#I’m just imagining like so many scenes in which like one of the bergens show up and everyone’s chill but he like runs off

[introverted-ghost]

So like John Dory knows that bergens stopped eating trolls, he probably figured at the Bergen wedding the trolls were attending but he also got told later along with Bruce clay and viva.

So they all know

But

Does Floyd?

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 12/11/20 - MINARI, THE MIDNIGHT SKY, LET THEM ALL TALK, WILD MOUNTAIN THYME, PARALLEL, WANDER DARKLY and More!

Honestly, I almost didn’t write a column this week for reasons I’ll probably be ranting about for a few more months, but the long and short of it is that I’ve now been writing movie reviews for 19 years, as well as writing a weekly column through most of that time, and I’m kind of sick of working my ass off, usually for very little money, and just not getting anything out of it.

This mainly came as I crossed 200 reviews for the year a few weeks back. As I was preparing to write this week’s column, Rotten Tomatoes, where most of my reviews have been available as FREE content for the past 17 years, decided to upgrade a number of critics to be “Top Critics”… but not yours truly. I have a lot more to say about this but don’t want to waste any more of my time or anger right now. I will be wrapping this column up and taking some time off for a month in January and deciding whether I want to keep wasting my time every week for no money and little feedback. It really just isn’t worth it anymore.

Fortunately, I saw a few good movies this week, and more than a few bad, so let’s start with one of the good ones, shall we?

This week’s “Featured Flick” is Lee Isaac Chung’s MINARI (A24), which like Nomadland last week will get some sort of virtual cinema release in New York and L.A., presumably that can be seen across the country. It will then get its official release on February 12, 2021.

The movie stars Steven Yeun from The Walking Dead as Jacob, a Korean father who brings his family to an Arkansas house in the middle of nowhere in the ‘80s, hoping to start a farm. His wife Monica (Yeri Han) is not happy with this decision but their kids Anne (Noel Cho) and David (Alan S. Kim) try to adjust to the new life. Things aren’t going well but then Monica’s mother Soonja (Yuh-jung Youn) shows up, that just adds more pressure on Jacob, and the kids, especially David, who hates the quirky older woman who acts nothing like a grandmother.

I’d been hearing about Minari going all the way back to its debut at Sundance, and though I remained skeptical, I finally saw it a few months ago an again over the weekend, and it’s one of my favorite films of the year, probably Top 5. To me, it’s somewhat in the vein of The Farewell, my number 1 movie of 2019, vs. the Oscar Best Picture winner, Parasite. It’s a very personal story for Chung who based some of the experiences on his own childhood, which once again proves the adage that if you’re going to write a movie, make it personal since that’s the most likely to connect with others. (Not always true, but it was great advice when I was given it.)

It takes a little time to understand why Minari is so beloved, since Chung takes an interesting approach where we see various scenes that don’t necessarily seem to tie into some sort of plot. Characters like Will Patton’s ultra-religious zealot who seems to be a bit lost when Jacob takes him on to help with his farm. Otherwise, we see various character interactions as things get tenser and tenser between Jacob and Monica, who are fighting all the time. Although the drama does get intense at times, there’s a lot of joyful and fun moments, particularly those involving the wacky grandmother and her dysfunctional relationship with her grandson. I also enjoyed the relationship between the two kids where Anne is always protective of her younger brother, who has some sort of heart illness. 

It's a beautiful movie with an equally gorgeous score, but it’s really in the last 20 minutes or so when we start to see where Chung has been going with all these seemingly disparate elements, which builds up to a wonderful ending. Yeun is terrific, and the fact he reminded me of my own father -- we’re neither Korean nor have I ever been to Arkansas -- shows why his subdued performance is so effective. Overall, the film proves that however many awful things life might throw at you, your family can always fix things. I love that message, and I hope others will find and love this as well.

After its one week in virtual cinema, Minari will get an expanded theatrical release starting February 12… hopefully, New York City theaters will be open by then and I can see it in a theater.

Film at Lincoln Center in New York also is starting its 49th annual “New Directors/New Films” series, which was delayed from March, although being virtual, the movies in it can also be viewed nationwide for the first time. I feel like a lot of movies that were scheduled to play ND/NF ended up being released already but there should be some interesting things in there.

George Clooney’s latest film THE MIDNIGHT SKY is based on Lily Brooks-Dalton’s novel Good Morning, Midnight, in which he plays Augustine, a scientist dying on his own at the Barbeau Observatory in the Arctic, who has to warn a group of astronauts returning to earth that it’s no longer safe for them to return.

Clooney has made a lot of good and great movies over the years, so that I’m one of those people anxiously ≠waiting for him to make something great again after the disappointment of Suburbicon. Midnight Sky is definitely one step forward and a few steps back, as it’s impossible not to think of previous Clooney movies like Solaris and Gravity, as well as The Martian and Passengers and Ad Astra. Yes, we somehow have gotten to the point where every year there’s some sort of space movie, and while Midnight Sky at its best is better than Solaris or Ad Astra (sorry, but I was not a fan), there’s enough that’s so quizzical and confounding I’m not sure people will be able to follow what’s going on.

Much of the first half of the movie involves Clooney’s Augustine alone at the Artic base interacting with a little girl (Caoillin Springall) who is completely silent. If it’s ever explained what the girl represents, I must have missed it. There are also flashbacks to Augustine’s earlier career as a scientist and explorer played by a somewhat only semi-impressive Clooney kinda look-alike in Ethan Peck.

The best moments of the movie involve the crew of astronauts on the spaceship Ether, including Felicity Jones and David Oyelowo, who are in a relationship, Demián Bichir, Kyle Chandler and Tiffany Boone, as they deal with various issues. This is really where comparisons to Gravity and The Martian are earned, but that’s such a mighty quintet of actors that these sections are far more interesting than sullen bearded Clooney with his young ward. The production design and visual FX in these portions of the film are also quite impressive.

The Midnight Sky throws a lot at the viewer but then tries too hard to be quizzical and enigmatic about how all of it ties together until the very end. I feel that some of Clooney’s more mainstream fans will be quite confounded and possibly even disappointed. The Midnight Sky is Clooney taking a swing and only partially connecting, and it might require multiple viewings to feel like it’s a worthy addition to his filmography.

Either way, The Midnight Sky will open theatrically in select cities this week and then be on Netflix on December 23, just in time for depressing everyone on Christmas!

Also hitting Netflix streaming this week is Ryan Murphy’s musical THE PROM, which I reviewed last week. It’s great, I loved it, and can’t wait to watch it again!

Next up is Clooney’s pal Steven Soderbergh, whose new movie LET THEM ALL TALK, will premiere on HBO Max this Thursday, December 10. It stars Meryl Streep as renowned writer Alice who is called to England to receive a prestigious literary award. Since she doesn’t fly, she’s booked on a cross-Atlantic trip on the Queen Mary II ship. Alice decides to bring her old friend Roberta (Candice Bergen)—whom hasn’t spoken to her in three decades--and Susan (Dianne Wiest) as well as her nephew Tyler (Lucas Hedges) to serve as her assistant so she can focus on her writing. Little does she know that her young agent Karen (Gemma Chan) is also on the ship hoping to find out what Alice is writing about with the help of Tyler, who is quite smitten with her.  

I’m not sure where to begin with one of week’s films that I probably had the highest expectations and ended up leaving me with the most utter disappointment. I wasn’t really that crazy about last year’s The Laundromat, and I’ve generally found Soderbergh’s work to be hit or miss over the last few years. I loved his thriller Unsanefor instance, and the Magic Mike movies were fun. This one, written by author Deborah Eisenberg, is just plain boring for most of it, offering nothing particularly interesting or insightful, as it’s basically another movie where Streep is playing a character who moans about how difficult her life is and how much better everyone else has it. I mean, if I wanted that shit, I’d spend more time on Twitter than I already do. And then there’s Hedges, one of my favorite young actors over the past few years, who seems to have fallen into a niche playing

In fact, my favorite aspect of the film was Gemma Chan, who plays a character with far more depth and dimension than normal, although much of her role is just to spy on Alice and fend of the subtle advances by the much younger Tyler. The two actors have some fun scenes together, far more lively than anything involving the older actresses, but you always know where it’s going. It’s kind of awkward and painful to watch Hedges bomb so hard. (At least he fared better playing a similar role in French Exit, but in that one, his love interest was Danielle Macdonald.)

The movie looks good with Soderbergh handling his own camera duties and cinematography as usual, and it’s scored with the same hipster jazz he might have used in one of his Ocean movies, but the movie just goes on and on and on, and it hs one of the most “what the fuck?” moments you’ll see this year.

If you can imagine one of The Trip movies without any of the laughs or the delicious food porn…but on a ship, that’s basically what you end up with. More than once while watching Soderbergh’s movie, I was ready to abandon ship.

