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britesparc · 3 years

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Weekend Top Ten #498

Top Ten Movie Cameos

The first time I think I ever noticed someone cameoing in a movie was Steven Spielberg. I was watching The Blues Brothers, and there was this guy, who I was sure was Mr. The Berg. I must have seen him in some behind-the-scenes something or the other. But he was a director, not an actor, so it couldn’t have been him, right? Then years later I was reading Empire, and sure enough, I was vindicated. It was indeed the play mountain himself. But more on that later.

So, cameos, then. What is a cameo? Now, in my opinion, I think it really has to be small. Really, it should just be one scene – or even one shot. The smaller the better. I’ve seen people online refer to Judi Dench in Shakespeare in Love or Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder as cameos, which is very, very daft, as those are clearly supporting roles – even if they are quite small (and remember, Dench didn’t win her Oscar for “Best Cameo”, she won it for “We Meant To Give You This Last Year”, which is a very important category in the Oscars). I also think the best cameos should be unexpected; a nice surprising treat. And usually they’re funny – the incongruity of seeing that person in this film. Because that’s the other thing: for a cameo to really work, the person cameoing has to be kinda famous. For instance, some might say that Ashley Johnson in The Avengers is a cameo, but whilst she’s obviously awesome and prodigiously talented, I don’t think she’s instantly recognisable enough (which, y’know, she’s mostly famous as a voice actor); also there’s nothing inherently funny or surprising about her role, she’s a waitress who’s saved by Captain America. It doesn’t feel like it’s saying anything to have Johnson play that role, other than I guess Joss Whedon wanted her in the movie (it’s actually funnier that her brief scene is referenced in Loki, because Kate Herron had the whole of the MCU to draw from in a montage, but chose to use an unknown character who’s in one tiny bit of one film, entirely because she’s a huge fan of The Last of Us – see, that is arguably a cameo).

So my rationale for what is and isn’t a cameo might seem complex or even arbitrary, but when has that stopped me in the past? And so, with no further ado, we now get deep into the weeds of it and celebrate my favourite movie cameos of all time. Oh, and there’s no Bill Murray here; I know, I know, it’s a really famous cameo, but, er, I’ve never seen Zombieland. Sorry.

Stan Lee in Pretty Much Everything (2000-2019): I mean, who else? The absolute King of Cameos. Lee was a massive publicity hound all his life, and passed up no opportunity to get in front of the camera, so once big, proper movies were being made of his comics, he was right there, selling hot dogs in X-Men (2000), rescuing children in Spider-Man (2002), and then right through every MCU film until his sad death in 2019 (and even popping up in Teen Titans!). Hearing him tell Miles Morales “I'm going to miss him,” in Into the Spider-Verse chokes me up every time.

Carrie Fisher & George Lucas in Hook (1991): this has always been one of my favourites because unlike virtually every other entry in this list, you only know this if you’ve been told. But it’s funny and it’s sweet. When Tinkerbell takes Peter to Neverland, she flies over a bridge, where a silhouetted couple are seen canoodling. Her pixie dust falls across them, and they begin to float into the air. And apparently the unrecognisable couple are played by Princess Leia and the director of Star Wars. Which, I think you’ll agree, is pretty cool (Hook is really good for cameos).

Brad Pitt in Deadpool 2 (2018): having an invisible character offers plenty of opportunity for some good gags, especially in a Deadpool movie, but the real laugh in the film comes when the Vanisher is electrocuted and we get to see his face for a split second. And – ha – it turns out to be the hugely mega-famous Brad Pitt. It’s funny because he’s a massive star.

Martin Sheen in Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993): it’s one thing for the movie to do an Apocalypse Now gag, as Charlie Sheen’s Topper Harley sails down a river on a military boat, but hanging a lampshade on it by making it cross over with Martin Sheen’s Willard from the classic seventies Vietnam epic is another thing entirely. And then both actors notice each other – ha, funny, they’re father and son in real life – and say in unison, “I loved you in Wall Street!”. Very on-the-nose all the funnier for it.

Steven Spielberg in The Blues Brothers (1980): well, I mentioned him, and here he is, a totally nonplussed-looking administrator bloke just merrily eating a sandwich. He’s frightfully young (I’m guessing he was probably about 32 or 33) and he’s got a big brown tache instead of his usual ‘Berg Beard, he’s dressed very smartly and he’s awfully polite. His demeanour is hilariously in stark contrast to the mayhem around him, and his public persona is also hilariously in contrast to the raucous and ribald mood of the movie.

Cate Blanchett in Hot Fuzz (2007): this is one I didn’t even notice till I read about it after seeing the movie. In a very funny scene where Simon Pegg’s Nick Angel chats to his ex-girlfriend Janine, she is head-to-toe in forensic gear throughout, with a mask covering her face, so all we see are her eyes. But the gag of it is, she’s played by the phenomenally famous Cate Blanchett. You get a megastar to do one scene but make her unrecognisable. So funny it beats Peter Jackson’s evil Santa.

Don Ameche & Ralph Bellamy in Coming to America (1988): this is another one I remember finding hilarious when I was a kid. Walking down the street late at night with love interest Lisa (Shari Headley), Akeem (Eddie Murphy) nonchalantly gives a huge wad of cash to some poor homeless bums. But it turns out that they’re played by Murphy’s old Trading Places co-stars Ameche and Bellamy – and they refer to each other by their character names from that earlier film. “We’re back!” declares Ameche, referencing the end of Trading Places, when their crooked broker characters were defeated and ruined by Murphy and Dan Aykroyd. It’s a great bit of shared-universe tomfoolery, and very funny for fans of Murphy’s movies. Oh, and speaking of Aykroyd…

Dan Aykroyd in Casper (1995): in 1995 it had been six long, bitter years without a new Ghostbusters film; back then, we could still hold out hope for a proper Ghostbuster 3. Sadly that never came to pass, but it was a very pleasant surprise when Ray Stantz himself popped up in Casper, of all things, fearfully running out of Whipstaff Manor in full ghostbusting regalia and declaring, “Who ya gonna call? Someone else!”. I mean, after facing down Gozer and Vigo and who knows what else, you’d think three sarcastic arsehole ghosts would be no match for him, but maybe the ‘busters were having tough times. Maybe this will all be backstory in Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Maybe Cathy Moriarty and Eric Idle will return the favour and do cameos of their own. We can but hope.

Matt Damon, Luke Hemsworth, & Sam Neill in Thor: Ragnarok (2017): twenty years ago you could point to Goldmember as the, er, gold standard in multi-character cameo pile-ups. And while that is great – Danny DeVito giving the finger, Spielberg back-flipping – I think it’s been surpassed by this minor gaggle of stars hamming it up. Matt Damon – famouser than anyone actually billed in the movie – is An Actor Playing Loki. Dr. Alan Grant from Jurassic Park is An Actor Playing Odin (whilst Odin’s actor, Anthony Hopkins, plays Tom Hiddleston playing Loki playing Odin – do keep up), and Thor’s Real-Life Brother plays An Actor Playing Thor. It’s all delightfully meta and hilarious.

Ollie Johnston & Frank Thomas in The Incredibles (2004): this one’s really sweet, and like the Hook cameo, would very easily slip you by. At the end of the film, after the climactic battle, two old men cheer on the superheroes – “That’s old school!” “Yep, no school like the old school!” – but what’s great is that they’re voiced by – and designed to look like – Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas, the last two surviving members of the famous “Nine Old Men” group of Disney animators, who’d worked on many of the classic Disney films. This was Pixar and director Brad Bird giving a tip of the hat to the legends who came before them, and made all the sweeter by the fact that Johnston and Thomas (both sadly now deceased) were absolute best buds in real life. A cameo that educates and makes you think! How nice!

There you go. Sadly no room for any of the many great Star Wars cameos, from Daniel Craig through to George Lucas’ entire family. Oh well!

#top ten #cameos #stan lee #thor #hook #incredibles #ghostbusters #eddie murphy #deadpool #steven spielberg #hot fuzz

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shemakesmusic-uk · 4 years

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Jorja Smith has unveiled a standout new video for latest track ‘By Any Means’. The powerful video (directed by Otis Dominique and Ellington Hammond) shines a spotlight on communities across the UK, complimenting the track’s vital message around social issues and the civil rights movement. As noted by Jorja about the track: "The inspiration behind 'By Any Means' really came from going to the Black Lives Matter protest and leaving thinking, what can I do to keep this conversation going? It’s not just a post on social media, it's life.” ‘By Any Means’ is the first track to be unveiled from a new project titled ‘Reprise’, curated by the team at Roc Nation with the sole aim of bringing awareness to social justice issues. A portion of proceeds will go to funding organisations that support victims of police brutality, hate crimes, and other violations of civil rights. [via Dork]

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Madison, WI-bred and Chicago-based band Slow Pulp recently announced Moveys, their self-produced debut album, and shared its first single 'Idaho.' Now the band shares another song off of the forthcoming record, entitled 'Falling Apart.' The track, featuring Alex G collaborator Molly Gemer on violin, is accompanied by a fantastical music video about feeling lost in a familiar landscape. Director Jake Lazovick, places Emily in a transient world, surrounded by flying objects and missing pieces. The clip features nostalgic animations, body doubles for social distancing purposes, and an homage to Massey's background as a ballet dancer. Read more about the song from Massey below: "As we were finishing up writing the album my parents got into a serious car accident and I came back home to help take care of them. A couple of weeks later COVID-19 started getting worse in the US, and quarantine began. Life felt completely surreal, everything had drastically changed and at such a rapid pace. It was especially strange because everyone was experiencing the same thing at the same time, but couldn’t be physically with each other to support each other. I felt like I couldn’t process any emotions I had about the whole ordeal because I had to keep it together to take care of my family. It became easier to stay numb, and create a facade that I was doing ok, than it was to release any type of healthy emotion for a long time. Luckily I did allow myself to have a full on breakdown induced by a stubbed toe and confusion over taxes, sometimes it’s the littlest things that finally get you."

