

The Zombie Apocalypse shots were in VERY hot weather

The barricaded front door but very open back door was intentional humour

Ethan's zombie handshake was thought up on the spot

Moe was the man screaming from the fire and zombie attack, making everyone behind the camera laugh

Rosanna Pansino sings opera & speaks Chinese

The Scientist had to be broken up (the cuts are in the gunshots)

243 is a chemical identification symbol in an actual laboratory, nothing meaningful to the plot

The code leads to the AHWM website

What's truly inside the box is the real timeline, which is the team making the project

The room where the monitor was in (Amy, script manager, etc.) was locked out and no one could see what was going on, only hear it through headsets

Mark threw 2 dummies (main video, Absolutely Not!)

Chica likes to climb through the cords underneath Mark's desk

The true/canon ending is For The Greater Good, which leads to ADWM

SodaPopIn hasn't really done this before, but he went with it because he was told Mark was nice; he continued even during harsh weather, many planes, and a long take/monologue

The sandwiches are a callback to ADWM

The montage endings were inspired by the ones Amy made for ADWM

There was never any time set aside to get photos for the montages, so they had to continuously get pictures

Catherine makes an appearance in the Warfstache bit

Warfstache is just a meta joke > you respond by writing in the comments as a survey, producer Catherine is more powerful than the video-editing, ringing the bell for notifications

They rented the same place for the Warfstache bit that they used to film all the other previous Warfstache bits

Dark inserts himself wherever he feels like being

There is charity (#TeamTrees) merch for each of the egos/Mark characters in this project (including the new ones)

Edge of Sleep's last episode aired yesterday (as of the stream - 6/11/19)

A "reverse" charity livestream is happening soon

The next project(s) are already in the works

SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT HEIST

Amy originally wasn't going to work on this project until they went to Texas; she became Creative Producer once Mark put himself into too many places

Iba originally auditioned for the man in the burning truck, but his voice was so good he became the seer/guide

The project has been "cooking" since May

The next project would be a completely different project, not a continuation

SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT HEIST

Regular uploads start again tomorrow (7/11/19)

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ollyarchive · 3 years

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Olly Alexander Is Done With Shame

Like the character he plays in “It’s a Sin,” the actor and singer struggled with being gay. Now, he tells the world everything.

By Anna Leszkiewicz

Feb. 19, 2021Updated 9:22 a.m. ET

LONDON — When Olly Alexander burst into tears shooting a scene of “It’s a Sin,” no one was very surprised.

Making the show, which came to HBO Max on Thursday and follows a group of friends embracing the gay culture of ’80s London under the shadow of AIDS, was emotional for many of the cast and crew — and Alexander is as comfortable showing his vulnerabilities as the character he plays, Ritchie, is at deflecting them.

“I was a complete mess after the first take,” Alexander, 30, said in a recent video interview. “I was sobbing.” Peter Hoar, the director of “It’s a Sin,” paused filming.

The scene in question, which comes after Ritchie and his friends are arrested protesting the British government’s inaction on AIDS, is one of many in the show that explore how the epidemic devastated gay men’s lives.

When we meet Ritchie, he is an impishly confident but naïve 18-year-old who has just moved to London, with dreams of becoming an actor. Alexander also moved to the capital from rural England at 18 and scored his first movie role, but today he is better known as the lead singer of the band Years & Years. “It’s a Sin” is his first acting gig in six years.

Years & Years’s music often explores the relationship between desire and shame, and is heavily influenced by ’80s bands like Pet Shop Boys. (“It’s a Sin” takes its title from that group’s song of the same name.) So when Alexander heard Russell T Davies, the show’s creator, was interested in him for the lead role, the opportunity “made poetic sense,” Alexander said.

In an interview, Davies said the show was “cast gay as gay, which is my policy.” For Ritchie, he added, he wanted an out actor who already had a big profile in Britain. “That almost narrows it down to a field of one,” he said. “It was the simplest audition of my life.”

Alexander’s arch performance as Ritchie suggests that the character’s ambition and bravado are reactions to fear and self-loathing. “I realized straight away, ‘Oh, I know who Ritchie is,’” Alexander said. “He’s trying to get onstage and shine and dazzle: I’ve done that.”

But whereas Ritchie masks his vulnerabilities, Alexander has spoken frankly in interviews and onstage with the band about his experiences of bulimia, anxiety, self-harm and depression.

“I’ve said just everything about myself,” he said. “My life is kind of out there now.”

Alexander grew up in Gloucestershire, in western England, where his mother founded a local music festival. His father, an aspiring musician, worked in amusement parks.

It was a creative household, Alexander said, but his father had mental health problems and substance abuse issues that led to a difficult atmosphere at home. When he was 14, his parents separated; he’d only seen his father a handful of times since, he said.

School was an even more fraught environment, and Alexander experienced homophobic bullying from age 9. “I had long blond hair, and I acted quite feminine,” he said. “That made me a target. And kids can be so cruel.”

As Alexander recalled his younger self, he started to cry. It took many years until he could look back at the child he was with compassion, he said. “But that’s the biggest thing I’ve tried to do,” he added. The impact of his childhood is something he’s still processing in weekly therapy, he said.

When Alexander’s high school classmates went to college, he moved to East London and became a jobbing actor while babysitting and waiting tables. A pale, skinny teenager with a nest of tight curls, he landed roles as the tuberculosis-ridden younger brother of Ben Whishaw’s Keats in the film “Bright Star,” and an anguished drug user in Gaspar Noé’s trippy art movie “Enter the Void.”

Alexander had been living in London for a couple of years when he met his Years & Years bandmates, Mikey Goldsworthy and Emre Türkmen. Though they started out making high-minded, Radiohead-inspired electronic music, Alexander pushed the band toward synth-pop, with big, melodramatic choruses full of longing.

In 2015, the band’s exhilarating but anguished song “King” — about the strange thrill of being treated badly in a relationship — reached No. 1 on the British singles chart, and its debut album, “Communion,” topped the album charts, too.

“His songs are his life,” said the producer Mark Ralph, who has worked with Years & Years from the band’s earliest days “If you want to know what’s gone on in Olly’s life, then you just read all his lyrics.”

“Love takes its toll on me,” Alexander sings in “Sanctify,” a song about a secret liaison with a straight man. “And I won’t, and I won’t, and I won’t be ashamed.”

When the band performed the song at the Glastonbury Festival in 2016, soon after the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., a rainbow-clad Alexander told the crowd, “I’m here, I’m queer, and, yes, sometimes I’m afraid.” But, he added, “I am never ashamed, because I am proud of who I am.”

The speech caught the interest of TV producers, and, in 2017, he fronted a BBC documentary called “Olly Alexander: Growing Up Gay.” In it, he returns to his family home and leafs through teenage diaries full of references to bulimia and self-harm. On camera, he tells his mother about the bullying at school for the first time: Through tears, they discuss how it led him to mental health problems in his teenage years.

“It’s a lot to ask someone to bare their soul on national television,” said Vicki Cooper, the TV movie’s director. “But those difficult conversations created the best moments in the film.”

That documentary, and Alexander’s openness about his own mental health, mean he gets a lot of messages on social media from fans who are struggling themselves. He used to try to respond to them, he said, but the quantity has become impossible to keep up with.

Through those messages, though, Alexander had “seen a really emotionally vulnerable side to a lot of people,” he said. “That’s a precious thing, actually.”

Alexander had also been humbled by the positive response to “It’s a Sin” in Britain, he said. The show broke records for the streaming service All4, where it aired, with 6.5 million streams.

“It’s a Sin” first appeared on All4 during National H.I.V. Testing Week; on social media, the show’s cast encouraged viewers to get tested. The Terrence Higgins Trust, an H.I.V. nonprofit, said that the number of people taking tests through their service had almost quadrupled in the weeks afterward.

“People living with H.I.V. now can live normal, healthy lives: It’s so important to get that message out,” Alexander said, adding that treatments for the virus had transformed since the ’80s. “I’m really grateful that these conversations are happening, because, honestly, lots of people really didn’t know what was going on in this period of history. They’re shocked to learn about it now.”

That era is also having an influence on Alexander’s music. He is currently recording new material with Years & Years, inspired by the ’80s dance anthems of the “It’s a Sin” soundtrack and beyond: Donna Summer, New Order, Pet Shop Boys.

“During the pandemic, I wanted to listen to super upbeat club music that made me dance around,” he said. “I found myself wanting to create the fantasy and the energy that I haven’t necessarily been experiencing.”

As well as working on new music, Alexander said he had spent the lockdowns in England watching “Real Housewives” episodes, and playing Animal Crossing. “I used to be so, so driven,” he said, but now he was putting less pressure on himself.

He was happy, he added, to think back on what he’d already achieved, and how much has changed since he was a little boy who wished he wasn’t gay.

“I’ve kept a diary since I was 13 years old,” he said. “Sometimes I look at it and think I can tell this kid: ‘You’re going to do amazing things. You’re going to get to where you are now. It’s OK. You got this.’”

Hugo Yangüela contributed additional camera operating for photographs.

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wehavethoughts · 3 years

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Jingle Jangle Review!

Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey David E. Talbert (2020) Netflix Original Movie Fantasy, Holiday, Musical, Children’s Movie

Rating: 5/5 Waves

“I think it’s time for a new story.” – Journey

This review CONTAINS spoilers for Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey

Summary: Jeronicus Jangle is a genius toymaker who has everything he’s ever wanted until betrayal and tragedy strike and rip away his magic and inspiration. Jingle Jangle follows his journey with his bright, spunky granddaughter to finding his way out of darkness and towards family, love and inspiration.