And from pretty bad, we go to much, MUCH worse. Do you know what thyme it is? It’s WILD MOUNTAIN THYME!!!

John Patrick Shanley adapts his own play Outside Mullingar into a film that will be released in theaters and On Demand by Bleeker Street this Friday, and believe me, its biggest problems isn’t some of the awful Irish accents on display, but they certainly don’t help. Emily Blunt plays Rosemary and Jamie Dornan is Anthony, childhood friends who live down the street from each other in their Irish farming community. When they grow up, Rosemary’s father dies leaving her with a plot of land that forces Anthony and his father Tony (Christopher Walken) to have to use a gate to get to their home. Remember this gate, because it’s going to be mentioned so much over the course of the movie, you’ll wonder why the movie wasn’t called “Wild Mountain Gate.” (It’s actually named after a song that Blunt’s character sings for no apparent reason.)

First, you’ll have to get past the odd choice of the very non-Irish Walken in a key role as the dead narrator of the story with that aforementioned horrid accent. It won’t take long for you to start scratching your head how a noted playwright like Shanley could write such a horrible screenplay. Soon after, you’ll wonder how he convinced someone to finance making it into a movie. I’m normally a pretty big fan of Blunt, but this movie and role might be one of her biggest missteps as an actor to date. As a child, Rosemary was told by her father that she was the White Swan in Swan Lake, so of course that will lead to

It’s not long before Jon Hamm shows up as one of Anthony’s distant relatives who also has interest in Rosemary’s plot of land – nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Pretty soon we’re thrust into awkward love triangle rom-com that falls somewhere between Leap Year and The Holiday. Not exactly something you’d expect from the filmmaker behind the drama Doubt that produced multiple Oscar nominations for the cast, eh?

Instead, Shanley ends up trying to foist the… I don’t want to call it chemistry. What is the exact opposite of chemistry? Between Blunt and Dorman with one long boring conversation after another. At one point, they’re having a romantic chat about suicide, the next Anthony is telling Rosemary that he thinks he’s a honeybee. I mean, what the holy fuck?

Honestly, the whole thing is just grueling to watch, because you wonder how so much talent could falter so badly, particularly Shanley? Even the recent Shane MacGowan doc was a far more romantic take on Irish farming than this could ever possibly be.

One of the nicer surprises of the week is the sci-fi thriller PARALLEL (Vertical), which will be in theaters and On Demand this Friday, and it’s likely to be missed by a lot of people who would enjoy it. Directed by Isaac Ezban from a screenplay by Scott Blaszak, it follows four young people working in the tech sector of Seattle who discover a mirror in a hidden section of the house they’re renting that apparently allows them to experience other dimensions and other versions of their lives. Soon, they’re experimenting with different ways they can make money and achieve fame, although not all of them are cool about how they’re doing it.

Although Parallel opens like a home invasion thriller featuring the great Kathleen Quinlan, we soon learn that it’s a red herring before we meet the quartet of young entepreneurs working on a parking app with an almost impossible deadline. When they find the mirror that leads into an alternative dimension, they immediately start to experiment with figuring out what is happening exactly, and once they do, they realize they can make money by stealing from “alts” i.e. other versions of themselves. Soon, their success starts driving them insane with a desire for even more money and power.

Ezban’s movie benefits from a talented mostly unknown cast, including Martin Wallstrom and Mark O’Brien as boisterous alpha males. Georgia King’s artist Leena is far more than a love interest, although she does become an obsession for one of them eventually – and man, does she remind me of a young Reese Witherspoon. British actor Aml Ameen plays Devin, whose father committed suicide after being accused of corruption, and he’s also wary of some of the activities his friends get up to. There’s also the quartet’s main competitor Seth who gets suspicious of their success as they start producing all sorts of incredible technical inventions.

Parallel is a pretty twisted sci-fi movie that in some way reminded me of the ‘90s thriller Flatliners and even Primer a little bit, but the mirror aspect to it also will draw comparisons to Oculus, one of Mike Flanagan’s cool earlier movies. It doesn’t take long for the twists to start flying at the viewer, and once they do, your mind will be boggled and not necessarily in a bad way. I wouldn’t want to even begin sharing some of the crazy places where the film goes, but even gore fans won’t be disappointed by some of it.

It’s a real shame this terrific movie has floundered without distribution or deserved attention for so long, because there’s absolutely no question in my mind that Jason Blum should be talking to Ezban and Blaszk about doing something together. Parallel is the type of quality high-concept thriller Blumhouse thrives upon.

Another nice surprise this week was Ekwa Msangi’s FAREWELL AMOR (IFC Films), which debuted at Sundance earlier this year and barely got any attention, which is a real shame. It’s expanded from her earlier short, and it’s about an Angolan immigrant named Walter (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine), who is reunited with his wife Esther (Zainab Jah) and daughter Sylvia (Jayme Lawson) after 17 years. As they share a small New York apartment, Walter and Esther try to rekindle their romance while Sylvia tries to adjust to an American school.

Msangi’s film opens at Newark airport where the small family is reunited, Walter not having seen either wife or daughter in a decade and a half. He’s working as a cab driver, and he’s ready to rekindle the old flame and meet his daughter who was only a baby when he moved to the States. (Little does Esther know that Walter was in a relationship with another woman, a nurse who isn’t too happy about having to leave Walter’s life.)

One of the things Msangi does to keep things interesting is that she splits the film into three sections, one for each character that focuses specifically on them, and the story gets infinitely interesting as we learn more about each of them. Walter is somewhat at odds with doing the right thing by his wife and daughter, who is wanting to explore her love of dance that her ultra-religious mother forebids. For some reason, I thought Sylvia’s section would be the most interesting as she deals with the trials of being a teenager, but then Esther’s section shows her to be a far more layered character we might have assumed earlier. She also befriends a neighbor woman played by Joie Lee that helps her expand. The thing is that all three are clearly good people, and you never feel as if one is doing something bad in relation to the others.

Farewell Amor is a quiet but beautiful film that explores an immigrant story in a far different way than we’ve seen before. It’s a discovery film, and I hope people will not just presume it won’t hold their interest. It’s a wonderfully relatable human story, similar to Tom McCarthy’s The Visitor.

Sienna Miller and Diego Luna star in Tara Miele’s psychological drama WANDER DARKLY (Lionsgate), playing Adrienne and Matteo, a couple who recently had a baby. After they get into a horrible car accident while arguing, they end up revisiting the highs and lows of their relationship as Adrienne believes either she or Matteo or both are dead.

This is a surprisingly stranger film than I expected, delving into the supernatural not quite in the way as something like Wes Craven’s Serpent and the Rainbow or Jacob’s Ladder, but having a few elements in common. Although I haven’t seen Miele’s other films, this one feels very much like something Drake Doremus might have made to the point where I’m not sure I could say I fully understood what was happening from one moment to the next. The film seems to be exploring a couple’s relationship through a horrible tragedy but does in a strange way.

With the emotional performances by the two leads being enhanced by an amazing score by Alex Weston (who also scored The Farewell last year), Wander Darkly is more than anything, a performance piece with a decent script and further proof Miller continues to be one of the most underrated actresses working today. Despite those great performances, the movie’s strange premise might be too metaphysical and intense in execution for everyone to be along for the entire ride. In that sense, I probably liked last week’s Black Bear just slightly more.

I reviewed Steve McQueen’s ALEX WHEATLE (Amazon Prime Video) in last week’s column, and that will hit Amazon Prime this Friday, but I think I’m going to save Education, the last film in his “Small Axe Anthology” for next week’s column.  I was also hoping to review Tom Moore and Ross Stewart’s WOLFWALKERS (Apple+) this week, since it premieres on Apple TV+ on Friday, but I just couldn’t get to it. Story of my life.

I’m not sure if I could tell you how many of the Ip Man movies I’ve seen over the past 12 or so years, many of which I saw at the New York Asian Film Festival, but Ip Man is indeed back after last year’s Ip Man: The Finale, but that’s because IP MAN: KUNG FU MASTER (Magnet/Magnolia Pictures) is part of the spin-off prologue series starring Dennis (Yu-Hang) To, who looked enough like a younger Donnie Yen to start a whole sub-franchise. This one is directed by Liming Li, who is also directing a Young Ip Man: Crisis Time prequel movie that presumably stars someone younger than both Yen and To. Got it?

Okay, maybe this needs a little more explaining, although the nice thing about Kung Fu Master is that it works perfectly fine as a stand-alone in case you’ve never seen any of the other movies. This one takes place in the ‘40s as Man is a police captain in Foshan, dealing with the ever-present gang known as The Axes.  He’s framed for murder when the leader of the gang dies in prison, and his daughter, Miss Qingchuan (Wanliruo Xin), wanting revenge as she takes over the gang. Ip Man has other issues like being disgraced as a police officer and then the arrival of the Japanese army who have their own agenda. Ip Man ends up donning a mask to become the Black Knight to fight crime in another way.