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Soap Detox met a party, and somehow their friendship sustained during the lengthy hangover that followed. A frisky Swedish three-piece with a lust for melody and good times, their raucous garage-pop is already making waves in their homeland. A full EP is incoming, with Soap Detox trailing this with their irresistible new single 'Give Me Gore'. A three minute fuzz pop wonder, it's a clanking, cheeky, subversive statement from a group who thrive on such things. The video features their shorn-headed lead singer in full form, accompanied by her band mates. Directed by Evelyn Del Carmen and Ebba Sylvan, you can check it out above. [via Clash]

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It’s been a decade since we’ve heard from multi-hyphenate musician and producer The Angel, who last made a splash as a musician in 2009 with her single 'Ultra Light,' which featured the singer/producer Jhelisa on vocals. Focusing more on her career in film/TV composition and music production in recent years, she’s planning to return to recording her own music later this year with a new LP entitled Xtra Sensory Goodness. Now we’re getting the first taste of this project, which is yet another collaboration with the vocalist Jhelisa. “Jhelisa and I have become close friends over the years,” she explains. “There’s a lot of sisterly love and mutual respect between us, so Jhelisa already understood the mournful weight of the track before I asked to feature her. I’m always grateful that she’s willing to experiment with me because it’s not something she does lightly. Jhelisa beautifully channels the essence of whatever emotion needs to come through in the most evocative and visceral way.” The song arrives beautifully packaged with an entrancing video directed by none other than Mark Pellington (along with co-directors Sergio Pinheiro and Sweeten), known for his concert docs for Pearl Jam, INXS, and The Flaming Lips, as well as an extensive music-videography including iconic visuals for Public Enemy, Nine Inch Nails, and plenty more artists. “I wanted the song to sound like a memory, like you’ve entered someone else’s dream space,” The Angel continues, noting how the video perfectly syncs to the song’s mood. “The emotion is contained, very internal, so I juxtaposed a vocal vulnerability against a driving, incessant rhythm, where you can feel the underlying tension at the same time as experiencing the gentle plea, ‘Where’s my shelter…?’” [via Flood]

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A few weeks ago, Ciara gave birth to her son Win. Last night, she shared a video that she evidently recorded while she was very, very pregnant. Ciara’s new song 'Rooted' is a statement of Black pride, a clear statement of solidarity with the protest movement that’s swept across America and the rest of the world these past few months. It’s a hard, kinetic track with vocals from the songwriter Esther Dean. But the song, at least right now, feels more like a vehicle for the video. Like a lot of Ciara videos, the 'Rooted'” clip is built around bodies dancing. In this one, though, one of those bodies belongs to Ciara, who dances with her belly exposed and who looks like she’s about to give birth any second. To watch someone dance this hard while that pregnant is an actual marvel, a near-superhuman feat. The 'Rooted' video is full of Black iconography, and it features the faces of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. All throughout, Ciara presents an image of motherly strength. Annie Bercy directs. [via Stereogum]

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Hazel English releases the new video for her single ‘Five And Dime’ taken from her debut album Wake UP! which is out now on Marathon Artists. ‘Five and Dime’ is a woozy, idyllic view into Hazel’s world, which is built on timeless-sounding melodies, retro-tinged soundscapes and a knack for resonant lyrics. The mid-tempo number is reminiscent of the playful love songs of ’60s pop, as Hazel frustratedly muses on a love interest who is consuming her thoughts and detracting from her focus, “Gotta get away cause you’re taking up all of my time / You know I need my space so I’m heading to the Five and Dime.” Speaking about the new video, Hazel says: “'Five and Dime' is about longing for escape and freedom so I thought it would be fun to create an idyllic beach vacation, constructed from a set with cardboard cut out waves and fake palm trees. The idea behind it is that while I'm fantasizing about escaping to a tropical place, it's clear I'm just kind of stuck in this pretend version of it. I wanted to evoke the nostalgia of Hollywood musicals from the '50s and '60s, complete with dance choreography and bright colourful costumes.”

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Katy Perry has released her second video for 'Smile,' featuring the pop star playing a video game version of herself as she battles giant spiders, circus trapeze acts and more while dressed as a clown. Much of the video is in CGI, with a live-action Perry playing the video game in her house (while also dressed as a clown). [via Rolling Stone]

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Global superstar, Miley Cyrus has unveiled 'Midnight Sky,' a track that showcases a new direction for the always evolving artist. The song, which was inspired by the past year of her life, is accompanied by a video that Miley self-directed. In creating the song and video, Miley drew from strong female musical icons, like Stevie Nicks, Joan Jett, and Debbie Harry, who have always been so generous, and have been her greatest allies and inspiration. The video showcases Miley as her true self: unapologetic, diverse, sexy, confident, experimental, and strong. The video takes viewers through Miley’s creative vision which displays her complete control of the narrative often told through the mouths of the media. Miley is at peace with who she is and has nothing to prove. As a musician she continues to push boundaries and experiment with her sound and look. Miley has proven to be many things, but boring is not one of them.

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Chelsea Collins is nonconformist pop singer with a vision. For the captivating new 'Water Run Dry,' a collaboration with rapper, singer and fellow Bay Area-native 24kGoldn, Collins's infectious pop melodies glide over a hypnotic beat. Relatable lyrics about a faltering relationship reveal a depth of experience for the 21-year-old, with a wistful chorus lamenting, "there's no good in goodbye." The Roxana Baldovin-directed visuals for the track are an eyeful — Collins and 24kGoldn play house in an oversized, colorful California dollhouse, interspersed with images of a little girl playing with literal Barbies. The message? "I wanted this song and video to execute the world that's inside of my head — somewhat similar to a weird vintage rom com where at first the drama of love is so toxic, passionate and thrilling but eventually my lover and I have a happy ending," Collins tells NYLON. "Unfortunately reality isn't as fun and it kinda feels like some cranky dude is controlling your path, who's lowkey salty whenever something feels too amazing," she continues. "My intuition will tell me to run, but I'm notorious for acting like a Stepford wife, trying to recreate my past feelings yet they're all super robotic. Maybe one day I'll get lucky and love won't have to be so bittersweet, but until then I'll learn to smile even when things blow up in my face." [via NYLON]

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Kali Uchis shared the visuals for her latest single 'Aquí Yo Mando' on Monday. Featuring a verse in Spanglish by Rico Nasty, the single is Kali's first release since her TO FEEL ALIVE EP from earlier this year. The Phillipa Price-directed clip finds the pair on a weapons-filled rampage, dropping bodies in underground parking lots and filming each other along the way. With co-production by reggaeton hitmaker Tainy, the booming track sees Uchis assertively laying some ground rules over trappy 808s. "Haces todo lo que diga (You do everything that I say)," she raps. “Si estás conmigo solo mando yo (If you’re with me, only I call the shots).” [via The FADER]

#videos of the week #jorja smith #slow pulp #soap detox #the angel #jhelisa #ciara #hazel english #katy perry #miley cyrus #chelsea collins #kali uchis #rico nasty

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Jupiter’s Legacy: Mark Millar on the Genesis of His Superhero Story

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Superheroes have a long history. After flying onto the scene more than eight decades ago, led by Superman, along with fellow octogenarians Batman, Wonder Woman, and Captain America, the pantheon of capes-and-tights characters has expanded to include countless more. And as legendary creators made their mark across decades, the origins and powers of these icons transformed almost as frequently as their costumes.

Meanwhile, the superhero team The Union, from the comic book saga Jupiter’s Legacy, have 90 years of consistent fictional history, with a singular overarching story, envisioned by one man: Mark Millar.

After discovering both Superman and Spider-Man comics the same day, at the age of four in Scotland (where he grew up), the now 51-year-old writer would go on to make a significant impact on the superpowered set. But he wanted his own pantheon.

And with Jupiter’s Legacy, Mark Millar has created a long history of superheroes of his own—now set to be adapted as a Netflix series.

“I wanted to do an epic,” he says. “Like The Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars… the ultimate superhero story.”

Co-created with artist Frank Quitely and published by Image Comics in 2013, Millar calls Jupiter’s Legacy his love letter to superheroes—and part of his own legacy.

The story begins in 1932 with a mysterious island that grants powers to a group of friends who then adopt the costumed monikers The Utopian, Lady Liberty, Brainwave, Skyfox, The Flare, and Blue Bolt. Told on a grand scale with cross-genre influences, the story spans three arcs: the prequel Jupiter’s Circle (with art by Wilfredo Torres), Jupiter’s Legacy, and the upcoming June 16, 2021 release Jupiter’s Legacy: Requiem (featuring art by Tommy Lee Edwards). With the May 7 debut of the Jupiter’s Legacy series on Netflix, the story will now also be told in live action.