No content warnings apply for Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey

Last year was a mess and 2021 is already on thin ice, but one of the best things to happen to me this season was my girlfriend sitting me down and convincing me to watch Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey. While the trailer looked fun, especially since it was a musical Christmas story featuring a primarily black cast, I hadn’t prioritized watching it. I tend to feel that everything has already been made when it comes to Christmas movies and I don’t want or need another retelling of the same stories. If I need a bump of Christmas spirit around the holidays, I indulge in a classic and move on. Fortunately for me, she wanted to watch it and we needed a Christmas Eve movie.

I loved so much about this movie that I could write tens of thousands of words singing its praises, but I wouldn’t do that to you, so I will narrow my praises to the most important parts of this movie to me. At the top of the list is just how good this movie looks.

Jingle Jangle is one of the most visually appealing movies I’ve ever seen. From the set to the costumes to the choreography, every single shot of this movie was pleasing to the eye. The clothing was sharp and colorful in a way that I expected to get on my nerves, but it ended up stunning. Costume designer Michael Wilkinson described the fashion as “Afro Victorian”. The characters’ hairstyles are another part of the costuming that stood out. They were creative and fun while also adding dimension to the characters’ looks. And let me just take a minute to personally thank the creators of Jingle Jangle for allowing all of these black characters to have natural hair. I have never seen that in a movie and it almost made me cry. Both the clothing and the hairstyles mirrored the characters’ arcs and added depth to the narrative.

The beauty of this movie can mostly be attributed to its fabulous designers, but I also want to point out that everything looked and felt fabulously expensive. I could not find the budget of Jingle Jangle in USD, but with every set piece, CGI shot, song and outfit you could tell that someone who loved this project spent a whole lot of money on it. It is refreshing to see a story like this getting the financial backing to do it properly.

The visuals were so stunning, in fact, that even if the actual story had been terrible, I would still have been happy to just sit and watch it on mute. Fortunately, Jingle Jangle’s story was phenomenal; heartwarming and inspiring with just enough humor to keep it light without feeling overly juvenile. It also had such meaningful emotional themes that I cried at least three times (in a good way).

The emotional core of this movie is the relationship between Jeronicus and his granddaughter Journey. Jeronicus is a grumpy, disillusioned inventor who abandoned his aspirations after achieving his dreams lead to nothing but betrayal and heartache. Journey is a bright, talented child who wants to learn from her brilliant grandfather, but she realizes she has to reignite his belief in himself first. The story centers around belief in the impossible, like most Christmas stories, but instead of asking the audience to believe in something like Santa Claus, Jingle Jangle reminds the audience to believe in themselves and their own abilities. Personally, I’ve never felt more inspired than when a small child belted about how “The square root of impossible is me!” The story digs into how depression can destroy a person’s creativity and inspiration and sometimes what we need is other people believing in us so we can be reminded to believe in ourselves.

My whole deal is reviewing fantasy though, so I feel like I should mention magic. Like most things in the movie it is very pretty to look at. When Jeronicus and Journey use their magic it is glittery, dazzling and very obviously a metaphor for imagination and creativity. Personally, these characters could have probably just have been very smart, but having a visual to see them thinking in new and exciting ways was nice. Math-but-its-glowing as a magic system is not something I’ve seen much of recently, but I know just enough math words to delight in what is coming out of these character’s mouths when they talk about their inventions. This might be a difficult movie for haters of math or people who study it for a living. If hearing characters say things like, “Belief! It collapsed the wave function.” and “Take the circumference of spectacular, divided by the second derivative of sensational…” is a deal breaker for you, then maybe skip this movie.

Also, I should note that this movie is a musical. This came as a surprise to us the first time we watched it, but luckily we love musicals. The first time the music swelled and Jeronicus started singing we were swept away by the magic of the moment, delightfully surprised and in awe of the musical talent. Every single song in this movie is energetic, fun and refreshingly Black. Director David E. Talbert said that he was inspired by southern soul and gospel music as well as Afrobeat and other primarily black genres. The mix of inspiration creates joyful and fresh new songs for the holiday season.

As a whole this movie got my highest rating because the things I love about it outweigh the flaws. That being said, there are a couple pieces of the story that either didn’t make sense or it feels like they did not think all the way through. First of all, the main conflict revolves around the villain Don Juan, a toy matador who has been given sentience through Jeronicus’s miraculous inventions, not wanting to be mass produced. While the story tries to convince us that the conflict revolves around Don Juan’s narcissism, if you think about this plot point too hard you realize that our protagonist plans to mass produce and sell his creations that are clearly alive and intelligent. Obviously the movie doesn’t dig into the ethics of this, since Don Juan is more concerned about not being one-of-a-kind rather than worried that he is going to be bought and sold as a commodity, but it is a concerning angle that implies some very uncomfortable things about this universe.

Another piece that I found falls apart when you think about it too hard is the framing of the story within a story. Jingle Jangle is told a bedtime story being read by a grandmother to her grandchild (similar to the Princess Bride). The first scenes introduce us to a couple of cute kids who ask their grandmother for a Christmas story and in opening the book we get some spectacular CGI and animation to introduce us to Jeronicus’s world. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this method of storytelling, I found it to be unnecessary since the children listening to the story and the grandmother don’t add much as independent characters. Unfortunately, the story seemed to feel the need to justify these characters’ existence and so in a big reveal at the end we discover that the grandmother is Journey, Jeronicus’s granddaughter.

While seeing Journey with her grandchildren is cute, it leads to questions that I personally did not need to have at the end of this otherwise tied up narrative. For example, the children seem to have never heard of Jeronicus Jangle, Don Juan or Buddy 3000 (another important toy character), yet we are meant to believe that Jeronicus’s story happened in the universe that the children live in? Why wouldn’t they know stories about their rich and famous great-great-grandfather? Why had they never heard of Jeronicus Jangle when it is implied that the toys they have grown up with would have been his or his family’s inventions? By making the children related to the people in the story, the writers distracted me from Jeronicus and Journey whose story is much more interesting and heartwarming. Jingle Jangle is a movie that asks me to think and reflect, so I don’t feel bad poking holes in the story, but I don’t love that they left me hanging with all these questions.

Additionally, there are also some things that I wish the writers hadn’t included in the movie at all. For example, they fridged Jeronicus’s wife almost immediately which was completely unnecessary and I hated to see that in a movie that got so many other things right. Also, having the only obviously Hispanic character (Don Juan Diego) be the villain in such a cartoon-y way left a bad taste in my mouth.

But Jingle Jangle still got my highest rating because as the sum of its parts, it was a fantastic story and I am so glad I got the chance to watch it. My very favorite part of this movie that has stuck with me even weeks after my first viewing is the relationship between Jeronicus and his family. There are sections of this movie where Jeronicus falls into the stereotypical absentee black father trope, but this story allows his character space to talk about what he did wrong, how he is hurting and Jeronicus learns to do better which is so important. I love the current trend in movies where parents apologize to their children because that can be such a healing experience and Jingle Jangle gives us that, but additionally, it makes the parent work for it and prove to their child that they are healing themselves. It offers hope to children struggling through painful situations like this and give parents an example of how they might be able to fix what they broke.

Overall, Jingle Jangle left me with a feeling of joy and contentment while inspiring me to remember what I used to love and rethink my self-imposed limits. The core message of this movie is a reminder that sometimes our lack of belief in our own skills is enough to stop us from achieving our dreams. Jingle Jangle reminds us to believe in our own capacity and lift each other up even when times are difficult. I don’t know if this movie will become a classic in the general consciousness, but it will certainly become a tradition in my family.

~TideMod

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shemakesmusic-uk · 3 years

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After releasing their album Play With Fire last year via Suicide Squeeze Records, Californian punk trio L.A. Witch are sharing a new video for their standout track 'Motorcycle Boy'. Speaking about the video, L.A. Witch singer and guitarist Sade Sanchez said "The song is inspired by Moto Boys like Mickey Rourke, Marlon Brando, and Steve McQueen, so of course we took a lot of inspiration from our favorite biker movies like The Wild One, Rumble Fish, On any Sunday, Easy Rider, Hells Angeles '69 and The Girl on a Motorcycle. I had worked with (director) Ambar Navarro and Max on another project and loved their other work, so we wanted to work with them on this. They definitely did their homework and came up with a cool story line. I got to feature my bike that I'd been rebuilding during the pandemic. It was nice to shoot a video where you get to do two of your favorite things, riding motorcycles and play guitar."

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Margo Price has shared a new music video for 'Hey Child', said to be the heart and “centerpiece” of her acclaimed 2020 album That’s How Rumors Get Started. It’s directed by Kimberly Stuckwisch. In the moving visual, the country star confronts the demons of her past. There are scenes referencing the time she spent in jail for substance abuse, as well as others depicting her struggles with addiction and depression. Price’s vulnerability is on full display here, and she ultimately uses it to heal and find strength again. Watch it down below. According to Price, 'Hey Child' was originally written back in 2012 “not long after my husband Jeremy and I lost our son Ezra.” She continued, noting how fellow country star and album producer Sturgill Simpson helped encourage her to release it: “'Hey Child' was a song that was written back in 2012 not long after my husband Jeremy and I lost our son Ezra. We were playing shows with our rock and roll band Buffalo Clover and occupying most of the bars in East Nashville. We had begun hanging with a rowdy group of degenerate musician friends and partying harder than The Rolling Stones…The song was about how many of our talented friends were drinking and partying their talents away but after a few years had passed, we realized it was just as much about us as our friends. I had retired it when the band broke up but Sturgill Simpson resurrected it when he asked me if I would re-record it for That’s How Rumors Get Started.” [via Consequence of Sound]

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NYC collective MICHELLE has today unveiled their first new single of 2021. Titled 'FYO,' the track powerfully recounts the four lead singers’ experiences growing up with mixed race identities. The track arrives alongside a music video directed by the band’s own Layla Ku and Emma Lee. Speaking on the message behind the song, Jamee Lockard from the band shares: “'FYO' is about belonging to different worlds but feeling rejected by both. Growing up as a mixed-race minority in the US, my self concept was warped by other people telling me what I am and am not, pushing and pulling me between identities. Although my feelings of cultural dissonance still ebb and flow, now I have the vocabulary, support system, and perspective to unpack that inner conflict on my own terms. We should never give others the authority to define who we are."