I make no bones about my love of martial arts films when they’re not stupid or hoaky and sadly, the Donnie Yen franchise was getting by last year’s so-called “finale.” Kung Fu Master starts out with an amazing action scene of To fighting off what seems like hundred of axe-wielding gangsters, and it barely lets up, constantly throwing interesting and thoroughly entertaining fights at the viewer. Eventually, there’s a bounty on Ip Man’s head with whoever kills becoming leader of the Axes, but he has other issues, like his wife giving birth to their baby boy, just as the police chief and force shows up to arrest him. Cutting quickly between childbirth and kung fu action is just one of the interesting things Director Li does to make his Ip Man debut.

The resemblance between Dennis To and Donnie Yen is more than just facial as his wushu techniques are equally impressive, and sure, there’s a few more dramatic moments between Ip Man and his wife, but it’s Xin’s Miss Qingchuan who ends up being more of a formidable counter to To in just about every way, including a few fight scenes where axes are flying through the air.

Ip Man Kung Fu Master is fairly short, less than 90 minutes, but it still feels long because it feels like it finds a good ending, and then tacks on an epilogue and then another one. There were times I thought it might end on a cliffhanger to set up Ip Man’s inevitable next movie. The abundance of evil antagonists Ip Man must fight in this one tends to become a bit much, but it’s hard not to be thrilled by the martial arts on display and Li’s terrifically stylish visuals that keeps the movie interesting.

Ip Man Kung Fu Master will be available digitally Friday through a variety of platforms.

Filmmaker Adam Egypt Mortimer, who released Daniel Isn’t Real last year, returns with ARCHENEMY (RLJEfilms), starring Joe Manganiello as Max Fist, who claims to be a hero from another dimension that fell to earth. He ends up spending time with a teen brother and sister, Hamster (Skylan Brooks) and Indigo (Zelee Griggs) who want to clean the streets of the local drug syndicate, led by The Manager (Glenn Howerton from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia). It’s a strange and quirky dark superhero movie that includes appearances by the likes of Paul Scheer and Amy Seimetz, and though I ran out of time to review, I do have an interview with Mortimer at Below the Line.

Time to get to some docs, and there are definitely some you’ll want to check out, although I don’t have as much time to write that much about them, and some of them I wasn’t able to watch yet.

Another great doc out of the September festival circuit is Ryan White’s ASSASSINS (Greenwich Entertainment), which follows the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, half-brother to North Korean leader Kim Jon-un in 2017 at a busy airport in Malaysia by two young women. Although the two women had never met before, they were jointly charged with attacking the North Korean ex-pat with a lethal nerve gas called VX but White’s investigation takes him all over South-East Asia trying to get answers to how the two women were tricked into committing the assassination. This is a pretty masterful display of doc filmmaking by White, not just in the sense of the way the story is paced and edited like a good political thriller, but it’s one that keeps the viewer invested even as the last act deals with the trial of the two young women and the bond that forms between them.

I’ll have more about this film over on Below the Line sometime very soon, but it hits theaters and virtual cinema this Friday and then it will be on PVOD on January 15

I saw Seamus Murphy’s doc PJ HARVEY: A DOG CALLED MONEY way back in March when it was supposed to open at New York’s Film Forum, but it’s finally getting a virtual cinema release there. Murphy travelled across Afghanistan, Kosovo and Washington DC with singer/songwriter PJ Harvey as she prepared material for her 2015 album, The Hope Six Million Project, which she produced with Flood and John Parish as an installation at Somerset House where people can walk by and view the recording process.  This is an amazing doc that allows you into the process of writing for an amazing recording artist who has given Murphy and the viewer unprecedented access into her creativity. I had fully lost track of Harvey over the years, even though I was a huge fan of hers when she first hit these shores – in fact, I saw her play a concert where Radiohead opened for her… and there as another band (Gallon Drunk) after them! Because of that, I wasn’t familiar with the album, but I just love good music docs, especially ones that take us behind the scenes of a talented artist, and Murphy has created quite a fascinating film even outside the recording studio, whether it’s following Harvey around (narrated by her own poetic observations) but also with commentary by others they encounter. I found the Washington DC segments particularly interesting, since that’s the one place where I’ve spent the most time.  An absolutely fantastic doc whether you’re a fan of Harvey’s or not.

Also playing in the Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema this week is Thomas Balmés’ SING ME A SONG, the filmmaker’s second doc set in the Himalayan village of Bhutan that’s been isolated for centuries. He returns to update on Peyangki, the 8-year-old Buddhist monk from his 2014 film Happiness, now a teenager who has fallen under the sway of technology including pop music and smartphone games, as he begins a WeChat romance with a young singer, which makes him consider leaving the monastery.

Also premiering on Netflix this Friday is Jim Stern and Fernando Villena’s doc GIVING VOICE, tying into the streaming premiere of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom next week. It follows six student actors auditioning for the August Wilson Monologue Competition, which brings thousands of students from twelve U.S. cities together to perform the Pulitzer Prize winner’s work.

Joshua Faudem’s doc THE LAST SERMON (Gravitas Ventures/Will Kennan) follows the director and Jack Baxter as they follow 14 years after making their 2004 documentary Blues by the Beach, in which the two ended up in a terrorist attack by British Nationals on Mike’s Place, a bar next door to the National Embassy on Tel Aviv. This event sends Baxter and Faudem across Europe to refugee camps and mosques in order to understand the essence of Islam and the truth about the international terrorists that almost killed them.

Drew Barrymore plays a dual role in THE STAND-IN (Saban Films), directed by Jamie Babbitt (But I’m a Cheerleader). While under normal circumstances, Wild Mountain Thyme would have been the dog of the week, then this movie came along. Yikes. Barrymore plays Candy Black, a comedy star best known for her pratfalls in bad movies (ala Melissa McCarthy). She also plays Paula, Candy’s much sweeter and almost identical stand-in. Candy is a nightmare to work with and after a fall from grace, she holes herself up in her Long Island Estate for five years, while Paula’s own fortunes falter without having that work. I’m sure you can figure out where it goes from there.

Yes, folks, we have what is now one of the worst iterations of a Tale of Two Cities not made by Barrymore’s frequent co-star Adam Sandler, although there are times where you wonder if she is actually playing a version of Sandler with Candy. Eventually, either Candy or Paula or both decide that Paula can take Candy’s place in her attempt to return to work, but the results are just far worse than The Hottie or the Nottie, as Paula also stands in for Candy on dates with the man she’s fallen in love with online through their love of woodworking. (I didn’t make that up.) You almost always know where it’s going and can’t help but groan when you’re right.

Basically, there’s one Drew that’s glammed-down and the other talking in an annoying wispy voice, so there really isn’t getting away from the awfulness even for a second.The thing is that, like the worst comedies, The Stand In is not funny, and it’s sad to see a decent director like Babbitt being dragged into this one. It’s just a terrible overused premise that’s executed quite poorly. Not only that, but the movie also co-stars TJ Miller, who has fallen so far from grace himself, that it’s shocking to see him in another movie.

Besides guaranteeing Barrymore a double-dose Razzie nomination, The Stand In also leaves her with cow shit on her face, much like her character.

Movies I just didn’t have time to get to this week:

Funny Boy (Array/Netflix) Gunda (NEON) Safety (Disney+) Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (HBO Max) 40 Years a Prisoner (HBO Docs) Through the Night (Longshot Factory) To the Ends of the Earth (KimStim) Rompan Todo: The History of Rock in Latin America (Netflix) The Wilds (Prime Video) Nasrin (Virgil Films) Finding Ying Yin

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

[picturebookmakers]

Mari Kanstad Johnsen

In this post, Mari talks about her wonderful wordless picturebook, ‘Jeg Rømmer’ (I’m out of here). This heartfelt story received a Special Mention in the Fiction category of the BolognaRagazzi Awards 2017. It’s published in Norway by Gyldendal Norsk Forlag.

Visit Mari Kanstad Johnsen's website

Mari: ‘Jeg Rømmer / I’m out of here’ is about a girl who is torn from her roots and moves with her family to a house by the sea, where she starts at a new school. No one is really interested in getting to know the new girl.

The girl discovers an island through her binoculars at night, with something white and shiny moving around on it. She goes there in the middle of the night by boat, and finds a little paradise of friendly rabbits.

She takes one back with her, and shows it off at school, gaining her huge popularity. But when she sees the rabbit sitting in the window at night looking longingly towards his island and friends, she realises she has to take him back.

At school, she returns to unpopularity, but she finds more sustainable ways of surviving, starting to feel secure in her own company...

And in the end, she discovers a very small, slightly rabbity-looking girl in her class, and they develop a friendship.

The book is entirely without text.

I remember when my editor first asked me if I wanted to do a children’s book without text (Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, the publishing house, was planning to make a series of six wordless books). She wondered if it sounded intimidating or difficult to rely on images only.