Millar established himself in the comics industry in 1993 and crafted successful stories including Superman: Red Son, Wolverine: Old Man Logan, The Ultimates, and Marvel Comics’ Civil War—all of which have inspired adaptations and films, and led to him becoming a creative consultant at Fox Studios on its Marvel projects. His creator-owned titles Kingsman: The Secret Service, Kick-Ass, and Wanted, have likewise spawned hit movies.

But compared to Jupiter’s Legacy, none of those possessed such massive scope and aspiration as the story that explores the evolving ideologies of superpowered individuals, and how involved they should be when it comes to solving the world’s problems. Relationships are forged—and shattered by betrayal—with startling violence and titanic action sequences (both part of Millar’s signature style).

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“From Superman and the Justice League to Marvel to British comics—inspired by guys like Alan Moore, and so on, I’ve thrown it in there… it’s got a bit of everything,” he says.

That “everything” extends beyond comic books. Millar drew inspiration from King Kong’s Skull Island, and references the cosmic aesthetic of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which informed the “sci-fi stuff.” The writings of horror author H.P. Lovecraft “were a big thing for me,” when it came to The Island, created by aliens, “that existed before humanity, and that these people are drawn out towards where they get their superpowers.” The character Sheldon Sampson/The Utopian is a Clark Kent/Superman type, but his cohort George Hutchence/Skyfox is more than a millionaire playboy stand-in for Bruce Wayne. Rather, Millar based him on British actors from the 1960s—Peter O’Toole, Oliver Reed, Richard Burton, Richard Harris—who were suave rascals.

“I loved the idea of a superhero having a good time, getting on with girls, drinking whisky, smoking lots of cigarettes,” Millar said.

At the risk of sounding “so pretentious,” Millar jokes, he also pulled from Shakespeare. Indeed, the comics are as much a family saga as a superhero one (and written by the much younger brother of six whose parents died before he was 20). Utopian is a father to his own disappointing children, and a father of sorts to all heroes. He is Lear as much as he is Jupiter, the Roman god of gods. The end of his reign approaches, and various factions have their own appetite for power—such as his self-righteous brother who thinks he should be a leader, or Utopian’s son, born into the family business of being a hero, but who could never live up to his father’s expectations, or his daughter who is more interested in fame than heroism.

He views Jupiter’s Legacy as more thoughtful than Kick-Ass, Kingsman, or Wanted. The plot’s driving action hinges on a debate about the superheroes’ philosophies and moral imperatives. It seeks to address a question Millar asked when he was a kid reading comics.

“Why doesn’t Superman solve the world’s problems?” he recalls thinking. “Why didn’t he interfere and stop wars from even existing?… Is it ethically wrong to stand aside and just maintain the status quo, especially when the status quo creates so many problems for a lot of people?”

On one side of the debate, Utopian believes interfering too much with society’s trajectory is a bad move. It’s not that he is cynical; quite the opposite. He thinks things are actually improving in the world. His viewpoint is there are less people hungry across the globe than ever before, and less people with disease. Millar describes Utopian as a “Truth, Justice, and the American Way” kind of hero, to borrow a phrase associated with Superman, and believes capitalism works. As his hero name suggests, Utopian thinks a better world is within reach, even if it takes generations, and encourages even the heroes to be patient and trust people to do the right thing because they are innately good.

“He says, if you look at the difference somebody like Bill Gates has made in Africa—just one guy—if you look at capitalism taken to the Nth degree, then it pulls everybody up, and poverty in places like India, is massively better just compared to a generation ago.”

Besides, as Utopian says to his impatient brother Walter/Brainwave, in Jupiter’s Legacy #1, being a caped hero doesn’t make them economists and, “Just because you can fly doesn’t mean you know how to balance a budget.” Plus, the notion of using psychic powers or brute force to simply make the world “better” is out of the question. Or is it?

The mainstream awareness of superheroes baked in from more than 80 years of stories, and the shorthand that especially comes with 13 years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe commercial juggernaut, has provided Millar with a set of archetypes to lean into. It was true of the hero proxies in the Jupiter’s Legacy books, and he says it’s true of the show. In fact, he says audiences are so sophisticated with regards to these types of characters they’ll be able to immediately slip into his universe, and that “a lot of the hard work has been done for us.” He adds that audience literacy with superhero tropes also provided him something to push against.

“The Marvel characters lock these guys up in prison at the end of these movies,” Millar says. “Everything’s tied up neatly with a bow, the rich are still the rich, the poor are still starving, and the superheroes aren’t really doing anything for the common man in any very global sense. These guys have just had enough of that.”

Millar’s comics technically kick off in 1932, when Sheldon first brings his friends on a journey to The Island, but his story goes back to 1929 when the stock market crashed, and the Great Depression began. This is likewise when the Netflix series will begin, and Millar says it’s because of the historic parallels between then and 2021.

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“We’ve been in a similar situation as we are now: there’s impending financial collapse coming out of a global pandemic,” he says. “The idea is that history continues and repeats itself, and people make the same mistakes over and over again, and the superheroes are saying, ‘Let’s actually fix everything.’”

Continuing the theme of parallels, when discussing the inception of Jupiter’s Legacy with Millar, The Godfather Part II comes up more than once because of the film’s dual storylines following Vito Corleone and son Michael, separated by decades. However, while the comics contain some flashbacks, the plot doesn’t unfold across different time periods simultaneously. But the Netflix series will shift between eras, with half of the show during the season taking place in 1929, for which Millar credits Steven S. DeKnight, who developed the series.

“The way Steven structured it was really brilliant, because I saw these taking place over two [different] years,” Millar says. “[But] The Godfather Part II track shows you the father and the son at the same age and juxtaposes their two lives.”

As a result, he says the series is a visual mash-up of genres that’s both classical and futuristic.

“It just feels like a beautiful period movie, then when it gets cosmic, and it gets to the superhero stuff, it’s a double wow… it’s like seeing Once Upon a Time in America suddenly directed by Stanley Kubrick doing 2001.”

This is a notable advantage to bringing the story to television, as opposed to making Jupiter’s Legacy three two-hour films as he originally planned with producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura in 2015. Millar says that to tell the Jupiter’s Legacy story properly on screen would require 40 hours, and with a series, what would have been a one-minute flashback in a movie can now be revealed in two hours of its own.

It was another director who has since made a name adapting ambitious comic book properties that extolled to Millar the benefits of television: James Gunn. When Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy, The Suicide Squad) had a chat with Millar about the project, Gunn said it could never be done as a movie. “The smartest guy in the world is James Gunn,” Millar says.

An exciting challenge of adapting his work for television is that the series will expand on the backstories and concepts of the books. For example when Sheldon Sampson and his friends head to The Island in the first issue, it takes up six pages. Within the series, half of the first season is that journey, and what happens when they arrive.

“Six issues of a graphic novel are roughly about an hour and 10 minutes of a movie; for something like an eight-part drama on TV, you really have to flesh it out,” he says. “It just goes a little deeper than what I had maybe two panels do.”

He emphasizes, however, that these flourishes won’t contradict the comics. Though he sold Millarworld to Netflix, he remains president so he can maintain control of his creations.

Overall the series has made the writer realize the value of television, and while a second season has not yet been confirmed, he’s already thinking about a third and fourth, and how it will dovetail with the upcoming Requiem. The story that began in 1929 continued through 2021, and collected in four volumes, will soon continue far into the future in the concluding two volumes.

“We saw the parents, then we have the present, and then we see their children in the next storyline,” he says. “That storyline goes way off into the future where we discover everything about humanity, superheroes, all these things. It’s a big, grand, high-concept, sci-fi thing beyond that.”

Listening to the jovial Millar discuss the scope of his Jupiter universe, which is imbued with optimism, one might not think this is the same person known for employing graphic violence in his works.

He thinks his films especially are violent yet hopeful, and fun. Kingsman is a rags-to-riches story, and “you feel great at the end of Kick-Ass, even though you’ve seen 200 people knifed in the face.” But he doesn’t consider his writing to fit under the dark-and-gritty label, and he’s not interested in angst, which he finds dull. With Jupiter’s Legacy, the comic and the show, he views the tone as complex but not “overtly dark.”

Additionally, Millar says he thinks society needs hopeful characters such as Captain America, Superman, and yes, The Utopian in 2021—as opposed to an ongoing genre trend of heroes drowning in pathos.

“The Superman-type characters are just now something from a pop culture, societal point of view, we need more than ever,” he says. “The last thing you want is seeing the world as dark, as something that makes you feel bad. Never forget Superman was created just before World War II in the midst of the economic depression by two Jewish kids who were just scraping a living together… I just think it’s so important when things are tough to have a character like that that makes you feel good.”

Even though Utopian suffers for his idealism in the comic, Millar says his ideas are passed on. This is The Utopian’s legacy.

“Ultimately, he wins if you think about it,” ponders Millar.

After a successful career spent creating characters and re-shaping superheroes with 80 years of history, the new pantheon of Jupiter’s Legacy may become one of the defining and lasting features of Mark Millar’s own legacy.

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Jupiter’s Legacy premieres on Netflix on May 7. Read more about the series in our special edition magazine!

