#it seemed like cannes-bait if that’s a thing

[oscarshollywoodwhatif]

Cannes 2024 Official Lineup

Jury led by Greta Gerwig

In Competition

All We Imagine As Light, dir. Payal Kapadia

Anora, dir. Sean Baker

Bird, dir. Andrea Arnold

Caught By The Tides, dir. Jia Zhang-Ke

Diamant Brut, dir. Agathe Riedinger

Emilia Perez, dir. Jacques Audiard

Grand Tour, dir. Miguel Gomes

Kinds of Kindness, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

L’Amour Ouf, dir. Gilles Lellouche

Limonov, The Ballad of Eddie, dir. Kirill Serebrennikov

Marcello Mio, dir. Christophe Honoré

Megalopolis, dir. Francis Ford Coppola

Motel Destino, dir. Karim Ainouz

Oh Canada, dir. Paul Schrader

Parthenope, dir. Paolo Sorrentino

The Apprentice, dir. Ali Abbasi

The Girl With The Needle, dir. Magnus von Horn

The Shrouds, dir. David Cronenberg

The Substance, dir. Coralie Fargeat

Un Certain Regard

Armand, dir. Halfdan Ullman Tondel

Black Dog, dir. Guan Hu

Le Proces du Chien, dir. Laetitia Dosch

Le Royaume, dir. Julien Colonna

L’Histoire de Souleymane, dir. Boris Lojkine

My Sunshine, dir. Hiroshi Okuyama

Norah, dir. Tawfik Alzaidi

On Becoming A Guinea Fowl, dir. Rungano Nyoni

Santosh, dir. Sandhya Suri

September Says, dir. Ariane Labed

The Damned, dir. Roberto Minervini

The Shameless, dir. Konstantin Bojanov

The Village Next To Paradise, dir. Mo Harawe

Viet And Nam, dir. Truong Minh Quy

Vingt Dieux!, dir. Louise Courvoisier

Out Of Competition

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, dir. George Miller

Horizon, An American Saga, dir. Kevin Costner

Rumors, dir. Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson & Guy Maddin

She’s Got No Name, dir. Chan Peter Ho-Sun

Midnight Screenings

Les Femmes au Balcon, dir. Noémie Merlant

I, The Executioner, dir. Seung Wan Ryoo

The Surfer, dir. Lorcan Finnegan

Twilight Of The Warrior Walled In, dir. Soi Cheang

Cannes Premiere

C’est Pas Moi, dir. Leos Carax

En Fanfare, dir. Emmanuel Courcol

Everybody Loves Touda, dir. Nabil Ayouch

Misericorde, dir. Alain Guiraudie

Rendez-vous Avec Pol Pot, dir. Rithy Panh

Le Roman de Jim, dir. Arnaud Larrieu & Jean-Marie Larrieu

Special Screenings

Apprendre, dir. Claire Simon

Ernest Cole, Lost And Found, dir. Raoul Peck

La Belle Du Gaza, dir. Yolande Zauberman

Le Fil, dir. Daniel Auteuil

L’Invasion, dir. Sergei Loznitsa

[olliefilm]

Films of the Decade (1 - 10)

10. Bait

Bait slips onto the list in the nick of time It is a 90 minute, black-and-white film, shot on 16mm with a fully post-dubbed soundtrack, set in a Cornish fishing village. As a technical exercise, Bait is enrapturing. The village is trapped in a filmic past, with a Pathé-like atmosphere tied with a bygone era of thick fog and a thriving industrial landscape. This stylistic choice pares back the clutter of modern soundtracks and brings to the fore an elegiac and foreboding mood. Bait is a wonderfully strange film, and let’s hope the enthusiastic reception in Britain spreads internationally.

9. Mad Max: Fury Road

Mad Max: Fury Road has become the model/rebuttal for how high octane action should work. I don’t think it’s an original model. I still think a lot of the giddy nut-and-bolts foundations of Ozysploitation is carried on into Fury Road. Of course, this time the budget is larger and the audience is wider. Fury Road will be on many people’s list due to many technical elements coming together - believe or not - carefully and with precision. No big wonder that it was the most awarded film of the 2015. George Miller brings out the eccentricity of the characters and the cars with the same glory as we’d expect from a Tex Avery cartoon. So often we are used to action fatigue that when something like Mad Max: Fury Road crashes in, it’s like fresh oxygen. Too right, good action is the hardest feat to pull off.

8. Araby

Araby is a 2017 Brazilian film I just saw this year. A few critics have mused whether what they saw is the Film of the Decade (this claim was initiated by The Hollywood Reporter’s Neil Young, and followed up by Guy Lodge of The Guardian). It would probably be a stretch for me to include it as one of my Films of 2019, but no matter how many cinemas it missed, I still think Araby is indicative of the one-man’s odyssey through worn-down labour. What astounded me is how the film itself stumbles into a story: the first twenty minutes is a kitchen sink drama until a young boy finds a journal of a recently deceased factory worker. From there, it is a film about somebody else; the factory with a more lyrical story than expected. It’s a simple turn which makes sense. Araby is that journal; a precious story stumbled upon.

7. The Master

There Will Be Blood was the film of the Noughties. Over this decade, there were two end-of-year lists which had a Paul Thomas Anderson film at the top. Last year it was Phantom Thread, and back in 2012 it was The Master. The coolness of The Master is that most of the cinematic elements displayed have a drift to them - the hypnotic Jonny Greenwood score, the near-floating camera movements, and the frames which show Joaquin Phoenix as a character who could fly into an explosive rage or lie aimlessly hanging off a ship. It is, indeed, a demonstration of a filmatic masterclass. Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman are the compelling acting duo ever put to film this decade.  

6. Burning

South Korea has built a reputation of making some of the most warped psychological thrillers of the 21st Century. This year, Bong Joon-Ho’s simmering social treatise Parasite became the first Korean film to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes. The year before, Burning was touted as the being the frontrunner at the same festival. It is a film which is beautifully mysterious and an outstanding example of side-swiping the audience. What starts off as a love story turns into social critique, but then becomes a film about a possible murder mystery. It might be asking more questions than answering them, but all the questions are tactfully scintillating. Burning is two-and-a-half hours long, I was gripped enough to yearn for an extra hour.

5. The Act of Killing / The Look of SIlence

Joshua Oppenheimer’s double bill The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence make up for the most revealing documentaries of the decade. Both are gut-wrenching, devastating, and mentally exhausting. Especially in The Act of Killing. In what could’ve been a chargeless stunt, the participants of the Indeonesian Communist Massacre are given the resources to produce a film depicting their crimes. The end result is something disorientating, gleeful, and utterly grotesque. Something that lets us, the audience, into their callous ego. By the end, something manages to penetrate. One of the massacre orchestrators find introspection. It is an extraordinary moment. Unforgettable.