When I write books, I usually start with the illustrations, spending a lot of time in the beginning just drawing and drawing without a clear direction, until some scenery or characters start to appear... Then I will usually keep drawing as a story appears in my head, and after a while I will start writing. Then I then go back and forth between drawing and writing.

So, I originally imagined using no text would cause me no troubles, almost making it easier, as I feel a lot more secure in my drawing than in my writing. But I soon realised I needed to make a whole lot of choices in the story to make it understandable through the images. Certain things can be explained so easily with just a couple of words, which become more complicated to explain through images.

On the other hand, having no words means the story can be read more freely, which is a bonus. For example, one of the scenes where the girl goes to the island with the rabbits appears a bit dreamy; it can be read as both real events or the girl’s fantasy. I like that it is up to the reader to decide. Also, the little girl who appears in the class at the end of the story is a bit mysterious. Maybe she’s a regular girl who has been there all along (but is so little she hasn’t been noticed before), or maybe she’s a sort of rabbit-like fantasy friend. I like these different readings. Growing up isn’t about one true story; everything depends on the point of view, and how a person experiences and understands something.

Here’s my very first attempt at the story. Simple digital drawings were done quite quickly and intuitively. It shows a lonely girl, on holiday with her family, who decides to swim off to an island to find out what is there.

I stuck with the core of the original storyboard, but took many detours while working out WHY the girl needed to run off, and what she would gain from it.

At an early stage, I tried to combine the story of this girl, which I already had a sense of, with a short graphic story I made on my Master’s degree about a mountain taking revenge on the industry quickly growing around it, polluting its air. The mountain lifts its masses of stone, like a skirt, and covers the city until it disappears, and slowly forest grows back. While trying to combine these stories, I thought that the girl protagonist, doing research, could figure out that a nearby volcano would be an extremely fruitful base to quickly grow plants that would take over the city again. The girl would be a secret hero in the end.

It turned out difficult to explain all her clever plans through images though, so the original story felt stronger to me.

I decided to focus on a theme which I often work with: Solitude and finding strength in yourself. Finding your own place instead of losing yourself to fit in.

Not using text, it worked for me to focus only on one person and their connection with animals, which makes the lack of dialogue natural.

Also, this wordless universe is a nice way to communicate certain dynamics that are difficult to explain in words. The girl is not bullied by anyone at her new school; the other students, who become a bit of a blended mass, are just busy with their own stuff. No one is particularly interested in making a new friend.

The story became more and more clear while I was drawing, and the images in the final book are in many ways very typical of how I work – with different techniques and expressions. This is seldom a conscious plan. It’s more that with some images, I have a clear idea what they should be, maybe strong and colourful graphic images that I work towards with determination, while with others, I like the original sketches the best, and stay with the simple pencil drawing.

But in contrast to other children’s books I have made, this one is more influenced by comic books, using several frames per page to explain the story more clearly.

During the making process it acquired even more frames, but I did some strict editing and simplifications in the end because I wanted more single images occupying a whole page, drawing the reader into the emotions of the story.

Some images were drawn in one go – pencil drawings that were digitally coloured afterwords...

And some images were put together in bits and pieces – little details on different sheets.

While going through all the sketches and originals for the book in preparation to write this post, I remembered many detours in the plot I had completely forgotten...

For example, on one of the originals used for a final image, all the girls in the new school have tiny, fancy dogs on their desk. I had an idea that the girl would sit up all night sewing a dog suit for the kidnapped rabbit, bringing it to school pretending it was a cool little dog. But it was just too complicated and didn’t work visually. Also, on one original, the rabbit is switched with a monkey. This was simply because the previous book I illustrated (‘Tunellen’ published by Magikon Forlag) was about two rabbits, and I thought maybe I shouldn’t only make books about rabbits... But rabbits felt like the right thing for this story, so I returned to the rabbits.

And so many other things. It often feels random how books I make turn out in the end; there are so many small choices along the way, but there is always this basic feeling that I keep all the way, like with this book: A feeling of not belonging, looking for an outside solution, but sticking with your thing.

Illustrations © Mari Kanstad Johnsen.

Buy this picturebook

Jeg Rømmer / I’m out of here

Mari Kanstad Johnsen

Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, Norway, 2016

‘This wordless picturebook tells the story of a lonely girl who moves house and school and needs to find a way of making friends. She finds a special rabbit, which she uses to help her make new friends – a clever device, although she soon discovers that she can be a good friend without anything special to help her. The pace of the pictures, and hence the story, varies interestingly – sometimes fast, sometimes more reflective. A very personal book, it makes its point with gentle humour.’ —The BolognaRagazzi Award Jury

[albinzadamski]

Scenes from Prague & The Emergence of Overtourism

The city of Prague has intrigued me since my brother told me tales of his adventures from when he visited in the late 1990s. One of my most fun friends is also from the Czech Republic so when she asked me to come visit her, I was more than happy to make the trip. I started by spending three days in Brno then we drove together to Prague to explore it for another three days.

  Prague is a beautiful city, but if you really want to appreciate the architectural beauty of the old town, you need to do it in the early morning, because once the cafes begin to fill at 9 a.m. and for the rest of the day (at least when I was there in June) the main squares of Prague are so completely overrun with tourists that I just wanted to escape it, which brings me to some reflections on overtourism, but I’ll share more on that at the end of this post.

One morning I got up early and walked around the main city and squares between 7 and 9 a.m., there were very few people out and about so I felt as if had the streets to myself.

                    Prague is filled with stunning architecture, but the one design element I kept noticing was the constantly changing patterns in the pedestrian sidewalks around the city, all of them made with the same gray and white cobblestones but in varying patterns.

          Despite my aversion for the overcrowded streets of old town by day, I confess Prague at night is really magical. Walking around the city feels like a fairy tale with the old world lanterns lighting up the misty sky and the curving cobblestone paths. The pictures don’t quite capture the inky blue sky that lingered long after the sun set. The color was surreal, it was if you were in a giant movie studio and that deep blue was being projected on a screen above you.

        Prague is known for its nightlife and I could see why! For hours into the evening, the streets were filled with people into the early morning hours since the cafes and clubs are open late into the night.

My traveling companion Ingrid and I found the best underground bar I’ve been to called Black Angels in the Old Town Square. I have no pictures because inside it’s forbidden to be on your phone so instead you order a drink and spend your time talking to the people all around you (imagine that) while you soak in the dimly lit interior filled with traditional Czech crystal chandeliers and gilded framed works of art hung on thick white stone walls. As you soak up the ambiance, you’re entertained by the elegantly dressed and multi-talented bartenders mixing libations while you listen to the live piano player, it’s an enchanting place in the style of the 1930s, like one you’d find during the Prohibition, and a highlight of my visit.

When in Prague I loved looking at all the Czech crystal, you see in everywhere in storefronts and shops. After three days of looking I found one store off the beaten path and inside bought a set of highball glasses.

    I’m always on a quest for the best local dish, so like the three days I spent in Brno, I had my share of goulash and beer! And you’ll find so many vendors for the traditional dessert trdelnik , a sugar coated dough that’s filled with any topping you choose.

    One impressive place we visited was the Vyšehrad Fortress, just outside the old town, it was a great place to escape the massive amounts of tourists crowding the main city streets by day.

        Vyšehrad is situated above the river with beautiful panoramic views of the city, we were lucky to have perfect visibility and blue skies.

    Vyšehrad wins for having the most beautiful church doors.

    A great place to spend an afternoon was down at Naplavka by the river where a series of boats are anchored along the Vltava river serving beer and wine. Notice the special guests that kept us company.

        On my last afternoon we took a walk up to the famous Prague Castle complex – make the hike up the hill and you’ll enjoy the panoramic views of the old city below.

                I have to give a shout out to the doors of Prague, there were so many that made me stop just to admire the details and snap a photo.

      I’m always a sucker for a centuries old door!

    I did love my visit to Prague but truth be told, I was overwhelmed by the amount of travelers in the city. I was there in June and during my stay I noticed an onslaught of tour groups that took over, with tour guides holding sticks up in the air guiding massive crowds of people from place to place. I was only able to enjoy the main parts of the old city in the early morning hours and in the late evening hours because there were just so many tourists during the day. As a result, the old town part of the city was unpleasant by day and if I hadn’t made the effort to see Prague in the early morning hours I would have left with a distaste for this historic place.

The central streets of Prague were so unbearable on our first day that we ducked into a small proprietor’s shop to get away from the crowds. Inside, my traveling companion Ingrid (who is a citizen of the Czech Republic) started a long conversation about what has happened to the city in the last decade. Tourism has robbed the once authentic streets of their cultural charm. Now they are filled with global brand stores and souvenir shops, many selling Czech Republic memorabilia manufactured in China.