The post Jupiter’s Legacy: Mark Millar on the Genesis of His Superhero Story appeared first on Den of Geek.

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theconservativebrief · 5 years

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Ah, December: when the year’s final crop of “prestige” movies with awards season dreams makes its theatrical debut alongside movies vying for top position at the holiday box office. Year-end lists start appearing. Critics’ groups reveal their award winners. And the Golden Globe nominees are announced as well.

So it’s a busy movie month, and luckily, most audiences can find a film worth seeing at the theater, since the year’s best films are usually still playing, hoping to attract attention from as many awards voters as possible. (For a movie to qualify for the Oscars, as well as for many critics and guild awards, it must premiere in New York and Los Angeles at least one week before the end of the calendar year.)

December 2018 is no exception. Historical biopics, animated films, and family-focused blockbusters are all on the docket, all of which are competing for eyeballs at the end of the year. And many of them make for fine holiday viewing, too.

Here are eight films premiering this month that you can expect to hear more about as 2018 draws to a close.

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Written by House of Cards’s Beau Willimon, Mary Queen of Scots is both a sumptuous costume drama and a tale of political intrigue with two women at its center: Mary Stuart (Saoirse Ronan), the young queen of Scotland, and her cousin Elizabeth Tudor (Margot Robbie), the queen of England.

The film paints Mary as a sparkling — if a tad naive — young woman who must find her way in a world of men (relatives, lovers, angry and misogynist church reformers) determined to steal and manipulate her power. The slightly older Elizabeth is a more tragic figure, but one who has resigned herself to giving up some of her femininity in order to retain her power.

The film’s account of history is begging to be picked apart by those who study the era. Its goal isn’t to inform so much as use a historical lens to suggest that centuries may have passed since Mary and Elizabeth were in power, but the threats that powerful women have to fight off haven’t changed all that much. Mary Queen of Scots will certainly be in awards season contention for categories like makeup and costuming, but it will likely also be looking to nab nominations for its lead performances and its screenplay.

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Lucas Hedges has had a busy year, with roles in buzzy movies like Boy Erased and mid90s. But he’s also the lead in Ben Is Back, directed by his father Peter Hedges. He plays Ben, a young man struggling to recover from a fierce drug addiction, who quietly slips out of his rehab facility to visit his family, and especially his mother Holly (Julia Roberts), on the day before Christmas.

Ben Is Back mostly follows the mother and son pair through that day as they find themselves drawn unwillingly into a series of events that give Holly a glimpse into the life her son was leading while stuck in the throes of his addiction. Ben Is Back feels more Hollywood than this year’s other parent-child film about a young addict, Beautiful Boy, but because of that it’s more emotionally satisfying — and Roberts and Hedges will almost certainly be campaigning for awards berths.

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Roma was one of this year’s most anticipated films, and it’s been the subject of rapturous reviews since its fall festival debut. The lushly shot, monochromatic domestic drama from Oscar-winning director Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Children of Men) — who also served as his own cinematographer on the film — tells the story of a family in Mexico City and a girl who works for them.

Focusing on the struggles and strength of the family’s women, Roma is funny, sad, and carefully told — a challenge to the viewer to simply sit and pay attention to people who find themselves overlooked in their own homes. And newcomer Yalitza Aparicio turns in a quiet and moving performance as Cleo, the domestic worker at the film’s center.

The film is being positioned by Netflix for a run at awards in a number of categories, including cinematography, directing, and writing — and given its sensitive, gorgeous rendering that’s earned comparisons to the work of world cinema masters like Fellini and Bresson, it’s likely to be a strong contender. Roma opened in limited theaters in mid-November, but it will get its widest theatrical release in December, alongside its Netflix debut.

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The animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has brought in early plaudits for how it both embodies the spirit of Spider-Man while putting a fresh spin on the character. It centers on Miles Morales, the biracial Spider-Man who exists in a parallel universe to our own, and who is the subject of a rich storyline in the comics but hasn’t shown up in the live-action Marvel movie universe.

So Into the Spider-Verse is Morales’s big-screen debut, and it’s a welcome one. Vox’s Alex Abad-Santos writes in his review of the film that it “unearths exhilarating new ground — by way of spectacular deviations from the norm that the Marvel Cinematic Universe and live-action filmmaking don’t always allow for” and that it feels “tremendously innovative, while still traditionally Spidey.” With a screenplay by The Lego Movie’s Phil Lord and his 22 Jump Street co-writer Rodney Rothman, Into the Spider-Verse is funny, fresh, and clever, and will be a strong contender in the Oscars’ animation categories.

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Mary Poppins is one of cinema’s most timeless heroines — a no-nonsense nanny who brings her young charges on whimsical adventures while subtly helping them learn to navigate life’s difficulties.

In Mary Poppins Returns, she’s back, played by Emily Blunt and returning to London to once again look after Jane and Michael Banks, who are now all grown up. Michael (Ben Whishaw) is a widower with three young children of his own, and he’s in danger of losing his house; Jane (Emily Mortimer) is a labor organizer. And then there is Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda), the lamplighter whom Jane and Michael remember from when they were all children.

Mary Poppins Returns is a sequel to the 1964 Disney musical film starring Julie Andrews, and it’s mostly devoted to pleasing fans of that film, following its contours almost beat for beat. Its songs (co-written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman) aren’t as memorable as those of the original — there’s no “Spoonful of Sugar” or “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” among their number.

But Disney will likely be seeking a few awards nominations for them regardless, alongside some easy nods at the Golden Globes (which, unlike the Oscars, split their categories between comedy/musical and drama) for both Blunt and the film as a whole.

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Cold War — a decade- and continent-spanning, pristinely shot romantic tragedy from Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski — was my favorite film at Cannes (where it premiered earlier this year), and it easily won hearts during the fall festival season as well.

Set in Europe in the early decades of the actual Cold War, the film balances its captivating main characters and their fiery love with the grand sweep of the places and times they find themselves in. It shows how those two things intertwine, with country and ideology pushing and prodding the characters into shapes that ultimately determine their fate.

You couldn’t call Cold War a political film, exactly, but if the central couple’s stars are crossed, then politics had a hand in crossing them, and in the end, the tragedy of realizing that is almost too much to bear. The film will be in contention for many awards, ranging from Best Foreign Feature for Poland to nods for director Pawlikowski and star Joanna Kulig.

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For a long time, Vice was known as “Adam McKay’s untitled movie about Dick Cheney,” but it’s really more devoted to reminding Trump-era audiences that the George W. Bush years were pretty bad, too. Christian Bale plays Cheney, often utterly disappearing into the role, leading a cast that boasts a bevy of other big actors, most notably Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush and Amy Adams as Lynne Cheney.

The film was divisive among critics following its early screenings, but there’s no denying that it elicits strong sentiments, both about the events it depicts (wars and political scheming among them) and the filmmaking itself. Vice recalls Oliver Stone’s Nixon in some ways, since it’s sort of a biopic about the former vice president. But it’s ultimately best taken as a vehicle for Bale and for Adams, both of whose performances will be looking for recognition.

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Over the summer, the documentary RBG was a hit at the box office, explaining the life and enduring pop culture appeal of Associate Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who turned 85 this year. On the Basis of Sex is a biopic focusing on Ginsburg’s early years as a law student, then law professor and activist on behalf of gender equality. The film centers on Ginsburg (played by Felicity Jones) and her relationship with her husband Martin Ginsburg (Armie Hammer), who’s also a lawyer; it’s unusually supportive, loving, and egalitarian, both for its time and for a movie.

Directed by Mimi Leder (The Leftovers), the film feels as if it could have been made in an earlier Hollywood era, with its straightforward storytelling and its traditional courtroom movie framing. But it does a workmanlike job of explaining the challenges Ginsburg faced on her way to becoming a well-known litigator and eventually a judge. And it will likely show up in some awards conversations this month for its screenplay and Ginsburg and Hammer’s performances.

Original Source -> The 8 Oscar contenders coming out in December

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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND October 5, 2018 - Venom, The Star Is Born, The Hate U Give

Going to change things up again this week as we get into October, because I want to give special attention to a film called THE HATE U GIVE (20thCentury Fox), which is opening in select cities this weekend but will expand nationwide on October 19.

In this adaptation of Angie Thomas’ book (which I haven’t read), Amandla Stenberg plays Starr Carter, a teen girl living a dual life with her family in the primarily black Garden Heights community and when hanging out with her bratty white high school friends who are always trying to act “ghetto” around her. At home, Starr has loving parents, Maverick and Lisa (Russell Hornsby, Regina Hall), a younger brother Sekani and half-brother Seven. When Starr sees her childhood friend Khalil (Algee Smith) shot by a white police officer, she’s unsure whether she should come forward and testify. Her police officer uncle Carlos (Common) doesn’t think so, especially since Khalil might have involved with Maverick’s old crime-boss King (Anthony Mackie), who wouldn’t want his business known to the police.

It seems like a fairly simple plot derived from the #BlackLivesMatter movement, but there’s so much more to the movie than the ongoing battle between the police and the poorer communities they patrol. In many ways, Starr is dealing with an identity crisis that I imagine many African-Americans must face, having to be one way around white friends and co-workers and another way at home or with their family.