4. La Quattro Volte

La Quattro Volte is a made up of four segments, each encompassing the Pythagorean “Four Turns” of life: the human realm, the animal realm, the plant realm, and finally the mineral. As the synopsis indicates, it is a film with a lot to project. Deep thought, awe, and contemplation; the wonderful thing about La Quattro Volte is that it is dialogue free, only an hour-and-a-half long, and spatially aware without coming across as sparse. It’s a methodical film with room for humour. In fact, one long static shot of an uphill street gave one of the biggest laughs of 2010. It will be known as That Goat Film, but La Quattro Volte has more to say than most films twice its length.

3. The Social Network

For half the decade it seemed that The Social Network was set to be the defining film of the decade on the basis of social relevance and evocation. Yet Facebook grew exponentially and so are its issues and, arguably, its dangers in modern society, to the point that the Facebook of 2019 is not the Facebook of 2004. Yet David Fincher has a grapple on the foreboding; of what is lingering in the air. With Aaron Sorkin’s script, the characters are intimidating in their quick-fire smartassery. In the end, there is an inclination that they are stepping down into a rabbit hole. The Social Network is expertly crafted and understands that it need not be a film about Facebook. It’s a film about reputation, legacy and control.

2. Boyhood

For the last three years of the decade, I knew that the toss-up for the top spot was between Moonlight and Boyhood. It was pretty close to being a tie, and part of me wishes it would be. However, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is an epic which lives up to its broad title. Better yet, it doesn’t follow through just one person’s navigation through life and phases: it follows the mother, the father and the sister. Linklater does it on a level which is without any hint of labour. Even with music and technological cues, it is still hard to pinpoint any jarring moments where the boy has gotten a year or two older. So take this as being indicative to Boyhood’s effortless brilliance: only now am I mentioning how the director filmed it over the span of twelve years.

1. Moonlight

Frustratingly, the envelope mix-up at the ceremony overshadowed any right Moonlight had to bask in prestige. It should’ve been a moment of pure celebration, because Barry Jenkins’ film is tremendous: a semi-tragic parable of a boy in three stages of inner turmoil. It is about sexual awakening, parental guidance and, yes, racial preconceptions of manlihood. On a stylistic level, Moonlight has a wealth of cinematic hues; Nicholas Britell’s poignant score feels like a boy trying to float on the surface of the ocean, the lighting is beautiful and it heightens those interludes in between the fights and shouting. Far from me to fawn over what has already been trumpeted, but Moonlight is extraordinary. The Academy may never be this right again. 

Top 20 Films of the Decade

1. Moonlight

2. Boyhood

3. The Social Network

4. La Quattro Volte

5. The Act of Killing/The Look of Silence

6. Burning

7. The Master

8. Araby

9. Mad Max: Fury Road

10. Bait

11. O.J. Made In America

12. A Separation

13. You Were Never Really Here

14. Force Majeure

15. Paddington 2

16. Girlhood

17. Under The Skin

18. Dreams Of A Life

19. Song Of The Sea

20. Locke

[letterboxd]

Lucca.

Doug Dillaman runs into gremlins and replicants at the Lucca Film Festival.

When I arrived in a small Tuscan village last month, our movie plans didn’t stretch far beyond the 4:3 television at our apartment, and a possible road trip to Florence to see Avengers: Endgame in its version originale. (Subtitled versions of films are few and far between in Italy generally, and in Tuscany particularly.)

Imagine my delight, then, to discover that just over half an hour from our bucolic doorstep, the walled town of Lucca was hosting a film festival, with guests including actor Rutger Hauer, Gremlins director Joe Dante, filmmakers Mick Garris, Philip Gröning, Paolo Taviani, and French animation director Michel Ocelot.

The Lucca Film Festival brings high-profile filmmakers to its city gates every April, along with a competition featuring up-to-the-minute titles and other special screenings, all for a low cost of 20 euros for the week. Before booking your tickets, do bear in mind that the festival is optimized for locals, which means that without a European language or two up your sleeve it can be a challenge. Hence, we gave a pass to the stacked Rutger Hauer retrospective (including Nighthawks, Eureka, Ladyhawke and Spetters), but we weren’t going to miss the opportunity to see the legend in person, and showed up for a Hauer “masterclass”.

Rutger Hauer and Joe Dante steal a private moment together. / Photo via Lucca Film Festival.

The term was a loose one, as the event that ensued was a barely moderated Q&A, with Hauer tending towards a rambling conversation style, avoiding specificities in most of his answers. When asked what he looks for in a film that he’s considering acting in, for instance: “Something that pulls me in … but I don’t know what it’s called.” On the directors he has worked with, he did manage to reveal: “Paul Verhoeven, who I did my first five features with, made me walk. I was a baby. He taught me how not to act. Ridley [Scott] taught me to dance. And I danced like a motherfucker.”

Still from Mark Jenkin’s ‘Bait’ (2019).

More rewarding was the competition lineup, particularly Bait. Englishman Mark Jenkin, who shoots on black and white 16mm film, has produced his first feature following several shorts. Set in an unspecified Cornish fishing village, Bait chronicles the tensions between the “old way of life” and the modern, where locals are edged out by out-of-towners buying investment properties to run as Airbnbs, and fishing boats give up their trade to host stag parties.

It takes time to adjust to Jenkin’s stylistic flourishes, but he’s relentlessly attuned to the emotional truth of his characters, even as the celluloid flares and ripples; call it kitchen-sink unrealism. Shot on a Bolex with the 13,000 feet of film negative hand-processed, Bait has a solid 3.5 on Letterboxd at the time of writing—a good indication that the Lucca Film Festival has its eyes open beyond the usual suspects. (Other competition titles include Eternal Winter, Those Who Work, A Family Submerged, and Nicole Brending’s winning film Dollhouse.)

Joe Dante and Mick Garris in Lucca for the city’s 2019 film festival. / Photo via Lucca Film Festival.

My film festival jaunt ended with a highlight: Mick Garris and Joe Dante, in town for the Italian debut of Nightmare Cinema, an anthology horror film which Garris produced and which both of them directed segments for. They proved an excellent double act in their masterclass. Dante is a walking encyclopaedia of film history, needing only the slightest prompt regarding the history of Italian cinema to reel off a string of names that influenced him (including Mario Bava, Antonio Margheriti, and the “three Sergios—Leone, Corbucci, and Sollima”), as well as a trenchant analysis of what killed the Italian film industry in the mid 70s.

Dante is also unafraid to call it as he sees it, labelling the current Italian cinema a shadow of its former self, slamming the original Blair Witch Project an “exercise in emptiness”, and expressing concern about the future of film, noting that “Netflix has ended the Hollywood movie industry” and “the dream of making movies people will see on the big screen the world over is pretty much dead”. He was shocked that an audience member had seen his last full feature film to date, Burying the Ex, a film that he noted was flawed. Someone give this man some money for his Roger Corman biopic The Man with Kaleidoscope Eyes now!

Mick Garris, meanwhile, is the quintessential “glass half-full” character. Noting that filmmakers have to “evolve or die”, he pointed out that TV has gotten really good, and a lot of feature films have gotten really shitty. In spite of Nightmare Cinema’s 12-year gestation period—a film that finally came to exist due to the support of streaming services, incidentally—and having taken his share of knocks, including having his anthology Showtime series Masters of Horror cut short when it was sold to NBC after its second season (becoming Fear Itself), Garris seems fully aware of what a lucky man he is.