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With her new album Homecoming set for release on April 2 via Daemon T.V., Du Blonde is sharing the video for ‘Medicated’. Featuring Garbage’s Shirley Manson, Du Blonde says of the song, “‘Medicated’ is a letter to my 27 year old self who didn’t want to live anymore, from my now medicated, functioning and content self. It might sound depressing or concerning, but really it’s quite joyful. Like ‘look at how things can be if you hang around’. Shirley and I had talked about her adding vocals to a track and when I wrote Medicated it seemed like the perfect fit. She’s been a voice of reason for me many times when i’ve been struggling and it felt really appropriate to have her. I shot the video in my childhood bedroom using a green screen Girl Ray gave me at the start of lockdown,” she continues. “The spiders are a reference to a hallucination I had in my early teens where I pulled back my bed covers to see thousands of spiders writhing around in my bed, which now I see as a result of extreme anxiety. A lot of the scenarios in the video are a celebration of the things about me that I feel people might feel shame about. There’s so much stigma around taking medication in order to ease mental health conditions, so I wanted to express my feelings on the subject which is basically ‘I take medication and i’m stoked about it because thanks to that i’m still alive’.” [via DIY]

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Back with her powerful Y2K sound, Spain's Rakky Ripper channels PC Music and Rina Sawayama on brightly catchy new single 'Whatever'. The new EP Xtra Cost is released February 19. If you are over the age of 25, odds are that you can recall a very specific kind of pop that graced our launch into the new millennium. Since coined as "Y2K", chart music of that short era was flush with R&B beats, synthetic arrangements and sickly sweet hooks. Britney was the industry’s honey-highlighted princess whilst Christina made it dirrty. It’s something that Rina Sawayama has made 2020-relevant again with the release of her debut album Sawayama, whilst PC Music and Charli XCX took it to another extreme with the redefinition of what it means to be pop. Meanwhile, over in Spain, the alt-pop scene is flourishing courtesy of artists such as Rakky Ripper and her own unique blend of Y2K-meets-hyper-pop. Already gaining Charli XCX approval when the Mercury Award nominee asked Rakky to join her onstage at her Madrid show, the Granada talent shows crossover potential with her new single 'Whatever'. Punchy beats and playful synths capture the sticky heat of pop done well whilst its fuzzy guitar gives it an alternative edge, however it’s its hook-riddled chorus and Rakky’s Spanglish lyrical mix that make 'Whatever' a standout moment. “‘Whatever’ is the pop girl in my new EP Xtra Cost,” shares Rakky of her new release. “It’s my 2021 version of Britney, *NSYNC and the Spice Girls. The new video tells the story about two people who are in love but one of them pretends not to care, so the other person is always chasing.” [via Line Of Best Fit]

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Things are afoot in the FKA twigs camp. In October, the R&B star revealed that her third album had been completed during quarantine. Now, she’s back with a new song called 'Don’t Judge Me'. It's her first since dropping the masterful album MAGDALENE in 2019. In addition to a stunning performance from FKA twigs, the track features UK rapper Headie One and producer Fred again…, who’s worked with the likes of Ed Sheeran and Brian Eno. 'Don’t Judge Me' appears to be something of a companion release or sequel to 'Don’t Judge Me (Interlude)', an early 2020 collaboration that also featured all three artists. Unlike the intentional vagueness of that song, the themes on this version are a lot more direct. During her verse and the hook, twigs begs her lover to hold her and appreciate the “precious love” she sends their way with a devastating urgency. Headie One takes a different approach in his verse and goes off about racial injustice and police brutality. “Know more about my people from the streets than from my teachers/ I done a million speeches/ No justice, no peace, ’cause we in pieces/ Officer, am I allowed to breathe here?,” he raps with a conversational directness. It’s a really powerful pairing from two different yet complementary artists with voices that demand the listener’s full attention. Check it out above via a dazzling video co-directed by FKA twigs and Emmanuel Adjei, who was heavily involved in Beyonce’s Black Is King visual album. Like all of FKA twigs’ clips, this one is truly something to behold. [via Consequence of Sound]

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Girl Friday have delivered a surrealistic visual for 'Earthquake,' the powerhouse lead single from Androgynous Mary, their acclaimed album of 2020 out now on Hardly Art. 'Earthquake' is one of the band's most gloriously raging moments and sees the group power through three and a half minutes of unadulterated catharsis. Girl Friday’s Vera Ellen, who directed the new video, offers this, “The greatest love story is between a song and a video. I wanted to deconstruct the creative process. How do ideas find each other? What happens when the artist lets outside forces get in the way of an idea? How is an idea affected by us, the audience and our expectations? What does an idea have to do to become it’s complete, purest, self. Beyond anything, it’s a story of fighting for true liberation. This will look different for everyone but I hope people can project their own struggle onto the story, and relish in the freedom experienced by the characters (if only for a moment)."

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J-Pop girl-group, FAKY has released their first single of 2021, 'The Light' with an accompanying music video. This song was selected as a campaign song for the horror film Jukaimura (Suicide Forest Village), the most recent work by the master horror director, Takashi Shimizu, who also directed The Ju-on (The Grudge) and Inunakimura (Howling Village). This up-tempo and cheerful track was created to add another layer of eerieness and uncertainty to the hair-raising storyline and themes of the movie. 2020 was a successful year for the girl group. FAKY hopes to further their success in 2021 starting with the release of 'The Light'. “Our new single ‘The Light’ is an uplifting song with its pop melody, powerful live band sound, and motivating message to move forward towards the light” - FAKY. The music was composed by up-and-coming music producer, Maeshima Soshi (Hypnosis Mic, Hey! Say! JUMP, Rinne and Sorane). 'The Light' expresses that moment when your heart quivers, just when you are about to change, with the theme being about overcoming conflict and having “power to strike out into the world.”

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Kinlaw's dark-pop quest has seen her shatter boundaries. Snapped up by Bayonet Records, her piercing, roving eye deconstructs her personal feelings, illuminating electronic structures in their stead. New album The Tipping Scale is out this month, and it expertly reflects the vagaries of winter, the spartan landscapes and the self-examination. Taken from the record, new single 'Haircut' deals with shifts in her life, with the urge to propel herself into something fresh. "I cut my hair to confuse myself," she comments. "It started as a mission to change who I was, to make a new and better version, but ended with my feeling like I no longer knew what I was mourning." A song about leaving trauma behind and embracing the possibilities of the present, 'Haircut' carries some inspired connotations for these troubled times. Kinlaw says the single offers "a question of personal power, and even speaking on this song today has been challenging because it was written when I was unsure if I had any power left. I think 'Haircut' can be a lot of things to many different people, particularly those who identify with the juxtaposition of in-depth, internal dialogue paired with everyday coping strategies. There is a sweetness to it, but also such substantial, unwavering difficulty. Today, I prefer to think of 'Haircut' as an anthem of resilience and an ode to the ways we keep going, we shapeshift, and we reinstall that there is a way to find what it is we are hoping to find." The visual leans on the intimate, opening up a window into Kinlaw's life, and her true feelings. [via Clash]

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The Rhode Island born, Los Angeles based singer, songwriter, musician and actress Emeline is known for her work with Thievery Corporation's Rob Garza as well as her solo music full of biting lyrics and catchy hooks. Her new music video for '6 Foot Deep' was filmed at the infamous Westerfeld Mansion a.k.a “House of Legends.” Icons like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin have lived there, as well as the founder of the Church of Satan. Covered in satanic etchings and scratches from his pet lions, the energy within the house added to the feel of the music video. Also previously used for the Russian Embassy, the house has featured on "Ghost Hunters" for it's haunted happenings.

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The Charli XCX-crafted Nasty Cherry have returned with their first single of the year, 'Lucky'. The new track follows last year's Season 2 EP, and arrives as first taster of a new EP landing this spring. The band say of their new single, "'Lucky' is a song we wrote for each other during the pandemic where the six weeks we got to spend together felt incredibly precious and introspective. It's a reflective, sweet and spiky little song." [via Line Of Best Fit]

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Griff has premiered the video for her incredible new single ‘Black Hole’. Launched as Annie Mac’s Hottest Record in the World last week, the striking new visual sees Griff examine a past relationship through a surreal, Alice in Wonderland’-esque journey from the sewing room into self-discovery (directed by duo SOB). [via With Guitars]

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Poppy Ajudha has shared her new single 'Weakness' in full. The London based artist blends together jazz, soul, R&B, and a whole lot more besides, resulting in a sound that is truly her own. 'Weakness' is a song about love, and it finds Poppy capturing that nuanced dichotomy between the rush of pleasure and an innate fear of being out of control. In a note, Poppy explains that her new single is "about feeling out of control and at the mercy of someone else because of how crazy they make you feel, but also feeling bittersweet about it, because you’re a bad b*tch and you don’t have time for that ish." The songwriter steered the video, too, a self-admitted "control freak" who oversaw the neat mixture of animation and a superbly styled set. "Self-directing was really fun," she comments. "I’m a control freak so it was great to get stuck into all the facets of making a music video. Choosing the team, the makeup looks, directing the styling ideas, writing the narrative, working out how to build the set. It definitely felt like a challenge to direct, star-in and perform choreographed moves for the first time but I love to push myself and am really glad I did." [via Clash]

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GG McG’s latest single, ‘Good Morning’, is her first release this year and second overall, following ‘Boom’ in 2019. The song was written on GarageBand during lockdown and was produced by Japanese Wallpaper’s Gab Strum, mixed by Konstantin Kersting and mastered by Andrei Eremin. “‘Good Morning’ is about the total, complete chaos of the past year and the feeling of waking up every morning, reading the news and being blown away by just how much worse things were than the day before,” McGauran said in a statement. [via the Music Network]