Besides the fact that this is Stenberg’s third movie this year where she had a hunky white boyfriend, she is so much better in this than her other films because she brings a playful energy to Starr that makes you want to follow her story.

Audrey Wells adapted Thomas’ book into a fantastic screenplay and director George Tillman Jr., whose filmography includes oddities like the biopic Notorious and Dwayne Johnson’s Faster, really directs the hell out of this movie

There are so many great scenes including one between Stenberg and Common where they have an honest talk about the different sides of what might seem like a cut-and-dry case of police racism.

The Hate U Give (which is derived from Tupac’s “T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E” motto that “the hate u give little infants effs everyone) is a movie that shares an important message without hitting you over the head with it ala Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman or some of the other films in the oeuvre release this year.

I guess my only misgiving about the film is that it goes on a little long, offering a few satisfying scenes that could have easily ended things there, but then continuing with a full-scale riot when tempers explode after the trial of Khalil’s murderer.

In my opinion, this is up there with some of the best movies I’ve seen this year, and only slightly behind A Star Is Born (review below) this week. While on the surface, it might not seem like a movie that would appeal to everyone, it works on so many levels, including as a straight-up coming-of-age film (and by now, you all should know how much I love those).

Rating: 8.5/10

The Hate U Give is kind of the Hollywood version of the #BlackLivesMatter story, but if you’re looking for something a little more grounded in reality, you should check out Reinaldo Marcus Green’s Monsters and Men (Neon), which is now playing in select cities. I got a chance to rewatch it this past week, and I was just as impressed as when I saw it at Sundance. BlacKkKlansman star John David Washington is particularly impressive, again playing a police officer.

We now return you to the regularly-scheduled movie preview column after the jump…

This might surprise some but not others that this coming October is offering some of what might be the best films of the year, between this week’sA Star Is Born and The Hate U Give to next week’s First Man and Bad Times at the El Royale. We’re living in exciting times!

VENOM (Sony)

In what looks to be the second to last “superhero” movie of the year, Sony is finally making a movie dedicated to Spider-Man’s arch-nemesis who later became a hero, hoping the fans will forget all about the awful version of Venom from Spider-Man 3. A big selling point for the movie is that it returns Tom Hardy to the comic book world after playing Bane in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, and he better hope fans like his Eddie Brock/Venom more than they did his strange-sounding villain.

Hardy has been laying low recently, his last film being Nolan’s Dunkirklast year in which the actor was barely recognizable as a WWII jet pilot. It was two years before that when he appeared in Inarritu’s Oscar-winning The Revenant, the crime-drama Legendand George Miller’s long-awaited (and also multiple Oscar nominee) Mad Max: Fury Road. In the years following The Dark Knight Rises, Hardy has also starred in a number of smaller films that haven’t gotten much traction, so it’s odd to see him returning to superheroes only six years after playing Bane.

Venomalso brings director Ruben Fleischer back into the Sony fold after directing the horror-comedy hit Zombieland and the comedy 30 Minutes or Less, although Fleischer has been focusing on television in the last five years since the Ryan Gosling crime-drama Gangster Squad. Neither of the latter two movies did as well as Zombieland, and it definitely feels like he has something to prove with Venom.

Unfortunately, people have already been vocally pessimistic about the movie ever since the first trailer didn’t bother to actually show Venom, and things got even more questionable after seeing Venom in a rather awkward longer trailer. Much of the movie’s success is going to depend on whether reviews totally trash the movie or whether some critics actually like what Fleischer and Hardy are doing. So far, the RottenTomatoes reviews are at 28% Fresh, pointing more to the former, but one wonders if curious fans will still give the movie a chance.

Some have suggested Venom could open with over $60 million but I’m going a bit lower with around $55 to 57 million and $130 million or so total domestic. What’s interesting is that the opening range for the movie puts Venom into consideration to become the top October opening over Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity, which opened with $55 million a few years ago. Regardless of whether it sets a new October opening record or not, I expect a fairly large drop after its opening weekend just because the fans will rush out to see it and then move onto other things. Expect this to end up around $125 million domestic, which is not great, probably not enough for a sequel unless the movie surprises internationally.

Mini-Review: I’ve never been a huge fan of Venom as a comic book character. He always seemed a little one-dimensional to me, even as other writers/artists tried to flesh him and his host Eddie Brock out. (So far, Donny Cates’ take on Venom is well worth reading.)

I’m going to assume you know something about the character, his history as a Spider-Man costume-turned-villain and then how he became a hero. It’s obvious Tom Hardy and director Reuben Fleischer were making a movie for fans of the character who were disappointed with his handling by Sam Raimi in Spider-Man 3, and for the most part, it’s fairly faithful other than any references to Spider-Man. In fact, the whole story has been moved to San Francisco, as to avoid any other Spider-Man comparisons.

In this case, the symbiote comes down to earth in a space shuttle made by the Life Corporation run by an Elon Musk-type CEO named Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), and Drake does experiments on the homeless to try to make them hosts for the alien creatures. Tom Hardy plays investigative reporter Eddie Brock, a big-time loser who loses his lawyer girlfriend (Michelle Williams) when he snoops into a case against Drake. While investigating at the Life Corporation, one of the symbiotes takes to Brock, and you can probably guess what happens.

Although this is a straight-up origin story in the simplest terms, some things just don’t work and there are definitely issues, the first being the often silly screenplay that is constantly on the border of veering into campy Nicolas Cage territory. Much of that is due to Hardy, who plays off the silliness of the schizophrenic nature of the character,

On paper, Venom could have easily been a terrifying R-rated horror film with lots of gore, but trying to keep it at PG-13 means that Fleischer makes it more of an action-comedy, and there is enough decent action scenes and quirky humor to keep things entertaining.

Probably one of the things that makes or breaks any comic book movie is the CG visual FX and Fleischer’s hefty team of animators does a decent job making Venom watchable with long black tendrils that reminded me of the video game Prototype (one of my first Xbox games). Things do get a little messy when a counter-symbiote is introduced named “Riot” is introduce and the end battle has some of the same problems as the Ed Norton The Incredible Hulk in that it just doesn’t deliver.

Even so, if you ARE a fan of the comic character, you should be pleased with this incarnation just as those unfamiliar with the character from the comics will probably find the movie and Hardy’s performance to be off-putting. The film never deteriorates to the point of being a Catwoman or Fantastic Fourlevel trash fire, though. Despite some tonal issues, it’s often fun and entertaining, especially the action scenes, and if nothing else, there’s an end credits scene that will make people (esp. Venom fans) hope this movie does well enough to warrant a sequel. Rating: 6.5/10

Venom is going to have a lot of strong competition for older moviegoers and women of all ages with...

A STAR IS BORN (Warner Bros.)

This wasn’t even remotely one of my more anticipated movies of the year until it started getting rave reviews out of the early September festivals, but I’m sure it would have gotten a lot of attention for being Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut, even if it seems like a shoe-in to win lots of awards over the next few months.

Obviously, this is a remake of a movie that dates back to the 1937 movie starring Fredric March and Janet Gaynor, which was nominated for 8 Oscars, winning for its story (as opposed to its screenplay). It was remade in 1954 with Judy Garland, and that was nominated for six Oscars and then again in 1974 with Barbra Streisand and Kris Krisstoferson, and that also only won one Oscar out of four nominations. Can Bradley Cooper’s version possibly break the “jinx” and make a movie that wins more than one Oscar? I think so.

Cooper has mostly been taking time off of acting to direct A Star Is Born, merely providing the voice of Rocket in last year’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and this year’s Avengers: Infinity War. He kind of hit a bit of a downturn in the years following his enormous hit American Sniper for Clint Eastwood, which grossed $350 million and got Cooper his third and fourth Oscar nominations. (Cooper has already been earmarked for a number of Oscar nominations for A Star is Born, for acting, directing and possibly even for writing some of the film’s songs.) Neither of Cooper’s 2015 movies with Jennifer Lawrence (Serena and Joy) did as well as their first two movies together with David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle. Cooper’s movies with Cameron Crowe (Aloha) and his cooking movie Burnt also didn’t do very well. Even so, Cooper had already been elevated to the A-list as an actor

The real ringer for Cooper’s debut is casting Lady Gaga in the role of Ally, the lounge singer who Cooper’s Jackson Maine discovers and falls for, because Lady Gaga has such an enormous diehard fanbase that even the younger girls might not be discouraged by the film’s soft-R rating. (Honestly, I still have to question the MPAA who gives this an R and Venom a PG-13 when there was WAY more swearing in that one.) Anyway, Lady Gaga is pegged to be nominated for an Oscar for her performance and probably one of her songs, too,

Another one of the films ringers is comedian Dave Chapelle, who basically just appears in one section of the movie but Warner Bros. wisely has cut a second trailer featuring him to play in movies like Night School in hopes of appealing to some of the African-American audiences that will see this movie as very white bread. More importantly, it stars Sam Elliot as Jackson’s older brother who has many great scenes with Cooper and is likely to be nominated for his first Oscar for it. (He should have been nominated for last year’s The Hero if you ask me.)