This was illustrated best with his story of being hired by Amblin Entertainment to write the first episode of Amazing Stories when he was surviving on food stamps. Both Dante and Garris recognize their Amblin experience as a special time, in part because Steven Spielberg’s supportive presence offered a buffer between them and the studio.

Joe Dante poses with visitors from out of town. / Photo via Lucca Film Festival.

A Joe Dante masterclass without a few Gremlins stories would be a sad thing indeed. He indulged us: the film’s original puppetry was insanely complicated and required 100 people; moreover, after principal photography had wrapped, Dante had to spend an additional month and a half on insert shots of gremlins. He was offered a sequel the weekend it opened, but couldn’t stand looking at those creatures again so soon, and only came back to the project after several failed attempts to develop the sequel by others.

Offered a chance to direct “anything you want” if he made a sequel, Dante drew inspiration from Hellzapoppin’, a fourth-wall-breaking, genre-defying, wildly under-seen comedy. While the puppetry was easier the second time around (25 puppeteers this time), a last-minute release date shift by the studio from May to August—to combat Dick Tracy—wound up hamstringing the film’s success.

If you’re desperate for more, both Dante and Garris have deep Internet presences: Dante runs Trailers from Hell, with commentaries from dozens of filmmakers on various trailers as well as interview podcast The Movies That Made Me, and Garris hosts the Post Mortem Podcast. A few of these stories, in fact, are taken from a special episode of the podcast recorded at the film festival after the Masterclass.

And if you’re looking for some anthology inspiration, Joe Dante gave us four of his favorites; check out his list. Next stop, Cannes!

Reporting by Doug Dillaman.

[weekendwarriorblog]

For Fuck’s Sake, Let’s Stop Molly-Coddling Sofia Fucking Coppola Already!

This actually isn’t a piece specifically about Sofia Coppola, nor is it a rant or review about her new movie The Beguiled, which I’ve already summed up my feelings for in my 140-character tweet.  Nor, in fact, is this about the mostly negative reaction to that tweet on Facebook that followed. 

In fact, I’m a little sorry to admit that YOU HAVE BEEN CLICK-BAITED!!!! (Insert GIF of Rick Astley fly-fishing... surely there’s one out there.)

 Okay, I’m only half-kidding, because obviously this must have something to do with something or why would I bother to write it? You see, I used to write something called “The Battle Cry” as part of my Weekend Warrior column that allowed me to rant on a variety of subjects that didn’t always make me very popular, but I stopped doing them and toned things down... and honestly, I’m no more or less happy for doing that... so I’m back to ranting about stuff.

This is the thing. Having had a lot of difficulty getting work in the last few months, especially in terms of finding new outlets to write reviews for, the general attitude and hypocrisy among the working film critics around me is starting to piss me off. Honestly, I’ve gotten to a point in my life where I just don’t give two shits anymore and figure if no one else is going to offer you some gosh-darned truth, then it’s just going to have to be little old me. 

Mind you, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and this has nothing to do with any differing opinions on Ms. Coppola’s The Beguiled or whether or not the movie and she deserved the attention out of Cannes that she got no, this is the fact that so many critics will make an effort even to SEE her movie or Wonder Woman or even Transformers, while there are plenty of indie filmmakers, both men and women, who can’t even get a SINGLE film critic to even BOTHER to see their movies.

I understand perfectly well that there’s only so many hours in the day and that often, preferential treatment will be given to a higher profile movie or one that might warrant a “thinkpiece.” (And even using that term here makes me want to take a hot bath with Brillo to scour my skin.)

Most working movie writers and critics mainly want to focus on the movies that they’re getting paid to see and the movies that they can write about to keep their outlets profitable. It’s becoming more and more clear that the job of film critic is no longer about going out there and seeing a wide variety of films and trying to find the best of the best that can be heralded and championed in a landscape where smaller movies sans stars can barely even get a movie theater screen to play on and are therefore relegated to VOD, DVD, iTunes, etc.  

These are all fine forms of medium, but I’m sure that even that medium is becoming difficult for the end-viewer to navigate with few critics bothering with movies that don’t get a theatrical release.

The reason I’m mentioning this is because I was sitting at the Metrograph waiting for a press screening of a movie I knew absolutely nothing about. Sure, I had received information in an Email about it, plus press notes, but I didn’t bother to read them. I just figured, “Hey, if it’s playing at the Metrograph, it’s a block away, and it’s no skin off my teeth to spend ninety minutes to check it out.” There were only two other critics there (who won’t be mentioned by name) but as they sat down, they were busy talking about... guess what? Yup... Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled.  I literally was gritting my teeth as I heard one of them talk about the negative debate on “Film Twitter” to the movie blah blah blah... it was just more of the same, “Let’s talk about the flavor of the week” crap I’ve been hearing for the past 16 years I’ve been doing this, no biggie.

But the point is that at least the two of them bothered to see this smaller indie movie that was press screening, so good for them. Where were the literally DOZENS of others that showed up for an equally inconvenient early morning screening of The Beguiled the day before? See, for Sofia Coppola, we have to go out there and have an opinion on her latest work because she’s such an “important” filmmaker... or let’s call it as it is... “such an important female filmmaker.” (Some critics at that screening were seeing the movie for a second time.) 

Again, not to disparage Coppola or the movie but what on earth makes her such an important filmmaker? Besides let’s see...  She was nominated for an Oscar. Okay. For a fairly decent movie called Lost in Translation. Fair enough. She is Francis Ford Coppola’s daughter. There we go. So for all those things, that movie gets more attention (and praise) than most of the other movies being released this month, and meanwhile, the movie I was at the Metrograph to see, a FINE and quite original New Zealand film both written and directed by women is basically being ignored. Granted, the movie I mention--called The Rehearsal-- played the New York Film Festival last year, and getting into that festival alone is quite a remarkable achievement, but I wonder how many of the local critics bothered to go to that press screening or write about the movie then?

At this writing, there are 11 reviews on RottenTomatoes, only one from anyone I know (nice job, Matt Donato!), four from reputable North American outlets (none of them from their regular writers) and exactly ZERO from Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, The Wrap or Deadline, the four primary trade magazines.

And yet, every single person seems to feel the need to see and share their opinion on any Sofia Coppola movie, and she automatically gets way more attention for anything she does than probably 95% of the women filmmakers out there, many whom in my opinion are far better and who I’ve been heralding for a decade and a half.  So right off the bat, we can throw out this running narrative of “Let’s draw more attention to women directors by having more women film writers”... because they’re just going to glom praise on the same five women directors as everyone else does.

Heck, if the Cannes jury really were trying to make a statement, they could have given their directing award to ANY of the other women directors in competition, who probably could have used and maybe even deserved the attention more than Coppola does—like one of the foreign filmmakers who probably had to work far harder to get the budget and cast for their films. But nope.... she’s Sofia Coppola, so of course, we’re going to fall over ourselves to make her feel important, so she can get money for her next star-studded movie.