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Singer HyunA dropped her seventh mini album I’m Not Cool on Thursday, singing of the ups and downs of being the “cool girl” on stage. The album’s title song 'I’m Not Cool' sings about the nice things she tells herself. “It’s really about my originality. I try to compliment myself before going onto the stage. I tell myself it’s not bad to be myself. I’ve long dreamed of this moment right now, and I feel like I’m a bird flying freely in the sky or a flower blooming in the field. I know I cannot be loved by everyone, but I become perfect with just one person’s love. The song is about these kind of every day thoughts.” Donned in exotic outfits and flashy makeup, HyunA said she “became a snake” in the song that sings “No one’s as intense as I am, like salmosa. I tried to show as much of myself as I could in the music video. I wanted to show how intense the ‘not cool’ HyunA could become when fully set,” she added. The creativity behind the title track comes from the unique minds of herself, singer and the founder of her agency P Nation Psy, and her best colleague and boyfriend Dawn. “We worked on the song while just chatting about it endlessly with each other,” HyunA said. “When Psy threw in a big catchy chunk, Dawn would creatively unfold this, adding fun elements to make it fit my style and state of mind. I personally like writing those rebellious lines. Mingling these three minds together, every day, was just so much fun.” [via The Korea Herald]

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THYLA are sharing their first new music of 2021, with new single 'Breathe', a track that the band confirm will appear on their long-awaited debut album, set for release later this year. Putting 2020 firmly in the rear-view mirror, the Thyla ethos of putting one foot in front of the other serves them well as they look toward what a long-awaited debut album might sound like. As self-confessed underdogs they've developed an attitude that aims at turning the possible into the inevitable, and with the hypnotic 'Breathe' they reach for reflective, melancholy sounds to accompany what is a time of intense loneliness for many. It is a theme that has been creeping into Thyla's music for some time, and 'Breathe' sees them further explore the idea that, in a world more connected than ever, we are paradoxically more shut off as individuals. 'Breathe' shows yet again that even at their subtlest, Thyla are capable of carving out an impassioned pop world full of the intricacies of our much-missed IRL interactions. Lead singer Millie Duthie offers these thoughts on the track: "'Breathe' was written in the early hours of the morning. Eventually we chanced upon this really vibey atmospheric lick that you hear in the intro, and the whole song grew from there. The song blossomed into a slightly melancholic dream-pop bop, it’s bittersweet and has a slightly inconclusive feeling to it; imagine a film where the main character never actually gets the happy ending you’ve been so long yearning for. The result of how the instrumental sounded no doubt manifested lyrics that held the same sentiment. The song is about loneliness, estrangement from family and close friends, yet despite this, feeling a sense of inner strength about the situation. It’s like recovering from a breakup and realising you’ve come out stronger, but a reflection of the scar tissue that resulted from the trauma."

#videos of the week #l.a. witch #margo price #michelle #du blonde #rakky ripper #fka twigs #girl friday #faky #kinlaw #emeline #nasty cherry #griff #poppy ajudha #gg mcg #hyuna #thyla

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nitrateglow · 4 years

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Favorite film discoveries of 2019

Every year, my new-to-me favorites list always shocks me in some way. This year, the sheer amount of movies made in the 2010s on display is INSANE by my standards. Of course, most of the modern movies here are throwbacks or tributes to older styles of cinema, so maybe it’s not that shocking in the long run.

Another running trend this year: movies that are old but not as dated as we would wish. Many of the older films here deal with xenophobia and political strife in ways that still feel shockingly prescient today-- the more things change...

ONCE UPON A TIME... IN HOLLYWOOD (DIR. QUENTIN TARANTINO, 2019)

I never thought the day would come where my favorite movie of the year would actually be made after the 1970s, let alone by Quentin Tarantino. Then again, this movie is all about the end of Old Hollywood as well as a big love letter to the 1960s, so maybe it’s not that shocking a state of affairs. I adored this movie, the level of detail, the laidback yet elegaic vibe, the comedy and the relationships between all the characters. It was one of those movies where I loved even the scenes where nothing seems to be happening at all-- I mean, who knew Brad Pitt feeding his dog and watching TV could be entertaining?? But it is and I can't wait to see this one again!

INTENTIONS OF MURDER (DIR. SHOHEI IMAMURA, 1964)

Intentions of Murder has an insane premise, one that runs the risk of being tasteless: a housewife in a miserable, exploitative marriage is raped by a sickly burglar during a home invasion. Even worse, she can’t shake him, as he’s suddenly infatuated and wants her to run away with him to the city. And weirder still: her current existence is so miserable that she’s TEMPTED. While abuse and rape are grim subjects for any story, Intentions is actually about a woman coming into her own and finally standing strong against all these men trying to use her. It’s a weird blend of drama and dark comedy, a truly savage satire on patriarchy and class-snobbery.

JOKER (DIR. TODD PHILLIPS, 2019)

I went into this movie expecting to think it was overhyped and when I first left the theater, I was all ready to say “it’s good but not THAT good.” But it ended up haunting me for weeks afterward, and I found myself thinking about how everything just tied up so well together, from the grotty urban hellscape which serves as the setting to Phoenix’s brilliant performance. It reminded me a lot of A Clockwork Orange in how intimate it lets you get to this violent man while never pretending he is someone to be glamorized or imitated.

SIMON (DIR. MARSHALL BRICKMAN, 1980)

How do I even describe Simon? Alan Arkin is brainwashed by a group of overpaid intellectuals into believing he is descended from an alien toaster. Then he gets a messiah complex and starts gathering disciples as he rails against television, condiment packets, and muzak. It’s a little uneven at times, sure, but the satire is really inspired. The whole thing is like a combination of Mel Brooks, Stanley Kubrick, and Woody Allen’s styles, and it is quite hilarious for those who thrive on cult oddities.

PEEPING TOM (DIR. MICHAEL POWELL, 1960)

Though it came out the same year as Hitchcock’s Psycho and has been nearly as influential for horror cinema, Peeping Tom remains underseen by everyone save for film theorists. And what a shame that is, because this movie is more frightening than Psycho. Sure, that may be because Psycho is so predominant in popular culture and just so influential that it no longer has the same shock value, but there’s something about Peeping Tom that gets under my skin, something sad, even disgusting. I felt dirty after watching it-- and this is 2019!

MIDNIGHT MARY (DIR. WILLIAM WELLMAN, 1933)

Loretta Young got one of her juiciest roles in this pre-code crime drama. Her Mary Martin is more than just a good girl forced into criminal circles-- she’s a complicated creature, compassionate and desperate and lonely and bitter and sensual all at once. This movie is a fast-paced, beautifully filmed ride, cloaked in that Depression-era cynicism that makes pre-code Hollywood of such interest to movie geeks the world over.

WILD BOYS OF THE ROAD (DIR. WILLIAM WELLMAN, 1933)

Wild Boys of the Road is a quintessential Depression-era movie, relentless in its bleakness and rage. That the main characters are all starving kids only looking for work makes their struggles all the harder to watch. William Wellman is quickly becoming one of my favorite directors: his gritty style and compact storytelling are just perfect for a ripped-from-the-headlines drama such as this. And the “happy” ending has one little moment that just knocks any smile you have right off your mug. Absolutely see this.

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING (DIR. NORMAN JEWISON, 1966)

Sometimes, when you watch a movie only because a favorite actor is in it, you get subjected to pure trash like Free and Easy (oh, the things I do for Buster Keaton). Other times, you get cute gems like The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming, which, as you probably guessed, I mainly sought out for Alan Arkin. But the whole movie is hilarious, the best kind of farce comedy, populated by enjoyable characters and a sweet-tempered humanism that grounds the wackiness. While a little overlong, this movie is quite underrated-- and sadly, its satire of American xenophobia and Cold War panic is not as dated as we would like to believe.

ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (DIR. ALAN J. PAKULA, 1976)

Who knew a political thriller where most people know the twist could be so intense and riveting? It’s about as nonsensical as feeling suspense when you watch a movie about the Titanic and hope the boat won’t sink-- but damn, it’s magical. All the President’s Men is real white-knuckle stuff, with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman projecting both youthful excitement and deep panic as they proceed with their investigation. It scarcely seems to have aged at all.

WHISPER OF THE HEART (DIR. YOSHIFUMI KONDOU, 1995)

There’s a scene near the end of Whisper of the Heart where the protagonist Shizuku shows the finished first draft of her fantasy novel to her first reader, the grandpa of one of her schoolmates. She weeps because it isn’t the perfect image she had in her head, despite how hard she worked on it, but the old man tells her that it takes polishing and discipline to make the work come to its full potential. Few movies about artists are so honest about how hard it can be, how unsupportive others can be in their demand that everyone be “practical.” As a writer who struggles to create and constantly doubts herself, this movie spoke strongly to me. I recommend it to any creative person.

THE PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (DIR. BRIAN DE PALMA, 1976)

I’d been wanting to see this movie since my high school phan days. Holy crap, is it WEIRDER than I could have ever imagined, a true camp masterpiece. I’m shocked it was never tuned into a stage show actually, but then again, we would miss those trippy camera angles and we wouldn’t have Paul Williams as one of the greatest villains of all time.

DUEL (DIR. STEVEN SPIELBERG, 1971)

When people talk about the best movies made in the “Hitchcock without Hitchcock directing” tradition, why is Duel so seldom mentioned? The scene in the cafe, packed with paranoid tension and tense camerawork, alone should qualify it. Duel is most known as the movie which put the young Steven Spielberg on the map. It’s quite different from his later work, grittier and less whimsical for sure. Even the ending seems almost nihilistic, depending on how you view it. But damn, if it isn’t fine filmmaking.