There are many easy comparisons for A Star is Born from Eminem’s 8 Mile ($51.2 million opening, $116m total) and the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line ($22.3m opening, $119m total). There’s certainly the hype that came with 8 Mile going into opening weekend and Cooper certainly has enough box office pull, but the fact that this is a remake might already make some older audiences wary. At the same time, Gaga and Cooper’s modern take on the age-old story is likely to appeal to younger audiences, as will the music that runs a wide gamut of country rockers and ballads, including a couple that will likely be nominated for Oscars.

The good news is that the movie has been receiving rave reviews since it premiered at Venice and then played Toronto shortly afterwards.

This is the thing. I think A Star Is Born is going to do very well this weekend, probably more than $40 million, but I think it’s really going to kill in the weeks to come as word-of-mouth and repeat viewings pushes the movie up over the $150 million mark. If the movie plays as well as I think it does, I wouldn’t even be surprised to see it approaching $200 million once it re-expands to take advantage of inevitable awards.

Mini-Review: It’s been more than a minute since I saw the Barbra Streisand/Kris Kristofferson A Star Is Born, so I’m not too adverse to a fourth remake, as much as I was concerned about a movie featuring an actor I’m so-so on and a pop singer whose work I never really cared for. Imagine my surprise when I found myself enjoying the film almost immediately as we see Bradley Cooper’s Jackson Maine performing on stage with the very loud live music coming from the Dolby sound system where I saw the movie.

Maine is an alcoholic so after the show he goes looking for a bar, winding up at a drag night of one local watering hole where it just so happens that Lady Gaga’s Ally is performing “La Vie en Rose” (maybe a nod to another Oscar-winning actress?). He’s immediately enthralled and goes backstage to meet her, and the two immediately hit it off, hanging out and learning more about each other. Ally immediately starts enjoying the perks of Jackson’s fame as he flies her to one of his concerts and pulls her up on stage to perform the song “Shallow.”

Things progress from there as Ally becomes famous from a video of her performance with Jackson. After one show, Ally is approached by a manager-type who wants to make her an even bigger star, and he proceeds to do what happens too many times in the music industry where he tries to transform her into some pop diva that’s

I really enjoyed seeing the romance and relationship between the two leads evolve, because Cooper’s Jackson Maine is quite a smooth-talker, even if he’s slurring most of his words. Gaga is also impressive, likely bringing some of her own struggles in the music business to the role. On top of that, the supporting cast, including Sam Elliot as Jack’s older brother and Andrew Dice Clay as Ally’s Dad brought a lot to the mix as Cooper ably balances the film’s tonal shifts from heavy drama to lighter moments.

Things do get a little bit predictable during the second act as Ally’s star begins to rise while Jackson’s starts to crash and burn, and he’s unable to accept how she’s becoming more successful than him, as his career begins to stagnate. He stops drinking, then starts drinking again and things just get worse and worse, as he seems to be hindering her career. The film’s last act is a stunner as Jack tries to get his alcoholism in check and Ally’s star continues to rise, making it obvious something’s eventually going to give.

A Star Is Born is an impressive debut from Cooper, not only for his direction but also how he elevates himself as an actor to keep up with his perfectly cast co-star. That’s not even considering that he co-wrote many of the film’s gorgeous songs. I enjoyed this film far more than I thought I would, and I know that I won’t be the only person seeing it multiple times.

Rating: 9/10

Venom shouldn’t have a problem taking the top spot although we’ll have to see whether negative reviews manage to keep the fans away. Either way, it will beat A Star is Born on Thursday/Friday but then the latter will pick up steam, bearing in mind that Monday is Columbus Day so there’s no school and government offices are closed, which could help some of the returning movies, as well.

This week’s Top 10 should look something like this…

1. Venom (Sony) - $55.6 million N/A 2. A Star is Born (Warner Bros.) - $42.5 million N/A 3. Night School (Universal) - $15 million -46% 4.Smallfoot (Warner Bros.) - $14.5 million -37% 5. The House with a Clock in its Walls (Universal) - $7.3 million -40% 6. A Simple Favor (Lionsgate) – $4 million -38% 7. The Nun (New Line) - $3 million -54% 8. Crazy Rich Asians (New Line) - $2.7 million -35% 9. Hell Fest (CBS Films/Lionsgate) - $2.2 million -57% 10. The Predator (Fox) – $1.7 million -57%

LIMITED RELEASES

Other than The Hate U Give, this weekend is kind of a mixed bag for limited releases, since I haven’t watched as many of these as I probably should.

Almost a year after it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, Fernando Leon de Aranoa’s LOVING PABLO (Universal Pictures Home Entertainment) starring Javier Bardem as the Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar as it follows his rise to power while in a love affair with Colombian journalist Virgina Vallejo, played by Penelope Cruz. The film is based on Vallejo’s book, and it’s opening at around 15 theaters across the country.

Filmmaker Peter Bogdonavich pays tribute to the great silent film Buster Keaton with Buster Restored (Cohen Media Group), which combines footage from Keaton’s silent comedies with interviews by those he’s inspired including Mel Brooks, Quentin Tarantino and Johnny Knoxville. It opens at the Quad Cinemaon Friday along with a small Buster Keaton retrospective and then opens at the Landmark Nuarton Oct. 19

Matt Tyrnauer follows his recent doc Scotty and the Secret of Hollywood with Studio 54, opening at the IFC Center Friday. It looks at the New York nightclub that was the place to be seen between 1977 and 1980 but was exceedingly hard to get into as its popularity and notoriety rose. Tyrnauer was given incredible access to the man-behind-the-club Ian Schrager, who tells the story of Studio 54 for the first time. After a number of showings at IFC Center with Tyrnauer in attendance, Studio 54 will then open at the Landmark Nuart in L.A. on Oct. 12.

Opening at the Film Forum in New York is Joseph Dorman and Toby Perl Freilich’s Moynihan (First Run Features), a portrait of former New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan who tried to contend with poverty and racism in the greatest city in the world. (The latter bit is my own personal opinion. I haven’t seen the movie.)

Not to overshadowed by Bradley Cooper, Cuba Gooding Jr. stars and makes his directorial debut in Bayou Caviar (Gravitas Ventures), which stars Richard Dreyfuss as a Russian gangster who hires Gooding’s former boxer to take down an associate’s son-in-law with a scandalous tape. It also stars Famke Janssen, Katherine McPhee, Ken Lerner and Lia Marie Johnson.

Bella Thorne and Jessie Usher star in Jeremy Ungar’s Ride (RLJE Films) with the latter playing James, a struggling actor who drives people around L.A. for a ride-sharing service. The job gets slightly better when he hits it off with the beautiful Jessica, but the two of them are then taken on a crazy joy ride by another fare.

Following its run on DirecTV, Trevor White’s A Crooked Somebody (Vertical/DirecTV) stars Rich Sommer as a medium who goes against the advice of his minister father (Ed Harris) trying to call forth the dead, only to be idnapped by someone who desperately wants to make contact with the dead.

Terence Stamp and Ann Demetriou stars in David LG Hughes’ Viking Destiny (Saban Films/Lionsgate), the latter playing a Viking princess who is forced to flee her kingdom after her king father (presumably Stamp) is murdered, so she travels the world building an army to get revenge. In case you’re wondering what Game of Thrones has inspired…. wonder no more!

Michael Ironside stars in Michael Peterson’s horror film Knuckleball (Freestyle Digital Media) about a 12-year-old who finds himself alone on an isolated farm after his grandfather dies. (I assume Ironside plays the latter.)

I also don’t know a ton about Eugene Kotlyarenko’s Wobble Place (Breaking Glass Pictures), which has an exclusive run at Metrograph starting Friday with the filmmaker in attendance for a few screenings. Best I can do to describe this is to share the odd trailer…

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This week’s Yash Raj Films offering is Abhiraj K. Minawala’s Loveyatri, a love story set during the 9-day festival of Navrati, starring Aayush Sharma and Warina Hussain, a romance which almost comes to an end as she travels back to the UK leaving him in India.

Filmmakers Jukka Vidgren & Juuso Laatio’s Scandinavian cult-comedy Heavy Trip (Doppelgänger Releasing/Bloody Disgusting) will open in select theaters Friday before going to VOD on Oct. 12. It stars Johannes Holopainen as a guy stuck in a small Finnish village who is also the lead singer of metal band Impaled Rektum, a band who hasn’t played a single gig in 12 years until they’re booked to play a Norwegian festival.

And speaking of which, Bloody Disgusting’s Retro Nightmares continues with a double feature of Amityville: The Evil Escapes & Amityville: It’s About Time on Thursday Oct. 4 in select cities.

Lastly, Anthony Nardolillo’s Shine (Forgiven Films/GVN Releasing), which won the Best Feature award at the 2017 Urbanworld Film Festival, comes out Friday, starring salsa dancersJorge Burgos and Gilbert Saldivar as two brothers who find themselves on opposite sides of the gentrification hitting East Harlem.

STREAMING

The only major new film streaming on Netflix is Tamara Jenkins’ new film PRIVATE LIFE, which premiered at Sundance and just played the New York Film Festival. It stars Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti as a married couple who have been trying to have a baby and start looking at alternative methods after fertility treatments aren’t working. Jenkins is the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of 2007’s The Savages, starring Laura Linney and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. (The movie also opens at the IFC Center in New York and at a theater in L.A.)