It’s absolute and total garbage, and it gets really tiring, because critics are always ready to heap praise on the exact same filmmakers (either men or women) even when they’re doing lesser work, then they are willing to go out there to find NEW talented filmmakers (either men or women) trying to do different things that may try to create their own narrative.

I can count maybe a half dozen film critics in my circle that actually make an effort to see enough movies that they’ll bother to go out of their way to call attention to the better ones that they see at film festivals, even if they’re not the big ticket gala premieres. That is fucking ridiculous.

Instead it’s all the exact same narrative that has turned the art of film criticism into basically a bunch of circle-jerking yes-men and yes-women and 24-hour cynics afraid to have or state their own opinions in fear they’ll distance themselves from the herd.

I’m sure I’ll have more to write on that subject soon, but let’s get back to the title of this rant, which in some ways actually does have everything to do with Sofia Coppola and The Beguiled and the reactions to my tweet.

Read the title again and figure it out. (Warning: This will be the first of a series.)

Oh, and I feel like each of these should be accompanied by a George Constanza clip so...

[oltnews]

Death metal starts at 2:43 p.m. It's strong. And it comes from inside the church. The noise is a proud and unmanageable fury, like a pricey bull dragged to the slaughterhouse by its copper nose ring. The idyllic calm of the countryside in the south of France, the gentle friction of the cicadas and the warm breeze that sweeps over the Mediterranean is torn along the spine by lamentations, demonic voices and distortion of the pedals. Everyone outside, some drinking small glasses of Marseille pastis in the heat of the 37 ° C, turn to look at the church door and then towards each other.Despite the break, the broken peace, it is a positive sign for those who want an audience with our host. The man would have slept inside the small walk-in chapel - his original denominational space transformed into a cupboard, his cloister now used as an artist's studio with large unfinished canvases leaning against the perimeter - must surely be awake. No one could sleep through what sounds like Satan's alarm bells.Two weeks ago, there was an invitation, confirmed late yesterday, to come to Johnny Depp's villa and speak openly and without reservations. If you get up at 5 a.m. in north London, take the first British Airways flight to Heathrow around 7:45 a.m. and take an hour east taxi along the burnt yellow coast after Cannes , in front of Fréjus and not quite towards Saint-Tropez, you will find yourself in the rural town of Hameau De Gassin, lined with rows of young short vines, forming tracks like natural tresses, their bruising fruits begin all just to inflate and sag with new weight.The Depp complex, made up of around seven or eight small stone houses, stands above this calm and unprecedented old town, with a view that extends over the undulating Ligurian Sea. On a clear day, you can walk to one of the area's many high rocky outcrops, squint, and see the island of Corsica and beyond, the waters rich in fables and myths, where scholars believe that the Ulysses of Homer ordered his crew to attach him to his own mast to hear for himself the song of the sirens.Squint louder and you could see the west coast of Italy sparkle, with Pisa, Genoa and, beyond, the beauty and corruption of Florence. Earlier, I arrived at the gates of the complex, passing by director Tim Burton and his family, who had gone on a boat trip with various children, kissed by the sun and smiling. Burton has stayed with Depp for the past few weeks, enjoying the private baked utopia.After being buzzed, a golf cart driven by a native by the name of Daniele takes me to the main complex of buildings. Daniele - a man in his late sixties with an impressive whipped cream mustache and a long ivory ponytail who, it should be noted, looks surprisingly like Asterix by René Goscinny and the famous French comics by Albert Uderzo - the man from whom Depp bought the original 19th century land and houses 20 years ago. It was bought by Depp and Vanessa Paradis, his partner at the time, as a sanctuary, a place to escape with the children, to play freely away from the beams of Los Angeles and Paris.When the estate was listed on the market in 2015 for $ 63 million - a wake-up call to the actor 's financial troubles - many reports described the property as a "village complex." As our tires make their way down the wide gravel path to the collection of stone buildings, it's easy to see why.There is a modest main house with patinated blue shutters, almost entirely covered with wavy and bright green foliage. There is a hidden pool, a gazebo, a stone deck with a wooden shade and a clutter of about four or five bedrooms and bathrooms. The sloping, almost flat roof is terracotta, while on the lower side a heavy wooden door leads to a wine cave, now transformed into a cozy one - if you find the crypts comfortable. The space is dotted with candle drops and cowhide throws.From there we turn right, pulling inside what looks like the main courtyard of the estate, or the village square, a place where the road widens and reaches a natural meeting point, a plot of gravel with a small tree in its center. In front of us, 30 feet away, is the silent church with its locked door, while to our left is what appears to be a quintessential French cafe, a building that was originally intended for to be a garage. The brown fabric blind of the café has a name in an Art Nouveau style, "Chez Marceline", which refers to Marceline Lenoir, Paradise's long-time agent.At a polished wooden table in front of the cafe, two men are sitting sipping Evian. Their names are John Evans and Daniel Rolle and they are waiting for us. The looks of Evans and Rolle are Mayfair's hedge of the road one on an external site: crisp pale blue shirts (tucked in), narrow but not too thin indigo jeans, a woven belt at the hips and a Rolex vintage on the wrist. It's clean, tasteful and quietly refined, rather than something ostentatious or flashy.Evans and Rolle have been the benchmarks for logistics today. They work for a London company called Hawthorn, a public relations firm that, among other things, specializes in crisis management for businesses and wealthy individuals.One of Hawthorn's partner companies in the United States consulted on the sale of The Weinstein Company, but it should be noted that Evans himself advised against such a move, despite the "ridiculous fees" offered. Companies like Hawthorn don't do minor skirmishes or call editors to get corrections in the entertainment pages; it is a business that calls exceptionally wealthy customers if there is no one else to call. They are the Harvey Keitels of this world: wolf men, repairers, specialists in adjusting the public image, polymath corporate strategists.Ben Elliot, nephew of the Duchess of Cornwall, is co-founder and partner of Hawthorn. He also created Quintessential, the concierge service for the wealthy elite - consider heli-skiing off Everest's Hillary Step or a suite with balcony overlooking the Monaco Grand Prix. It was Elliot who made the first contact to ask if GQ would be interested in meeting and talking to Depp.Although Depp was someone who had long pointed out his contempt for the media - someone who chased paparazzi with a wooden board in front of a London restaurant to photograph his children - we were informed that he wanted to speak.It's about two months after the publication of a widely read article Rolling stone interview, entitled "The problem with Johnny Depp". It's an article Depp will talk about later, tackling it as he does on most subjects, with a kind of vengeful nonchalance. He is a man, I will come to understand, who will be happy to spill his guts all over the table, while remaining casual about the causes and effects. This "freshness", we suspect, is his armor. The actor refers to the Rolling stone article as "a sham". In fact, it goes much further. "I was deceived. The guy [journalist Stephen Rodrick] entered with absolutely an intention. And I could see it and I thought maybe I could help him understand, you know?"I trusted Jann