CAROL (DIR. TODD HAYNES, 2015)

This gorgeous throwback to Douglas Sirk melodramas is also one of the best romantic movies I’ve seen in a while. Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara have the sweetest, tenderest chemistry-- it was like seeing Lauren Bacall and Audrey Hepburn as love interests in a film. Unlike Sirk, there is little in the way of ripe melodrama here-- everything is underplayed, aching, mature. And I can say this is an adaptation that is better than the source book: it just feels so much warmer.

12 ANGRY MEN (DIR. SIDNEY LUMET, 1957

All I can say is that this was every bit equal to the hype. Common movie wisdom says people sitting and talking in a room is going to be boring on film, but movies like 12 Angry Men prove this is not so when you’ve got an excellently tense atmosphere, an inspired script, and a stable of fine actors to work with. Like The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming, this movie has not significantly aged-- much to society’s discredit.

A STAR IS BORN (DIR. GEORGE CUKOR, 1954)

Another movie I went into not expecting to love as much as I did. When movies from the 20s or 30s tended to get remakes in the 1950s, I always find them too garish and big, victims of glossy Cinemascope and overlong runtimes. Compared to the lean 1937 classic original, I expected sheer indulgence from this three-hour remake. Instead, I got my heart torn out all over again-- the longer runtime is used well, fleshing out the characters to a greater degree. Judy Garland and James Mason both give what might be the best efforts of their respective careers, and the satire of the celebrity machine remains as relevant and scathing as ever.

BLANCANIEVES (DIR. PABLO BERGER, 2012)

Oh, it feels like this movie was made for me specifically. It’s shot in gorgeous, expressionistic black-and-white. It’s set in the 1920s. It’s a clever adaptation of a classic fairy tale. It’s as funny and charming as it is bittersweet and macabre. Instead of more superhero movies, can we get more neo-silent movies like this? PLEASE?

THE FAVOURITE (DIR. YORGOS LANTHIMOS, 2018)

I’ve heard The Favourite described as a “bitchy lesbian Shakespeare play,” but this description, while a little true in terms of general tone, does not get to the heart of what makes this film brilliant. More than love or sex, this movie is about power-- particularly the corrupting influence of power. And it corrupts not only morals but love itself. Innocents become Machiavellian schemers. Lovers become sadomasochistic enemies. Good intentions turn to poison. This certainly isn’t a happy movie, but it is moving and, strangely enough, also hilarious. I was reminded of the chilly, satirical world of Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon more than once-- and for me, that is not a bad movie to be reminded of.

ON THE WATERFRONT (DIR. ELIA KAZAN, 1954)

Another classic that’s been on my list forever that I was delighted to find worthy of its reputation. It’s a classic tale of redemption and social justice, perfectly acted and shot. While I still prefer A Streetcar Named Desire as far as Kazan is concerned, this might be a better movie in the objective sense. Actually, more than even Brando, Karl Malden is the acting highlight for me-- he plays a priest torn between staying silent or truly speaking for the Gospel by demanding justice for the poor parish he serves. Just brilliant work.

KLUTE (DIR. ALAN J. PAKULA, 1971)

A perfect thriller, just about, and a great example of the “NYC is hell on earth” subgenre of the 1960s and 1970s. Jane Fonda is a revelation: she feels so real, not at all like a starlet trying to seem normal if you know what I mean.

KISS KISS BANG BANG (DIR. SHANE BLACK, 2005)

As far as subversive noir goes, this is the most entertaining. I would put it up there with The Big Lebowski as far as goofy takes on Raymond Chandler are concerned-- I don’t even really know what to make of it, but I laughed my ass off anytime I wasn’t going “WHAT???”

What were your favorite film discoveries in 2019?

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rochey1010 · 4 years

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HI, ok so this second post is about Eliott posting obscure movies and how they are or will relate to the plot:

1: NIGHT OF THE GHOULS - this movie is basically made by an amateur movie director known as Ed Wood. Now this one did confuse me for a bit as i had multiple threads going in my head. So i'm just gonna list them all. This is setting up the ELU trust/insecurity issues to come. It's also setting up the connection between Eliott and Lola, and it could be setting up Eliott and his suspected uni movie project.

● ELU trust/insecurity issues- the girl in the clip is panicking over something being outside. She's very hysterical and unsettled, and refers to what's outside as ghosts. The guy in the turban is basically telling her she's a fool and that there isn't anything outside. So theorising here, the girl is lucas. The ghosts are the ghosts of the past AKA abandonment issues. They're so deeply rooted that there's a struggle to get through to him. The turban guy is Eliott and he's frustrated that his reasoning isn't getting through. That the fears are unfounded = possible misconstrued nature by Lucas of Eliott and Lola's friendship.

More obscure theory but actually starting to build ground as the show goes on. The girl is Eliott and it's simply that the ghosts of the past have returned (upcoming Benny.Taxi post) and he's freaking out over it.

● this is the BTS, and i think very important for the Lola and Eliott friendship. So Ed Wood the director of the movie formed a friendship with Bella Lugosi (star) but it was through the making of this movie that Wood got Lugosi through the darkest days of his depression and alcoholism. His friendship saved him and put him in a better place. How does this relate? Lola is spiralling at the moment and Maya is distant. She needs a connection and she's one step away from going on another bender. This is where Eliott comes in. He's empathic, sees the bigger picture and has shown concern towards Lola. Their connection is being built on self identification. Basically someone who can relate and understand. Lola needs that right now. Eliott has reached out and they are gonna be friends. He's gonna help her and i suspect the movie will be part of it.

● this one is just about Ed Wood and being an amateur director. I must say a really bad one. I'm thinking it's Eliott BTS and his possible Uni project, and his insecurities over his ability and talents because he was hurt when POLARIS failed to get the funding it needed in the past.

2: MAX AND MARY: A story about a long distance friendship between two lonely outlier souls. There is an age difference but the bond is innocent between them. They converse as penpals and in the end Mary goes to meet Max but he died. this is basically setting up not only the friendship between Eliott and Lola but that Lola will meet Eliott in the next few days. It's also screaming another theory (Benny.Taxi) but i'm gonna talk about that in my last post. The clip is Mary knocking on Max's door. Now my theory is that Lola goes to find Eliott possibly at his job but just misses him, and ends up slipping and going back to the club or more likely she now reaches out to him and meets him.

Edit: next movie Eliott just posted on his insta story.....

3: Unbreakable: This is a 2000's movie directed by M Night Shyamalan. There are 2 important characters. One is a security guard called David (Bruce Wilis) and the other is a comic book store owner calked Elijah (Samuel L Jackson) They come into each others lives and force each other to confront their true selves. They are opposites or polarities of each other. POLARIS i see you there. 👋 but at different places in their lives.

Elijah says "however unreal it may seem, we are connected you and i, we're on the same curve, just on opposite ends"

David is damaged psychologically. He's trying to fix himself and his world. He is numb and just going through the motions of life. He has no passion or drive. Then he finds out about his super powers. That he is super strong like iron, and through this knowledge, and using those abilities, he heals his soul and feels complete.

Elijah is physically damaged. He has brittle 'glass' bones and is in a wheelchair. He learns of David's abilities and he seeks to understand them. Elijah thinks that himself and David are connected and it's through this presence in David's life that they both go on a journey of self discovery and knowing their purpose. Elijah acts as a quirky sort of mentor for David. A guide you would say.

Elijah: "it's alright to be afraid, David because this part won't be like a comic book. Real life doesn't fit into little boxes that were drawn for it"

It's a very ambiguous sort of movie, as both characters are simply grey people. They are very flawed and they have hurt people. There are themes of heroism, self worth, destiny, fear identity and purpose, and really it's about becoming your own hero in life. So how does this relate to the show?

Ok, Eliott is again forshadowing the plot and the issues these characters will face and overcome. Basically i feel it's again the dynamic that Lola and Eliott have. How they will affect each other and the meaning they will bring to each others lives. So Lola is David and she's depressed and numb right now. She's directionless and feels she has no place in her world. Eliott is Elijah and he meets her at a place in life where he ends up helping her to see her true potential. Through this Lola starts to take the reigns of her own life and be her own hero. And her world around her begins to flourish once again e.g. friends, family, love etc.

Elijah says to David at one point "do you know what the scariest thing is? To not know your place in this world, to not know why you're here"

That screams so much fear in both of these characters, with their own insecurities and trauma's. Eliott could possibly be to me at a crossroads in his creativity. That now that he is trying to bring POLARIS back again, that he is crippled with doubt and insecurity from the first time it failed. His personal insta movie stories seem to me to be him trying to find inspiration to finish POLARIS. And through them it's like he's doubting himself (Elijah's "i almost gave up hope there were so many times i questioned myself")but also through them, the thread is there that he will have help to make POLARIS realised finally.

Ultimately the movie and the show is referencing the realisation of who a person is, what they are capable of, and finding closure from the past and putting your fears and doubts to rest. This to me is both Eliott and Lola's journey.

So basically Eliott's movie is coming. Possibly E6. And POLARIS will be the crux of the life changes in Eliott and Lola. I feel Lola being involved in Eliott's art may even start changing the way she views her own. (damage) and i feel POLARIS will help Lola come to terms with her love for Maya. Thanks to anyone who continues to read my ramblings. 😊

OK my last post is about Benny.taxi and how it's looking like it will be Eliott and not Daphne. And how Eliott's past connects to that.

#skam france #eliott demaury #skam fr s6 #skamfr

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alj4890 · 5 years

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Christmas Prompt

(Thomas x Amanda) with the given prompt from @jlpplays1-41daysofcheerchallenge for black and white

(Thomas Hunt x oc*Amanda) in a Christmas one shot

A/N I had something planned for this movie for our RCD Appreciation Week, but ended up going with another. Using it for @jlpplays1 41 Days of Cheer Challenge seemed meant to be. This isn't a part of my AU's though I had considered Thomas and Amanda meeting under simliar circumstances in Another Night, Another Dream storyline. Still, I am a sucker for fluff and first impressions. So here we go again.