What is overtourism? It’s when a place becomes so popular to tourists that its businesses and infrastructure can no longer handle the influx of travelers that takeover the streets, hotels, and cafes, making the destination unpleasant due to the excessive amounts of people visiting. It’s happening in Santorini, it’s happening in Machu Picchu, it’s happening in Barcelona, in countless other places, and it was present in Prague.

What is the reason for overtourism? Mostly it’s because travel has become cheaper. I admit I’m the first to take advantage of a great flight deal. I’m an advocate for budget travel, and most often I rent from Airbnb for reasons I’ve written about.

I’m thinking about overtourism more carefully as I plan future trips. I always want to avoid the sea of sameness that I found traveling in Europe and renting apartments in both Bergen, Norway and in Prague. I much prefer the rent a room method I tried in Seattle or the personal spaces I’ve rented in Austin and Brussels and Oslo where it’s clear from the host’s profile and the way the property is decorated that the space is curated with personal items, rented to supplement income, and is not a place owned by a corporation or property hoarder constantly turning over their dozens of lofts decorated cheaply in all IKEA products for easy profits.

Countries are fighting back against overtourism and local governments are taking action and getting creative in their efforts to control tourism. This article by Nomadic Matt proposing solutions to overtourism directly addresses the issue in an insightful way.

Travel in the off season, support businesses run by locals outside the touristy areas, and show respect to the local culture. Don’t make your trip about the Instagram moments, but rather about the experience of exploring a new place and immersing yourself into a culture for the education it brings.

Have you witnessed overtourism in any of your recent travels?

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from Home Decor Collection https://centsationalstyle.com/2018/09/scenes-from-prague-the-emergence-of-overtourism/

[taniasinel]

Nancy Meyers Comes Home Again

It’s that time again.  About every few years a new movie by Nancy Meyers comes out and it soon becomes my “all-time favorite movie EVER!!!”

Nancy Meyers at home.

In 1980, when I was a young, single, twenty-six year old, I went to see “Private Benjamin” with my best friend.  We spent the entire movie elbowing each other, saying “this movie is so us!!!!”  Of course we were never in the armed forces, but, we were Jewish American Princesses and we only wished we could find a gorgeous Frenchman to marry, like Goldie Hawn did in “Private Benjamin.”

Nancy Meyers wrote Private Benjamin with her then husband Charlie Shyer (above.)  Since she is about five years older than me, Nancy’s movies often mirrored my own life and yours too, I’m sure.   She either wrote, directed or produced Father of the Bride, Baby Boom, The Parent Trap and more.   And then came her juggernauts:  Something’s Gotta Give, The Holiday, It’s Complicated and The Intern.

The Juggernaut Kitchens

Those last four movies together, as a set, are incredibly perfect.  One is better than the next one – it’s impossible to pick a favorite out of the four.  Whenever one of those films turns up on cable, it hooks me in and I’ll sit and watch it, yet again.

Nancy Meyers is the voice of a certain age of woman.  But there is more.  While her scripts are always wonderful, her movies might be more well known for their sets.

Her houses are so well designed and so integral to the movie, it’s obvious that Meyers must be into interior design.  Her own house in California was shown in “In Style” and it confirmed that Meyers loves to be surrounded by beauty.   In an interview, she said that her mother was an interior designer and growing up she was surrounded by antiques and pretty interiors.  It’s that background and basic love of design that makes her movies so attractive to other devotees of interior design.

 Nancy’s Pacific Palisade’s charming dining room.  Blue & white Bennison fabric, shades of things to come? 

The Hamptons beach house in “Something’s Gotta Give” is still considered one of the prettiest movie houses, ever.  Thousands of houses were inspired by that movie set. 

At that time, it was thought that Nancy could never top that beach house.  But, with “The Holiday,” she proved us all wrong: 

In “The Holiday,” Meyers showed us not one, but two beauties – a cottage in the English countryside and the Wallace Neff house in the middle of LaLa-land.   For her next two movies – “It’s Complicated” and “The Intern,” it seemed like Meyers was toning it down a notch.  Was she worried her movie houses were the stars and she wanted to change that perception?  The house in “It’s Complicated” was pretty enough but it wasn’t The Hamptons beach house.  “The Intern’s” sets were in filmed in Brooklyn and with that movie Meyers went in a completely new direction:  it was all industrial millennium chic. 

About interior design, Nancy said  "It’s my thing. It’s something I like, though I think it overshadows the work a little bit sometimes."

Well, I’m here to say, let it overshadow the work!!!

Enter Mark Sikes.  And Reese Witherspoon.    Add a sprinkling of Nancy Meyers movie making. 

Expect magic!

When uber-designer/blogger Mark Sikes book “Beautiful” came out, the surprise was that Nancy Meyers had written the foreword.  She told the story of going shopping with her newly married daughter, Annie, when they were busy furnishing Annie’s new house.  They ended up on La Cienega watching a young, handsome man dressing the windows.  They noticed he was using some of the same fabrics they had just chosen.  That man was design’s superstar Mark Sikes.  He walked outside and helped them with their fabric collection and he and Nancy bonded (this“meet-cute” scene needs to be in a movie!)

Sikes was hired to redo Nancy’s house and Nancy hired Mark to help on The Intern’s sets.  He even had a cameo part, along with One Kings Lane honcho, Susan Feldman.  After the movie shoot was over, One Kings Lane sold the props from The Intern’s set.

Wait a minute.  Back up.    

Did I just say that Mark Sikes is doing Nancy’s house?  Is it in his book?

I don’t think so.  I’m not sure he is actually through with the project.  But, come on – this is a partnership made in heaven.  Imagine Mark Sikes watching “Something’s Gotta Give” for the first time – all those blue and white stripes?  Mark must have thought he had died and gone to interior design heaven!!  I can’t imagine anyone better than Mark to decorate Nancy’s house. 

Nancy showed these two images on Instagram that seem to imply the decor work might still be ongoing.  

This past March, Nancy Instagrammed this photo showing what Sikes brought to their meeting.  OK.  Isn’t this the best idea – having a separate LL Bean bag for each client?!? Monogrammed no less?   Why didn’t I ever think of this?!?!  Hmmm.  Probably because I was too cheap???  lol.  Someone left a comment on this Instagram photo reporting that Gil Schafer Architects used the same LL Bean bags for their clients.   I feel like such a loser!!  Do ALL successful big-time designers use personalized LL Bean bags?!?!?!

P.S. I recognize that rug in her bag!

 AND…

Then there was this photo that Nancy Instagrammed:

Here, she posted a classic white paint choice test.   So, I’m going to assume Nancy’s newly decorated house by Mark Sikes is not finished and is not in his book….yet.    Maybe the next one?

BTW, which white paint sample is your favorite?  I vote for the first sample of the bunch.

And then there is Mark and Reese Witherspoon, the fresh faced actress from Tennessee.  Reese hired Mark to design her new stores – Draper James -  in Nashville and Dallas and Lexington – so far.   Mark is also designing her large colonial house in Nashville.  The Draper James stores are gorgeous due to Mark’s designs, of course. 

Is there anything this man can’t do!???!!

I mean, how darling is this?  Glossy navy blue doors with a scalloped blue and white striped awning with a lantern mixed in?

Inside Draper James  - Reese Witherspoon’s shop, designed by Mark Sikes.  Hmmm.  Does this remind you of “Something’s Gotta Give?!?”

Draper James by Mark Sikes.

It’s a triad of blue and white and stripes – Reese and Mark and Nancy. 

While Mark is busy designing Reese and Nancy’s houses and businesses, Reese and Nancy are busy making a new movie about an interior designer, newly single.

“Home Again”

Nancy Meyers is the Producer of the film.

The director AND writer is her daughter Hallie Meyers-Shyer.

Hallie and her mother and partner Nancy

“Home Again” stars Reese Witherspoon as a new divorcee and Candace Bergen plays her mother.  Three very young men move into Reese’s guest house and hijinks ensue, especially when Reese’s ex husband, Michael Sheen, shows up.  Mix in Reese’s two young daughters and a few friends – and it sounds like a great Nancy Meyers movie!

Hallie as the cute, little flower girl in “Father of the Bride” along with her older sister Annie.

Hallie grew up on her parents movie sets.  She had cameos and small parts in many of their films but this is her first big splash and the pressure on her to succeed must be intense.  It looks like Nancy was a very involved producer – on the set every day.  But who can blame her?  She must feel terrible anxiety as a mother, wanting her daughter to be successful in the field that she has soared in. 

Nancy with Hallie in their kitchen, shown in InStyle Magazine.

Hallie is young.  Very young to be directing a major motion picture.  But, making a movie is a formula and Hallie seems to have it down pat.  It must be in her superior genes (how lucky is she to have such a cool mother?)

The trailers for “Home Again” look adorable, the movie looks funny and sweet, and beautiful – exactly like a Nancy Meyer movie should be, even if it really isn’t Nancy’s. 