Wenner[co-founderandeditorof[cofounderandpublisherof[cofondateuretéditeurde[cofounderandpublisherofRolling stone], as I knew him from Hunter [S Thompson, the late writer and a mentor of Depp]. I trusted what the magazine represented or what it represented. I wanted Jann to see if he could write, if a song could be written ... to put things in perspective. That's it, just to put things in perspective. "Perspective can be a treacherous thing. He can be deceived. It can be manipulated. Perspective, after all, is inherently subjective. Yet Depp was right to be belligerent. Anyone who didn't know better would have read this Rolling stone profile - with a digital silo of clippings and bait that has been piling up regularly on the star's life in recent times, her financial troubles, her savage and hostile divorce from American actor Amber Heard, accusations of domestic violence that in a libel case in the UK, and this videotape - and walk away with a pretty dark photo of the 55-year-old man.The article said that Depp was on the verge of bankruptcy: having made $ 650 million on films that made about $ 3.6 billion, but "almost everything is gone". Just a few weeks ago, Depp was suing his longtime business partner, Joel Mandel, and Mandel's brother, Robert (and their company, The Management Group [TMG]) for negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, forgery and theft.The lawsuit claimed that as a tax filer, TMG failed to pay Depp's taxes on time for the 16 years of its representation, which cost Depp more than $ 8.3 million in penalties. Depp's trial also highlighted TMG's conflicts of interest, their alleged wrongful investment of the star's money in companies with which they had a relationship, and the fact that they allowed Depp's immediate family members to spend his fortune without authorization or knowledge. TMG filed a counterclaim against Depp for breach of contract and fraud, claiming that the actor was responsible for any financial crisis he was in. Last summer, the Wall Street newspaper and others have said that former Depp business leaders are under investigation by the US IRS, the Department of Justice, and the Securities and Exchange Commission for bank fraud and money laundering.By the time I reach Depp in his French villa, the dispute has settled and later this month, in August, he will win the first step in a separate case against his longtime lawyer Jake Bloom, more than $ 30 million paid to the former Depp. Bloom Hergott lawyers by former business leaders without any contract. The latter seems to be a kind of justification for Depp. "Hollywood rocked," reported an industry headline.Sitting with hawthorn leaders at Chez Marceline, waiting for Depp to emerge from his picturesque and non-denominational hideout, there are also emerging stories about Heard and the acrimonious separation of the couple. Heard filed for divorce in May 2016, just 15 months after the couple's marriage in February 2015. Heard court records cited "irreconcilable differences", with a temporary restraining order granted to Depp, whom Heard accused of violence domesticated. A widely circulated leaked video purported to show Depp "tossing a glass of wine" to Heard and the 32-year-old lawyers had previously claimed that Depp had "violently attacked" her. Heard herself was arrested for domestic violence against a previous partner in 2009. Heard denied the charge and no charges were laid.The statements then range from disturbing to downright bizarre. Although the couple's divorce settlement was reached in August 2016 - with Depp paying $ 7 million and the restraining order lifted - even this morning, on my way to the Depp complex, history la The strangest thing to date has emerged from their volatile relationship, that Heard is said to have defecated in the star's bed after a particularly unpleasant argument in April 2016. Heard released a statement last night saying the incident was far from dirty protested on his part, but instead attributed the deposit to his dog, a 4 lb Yorkie teacup called Boo, who suffers from intestinal problems.When I hear the satanic noise gushing from the church of Depp in France, that makes me wonder: who, or what, will I meet today, at his home, inside his sanctuary? An actor paralyzed by fame, money and excess? A relic of an old system of Hollywood stars that is broken and shamefully aging? Someone who just doesn't fit into the brave new era, a time when scandal and stories can no longer be hidden or buried under an avalanche of imposed NOA?"Are we going to sit in the sun, talk, get heatstroke, throw up and die?" May be later'Or is Johnny Depp just a man who has been wronged and has a genuine desire to protect his name and his past work so that he can begin to recover from what was a period of his life that he would no longer forget early? Does he seek revenge on an industry - and of certain individuals - which, according to him, profited from his naivety? Is he a man who still believes in trying to be the underdog, an artist who desperately wants to be free from responsibility, something that could be confused with isolation and eccentricity but who is in fact something closer to a belief in the romantic rebellion?"It's time. He's ready."As I head for the church where the demonic wall of noise has finally been silenced, I realize, perhaps for the first time, that I have no idea who or what will appear. , flashing in warm white light. It is like getting into the eye of everything that revolves around this man and his amazing life. As the church door opens and I hear a cough, I wonder: where does the myth of Johnny Depp end and where does the truth of who Johnny Depp really begin?"Are you a John or a Jonathan?""I'm Jonathan," I say. "You must be Johnny.""Johnny, John ... I'm a John. Is it Jon-a-than or Jon-a-thon? I'm John Christopher Depp II. I have a number after my name that makes me noisy ... I don't know, bigger than I should be. "Immediately there is that smile, the one that oscillates between charm and mischief, heroic and mean. His eyes will remain behind a huge pair of reflective aviator hues for the next four hours. "Shall we sit in the sun, talk, get heatstroke, throw up and die?" Pause. And then the head comes back immediately with laughter. "May be later.Come on, Jonathan, there's a really cool little corner I want to show you ... " Depp emerged from his sleep looking if not healthy, then certainly healthier than I thought. Friends I have spoken to about my mission have expressed concerns about Depp's mental and physical state - most with little or no actual factual knowledge, it must be said - many referring to a recently taken image of the star during a tour in Europe with his group, Hollywood Vampires.The photograph, taken by a fan, showed Depp lean, pale and needing a little sleep - or at least a big green juice and once around the block on a SoulCycle. Not only that, but, perhaps more disturbingly, her usual battered fedora had been replaced with a baseball cap, a baseball cap with the word "fugly" on it. Johnny Depp? In a baseball cap?Today, however, Depp's skin is clear and without bloating or puffiness. It should be added, however, that his clothes are less intact. He is wearing a baseball cap and his shirt in particular seems to have had his arms removed, as if he once belonged to Bruce Banner, an anger management course before anger. In fact, the shirt is unlike anything I've ever seen before: partly a dress shirt, but with a mandarin collar, but no sleeves. On his shirt is a blue vest with fine stripes and around his neck are various chains, trinkets and talismans.At the end of a necklace is a silver "gonzo fist", the icon characterized by two thumbs and four fingers holding a peyote button originally used in the 1970's Hunter S Thompson campaign for the county sheriff. from Pitkin, Colorado. Thanks to Thompson's prolific life and writing style, the fist has become a symbol of gonzo journalism as a whole. For Depp, it's both a memory of his late friend, someone he once lived with in a basement at Owl Farm, Thompson's base camp in Aspen, Colorado, and a reminder of the way of working and living, with a strong sense of the individual and detached from business or tax systems. As Depp says so often, "Beat the system from the inside out."The jeans are loose and a patchwork of blues, holes that have been repaired and sewn countless times. The history of wearing Depp's