Above image taken from the 1940 holiday classic Remember the Night and I do spoil most of it in this. Sorry!

@lxaah11 @alleksa16 @penguininapinktuxedo @blackcoffee85 @stopforamoment @hopefulmoonobject @krsnlove @annekebbphotography @cora-nova @bella-ca @hopelessromantic1352. @sunflowergirl05 @desiree-0816 @greywitchyshots @lilyofchoices @emceesynonymroll @dr-nancy-house @aworldoffandoms @ab1901 @pixieferry @lolablackwrites @flyawayboo @i-bloody-love-drake-walker. @trappedinfandoms @kate-mckenzie

Masterlist

The Theater

Amanda settled into the red cushioned seat and set her soda down in the cupholder. She pulled up on the tab to open her box of Junior Mints and glanced around. She couldn't believe that hardly anyone was here for the holiday movie marathon.

When she told those back home in Cordonia that she was traveling to Los Angeles specifically to attend this week of nothing but classics from silent era to ending with 1954's White Christmas, none had volunteered to come with her.

"If I'm going to California, I want to sightsee and party with the stars...not attend some tiny theater for old movies." Maxwell had reluctantly admitted when she voiced her surprise that he didn't want to go.

Everyone else pleaded with her to do something else. After all, she had only seen it advertised on the theater’s website.

“What if it isn’t in a safe area of the city?” Liam asked. “You will be alone, late at night in what could be a dangerous area.”

“Why are you spending money to see movies you have seen a hundred times before?” Drake rolled his eyes at her explanation of experiencing it in a movie theater.

"It's the week before Christmas." Olivia had argued. "You should be here with us where you belong, not alone in some strange city watching movies you already own on blu ray.”

When it came to things that she truly loved, Amanda's stubborn streak made itself known. They all shook their heads. If she had to have one crazy weird attribute, willing to travel for movies might not be the worst thing she could have.

And here she was on her third evening, ready to watch the first half of the 1940's classics. The evening was beginning with Remember the Night.

Amanda adored this particular one. She could remember when her mother first shared this movie with her when she was nine years old. It had been late one night when neither could sleep. They had cuddled under a blanket and only had the Christmas tree lights on.

She had fallen hard for Fred MacMurray's portrayal of John Sargent from the very beginning. His sarcastic, dry humor mixed with his gruff, morally right persona had hidden what was later revealed to be a very tender heart toward those he loved.

Barbara Stanwyck's con artist/thief was just the right person to shake him up. Of course, he managed to open her eyes and smooth out her understandable rough due to circumstances edges.

Their love story had all the elements from humor to bittersweetness. The perfect movie made even more so because it was set during a snowy Christmas and New Year's.

Amanda had secretly searched a long time for her tall, dark, and handsome Fred MacMurray/John Sargent. Most of the men she thought might be the one seemed to be lacking that one key element that made him so desirable: the tender heart. She had recently given up that long held dream. The man simply did not exist in the real world.

"I was born in the wrong time period." Amanda would say to herself each time she watched this. "That's why I can't find anyone like him."

She shook herself out of these unhappy thoughts and watched as John argued against dismissing the case of Barabara Stanwyck's character, Lee.

________________

She's back, Thomas thought when he saw the same woman come in by herself and take the exact same seat she had the past two nights. She had another box of candy and soft drink, just like she had each other time. She laid her jacket on the seat next to hers and he knew from observing her the other times that she would end up using it as a cover around the second hour of the movie marathon.

He settled more comfortably in his own chair further back. Seeing her dedication in supporting this small, independent theater made him not lose hope in people knowing and enjoying these classics. He had tried to encourage his film students to come and had even played around with the idea of offering extra credit. He decided against it in the hopes they would come simply because of what these old black and white movies contained: emotional storytelling at its finest.

There was no CGI nor any enhanced techniques. No method acting. Nothing except a story acted out with the sheer talent to draw one within the imagined world and make the individual wish they could remain.

Something about these black and white movies made the winters and snowfall seem even more shiver worthy. Knowing it was all done on a soundstage, made it even more impressive.

He was surprised that his attention continued to stray to the woman sitting a few rows ahead of his and a couple of seats over to the left. He had looked forward to seeing the movies he actually owned on various discs on the large screen.

"I was born in the wrong time period." He would mutter when reading about the golden age of film. To be a part of the beginning of not only sound in films, but also during a time of discovering a wealth of talent in actors and screenwriters, would have been a dream come true. A dream to be able to feel that excitment of making movies was something he was in desperate need of.

He had gotten burned out. After filming The Last Duchess, he felt empty. Nothing had sparked his creativity. Nothing made him want to jump back into the director's chair and bring a story to life. He felt like he was teetering on the edge of something about to happen in his life...something life changing. He hoped whatever it was would happen soon.

Being unable to sit back and wait patiently for the mystery life changing event to happen, he had decided to return to his second love of teaching. It had been going well the last few semesters. There was only one drawback to this. He didn't know quite what to do with himself now that he was on winter break.

He shook himself from the quagmire of his depressing thoughts and focused on the scene of John offering to take Lee to her mother's home in Indiana on his way to see his own.

______________

Amanda laughed at the scene of John's irritation and resulting sarcasm while dealing with the small town judge. She could hear a deep laugh somewhere behind her. She supposed it was the same lone man that had been here the last few nights.

He shares my sense of humor, she thought. Hearing that laugh didn't make her feel quite so alone in the theater. She had never minded being on her own. There were many times that she loved to escape the nobles and her friends for a needed breather. Yet something about the holiday season made being alone seem...well...lonely.

She needn't be. Amanda had a wonderful life. One day she would meet someone to share it with. It might not be her dream man that was currently on the screen, but he would be perfect for her.

_____________

Thomas watched the lone woman dig in her purse for a tissue. She had been moved to tears over how cruel Lee's mother was and how sweet John had been to tell her he was taking her to his childhood home for Christmas.

He wracked his memories and realized he couldn't recall the last time he witnessed a woman of today crying over a black and white movie of yesterday. Perhaps I've been around the wrong women, he thought.

He wished he could see the expression on her face caught up in the bittersweet emotion. What had made her cry? Was it simple pity for the heroine of the movie? Did it remind her of something from her own past? Was it John's actions that set off her tears?

He grimaced and tried to keep his attention strictly on the movie.

________________

Amanda sighed at that ending. To make such a choice...could I do that if I had been Lee?

"I must be a horrible person." Amanda mumbled as she gathered her things. She planned on getting a refill before The Shop Around the Corner started.

"Why do you think you're horrible?"

She turned around in surprise. "Oh!" Amanda stared at the famous man who had been the only other one in the theater tonight. "I..." Her smile held hints of self-depreciation. "I don't know if I could leave John and willingly plead guilty to my crimes. I would be tempted to marry him like he wanted and allow him to pull all the tricks to make the jury side with me."

Thomas nodded. "Yes, it would be difficult. I believe though that nowadays the heroine would probably do that very thing."

Amanda's grin reappeared. "Now that we no longer have the Hays Office making certain the wicked paid for every action, I imagine that someone would rewrite this to Lee not only being claimed innocent but that John was evil to continue to serve as prosecutor.”

His eyes widened. "You know about the Hays Office?"

"Of course." She stepped out into the aisle. "I love film history."

He followed her out into the lobby. "You're not leaving yet, are you?"

She turned around once more in surprise. "No. I was going to get a refill."

He hesistated a moment. Thomas couldn't help but notice that not only could she keep up intelligently conversation wise, but he also found her attractive. "Would you care to sit with me during the next film?"

"I don't know if we will be able to find two seats together with such a crowd." She teased.

He chuckled softly. "If I am able to find two side by side..." Thomas trailed off and waited.

Amanda lowered her eyes and grinned. "Then I would appreciate you saving me a seat."

______________

A few movies later and at a small nearby diner...

"Do you have any particular recommendations?" Amanda asked as she picked up the menu.

"All of the pies here are some of the best around." Thomas lifted his own menu, yet continued to glance at her over it.

She smiled when the waitress approached.

"What can I get you and your lady friend to drink, Professor?" The middle aged, slightly tired woman asked.

He nodded toward Amanda to go first.

"Iced tea, please." She replied.

"Coffee." He added.

"Are you ready to order or do you need another moment?" She asked.

"I am, are you?" Thomas asked.

Amanda grinned. "Go ahead. I make decisions for food better under pressure."

He chuckled. "Apple pie a la mode."

The waitress turned to Amanda.

"I'll have the same." She decided at the last moment.

Once they were alone, Thomas folded his arms on the table. "I have a question that has been driving me mad most of the night."

Amanda lifted an eyebrow. "Oh? And what might that be?"

"During Remember the Night, you were crying. Why?"

Her cheeks turned a little red under his steady regard. The Thomas Hunt wanted to know why she had teared up. She still couldn't believe his interest in her thoughts. Granted it wasn't like anyone else had been there to steal his attention away from her. She might as well enjoy it for what it was: a once in a lifetime opportunity. They had spent most of their time sitting next to each other in the theater, talking and pointing out various aspects of the scenes they loved in the movies they had seen so far.

"Everything about that scene when John and Lee go to her childhood home hurts. When you compare it to the first glimpse of John's it really strikes you at the differences." She explained.

"How?" He asked, wanting to hear more of her thoughts.

Amanda leaned forward as she went further into detail. "Take the lighting for example. Lee's home is cast in shadows. No lights are on inside that we can see, welcoming anyone approaching with warmth. John's had lamps shining like a lighthouse, beckoning one to safety from the cold. Lee's mother and stepfather didn't bother to step out on the porch or even invite them inside from the cold. The single light near the mother cast harsh shadows, adding even more to the foreboding sense that no love would be awaiting the prodigal daughter. John's had family coming out into the cold, wanting to hug and hurry them inside to warm up. Current joy at seeing him again and memories of happiness waited inside that bright house."