Let’s face it.  I’m rooting for Hallie BIG TIME.  And I bet all of Hollywood is too.  Nancy is very well liked in a town that finds fault with everyone and I can’t imagine anyone not wanting this movie to be successful.   I want this to be the start of a new dynasty like the Barrymores and  I’m hoping that one day soon, people will be saying “Nancy who?  Oh, you mean Hallie’s mom?”

OK.  Enough of all that. 

What about THE house?

I have a big scoop about THE house.  A BIG scoop!

But first….

Why DOES Nancy care so much about the décor of her sets?

She said:  "If you’ve spent a chunk of your life writing a character and someone puts them in the wrong clothes or in a bed with sheets you know she would never own … it’s like somebody has added dialogue into the scene. Sometimes you pick up more from what you’re seeing than hearing.”

Oh, is that it?

On the studio lot, Nancy, Reese and Hallie – looking too adorable in their Mark Sikes inspired blue & white stripes and jeans!!!  Seriously, which one is the movie star here?  Do YOU have your blue and white striped shirt yet?

  Go:  HERE

And while Nancy’s movie houses are all so beautiful,  what many people don’t realize is that it’s all a façade.  The famous movie houses are not all that they seemed.

For instance….

The fabulous dining room from Something’s Gotta Give.  Those slips were to die for.  I had a client who called me from the movie and said – “I want my house to look exactly like this movie I just saw.  Especially my dining room.”  I asked her what movie she had seen.  It was the opening weekend of the film and I had never heard of it.”

Movie Magic:  Here is what the dining room really looked like – on a sound stage.  The circular tract allowed the camera to move effortlessly around the table. 

While the houses looked so real in the movies, they were just a façade.  The Something’s Gotta Give Hampton’s house was located in the Hamptons, but all the interiors were filmed on a sound stage far away from the Hamptons.   Nancy has said that she looked at over 50 houses in the Hamptons trying to find one where she could film the interiors, but no one would give them their permission – so she built the house on a sound stage.

All the interior sets were filmed on a sound stage, including its courtyard where they built the swimming pool.   Meyers said that crew and visitors used to want to hang out at the swimming  pool.

The Holiday featured not one, but two of the best movie houses ever.  The charming and tiny English cottage was actually built in a field just for the movie.  All the interiors were built on a separate sound stage.  The Los Angeles house was an original Wallace Neff  house in L.A. , while the interiors were, again, built on a sound stage.

Here the English cottage is being built – it took only two weeks to erect the façade.

The “stone” wall around the house was also built for the movie. I wonder if the house still stands today?

Photos thanks to:  Hooked on Houses HERE.

For  the movie “It’s Complicated,” the exterior was a charming house in Thousand Oaks but the beautiful flower/vegetable garden was created just for the movie, and all the interiors were built on a sound stage.

The entire front façade of the house was recreated on a sound stage in New York.  You can see the trees on the right were actually a mural.  This seems such a huge expense that only a mega hit like a Nancy Meyers movie could afford.

The Intern was filmed in Brooklyn – in a townhouse (!) where people truly lived;  the loft office was created on at Brooklyn stage.

Which brings us to today’s topic, “Home Again.”

I would assume that filming on a sound stage can get very expensive.  You have to build a house – that can’t be cheap.   Is it less expensive to film the interiors and exteriors at the same location instead of having an actual, real façade and a separate sound stage set for the interiors?

  While Nancy is a well-seasoned and proven movie-maker, Hallie is new to the game and “Home Again” is her first movie. Would the studio give Hallie as much money to spend on sets as they would if Nancy was also the director/writer and not just the producer? I don’t know the answer.  But, I assume budgetary concerns were an issue, as they always are with films.

Judging by the trailers, the sets do look like as expensive as a Nancy Meyers movie.  They even hired A list stars for the top three roles:  Reese Witherspoon, Michael Sheen, and Candace Bergen.   

In an ironical twist, Reese was originally set to star in “The Intern,” a role that eventually went to Anne Hathaway instead, which freed up Reese to star in “Home Again.”

Even the poster says – “first class.”  Just recently released, the movie’s poster is all pink and red, shades taken directly from the color palette mood board created for the movie.  Reese wears this red dress in an important scene in the movie.  I love the poster!!!

Reese’s role was originally to be played by Rose Byrne.  She is a great comedic actress too, but I think Reese looks perfect for the part.

Here is the mood board created for the movie’s color palette.  It shows the colors and decorative style for “Home Again.”  Notice the blue and white tiles.  You will see those again – AND also notice the bedroom.  That, too, shows up again, later.

Production Design:  Ellen Brill

Art Direction:  Brianna Gorton

Set Decoration:  Nicole Cates

This photo is from the set – the family room where Reese/Alice has an office.

Can you guess her profession? 

Notice the cute curtains and chair.

And from the movie, Alice hard at work. 

Yes, she looks like an interior designer working on her board!!!

OMG – now I REALLY can’t wait to see the movie!!!!!

A Nancy Meyers moving starring an Interior Designer!!!!!

And here, Alice leaves her house holding what appears to be a mood board created for her interior design client.  Seriously y’all.  I’m about to burst!!!

A Nancy Meyers’ movie about an interior designer!!!!!

The House

The house where Reese/Alice lives is very reminiscent of the “It’s Complicated” house – a one story, Spanish styled, stucco vision.  In fact, at first glance you might even think it was the same house...

But it’s not.

Here is the “It’s Complicated” house where Meryl Streep lived.  Nancy altered the façade by adding new landscape to soften if up.  Read my story about the actual house in “It’s  Complicated” HERE.

And here is the house where “Home Again” was filmed.  It has the same Spanish Californian look that the “It’s Complicated” house had.  Look how pretty this house is.  It is actually much prettier than the “It’s Complicated” house. 

And, this house has a much more important pedigree.  

It is significant that the interiors for “Home Again” were filmed in the house itself, as opposed to on a sound stage.  It will be interesting to see if the feel of the movie will be more realistic because of that – or will it not matter?

So far, two trailers for “Home Again” have been released, along with a host of Instagram photos.

Here’s another view.  Past the gravel driveway is the courtyard with a fountain.

Here is the gravel driveway that leads up to the courtyard.  The crew is getting set for the day’s filming, so they put down plywood to make it easier to move equipment on the gravel drive (I suppose!)

Here’s an aerial view of the house.  A gate closes off the driveway to the street, while a stucco wall completely encloses the entire property.  Past the gravel driveway is the courtyard and to the right is the sweeping front lawn that leads up to the house with its tall chimney.  At the left rear, there is an outdoor fireplace and terrace and along the back is the swimming pool.

Now, what every photo doesn’t show is the guest house – which drove me a little crazy trying to find it. But I finally found it!!

There!  The same view, just larger.  The guest house is right off the street, on the front lawn facing the main house where the tall white chimney is.

The view from the back of the estate, which is over an acre.   Each garden is separated from the others which make them all very private.  In this view, you again can’t see the guest house.  The master bedroom is where the tall white chimney is.  The guest house is across the front lawn and faces the house where the master bedroom is.   To the right of this photo, where the white umbrella is, is the kitchen/family room terrace with its own outside fireplace.  And in the middle of this photo is the large living room terrace that shares the space with the guest room.

Here is the same view from the back that shows the guest house, which is right next to the street.  It shares the front lawn with the master bedroom.

Why is the guest house so important?

Because,  the entire premise of the movie revolves around the guest house.  In “Home Again,” Reese aka Alice turns 40 and has just moved to L.A., newly divorced with 2 daughters.  She meets three young filmmakers who end up living in her guest house while they work on their movie. 

So, Nancy and Hallie had to find a house to film in which also had a guest house.  That detail must have made the search all that much harder, but it looks like they chose a great house!

This aerial view shows the gravel driveway with the white stucco wall with a wood gate that separates the front driveway from the yard.   And again,  the guest house is cut off in the photograph.  But it is at the very right of this photo, on the front lawn.

OK. NOW.

Does the house look familiar to you at all?

The house was on the market a few years ago and by sheer luck, we have the real estate photos.  Here is the view from the gravel driveway leading up to the courtyard and house.

You can see that on the right, the white stucco wall is now covered by ivy.

Real Estate:   photos of the house before it became the set of “Home Again”

“HOME AGAIN:”   Notice the pretty lantern high in the tree and the fruit on the trees!!   Isn’t this charming?!?!   The movie was filmed in winter, but this California and it is always blooming.

During filming, the courtyard fountain was dressed up with lily pads and flowering plants and everyone posed around for Instagram. 

From the movie’s trailer – Reese takes a call out in the courtyard.  From the trailer, it looks like a lot of the action takes place outside the house – by the fireplace terrace, the courtyard,  and the pool.  Inside,  a lot of action takes place in the kitchen and dining room.

In the courtyard, during filming: the producer Nancy Meyers with the director/writer, her daughter Hallie Meyers-Shyer.   The cutest!  Notice the winter coats.