pants has always been, to say the least, uneven, always as if he had just broken up with a werewolf. He was taking a child to a birthday party in Los Angeles when he realized that his jeans had a hole the size of a hubcap on the back. Rather than change, which would have made sense, he grabbed a roll of silver ribbon and shaped his own load.Depp's belt is something else. It is in worn brown leather, but the buckle is attached to the side rather than the front. This is unusual, I note, as we head to a huge stone table where we will sit and talk in the shade for the afternoon. "This? Well, it's not a Texas belt buckle. You know what the Texas belt buckle is?" I have to admit, no. "Well, a Texas belt buckle is where you have to pull your scrotum over the top of your jeans without undoing them. All along and again. Oh, the horror of it all ... You have to bring your dick back and stick it ... Your dick has to go around the elbow in a sort of half fruit basket and then, well, then you're fucked. You pull your testicles over and let them sit there. It's a Texas belt buckle. Then, of course, there is a Dirty Sanchez, which is something else entirely. "Dirty Sanchez", in which I managed to sneak Pirates... "For those who don't know what a Dirty Sanchez could be, all you need to know is that it's a term that originated in the LA porn industry spitter, something that could be occur when certain projecting members are stuck in certain holes, then in certain other holes. I'll give free rein to your imagination, but let's just say it's unfathomable and a term for an obscene sexual act that could not be less appropriate to be included in a 300 million dollar Disney movie about a pirate, himself family-based ride in a theme park in Florida."Yes I [said] in Pirates and they never caught him when he went to the movies, "chuckles Depp as he sits across from one another. "They caught him when he went on DVD. I did it because I wanted to see who Disney would be to find it ... "As for why Depp wanted to know who would be the person who reported such a thing, it is not clear, even if the fact that he is still proud to have included the obscene term in this first blockbuster - although as a mumbled, almost incoherent entry - and the eyeballs (and ears) of past companies are not negligible.It serves to illustrate what has been and is still, at the moral heart of Depp, a conflict that bubbles and foams under the surface of the actor: the fight to be faithful to his artistic sensitivity while being a voluntary participant and a billion dollar figurehead - free of dollars. This is the age-old problem faced by many successful creators, that of art versus trade.Jack Sparrow was for Johnny Depp what Iron Man would eventually become for Robert Downey Jr: a world hit which made the actor rotate - or at least his image - that of a somewhat gruff young indie who had already illustrated the disgust of being a teenage pin-up (via 21 Jump Street), wore oversized vintage leather jackets and smoked Marlboro Reds while passing wild fashion cats like Kate Moss, to a global megastar with its own line of merchandise, including a 10-inch tall pirate figure with removable cutlery and leather slippers.It was the time when the man who played Ed Wood became Mickey Mouse, although Mickey Mouse had a penchant for a bottle of Château Calon Ségur (2014). "I was freaked out by that," he admits when he realizes where the game is going to take him, rather than the music, which had always been his main creative outlet. "I mean, at first I really didn't care. But I started to enjoy it. I liked creating these characters up there, being in the trenches and facing collaborators, actors, directors ... The problem with working with these big studios is that they may feel uncomfortable with some of the creative decisions you make. Pirates. I think if the studio is not worried, I am not doing my job properly. "Did Disney try to change its Pirates performance? "Disney hated me. [They were] thinking of all the means to get rid of me, to fire me. "Oh, we're going to have to caption it." "We don't understand Captain Jack Sparrow. What's wrong with him?" "What's wrong with his arms?" "Is he drunk?" "Is he mentally stunned? "" Is he gay? ""I ask Depp directly: did Disney ask if Jack Sparrow was being played as overtly gay in Pirates? “They asked me, 'Is he gay? And I answered the question over the phone. It was a lady named Disney's Nina Jacobson at the time [Jacobson is herself gay, it should be noted, and has long campaigned for greater diversity within the all-male club of old Hollywood boardrooms] and she asked me a few questions, then said, "What is it, Johnny? Is he gay? "My tendency, of course, is to be irreverent so I said," Nina, didn't you know that all of my characters are gay? "It was a fairly brutal end to the conversation. And I continued to shape Jack as I thought best."Was Depp mad at Disney for his lack of vision? His lack of confidence? "No. I told them," Look, you don't like what I'm doing, fire me. You hired me to do some work and play the character and that's what I want to do. "C "is work. I mean, hadn't they seen the work I had done before? You might want to take a look at it before hiring a motherfucker, you know?"Did he feel justified once it was clear that his treatment for Jack was going to work, when the audience fell in love with him? “I knew I was right. Even the very first time when they came back to me and said, "No, no, what is it? Even when the other actors looked at me like I was an absolute threat, I stayed with it. I mean, the older actors probably thought, "Jesus Christ, he sank." Because I would tear up the script on set. I would be a thug. I would fly a little to see where things happened. And not everyone appreciates this way of working. Oliver Stone didn't like it when I changed all the lines he wrote for me in Section and that's probably why most of my stuff ended up on the cutting room floor. "Depp and I sit under what can only be described as a tent or canopy of green vines. We are approximately 150 meters from the main house. Inside the tent is a huge table and monolithic stone benches that look like something from the Paleolithic age, marked and grooved with years of wear and deterioration. Depp bought it when they acquired the house. "I made a film with Roman Polanski[[[[The ninth door]in Paris with Vanessa. We had to stay two months and we ended up staying ten years. " While we are talking, Depp keeps his cap and sunglasses. From time to time, he seems a little asleep, stifling a yawn, although after a while he falls asleep and is engaging, consistent and certain. He twists and moves rarely, perhaps folding his legs sideways or sitting cross-legged like some kind of skater / war veterinarian / yogi. Otherwise, it is entirely stationary. He takes care of his answers, expressing himself at a regular rate, without fear of being patient and waiting for the right word to come from his conscience and escape into the ether.A man, perhaps a cleaning lady, brings us refreshments in one of these light blue plastic laundry baskets: sweet tea, green bottle, Coca-Cola, water. No alcohol. Later, I ask Depp if he thinks he has a problem with alcohol: "Do I like a drink?" Yes. Do I need a drink? No. "The only visible defect is the rolling tobacco that he smokes in the licorice papers; he will roll up one every 20 minutes or so and often will not light it immediately. He lets it hang from his mouth, the paper sticking to his lower lip as he talks and answers questions. He has all the warnings on tobacco, all the pictures of blackened lungs, scribbled by an assistant. His fingers are cluttered with rings and his arms are full of black ink.The tattoos have been much discussed: the "Wino Forever" on the upper right bicep being perhaps the most infamous, a modification of what was originally "Winona Forever", which Depp got when he came out with Winona Ryder, the pair who worked together on Tim Burton Edward Scissorhands in 1990. A more recent tattoo said "Slim" in a Gothic font, a letter on each of the proximal phalanges (the bones of the fingers closest to the palm of the hand). Slim was the name Depp called his ex-wife Amber Heard. After the divorce, he changed it to "Scum" and more recently to "Scam"."The truth will come out of this and I will be on the other side of the roaring rapids. I hope other people will too. "There is something in the torments of recent years that, intentionally or not, shakes the surface of such thorny subjects - its breakdown, its reputation, its financial problems. Quite simply, they are in the air. I can feel it. Depp can feel it. And without even being pushed, the subjects fall on the table and ask to be chosen.Depp, it can be said, feels that he has suffered, sometimes resembling an injured animal that has healed and is now ready to bite. He is also, although he can deny it, angry - angry at many things - and he is vengeful and absolutely, categorically certain of his position and his position.