He listened to her silently in complete agreement. He marveled at her ability to cut right to the aesthetic of the two instead of focusing in on the dialogue. The words spoken were of course moving in terms of emotion, yet for her to point out something he tried to do for his students made him want to talk to her even more.

"Here you go." The waitress set their plates and drinks in front of them. "Has my nephew been behaving himself?"

Thomas nodded. "He has been doing very well this past semester. You should be proud of him."

The tiredness left the woman's face hearing that. "You really think he has a future in cinematography, Mr. Hunt?"

"I do." He said a bit gruffly. "I recommended him for a scholarship." He picked at his pie. "You should receive the letter soon about the approval."

"You mean--" the waitress teared up and tried to get the words out. "Thank you. This...this means the world to us."

He waived off her thanks. "His talent and your tenacity is what did this. I had no part in it."

She turned to Amanda who was observing their interaction quietly. "Don't let him fool you. He had everything to do with giving my Brandon his dream future."

The young lady realized that her suspicions were correct. There was a good deal more to the famous director than what he decided to reveal to the outside world.

Thomas cleared his throat and avoided eye contact. The waitress poured his coffee and left them alone.

Amanda picked up her fork and took a bite. "You were right. The pie here is very good." She noticed relief flood his features over the attention no longer being on his kindness.

"I'm glad you agree." He took a bite of his own. "Are you planning on attending any of the other nights at the theater?"

"All of them, actually." She grinned at him. "It was why I decided to come to Los Angeles for a visit."

"I see." His brow furrowed with thought. "I plan on attending the whole week also."

She reached for the sugar packets to add to her glass of tea while waiting to hear what he would say next.

"If you are planning on being there and I am, then perhaps we could go together." Thomas looked at her over his coffee cup to gage her reaction.

"I would like that." Amanda said with a hint of color to her cheeks. "Then perhaps we could talk about the movies over pie."

His lips curved into a soft smile. "I would like that."

_____________

Last night of the holiday classics...

"Thank you, Thomas, for making this week so enjoyable. I have loved our discussions each night." Amanda kissed his cheek on impulse outside the theater.

He took her hand and cleared his throat. "I have enjoyed it also." He looked down at their fingers laced together. "When do you leave for Cordonia?"

"Day after tomorrow." She said, wishing time had not gone by so quickly.

His frown formed. "Must you go so soon?"

Her eyebrows lifted. "I suppose I don't necessarily have to." She pushed the strands of hair back that were determined to remain in her face as a breeze blew. "Christmas is a few days away though."

"You could spend the holidays here, if you would like...with me." Thomas tugged her close and slowly captured her lips in a tender kiss.

She was rooted to the sidewalk in shock over him kissing her. She had hoped he would. But as each night ended without one, she assumed he wasn't attracted to her. Now, though...

She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him into another more active kiss. She smiled against his lips when his hands slipped in her hair, encouraging the kiss to go on.

When it ended, she took a brief moment to gather her thoughts. "Perhaps I could stay until after New Year's, if you would like me to."

Thomas held her pressed against him and brushed his lips against hers. "I can't think of anything more I would like."

_______________

3 years later in that same theater...

"Would you like any Junior Mints?" Thomas asked, helping her off with her coat.

Amanda set her hand on her very distended belly and shook her head. "I don't believe our baby shares my love for peppermint and chocolate." She slowly lowered herself in the seat and sighed. "I can't believe you thought of coming here again."

He sat down next to her and placed his arm along the back of her seat. "I thought it might be nice to relive the night we met that led to this." He placed his hand on her stomach, smiling softly at the movement he felt.

She laughed while looking around the empty theater. "Seems to be the same crowd as was before."

"That is my doing." He explained. "I rented the entire theater just for us."

"You did?" Her smile turned tender.

He nodded, presssing a kiss to her lips. "And I have the same movies as before."

She rested her head on his shoulder and thought back to that night. "I didn't expect to end up staying here when I first came."

"I'm grateful my powers of persuasion worked so well." He gently rubbed her tense back while thinking of when he first approached her.

After spending the holidays together, he had received a script that had reinvigorated his passion for directing. He returned to Cordonia to film it and to spend more time getting to know Amanda. On the night of his new movie's premiere, he asked her to marry him. A few months after that they were on their honeymoon.

Now here they were, anxiously awaiting the arrival of their own classic film lover, who was already a week overdue in making his or her appearance.

As Remember the Night began, Thomas pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I am very thankful I met you that night."

Amanda sat up and held her stomach. "Meeting you was quite a surprise, though I believe tonight's might give it a run for its money."

His brow furrowed. "Why is that?"

She looked up at him with an excited smile. "My water just broke."

#red carpet diaries #choices thomas hunt #rcd thomas hunt #thomas hunt x oc #thomas hunt rcd #thomas hunt x amanda #41 days of cheer #41 days of cheer challenge

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gravecinema · 4 years

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Why Beetlejuice is the Best Tim Burton Movie - 05/06/2020

Beetlejuice is the best Tim Burton movie ever made. Many directors can be said to have developed their own style over the course of their careers, and there is no other director that has a more distinct style than Tim Burton. In only his second feature film, Beetlejuice, which was released in 1988, exhibits and expresses a macabre, grim, and whimsical style that would since become synonymous with Tim Burton. It sets the tone for much of his later work yet to come, such as Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, and Corpse Bride.

The main plot revolves around the couple of Adam and Barbara Maitland, played by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis, who within the first 10 minutes of the movie get killed in an auto accident heading over a bridge into a creek and drowning. The newly dead couple soon discover that they now have become ghostly spirits that are forever trapped within their house. When a new couple with a daughter move into their house, they attempt to haunt and scare away the new family. However, the new daughter who is a curious, gothic, and depressive teenager name Lydia, played by Winona Ryder, is the only person able to see the two ghosts. When Adam and Barbara are unable to successfully scare away the family, the plot takes a turn when they seek the help of a ghostly demon: the titular Beetlejuice, played wonderfully by Michael Keaton.

Throughout the course of the movie, we are treated to a visual and creative feast of set design, stop-motion effects, and Oscar-winning make-up. For a movie with macabre subject matter, you would think it would be a mostly dark and grim affair, but it’s the vivid colors used that really stand out to me. Tim Burton would later become known for having a much darker and gothic looking color pallet in his films, but the Director actually has his cinematographer make wonderful use of color in a number of his films, and Beetlejuice is one of the best examples of this. Most notably when Adam and Barbara take a trip to the afterlife waiting room, in which a comparison and contrast to the real-world DMV is ever present. It’s nothing but endless waiting, but in a much more colorful and vibrant setting. This similar color technique to establish setting would also later be used in Corpse Bride, where the afterlife is shown to be much more colorful and vibrant than the dreary normal life on Earth.

The Oscar-winning make-up of Beetlejuice shines its brightest in the afterlife, with the various deceased characters making up the waiting room. The man with the bone stuck in his neck must be one of my personal favorites. I also really appreciate the visual gag of having dead versions of the audience staring back at themselves in Juno’s office in the background, while Adam and Barbara are in the foreground of the shot. The exact make-up work I really believe won Beetlejuice the Oscar though is the stunning creature design of Adam and Barbara when in the film they later don their monstrous visages in order to better scare the family out of their house. They are two looks you certainly won’t forget after having seen this movie and are truly inspired.

One of the most distinct elements of the film has also got to be the engaging and creative score by Danny Elfman, who would go on to become a longtime collaborator with Tim Burton. Tim Burton would make it a habit of reworking with people that he has a great professional relationship with, most notably with Johnny Depp. The initial theme playing over the opening credits really sets the mood for the rollercoaster of a movie you are about to watch. Individual eerie elements are also added into to score to help set the mood for certain scenes, and they do a great job of transitioning the mood and tone for each subsequent scene.

It also cannot go without mentioning the brilliant use of the Banana Boat (Day-O) song, by Harry Belafonte, in the truly out of left-field and amazingly iconic scene where the two ghosts possess Lydia’s parents and dinner guests in another failed effort to scare everyone out of the house. The use of the song is even teased in the opening production company logo of the film. Adam is also seen to be listening to Harry Belafonte music in the attic just after the opening credits. It cannot be overstated just how much the music of Beetlejuice truly breathes life into the film.

The costume design is also inspired, and Beetlejuice himself is eventually adorned in his most iconic look, that of the black and white striped suit that he can be seen in on any poster of the film. Oddly enough, the character only wears the famous suit for just over 3 and a half minutes of screen time throughout the entire movie. In fact, the titular character of Beetlejuice only has about 17 and a half minutes of total screen time throughout the movie, not even making his first appearance until just over halfway through the film. However, when Beetlejuice does make his first appearance, does he ever own the screen and movie.

You can tell that Michael Keaton had an absolute blast playing Beetlejuice, and his fun and enthusiasm shines throughout his performance. It’s reported that he even adlibbed a great deal of his lines, and you can tell that helps increase the flawless comedic elements to his character. The voice Michael Keaton has given to the character is such a great affectation, and it does a perfect job of having Michael Keaton really own the role and make it his own. You cannot show a picture of Beetlejuice to someone, and then not have them instantly think of Michael Keaton and the voice he gives to the character.

The movie also possesses an excellent script by Michael McDowell and has some nice and interesting bits littered about. The character of Otho, played by Glenn Shadix, is shown to have an expert knowledge of the supernatural, even correctly knowing about the souls of those in the afterlife becoming civil servants after committing suicide, as the audience has previously seen when Adam and Barbara took their trip to the afterlife waiting room. The character of Delia, played exquisitely by Catherine O’Hara, also exclaims, “Do you think I want to die like this?!,” after having one of her sculptures encompassing and trapping her earlier in the film, which is a nice bit of foreshadowing towards the climax of the film.