REAL ESTATE:  The walkway from the driveway to the main house.

Reese with Nancy and Hallie and two of the younger men who star in the movie.  The two little girls play Alice’s daughters.   The gentleman on the right is the cinematographer – the highly respected Dean Cundey.  Dean was nominated for an Oscar for “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” and he won two Baftas for Roger Rabbit AND “Apollo 13.”

Dean also has worked with Nancy before - on The Holiday, The Parent Trap, and What Women Want!!

So, what’s my scoop? 

Does the house look familiar to any of you? 

Remember this décor book?

“Elements of Style” by Diane Doreen Saeks – the book showcased the work of Michael S. Smith, the decorator of the Obamas.  Sigh. 

This book was written some years ago, in 2005, and it featured a house owned by Cindy Crawford and her husband Rande Gerber, which Michael had decorated.  That house is the same one in “Home Again.”   Additionally, Elle Décor did a story on the house. 

Cindy Crawford, one of the original owners of the house in “Home Again” standing in the front courtyard, surrounded by mounds of lavender!!  I wonder what happened to all the lavender?

But Cindy isn’t the only celebrity to have lived here.

Right after Cindy and Rande moved out, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner moved in.  Shown here in 2005 – around the time they moved in.  The couple later moved into the famous Cliff May ranch house that Brian Grazer once owned.   Look how happy and in love the now divorced couple once were.

The house where “Home Again” was filmed is only 3,850 sq. ft.  It’s original to Brentwood – built in 1929.  It has 5 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms and 14 rooms in total.  In 1936, the house was renovated.

Also, Cindy Crawford added on a new kitchen and the fireplace/terrace outside the kitchen. 

After filming was completed 3 building permits were issued for the house: 

1. Convert garage to habitable and build a carport.  (I wonder where?)

2.  Add:  1,152 sf of new living quarters and deck  (Again, I wonder WHERE?)

3.  General remodeling.

I’d love to see the finish project!! 

  On the one acre property, the house is surrounded by groves of olive trees, many of which were planted under Cindy’s direction.

Perhaps the new 1,152 new sq. footage will be added onto the front lawn?

THE KITCHEN/FAMILY ROOM GARDEN:

2002:   The prettiest aspect of the house is all of its private gardens.  Here is the outside fireplace with terrace as it looked in Elle Décor when Cindy Crawford lived there.  This is what Cindy and Rande built.

REAL ESTATE:   And here it is when it was sold a few years ago.

HOME AGAIN:  How the house was found, before it was decorated for the movie.

HOME AGAIN:  The décor for the movie is starting to come together.  Outdoor table and chairs, umbrella, pillows and votives were added.

HOME AGAIN:  A dinner party on the terrace off the family room.

Notice the blue and white vases with red and pink roses – just as was presented on the color palette-mood board.  Shades of the Something’s Gotta Give infamous dinner!  This looks like a great scene!!

HOME AGAIN:   Reese/Alice at her dinner party. 

HOME AGAIN:  Filming at night on the kitchen terrace.

And turning night into day.  Or vice – versa?!!

HOME AGAIN:  The three young filmmakers are living in Alice’s guest house.  They obviously grow very close to the two little girls.

Reese as Alice Kinney

Michael Sheen plays her husband

Pico Alexander – next to Sheen – plays Reese’s handsome love interest, in his 20s.   Hey – it’s good enough for the President of  France!!! 

Pico is going to be the breakout star of the movie.  He is GORGEOUS!!!

THE SWIMMING POOL GARDEN:

Real Estate Photos.  The living room overlooks the swimming pool and there is another stone terrace off the living room and guest bedroom.

I hate to say this but the neighbor’s roof looks so unattractive next to Cindy’s beautiful Spanish tiles.    Thankfully there is the tall stucco fence that separates the properties, along with lots of lush landscaping.

2002:   Elle Magazine, Cindy Crawford’s swimming pool.   The scalloped umbrella is darling!  The colors in this styling for the magazine are the exact same ones used in the film – reds, pinks, and blues.

Real Estate Photos.  A view of the living room window and the swimming pool.

Real Estate photos of the pool.

“HOME AGAIN” A view of the pool set for the movie.  Notice the large olive jars in the background and the lantern.  At least the swing set is gone…I think!

HOME AGAIN.  From inside the living room, showing the pink daybed – looking out the window to the swimming pool. 

The pink repeats the color palette-mood board for the design of the film.

THE LIVING ROOM/GUEST BEDROOM TERRACE:

Real Estate:  Photos from the living room/guest bedroom terrace overlooking the swimming pool.

Real Estate:  Photo from the living room/guest bedroom – overlooking the terrace.

THE FRONT LAWN GARDEN:

And we are now back to the front of the house – with the master bedroom terrace looking over the front lawn.  Steps lead from the terrace down to the lawn.   You can barely see the blue from the spa at the left of the terrace.  I do wonder if this bedroom was added on to the house at some later date – its stone roof looks a little newer.  And of course you can’t see the guest house in this photo.  But it’s at the end of the front lawn.

BEFORE:  From Elle Décor & Elements of Style:  Cindy Crawford’s master bedroom  leading down to the front lawn.  The hidden spa is off to the left of the terrace.  Beautiful.  In an interview, Cindy said she loved driving up to the house, closing the gates and feeling like she was in a European countryside.  Eventually, she and her family moved completely to Malibu. 

HOME AGAIN:  Yoga classes on the front lawn, off the terrace.  Large rattan chairs were used to decorate the terrace.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      REAL ESTATE PHOTOS:  Here is the guest house with its arches and terrace.  It leads to the front lawn and faces the master bedroom.  The swing set is between the guest house and the master bedroom for some odd reason.  It’s probably been removed now.  I hope!!

                                                                                             HOME AGAIN:  Night-time outdoor movies shown by the guest house.

The bright blankets pick up the mood board color palette’s orange and pink and blues.

HOME AGAIN:  Nancy relaxes on the outside “set.”

HOME AGAIN.  Uh-oh.  Who’s waiting at home on the gravel courtyard?  The ex-husband!! 

Ready to go inside the house?

THE ENTRY:

2002:  Cindy Crawford.  The front door with the peep-door and beautiful Spanish tile floor.   That lantern is still in the house today.  Notice the air grate.  So beautiful!   What a pretty entry.

HOME AGAIN.  The front entry with the same paneled door.   Decorative baskets hang on the wall instead of an antique mirror like Cindy had.

THE LIVING ROOM:

2002:  Cindy Crawford decorated by Michael S.  Smith.  The sofas are covered in Bennison.  The large window overlooks the pool, the doors on the right open to the terrace.  The family room is to the left, on the other side of the fireplace.

I love the way Smith decorated the house, but this is my least favorite room of the lot for some reason.  I’ve never cared that much for what he did here, but the other rooms are wonderful. 

Maybe it’s those leather chairs I don’t care for?

The cover of the Elle Décor from 2002.  Do you remember this story?  The living room looks prettier in this photo.

2002:  Cindy Crawford.  Tramp art mirror over the fireplace.

Here the family posed in their living room.  Cindy actually gave birth to both her children at home, right here in this very house!!!  Presley is absolutely gorgeous and her daughter is now her doppelganger!!

REAL ESTATE:   The wood ceiling is now painted stark white as are all the beams.  These curtains remain in the house today.

HOME AGAIN:  The curtains are from the previous owners.  They used simple slip covered furniture with seagrass and a pink rug layered over it.  At the window is a Moroccan rug and the hottest item of the year – the rattan day bed.

Candace Bergen!!  I can’t wait to see her!!!!

Candace dressed in soft pinks from the color palette mood board.  Doesn’t she look wonderful?!?!

THE daybed.  No sitting allowed except for during filming.

This daybed at Serena and Lily is the must-have décor item of the year.  Of course it would be in a Nancy Meyers movie!  HERE.

The pinks pick up the color from the mood board.  Darling pillows.

I’m sure they will take professional photographs of the rooms, neatly styled for all the magazines, web sites and blogs.  Speaking of blogs, Nancy told Elle Decor that her favorite decor blogs are Habitually Chic, Remodelista and Belgian Pearls!

Oh, to be named on that list!!! 

The movie is due out Labor Day weekend, so it’s still a few months away for all the PR press.

Movie props!  That clock is darling!!

THE FAMILY ROOM:

2002:  Cowtan and Tout fabric on the sofa with Brunschwig and Fils on the shades.  Stone floors.  This room is on the opposite side of the living room.  I love the décor in the family room – this is so classic Michael S. Smith.

HOME AGAIN:  The Family Room.  I love the curtains used on this set.  

Alice talks with her ex-husband played by Michael Sheen.   Alice doesn’t look too thrilled her husband is back.   And I just noticed he has a band-aid on his forehead!  He gets in a fight with one of the three young men!