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

I’m pretty excited about my local theater’s latest series, an Albert Brooks retrospective that runs between Friday and Tuesday and including some of his classics like Modern Romance, Lost in America, Mother, Defending Your Life,Real Life and a program of SNL shorts.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Alain Resnais’ 1974 film Stavisky, featuring music by Stephen Sondheim, gets a restoration, which opens here on Wednesday.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Beyond Fest 2018 continues with a double feature of Flash Gordon and the West Coast premiere of the doc Life After Flash. Thursday sees a double feature of The Monster Squad and the new documentary about the movie called Wolfman’s Got Nards. Beyond Fest will then wrap on Saturday with a TRIPLE feature of Black Christmas and Halloween from 1978, as well as the brand-new Halloween weeks before its nationwide release.

AERO (LA):

American Cinemateque’s other L.A. theater continues its own Beyond Fest Tribute to Cronenberg with a double feature of the director’s Crash and Spider on Thursday night. It also begins the series The Life of Reilly, as in John C. Reilly, with a double feature of Chicago and Step Brothers on Friday, and then a free screening of Reilly’s new film The Sisters Brothers on Saturday. Saturday also sees a screening of PT Anderson’s Magnolia with Reilly in person and a screening of A Grin Without a Hat (1977) to celebrate Icarus Films’ 40th anniversary.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

To help celebrate last week’s retrospective recipient Peter Bogdonavich’s new doc The Great Buster: A Celebration (see above), the West Village theater will also show a trio of Buster Keaton shorts, The General and other Keaton classics.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

Along with a program of Jean Vigo shorts, the Hollywood theater will show the new 4k restoration of the director’s L’Atalante that screened at Film Forum last week.

MOMA (NYC):

The Unknown Jerry: Home Movies and More from the Jerry Lewis Collection at the Library of Congresscontinues with Come Back Little Shiksa (1962) and The Re-Inforcer (1951) on Friday, Fairfax Avenue (1951), and a couple features on Gar-Ron Productions on Saturday and The Bellboy (1960) on Sunday, as it continues into next week. The month-long Modern Matinees: Vincent Price will show Edward Scissorhands on Friday afternoon.

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aion-rsa · 7 years

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The Buy Pile: Bad People & Bad Decisions Make For Good Comics

WHAT IS THE BUY PILE?

Every week Hannibal Tabu (winner of the 2012 Top Cow Talent Hunt/blogger/novelist/poet/jackass on Twitter/head honcho of Komplicated) grabs a whole lotta comics. These periodicals are quickly sorted (how) into two piles — the “buy” pile (a small pile most weeks, comprised of planned purchases) and the “read” pile (often huge, often including comics that are really crappy but have some value to stay abreast of). Thursday afternoons you’ll be able to get his thoughts (and they’re just the opinions of one guy, so calm down, and here’s some common definitions used in the column) about all of that … which goes something like this …

THE BUY PILE FOR JANUARY 18, 2017

Curse Words #1 (Image Comics)

Jump from the Read Pile. The lure of leisure time and scantily clad romantic partners have felled conquerors of many stripes, from the Zentraedi in “Robotech” to … well, the Invid in “Robotech.” In this crafty new book, an imperialist’s minion gets a change of heart when he experiences New York City. That part is very engaging, and when the bill inevitably comes due that leads to some solid action and the truth needing protection in an extreme fashion. Charles Soule, Ryan Browne, Jordan Boyd, Michael Parkinson, Chris Crank and Shawn DePasquale turned in one entertaining work and watching this struggle between demons and slightly better angels is a great start.

“Grand Passion” #3 breaks all the rules and loves every minute of it.

Grand Passion #3 (Dynamite Entertainment)

Jump from the Read Pile. Not at all safe for work, this twisted gunpoint love story has everything you need to get engaged in the characters and resolve the plot in this issue while pushing you towards the next one. Spoilers would abound with discussing the details, but James Robinson, Tom Feister, Dave Curiel and Simon Bowland deliver a bawdy, enjoyable romp.

WHAT’S THE PROGNOSIS?

New ideas getting their game face together? Gotta love that, especially with so much cool new stuff happening.

THIS WEEK’S READ PILE

Honorable Mentions: Stuff worth noting, even if it’s not good enough to buy

Answers start to come in “Mosaic” #4 with the help of a brain significantly better than the series’ protagonist. There’s a real holodeck feel to it, as a lot of nothing happened just to transfer some information and do a bit of character work. That dragged the plot, which wasn’t so good, but the building of Morris Sackett as a character is fantastic.

Maximus the Mad is like a bored frat boy Loki in “Uncanny Inhumans” #18 where he comes up with a plan that only involves a little bit of murder and mayhem but he figures will be wholly forgiven. Hanging out with two of the worst Inhuman villains aside from himself, this has the feeling of a good crime comedy but hits the brakes sometime during the second act, leaving things unresolved. An improvement with the focus on character, but not enough to make it home.

“WWE” #1 was interestingly written, presenting the story behind the story as a story, reframing actual events in wrestling … “history,” we can call it. In any case, this behind the scenes look plays out as if the characters on the screen are the same when the cameras are off, carrying the scripted nature of the stories to a whole new level. On one hand, that’s brilliant and amazing, especially with the Seth Rollins characterization. On another hand, many of the shirtless characters herein were difficult to distinguish from each other, and that made the story seem to go by in a blur at points.

“Captain America Sam Wilson” #18 took a long time to make what seems like an obvious decision (as stated by almost everybody who matters in these pages), which made its titular character terrible even in the eyes of many people closest to him. It also had a strategy from a young hero that bordered on stupidity, so that was a problem. What was good was Steve Rogers, dancing around double entendres so much that Ben Kenobi might pause and then applaud respectfully. The ideas are better than the execution, and if this issue is right that the cause matters more than the consequences, that’s something to like.

Just when “Star Wars Doctor Aphra” #3 was getting good, after some character development (including her full name) and finding out just how dangerous a single Wookiee can be, when the page count caught up to it, cutting the story off at the climax of a second act. Written as trade bait? Maybe. This was close to making the mark, though, as each cast member did some of what makes them awesome.

The “Meh” Pile Not good enough to praise, not bad enough to insult, they just kind of happened … “Harbinger Renegade” #3, “Aquaman” #15, “Revolutionaries” #1, “Trinity” #5, “Cage” #4, “Hook Jaw” #2, “Green Arrow” #15, “Squadron Supreme” #15, “Jeff Steinberg Champion Of Earth” #5, “Dollface” #1, “Lucifer” #14, “Spider-Gwen” #16, “Black Hammer Giant-Sized Annual” #1, “Venom” #3, “Superman” #15, “Deadpool And The Mercs For Money” #7, “Horizon” #7, ��Ultimates 2” #3, “Justice League” #13, “Black Widow” #10, “Athena Voltaire And The Volcano Goddess” #3, “Suicide Squad Most Wanted El Diablo And Amanda Waller” #6, “Divinity III Aric Son Of The Revolution” #1, “Avengers” #3.1, “Raven” #5, “Unbelievable Gwenpool” #10, “Battlestar Galactica Gods And Monsters” #3, “Mighty Captain Marvel” #1, “Justice League Vs Suicide Squad” #5, “Gamora” #2, “Doctor Who The Ninth Doctor” #9, “Patsy Walker A.K.A. Hellcat” #14, “Harley Quinn” #12, “Kill Or Be Killed” #5, “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” #11, “James Bond Hammerhead” #4, “Nightwing” #13, “Black Panther World Of Wakanda” #3, “Generation Zero” #6, “Star-Lord” #2, “Cougar And Cub” #1, “All-New X-Men” #17, “Justice League Of America The Ray Rebirth” #1, “U.S. Avengers” #2, “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency The Salmon Of Doubt” #4, “Invincible Iron Man” #3, “He-Man Thundercats” #4, “Night’s Dominion” #5, “Green Lanterns” #15, “Few” #1, “Batman” #15.

No, just … no … These comics? Not so much …

Since “Clone Conspiracy” #4 and “Amazing Spider-Man” #23 have so many of the same story elements, they may as well have the same review. Of course, trusting maniacs and murderers goes as it inevitably has to after pages and pages of moralistic hand wringing and prevarication. These books are so predictably doomed that when the other shoe finally drops, it’s almost a relief to know there’s just the punching and attempted murder to get through now. Subpar concept, adequate execution.

SO, HOW BAD WAS IT?

Not bad.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

Those jumps, though … let’s call this week a winner.

THE BUSINESS

Well, there are 22 pages of a new 72 page web comic on line, there’s another one coming next month while a third just got collected for sale, 44 pages of story for just three bucks through Black History Month. All that and asking the question who is David Chance? It was a big weekend at the Black Comix Arts Festival in San Francisco, and if you join the mailing list there’s free stuff in it for you, to boot!