What really sets Beetlejuice apart from other Tim Burton films is its originality, and the screenplay is a truly unique piece of scriptwriting showcasing what it means for two characters to die, and to have their afterlife get harder and not easier than when they were alive. It has its own unique vision and story, which is something that is lacking in most major Hollywood films that are made today. Many of Tim Burton’s later works would be adaptations from preexisting properties, but Beetlejuice was a completely original concept from script to screen, and as such, Tim Burton would have more of a say and representation of his own vision towards the overall final product.

If you look at the career of many directors, you will find that some of their best and most unique work are the early films that they make during a time when they are more driven by creativity and having a message that they need to say and represent through their art. Tim Burton is no exception to this, having what I consider to be his best films made during this period. Among them are Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, and of course, Beetlejuice. If you include The Nightmare Before Christmas, which was directed by Henry Selick and not Tim Burton himself, but completely his story and characters, then there is no doubt that this period was the best creative output of his career.

Later works of Burton would mostly be adaptations of previous works, but with studios just wanting to add that Tim Burton style that was so well done in his early work. This was done successfully in the very first Batman films that were directed by Burton. The character of Batman and the setting of the dark and gritty city of Gotham created a perfect marriage of a preexisting creative property and Tim Burton’s style. It was only with the turn of the Millennium that this method of having Tim Burton add his own flair to a property would become hit or miss.

Tim Burton adaptations of Planet of the Apes and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory would prove to be critical and creative misses for Burton. Other films such as Big Fish, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and the underrated Dark Shadows film adaptation would prove to be films that produced better results of adding that particular Tim Burton style to a film. However, it is mostly a rare occasion when we get to see a new and mostly original Tim Burton film, and that is a shame, because that’s when he is truly capable of creating some absolutely memorable pieces of cinematic beauty.

The legacy of Tim Burton will always be mostly defined by those early and unique films of his. The most defining of which will always be Beetlejuice. It will always be the film most people will think of first when you mention the name of Tim Burton. While it may not be the best technically made and acted movie by Tim Burton, it will always be the best “Tim Burton” movie, since Tim Burton has become a movie genre all unto himself, and Beetlejuice is the defining movie of that genre.

#beetlejuice #grave cinema #review #video essay #essay

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avelera · 5 years

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HadesTown and POV

aka, Eurydice is actually the main character of HadesTown (or should be)

So I still have HadesTown meta very much on the brain right now, just tons of stuff about Hades vs. Orpheus and masculinity and all the visuals and tone of the story that comes from having the writer and director both be women, but there’s also one thing on my mind that’s a little more criticism. But first, a little context.

I went with my mother, and she struggled with the musical for a variety of reasons. Her criticism that stuck out to me was she called it, “all over the place” which I took to mean she had trouble following the story. Now, as a writer, I take that kind of criticism more seriously than I do content criticism ( “I don’t like the story because of xyz.” Well, maybe it’s just not for you.) So I’ve been thinking about it and I think I figured out the flaw in the structure she was referring to, and why it’s such a hard one for non-writers to articulate.

HadesTown, at least onstage, struggles somewhat with “point of view”. Who is telling the story? Who is the main character? Whose eyes are we seeing this story through?

Hermes is our narrator, but he tends to drop out on occasion to allow the drama to unfold without his filter.

Orpheus is technically our protagonist, as he is in the original myth. He is the one with a mission and a goal that he tries (and fails) to accomplish by the end. However, there are long stretches of the narrative, especially at the beginning when the audience is being introduced to the story, where he’s absent or off in his own little world. This makes for fascinating meta about masculinity in storytelling, but does create some internal confusion for an audience member trying to pick out who this story is about.

This problem is exacerbated by the atmospheric and gorgeous choice to have most of the cast on stage all the time. Hades and Persephone are there from the beginning, genteelly looking down from the balcony to the proceedings. Orpheus is often off to the side of the stage while he composes and it’s several songs into the narrative before he is front and center.

Then you have the fact that Orpheus/Eurydice and Hades/Persephone are being used as parallels for one another, and as a result they spread the story between them. The most confusing part of the setup of the story is when Orpheus plays his “unfinished” song to summon spring, and Persephone temporarily comes on stage. Now, this is quite a brilliant way to drag Hades and Persephone, as well as their story, into the narrative but I think if you’re not someone well versed in fantasy or myth, it may not be clear that Orpheus song is magical but because it was not yet finished, he couldn’t keep Persephone there for long.

The problem of portraying Orpheus as genuinely magical is compounded by the modern costume and set design. It’s gorgeous, but it doesn’t make it immediately clear that we’re in a fantasy setting where magic actually works, it takes a bit of mental gymnastics (especially difficult to pull off while trying to parse information from songs rather than spoken word) to realize this retelling’s use of Depression-era costume and set design is only meant to be evocative and creative, and does not signal that their story is being updated to a more “realistic” time without magic and therefore Orpheus’s musical magic is only metaphorical. His music’s power isn’t metaphorical, it’s real, but this clashes with his introduction as a poor boy working in some sort of shop or restaurant.

But to go back to point of view (POV), this is a problem one sees with a lot of early writers, especially those with a fanfic background, and HadesTown is fanfic in the sense that it is derivative and heavily relies on knowledge of a separate story, (the tales of Orpheus & Eurydice and of Hades & Persephone) for the audience to immediately follow along and be invested. This problem is that because the author assumes you know this tale as well as she does, it doesn’t really need to be introduced on its own. That’s fine, until you begin introducing new elements, like the idea of Hades being the Boss Man of a modern Depression-era town and Persephone is his depressed, drunken wife, or the idea of Orpheus as a poor boy (and not the son of a mythological king) and Eurydice as a scrappy runaway. Those are new elements that muddle the original narrative and require more setup as a result.

And then there’s Eurydice, who is much more fleshed out and brought center stage. I think it’s also clear that the female writer of the story had particular sympathy for her, but as with many writers, felt this character deserved more complicated motivationThe story has some amazing commentary on masculinity that I really want to get into in another essay, but it’s clear that it’s a female gaze story. Furthermore, Eurydice is transformed in HadesTown, at the very least to give her something to do and a reason for us to like her, because in the original she’s the quintessential damsel in distress and the fridged girlfriend all in one. She has no motivation besides, presumably, wanting to marry Orpheus and then wanting to be rescued by him when she’s killed on or just before her wedding day, but in HadesTown she becomes a heroine, if not the heroine of the story.

And here’s where I get to my one editorial tip for HadesTown, and why I think my mother wasn’t totally off base by saying it needed one more editing pass: Eurydice is the main character. The narrative voice clearly has sympathy for her, she goes on a journey to find food, she is the driving force behind much of the action, she is the one who brings change to Orpheus’s life and kicks off the narrative by asking him to sing his song. She is the one who acts, others react to her choices.

But since the original myth focuses on Orpheus, it feels a bit like the narrator or writer felt compelled to have him as “the protagonist” when really, he is the traditional love interest. He’s fairly passive, even in going to rescue Eurydice he has to be prompted by Hermes and it’s Eurydice going to look for food which stirs him from his musical trance. Furthermore, even in the visuals for HadesTown, Eurydice is the one driving Orpheus forward, even during her own rescue when they’re ascending from the Underworld.

However, we don’t really meet Eurydice until a few songs in and she is absent for long stretches on the stage. If the story had opened with her introduction superseding Orpheus, and made clearer that we’re seeing a reinvention of the story where Eurydice is the empowered one around whom events shift, I think we’d have a stronger, single narrative thread going through the story that through the haze of the music would be easier to follow. The building blocks are already there in the narrative, but the parallels with Hades/Persephone and the focus on Orpheus as a rescuer, albeit a fairly passive one, muddle the fact this is the story of Eurydice changing and influencing events and setting the action in motion.

We can criticize audience members for not “getting” the story or for not keeping up, but authors should be wary when doing so. Trouble following a story is sometimes a lack of attention or genre savvy by an audience member, but it can also be indicative of a muddled narrative.

Point of View, who is transmitting the action of the story to us, how and when are they relating the story to us, and how do they filter the world around them, is an incredible and incredibly advanced tool in the writer’s toolbox. It’s often invisible to the audience and to even advanced readers, however. It takes a lot of attention to notice and it can be hard to articulate why it’s confusing when a strong POV isn’t there.

Hamilton does not struggle with POV, we know when someone who isn’t Hamilton (usually Burr) is narrating because he takes center stage. Les Miserables has a huge ensemble cast, but we never question who the current song or scene is about, it’s usually Marius, Valjean, or Cosette and they take center stage when they give their view of the story. Phantom of the Opera has a somewhat more removed “once upon a time” ensemble POV because it takes place on a stage, but most of the time we’re seeing events from Christine or Raoul’s POV and they are center stage and loud as they observe events. The switch to the Phantom’s POV at the end of All I Ask Of You is jarring and shocking on purpose as a result, but again he takes center stage when he comments on the events he just witnessed.

By crowding the stage and having so many POV characters witnessing and commenting on events at once, from the Fates, to Hermes, to Orpheus, to Eurydice, to Hades and Persephone, it becomes hard for an uninitiated audience member to know whose story this is and who they should be following and who will have the classic story structure of rising and falling action to build their expectations around.

Ensemble pieces can be well done, and HadesTown is very well done, but for the non-genre savvy audience members, it may have been helpful to pick a single character and put them front and center in every action, and when they’re not front and center because of story circumstances, to have it clearly someone else who is front and center, with no one else with POV cluttering the stage at the same time. I vote that this person should be Eurydice, elevated to main protagonist, with Orpheus as secondary/love interest who only takes center stage when she is captive and first taken away, and that Hades/Persephone also get center stage in more isolation so it’s clear they’re commentary and parallels to Eurydice and her lover, not a second set of main characters.

#hadestown #ht meta #some criticism but mostly it's a writing lesson about structure #the criticism is about story structure and staging not about the story #frankly this is the only criticism I can even manage because I was so blown away #but I wanted to work through why an audience member might get confused by the story

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