                                                                         ��                                                                            The door leading to the kitchen is off the front courtyard.  The little one’s cute face!!

The door to the kitchen is right next to the dining room.   The sconces are from Cindy’s day.

One note.  These iron framed doors/window are so “on trend” today.  But, these have been used in older houses forever.  Remember, this house was built in 1929!!  I would paint them black though – I’m not crazy about the rust colored paint.

Another view of the kitchen next to the dining room.  The wooden double doors leading into the dining room are Spanish. 

THE DINING ROOM:

2002:  The original Michael S. Smith décor for the dining room as seen in Elle Décor and Elements of Style.  I absolutely love this room as  Smith designed it.  He used Bennison’s Dragon Flower fabric for the curtains.  And notice the classic chandelier that Smith chose for Cindy, it is still in the house today.  

Through the opening is the breakfast room.

           REAL ESTATE:  The dining room today.  You can see the wood Spanish double doors leading to the kitchen.  To the right is the breakfast room.  And notice Cindy’s chandelier and sconces remain today.

HOME AGAIN:  The view from the courtyard walkway, looking into the dining room and through to the breakfast room beyond it. 

  THE KITCHEN:

2002:  Cindy Crawford’s kitchen as seen in the Elements of Style and Elle Décor.  Cindy and her husband Rande added on the kitchen and the outside fireplace.   I’m sure a new kitchen was needed since the house was built in the 1920s.   Today, the kitchen is painted white, not cream.  AND, it looks like there are new blue and white tiles in the movie.  Not sure if they are permanent or if it’s slight of hand.    Cindy’s open cabinets were later closed in by a former owner.

REAL ESTATE:  It looks like the only change was the kitchen was painted white and a new textured shade was added.  Across from the kitchen is the dining area with the wonderful light fixture placed by Michael Smith for Cindy. 

HOME AGAIN:  The main change is the new blue and white tiles that are much more vibrant than the previous ones.  Also, there are new Mark Sikes-type of blue and white striped linen shades at the windows.  

Maybe the darker blue and white shows up better on film than the mostly white tile with some blue that was there before.

The view of the new blue and white striped linen shades.  In the adjoining room – the cute breakfast room, it looks like the original shades were retained.

The gang congregates around the kitchen island.

Food for filming.

The dining room looking into the kitchen – the blue and white china matches that on the color palette mood board.   And, I love how Michael Sheen is wearing a blue and white striped shirt ala Mark Sikes.

Notice how the art on the wall really matches the mood board with its orange and pink stripes – it all coordinated.

The other side of the dining room, with the painted cabinet. 

I have to say that I do prefer Michael S. Smith’s décor in this room.  It seems more fitting with the house’s architecture:

                I know the table and chairs used in the movie are “on trend” – I just prefer a more traditional approach like these antique French chairs and table.   I think Michael Smith’s décor here is so classic and will be beautiful for the ages.

By the way, the small breakfast room is really cute, but there aren’t many photos of it!!  There is a marble top table, like a Saarinen, along with a linen striped fabric, a banquette, and rattan chairs.  Here’s a peek at it:

It looks like a Saarinen table with rattan chairs and striped cushions. 

And past the kitchen – is this tiny peek into the breakfast room – it shows a banquette with linen fabric and rattan chair(s.)  I think!  It’s hard to tell.

And one more tiny peek at the breakfast room from the dining room – I wish we could see more!  Oh well, September will be here soon enough.

The Master Bedroom:

In 2002:  In Elle Décor and  Elements of Style.  The master bedroom with a beautiful raised ceiling and a hanging Moroccan styled lantern.   The gorgeous antique screen is a focal point.  On the bed is a suzani, once the textile du jour for Michael Smith.  Two French doors flank the fireplace, which lead to a terrace and the front lawn.

OK. 

This reminds me of why we all have loved Michael S. Smith so much over all these years.  I love how he thought to put a screen against the long wall!  I love that lantern and wonder if it is still there now?  We might have to wait for the movie to find out.

Real Estate:  The master bedroom today.  Looks a bit different!  Not nearly as pretty as when Cindy lived there!   The two French doors lead out to the terrace and the front lawn.  At the end of the large lawn you can just barely see the guest house where in the movie Alice puts up the three young filmmakers. 

AND…notice there is a door on the left wall.  So…THIS is the reason why Michael Smith had the brilliant idea to put the screen there – he was hiding something!!  LOL

HOME AGAIN.  And here is the bedroom as seen in the movie.  There is a sort of foyer into the room as you can see to the right of Reese.

And as the room was decorated for the movie.   The colorful headboard follows the color palette mood board.  In fact, that headboard looks exactly like the one that was shown on the board:

The color palette mood board.  Notice the photograph of the bedroom that was source for the movie.

Here is that exact photo:

This photo from a magazine was pinned and then put on the color palette mood board for the movie “Home Again.”  It appears the Production Design found a bed very similar to it, but without the canopy.

The master bedroom headboard, which is very similar to the one on the mood board. 

And from Instagram, the director Hallie Meyers-Shyer goes over lines with the star, Pico Alexander.   I think Pico is going to be a huge heart throb after this movie.

REAL ESTATE:  The bathroom is quite attractive with a standing sink and with a marble & paneled wood surround on the tub.  A large window opens to the garden.  I love the old fashioned medicine chest.

HOME AGAIN:  Reese has a crying scene in the bathroom where there is now a shade at the window, but otherwise it looks very much the same.

Here she cries in the medicine chest’s mirror.

The Guest Room:

2002:  From Elle Décor and Elements of Style.  The guest room is quite fantastic with a canopy bed, Oriental rug, antique chair, chest, and porcelain lamp.   Another suzani is placed on the bed.  Beautiful and classic Michael Smith.  This door opens to the back terrace that it shares with the living room.  Beautiful, full, striped curtains – classic Michael S. Smith.

Another photo from the guest room shows the opposite side of the room, with a desk and antique mirror.

REAL ESTATE:  This shows the guest room and how it shares the same terrace with the living room and the swimming pool beyond it.

SECOND GUEST ROOM:

REAL ESTATE:  This photo shows the second guest room. 

HOME AGAIN:  And here is the second guest room used for the younger daughter’s bedroom.  It looks like they didn’t even have to repaint the room.

THE GUEST HOUSE:

REAL ESTATE:  As mentioned before, the guest house is located at the front of the property, right off the street.  It faces the front lawn and the master bedroom.  Here is how it looked when the real estate photos were taken a few years ago.

HOME AGAIN:  And here it is, shown during a movie night.  So cute!

HOME AGAIN:  Inside, the guest room is furnished in creams and white with touches of deep blue.  I only see one bed, not sure where all three slept?  It looks like there is either a laundry room or kitchenette included in the guest house.

I guess the three boys are happy just to have a place to stay! 

Here they have a fight over Alice  –  you can see the terrace that overlooks the front lawn.

In this scene, it looks like perhaps Alice Kinney was once in a movie.  You can see the actor’s chair with the name Kinney written on it.  And there is a poster for a movie “Lola In Between” which Hallie Meyers-Shyer actually wrote the screenplay for when she was still in high school.  It looks like she resurrected that screenplay to be a part of this, her first motion picture.  Since the boys are filmmakers, is Alice sharing her cache of film reels and scripts with them?  Notice the actress starring in “Lola in Between”  is Lillian Stewart.  Candace’s name in “Home Again” is Lillian Stewart, so there is some connection between Lillian and Alice and movies and the three boys.  

There also seems to be another sub plot involving Alice’s oldest daughter acting in a play and the boys coaching her?

Who knows?  It’s hard to tell an entire script from a 2 minute trailer, but I tried.

All I know is I can’t wait to see Home Again!!

And finally:

For everything you need to know about the “Home Again,” go HERE.

My friend Linda Merrill has a story on her blog about “Home Again” if you want to read more!  HERE.

AND…..

Since Hallie, Nancy and Reese are all connected to Mark Sikes with his love of blue and white stripes..

here are a few things I found that can give you that fresh blue and white look:

LOVE THIS CHAIR!  It comes in a lot of different fabrics, but the check is fabulous!!!  HERE

Have a white Slipcovered sofa?  Add some blue & white striped pillows for an immediate change HERE.

Bar cart:  HERE

OK, how cute is this???  Blue & white striped headboard.  HERE

Great bench HERE.

Bench – so cute in red & white check.  I love to mix in red or pink with the blues.  HERE

How about just a touch of Mark?  Cutest dog bed!!  HERE

And magazine bins, plant boxes, whatever you need:  HERE

and finally, this throw, which can be used to place over a sofa back cushion, be used on a bed,  tossed over a chair, cover a table – any way you want to bring stripes to the décor.  Plus there are many different colors and patterns.  HERE.

See you at the movies!

from COTE DE TEXAS http://cotedetexas.blogspot.com/2017/07/nancy-meyers-comes-home-again.html