The writer of this column isn’t just a jerk who spews his opinions — he writes stuff too. A lot. Like what? You can get “Project Wildfire: Enter Project Torrent” (a collected superhero web comic), “The Crown: Ascension” and “Faraway,” five bucks a piece, or spend a few more dollars and get “New Money” #1 from Canon Comics, the rambunctious tale of four multimillionaires running wild in Los Angeles, a story in “Watson and Holmes Volume 2” co-plotted by “2 Guns” creator Steven Grant, two books from Stranger Comics — “Waso: Will To Power” and the sequel “Waso: Gathering Wind” (the tale of a young man who had leadership thrust upon him after a tragedy), or “Fathom Sourcebook” #1, “Soulfire Sourcebook” #1, “Executive Assistant Iris Sourcebook” #1 and “Aspen Universe Sourcebook,” the official guides to those Aspen Comics franchises. Love these reviews? It’d be great if you picked up a copy. Hate these reviews? Find out what this guy thinks is so freakin’ great. There’s free sample chapters too, and all proceeds to towards the care and maintenance of his kids … oh, and to buy comic books, of course. There’s also a bunch of great stuff — fantasy, superhero stuff, magical realism and more — available from this writer on Amazon. What are you waiting for? Go buy a freakin’ book already!

Got a comic you think should be reviewed in The Buy Pile? If we get a PDF of a fairly normal length comic (i.e. “less than 64 pages”) by no later than 24 hours before the actual issue arrives in stores (and sorry, we can only review comics people can go to stores and buy), we guarantee the work will get reviewed, if remembered. Physical comics? Geddouttahere. Too much drama to store with diminishing resources. If you send it in more than two days before comics come out, the possibility of it being forgotten increases exponentially. Oh, you should use the contact form as the CBR email address hasn’t been regularly checked since George W. Bush was in office. Sorry!

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Latour On Finally Tying Up His Loose Ends with Brunner & Renzi

In 2007, the comics industry landscape was very different, with some of today’s most popular creators toiling away in relative obscurity. One such creator was Jason Latour who that year teamed up with artist Chris Brunner and colorist Rico Renzi to release “Loose Ends,” a four-issue Southern crime series.

The book, which developed a small, but devoted fan base thanks to Latour’s writing and Brunner’s breathtaking visuals, is an especially significant moment in Latour’s career because it directly led to the titles he’s known for today; “Spider-Gwen,” which he co-created with Renzi and artist Robbie Rodriguez for Marvel Comics, and “Southern Bastards,” the Eisner Award winning Image Comics series by Latour and co-creator Jason Aaron.

RELATED: Southern Bastards Announces Anti-Harassment Charity Variant

Sadly, the fourth issue of “Loose Ends” was never released, denying fans the chance to read Latour, Brunner, and Renzi’s story in it’s entirety. That all changes this month, as Image Comics gives fans of the creative team’s work, both old and new, a chance to rediscover and finish one of the their seminal works by repackaging and releasing all four issues of “Loose Ends.”

CBR: Image Comics is releasing “Loose Ends” #1 in January. I know some of your newer fans will be experiencing this book for the first time, but will that will be the case for long time fans of your work as well?

Jason Latour: Well for context— “Loose Ends” is a comic that originally came out in 2007, and was essentially self-published between the four of us (the creative team and our editor Keven Gardener). Creator-owned comics were a different beast ten years ago; audiences paid less attention, the market was less diverse, and we were still building our careers. You couple all that with how much we poured into making this comic, and it was just a real uphill climb. So despite a really great response from folks who read it, we only managed to complete three issues of what was intended as four-issue miniseries.

Luckily for us, we’re here ten years later, and all the doors “Loose Ends” opened for us — especially for me — have made it very possible to re-present this book through Image. Which is just tremendous, because I love working there and I love the idea of this comic finally having a home beside the amazing stuff they do.

So we’re reprinting the existing material — along with the last chapter. And the cool thing about that is — again, this is the comic book that all but started our careers, one that very few people got to see. So it’s essentially like making a new comic.

We’re very excited about it. I feel like it still looks and reads pretty fresh considering that it is from another era. It’s a fun road trip genre crime comic, but also a meditation of sorts on what it was like to come of age in an era where George Bush was as his height, we were at war in the Middle East, almost no one had ever heard of Barack Obama, and Trump was just a dumb show TV host. I think it’s an interesting time capsule in that sense. Hopefully it’s taken on some new relevance.

Has the end of the series changed at at all? Did you go back and revise “Loose Ends” #4?

Sure, we’re going to do some light things to repurpose, repackage, and re-present the series as a whole. But for all intents and purposes, though, there’s not a lot of George Lucas-ing going on. [Laughs] Han still shoots first.

Both plot wise and story wise, the fourth issue is all in stone. The only thing that I could possibly allow myself to change is — well, it’s my opinion comic books are not finished until they’re in print. [Laughs] So for the fourth issue, I might do some little lettering re-writes (which is convenient, since I letter it by hand). We’ll see. I’m trying to keep it more or less the same in terms of my involvement.

At a certain point, you’ve got to stand beside what you did. There certainly are reasons to readdress things, but I always like to try and stand on the work that we did, and just trust that even if you were in a different place, you still gave it your best effort at the time.

Let’s talk a little bit about the main characters and the inciting incident of “Loose Ends.” What can you tell us about your two lead characters, Sonny and Cheri, and the events that bring them together?

The comic more or less is a road trip gone sideways. I guess, for lack of a better word, you could call Sonny the protagonist. [Laughs] He’s a young man who has come back from Iraq and Afghanistan with potentially a new lease on life. He and his friend, Reggie, have decided to sell heroin. It’s a get rich quick scheme that is very quickly eating away at Sonny’s conscience.

So Sonny returns home to try and make amends for something he left undone, and at the end of one bloody night he and a young woman from his past named Cheri end up on the road and embroiled in the machinations of a pair of corrupt cops. So in the course of one night, these characters lives take on this breakneck momentum that forces them to rehash and reassess their lives.

So if you’re a fan of films like “True Romance” or “Drive” (which it still stuns me that we pre-date), this might be for you. Of course, it’s set in the South, which makes it obviously very personal to me, and I think separates it from just the genre elements of those stories a bit.

In terms of elevator pitches, it sounds like you could describe it as sort of a Southern fried “True Romance” by way of someone like “The Wire’s” David Simon.

Yeah, that’s a good elevator pitch. There’s certainly a lot of David Simon in it.

I started writing this around 2005. There was a period where I moved away from the South and lived in New York. I read a lot of David Simon during that time. He’s clearly a heavyweight intellectual, and he really got me thinking. At the time, I was living in a pretty impoverished area of Brooklyn, and being from the South, I was thinking about the commonalities of people growing up in different places and how everything is all a lot more interconnected than people seem to want to acknowledge. That helped this book really coalesce in a way.

You mentioned “Southern Bastards.” I assume “Loose Ends” is also like that book in that it can be quite dark at times, but it can also be quite funny at times.

Yeah, I would think so. I certainly take myself way too seriously a lot of the time. [Laughs] But if anybody follows my terrible social media feeds, they’ll see that I also can’t resist making dumb jokes. So there’s a lot of my own particular, warped sense of humor, and the senses of humor of Chris and Rico both slide in there too.

I’m just a big believer in embracing the interplay between what’s absurd and what’s super serious. More and more that’s reflected in our society and real lives.

What I’ve seen of Chris and Rico’s art for “Loose Ends” is, I don’t want to use the term magical, but it kind of feels that way.

Yes! There is literally no other artist that I felt would be capable of bringing this to life. That’s the highest compliment that I can give.

Chris was my roommate for the better part of four years while we were working on the bulk of this. I got to see him struggle with putting that magic on the page. He really bled for it and earned every bit of it. I truly think people should pick this comic book up, if for no other reason than for the art. It’s a virtuoso performance by somebody who is, unfortunately, a little underrated. Not among other artists, but as far as fans. I think it will really be worth people’s time to experience what he’s done here. Hell, he could be one of the biggest names in comics, and he’d still be underrated.

The same goes for Rico, who is obviously a collaborator of mine on pretty much all the stuff I’ve been doing at Marvel. That guy is my drummer, man. The steady beat to all this stuff. If you’ve read “Southern Bastards” #12, or the first story in the “Spider-Gwen Annual,” that’s a little taste of how this team works together.

But I can’t stress enough that — we really didn’t want to do a crime comic that felt old and dusty. [Laughs] A lot of crime comics end up using the same palette and the same sort of visual presentation over and over again. So this is sort of what I’d call neon noir. We all really like the early Michael Mann movies. His films like “Thief” are definitely an influence.

Finally, how does it feel to revisit and bring “Loose Ends” to a long awaited close?

I stand behind everything we’ve done, 150 percent. But it does feel a little weird to put a comic out ten years after you wrote it. Mostly because readers don’t often know or seem to care about the context of when something was made. Why should they? Their job is to enjoy it. And then there’s the idea that— well it’s not so much the fear that they’re not going to like what you did then, it’s that they’re going to like what you used to do a lot better. [Laughs]

It does feel really rewarding to get it all put together and all done, though. It felt like for a while we might be pulling a prank on everybody by calling it “Loose Ends.” [Laughs] It’s like our own little Andy Kaufman/Tony Clifton prank.

This was a comic that opened a lot of doors for me. It was the first comic that I put on Marvel’s desk and said, “Hey, I can write.” It’s also a comic that was very influential and essential to me and Jason Aaron creating “Southern Bastards.” So it means the world to me to get to re-present it and repackage it. Plus, it will be new to so many people.  Even if only 10 more people read it it’s really gratifying to put Chris and Rico on that stage again. Giving anything that you worked that hard for a new chance at life is an opportunity that you should never take for granted.

“Loose Ends” #1, by Jason Latour, Chris Brunner and Rico Renzi, is on sale now.

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