“The last three or four years have been felt like a perverse situation that has been inflicted on me. It hurts. "How did the actor take the claims of his long-term managers eviscerating his trust, their relationship, this way?"It is rude to talk about money but, I mean, when I discovered the Pirates 5 the movie had just ended, just before the business owner started saying, "Oh, you have to sell the house in France! Oh my God! Shit hits the fan!" Now my entrance fees - I I'm even embarrassed to say it - for Pirates 5 35 million pounds sterling alone. And then I went on honeymoon after this film and while I was on honeymoon, it was when I got the call from the guy and I said to myself: "What? I don't understand? How is it possible? ""TMG claimed that they had done what they could to manage Depp's finances responsibly and repeatedly warned him that he was spending too much, but he had a different perspective. “My belief was that I didn't need to get wrapped up in the notion of money, how much I made, how much there was. I just knew that I was earning enough money in salary and back-end for everything to go well. Nothing should have gone so sideways. And when I found out, that was when the war started. C'était sous tous les angles. Le juge, vous savez, les a appelés sur toutes les petites allégations personnelles et a dit que vous essayez de décapiter cet homme dans un forum public. Ce n'est pas ce que vous faites. "Depp a une théorie, cependant, sur une conspiration plus large alimentée par les problèmes entourant ses finances et la détérioration du mariage, une théorie qui pointe vers l'industrie hollywoodienne elle-même, "ce vil putain de cirque", comme l'appelle l'acteur. «Mais cela a-t-il empêché tous les marchands de pouvoir à Hollywood qui étaient intéressés à me faire taire? On jetait beaucoup d'argent. Les gens me poursuivent à chaque occasion. Je veux dire, tout est si évident. Écoutez, je sais que je n'allais jamais être Cendrillon - je le sais et je l'accepte. Mais c'était comme si, dans un très, très court laps de temps, cette version - à défaut d'un meilleur mot - de Cendrillon s'était soudainement transformée en bête. Il est Quasimodo.«Je pouvais sentir les gens me regarder différemment, à cause des accusations contre vous. Et puis les gens commencent à mettre des choses dans des magazines: «Il est fou. Il doit passer un test de santé mentale ... "Vous savez, des trucs ridicules. Mais la seule chose que je pouvais faire était de savoir ce que je sais encore. En fin de compte, la vérité éclatera dans tout cela et je me tiendrai du côté droit des rapides rugissants. J'espère que d'autres personnes le seront aussi. Je connais la vérité et si je devais m'éloigner de tout cela aujourd'hui, du travail, de la carrière, de tout cela, et aller au toodle-oo, alors très bien.«Je n'ai rien à prouver à personne, car je n'ai jamais été en compétition avec personne. Je n'achète pas dans cette merde. Je ne suis pas intéressé à recevoir des figurines peintes à la bombe. Vous savez, peut-être quoi que ce soit, quoi que je laisse, vous savez, mon héritage à mes enfants ou aux gens, je n'ai pas regardé 98% de cette merde. Cela peut être complètement fou. Ce peut être de la merde. Cela peut être intéressant. Je ne sais pas ce que c'est. Mais ce que je sais, c'est que j'ai fait quelque chose, et j'ai essayé quelque chose de différent, pendant des années. Cela a-t-il fonctionné? Qui diable sait? Mais je l'ai fait et je vais bien arrêter.«J'adore le processus de création d'un personnage. J'adore la sécurité, vous savez, d'être ce personnage. Je veux dire, il y avait une grande sécurité à être aussi ouvert que possible sur Edward Scissorhands et pour essayer de voir des choses, des choses banales, normales, aussi belles et nouvelles, vous savez? Le capitaine Jack était un animal différent, Ed Wood, un animal différent, Mad Hatter[de[from[de[fromAlice in Wonderland], Willy Wonka[[[[Charlie et la chocolaterie]..."Pourtant, il y a un fil conducteur qui traverse tous ces personnages. Il y a un filament qui les relie. Même s'ils sont tous très différents, ils sont tous très similaires, parce que tout doit provenir d'une sorte de vérité, vous savez? Et la vérité est qu'ils sont tous des putains de inadaptés. Ce sont tous des inadaptés et ils sont tous mal compris. Et jugé de manière condescendante, dans le mauvais sens. »Le message est fort et clair quant à ce que Depp pense être descendu avec sa gestion à long terme et ses partenaires commerciaux. Je me demande: s'inquiète-t-il de sa réputation, de son héritage, notamment en ce qui concerne les femmes? Est-il préoccupé par le fait que tant de ce qui a été publié dans la presse, autant du scandale, a causé une érosion irréversible de sa réputation? Ou ne s'inquiète-t-il simplement pas parce que, comme il le dit, il n'a jamais voulu être mis sur un piédestal ou prétendre être un modèle, une figure de Cendrillon?"Savez-vous ... je vais vous dire ..." La pause suivante est longue. Depp et moi sommes assis en silence. La question plane sur nous. Ensuite, il semble simplement décider de parler.«Il ne s'agit pas d'être un modèle. Non, ce n'est pas ça du tout. La bande qui est sortie ... "Il s'arrête et glousse et répète ses mots," La bande qui est sortie, ou la bande que quelqu'un a faite, qui est apparue miraculeusement sur YouTube, prise du téléphone de quelqu'un. Ce n'était pas le centre-ville [LA, where he lived with Amber Heard]. Elle [Heard] voulait faire comme si c'était récent. C'était une vidéo plus ancienne et [what happened in it] avait à voir avec le fait que j'avais perdu des centaines et des centaines de millions de dollars. "La vidéo en question, floue, clandestine, montre Depp remplissant un grand bécher de vin rouge, puis saisissant le téléphone de Heard après avoir vu qu'elle enregistre. The video was “leaked” or released by showbiz gossip channel TMZ in the States, although compared to Heard’s other allegations against Depp the video content seems unexceptional or certainly the least disturbing.Although the pair have now settled out of court, what Heard alleges to have happened in April 2016 still reverberates throughout my meeting with Depp. Heard alleged that on Saturday 21 May, Depp attacked his wife and threw an iPhone at her face. Heard phoned the police, who found “no evidence of any crime”. However, Heard claims to have taken a selfie later that day showing bruising around her right eye and cheek. The following Wednesday she filed for divorce. Depp is currently suing the Sun for alleging in a headline, since altered, that he is a wife beater.I feel like I have to broach the subject with Depp. Does the actor consider himself a violent man? An aggressive man? Can he lose his temper or is he prone to if intoxicated? “The thing that hurt me is being presented as something that you’re really as far away from as you could possibly get, you know?“Then there was that time when the paparazzi were trying to take a photograph of Vanessa and she’s pregnant with Lily-Rose and I was not going to let them make a circus out of it. So I did what I had to do. Got her in the car, they didn’t get the picture, and I said, ‘Take a fucking picture because then I’ll stove your fucking head in. You’ve got your cameras out. First one click. Let’s go.’ And that’s just the truth. I would’ve. I’ve even said before, if a paparazzo gets a shot, they’re far away and they get a shot of me and my kid, whatever, that’s their thing. But if I catch you, I will eat your nose. I will eat your nose, chew it up and swallow it in front of you and then you’ll fucking think about it next time. I fucking mean it. But to...”Depp goes quiet again. It seems like he needs to take stock every so often, to recharge, to get back into a specific lane or mood every time the conversation veers into talking about the volatile relationship with Heard and the results of its breakdown. “To harm someone you love? As a kind of bully? No, it didn’t, it couldn’t even sound like me. So, initially, I just kept my mouth shut, you know? I knew it was going to stick on me and it would get weirder. Keep going, you know? Go nuts. I ain’t going to get into a pissing contest with someone about it. Spit out what you need to spit out and, you know, my attorneys will take care of the rest. I never went out and spoke about the shit.“But of course I care what my family and my kids think. I mean, you realise right away, essentially, that what is being done is the commencement of what they hope is to be your funeral.” Depp is still talking at a measured pace, in his low, cool tones, but his words are just a little clipped at the ends. His vowels just a little firmer.“And worse than that, to take away future earnings that are for my kids, you know? I do this shit for my kids, man. How could someone, anyone, come out with something like that against someone, when there’s no truth to it whatsoever? I’m sure it wasn’t easy for my 14-year-old boy to go to school, you know what I mean? With people going, ‘Hey, look at this magazine, man. What, your dad beats up chicks or something?’ Why did he have to go through that? Why did my daughter have to go through that?” I tell Depp I can see how that would anger him. “She didn’t...” Depp is often all too aware that some of the intricacies of his and Heard’s relationship need to be put in the third person. This is why, at times, he will start off using a subjective pronoun but switch to something more objective, swapping a “she” for “that person”.“Why didn’t that person speak to the police?” continues Depp. “I mean, they spoke to the police, but the police saw nothing and they offered her an emergency medical technician. She said no. Police see nothing on her. Police see nothing broken in the place, no marks, and then they offer her an EMT to have a look at her and she says no and I don’t know if it was the next day or a couple of days later, but then there was a bruise. There was a red mark and then there was a brown bruise.”A day after the alleged phone-throwing took place, Heard was seen at a party, specifically Amanda de Cadenet’s 44th birthday party. De Cadenet posted a picture of herself, with Heard smiling brightly on her right and model Amber Valletta to her left. Heard is tagged in the photo; her hair is brushed over her left eye and cheek. At some point, however, the image was deleted. Depp is emphatic about his version of events. “She was at a party the next day. Her eye wasn’t closed. She had her hair over her eye, but you could see the eye wasn’t shut. Twenty-five feet away from her, how the fuck am I going to hit her? Which, by the way, is the last thing I would’ve done. I might look stupid, but I ain’t fucking stupid.”To suggest that a woman, a man or anyone might have made up such a serious allegation is a tremendously dangerous and damaging thing to do. If we as a global community are striving for equality and acceptance to run through every part of our lives, through all races, cultures and genders, then we need to believe those who stand up and claim to have been subjected to physical or verbal abuse. Let me be clear: this is not a piece of investigative reporting. It is merely a snapshot, a chance to sit down and talk to a person of immense interest and talent, who has, it must be noted, brought joy to millions of film lovers all over the world, ever since he moved from Kentucky to LA and a friend, Nicolas Cage, told him he should go and see his acting agent.This isn’t a piece claiming to know with any authority about what happened between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard in May 2016 or at any other time between the pair in private. All I wanted to do was come to Depp and ask him to give his side of the story, which up until now has not been properly heard. Before we met, it was agreed with his advisors at Hawthorn that both parties would go into this meeting with one simple aim: to record what happens candidly. From my side, this is what I saw and this is the conversation we had.“We probably shouldn’t be talking about this,” continues Depp, “but I am worried. I worry about the people that bought it and I worry about her. It’s just not right. I will never stop fighting. I’ll never stop. They’d have to fucking shoot me. An episode like this takes time to get over. It’s a mourning for someone you thought was...”Again, a pause and quiet. All I can hear is the blood rushing about my skull, nitroed by adrenaline and the swirling white nicotine clouds.The love of his life?“Well, something. I did marry her somehow.”Is he single now?“Yeah,” he says, chuckling and sounding somewhat relieved.Does that feel good?"Ouais."Does he think about wanting to find love ever again?"Non."I need to take a leak. Depp tells me I can use his bathroom and that I’ll find it back at the church. He gives me a set of instructions and directions, although with the electricity of the conversation we have just had still pinging about in my hot skull I nod and smile but when I actually arrive at the church I realise that I wasn’t really paying attention. I walk in through the main door and that’s when I realise I am standing slap bang in the middle of Johnny Depp’s bedroom. Alone. With a full bladder.Actually, I am not quite in his bedroom yet. I am in a small kitchenette. There’s a sink and a box of tissues on a small table and beyond that a door that leads to the bedroom. I can see it’s the bedroom because I can see the huge four-poster bed against the far wall. I venture further in, thinking that there must be an en suite somewhere and now I really am in the middle of Johnny Depp’s bedroom, inside his church, which he had built in the compound he bought with his ex-partner 20 years ago. It makes one’s head spin to be alone in someone’s private space. It’s so intimate, like climbing inside their head or diary and riffling through their thoughts without telling them you’re doing so.I take a quick scan of the room. There’s a jumble of family photographs, a guitar on a stand and clothes strewn about like a teenager just home from school. Down the far end, towards the main church door, which is blocked, two sofas face one another. On the sofa closest to me, down the right-hand side is the most intriguing object of all: a black vintage typewriter with round, silver keys. To the left of the machine is a pile of notes and typed pages. I had heard a rumour that Depp was writing a memoir, a book of his life, and had been doing so for the past few years. It’s a book about the abuse he suffered at the hands of his junkie, desperately violent late mother; about how, in anger, he used to take a baseball bat from the garage as a kid and just spend an hour wailing it against a palm tree in their yard; a book about the work, the films that never made it; about his relationships, his friendships; about when Allen Ginsberg called the actor as he was dying; about Bob Dylan, his friend; about Edward Scissorhands; about the industry, the circus; about the corruption, the excess and the sordid beautiful truth about it all.There’s a page spooled into the machine already. There are a handful of sentences typed, the black ink speckled and smudged on the grained, ivory paper. What is written is private. It’s also eloquent. It reads like someone trying to write vividly, someone desperate to get it out, get it down, so he might hold it up and scream, “Look! This is what happened!” This feels like snooping. I make a swift exit and go back to the bathroom in the café. Eventually I wander back to Depp, the smoke signals from his cigarette indicating he is still where I left him.“You know, on the road with the band, it’s impossible to bring oil paints,” explains Depp. “Mineral spirit stinks up the fucking place, you know? So I’ve just been doing watercolours and odd drawings. I’ve also been doing a lot of writing. I kind of started a book, a couple of months before I broke up with Amber.”Fiction? Memoir? A play?“I’ve written around 300 pages. I have about 300 more pages more to go. I am halfway. They are more memories. And some of the beauty and the knowledge that I’ve been able to glean or sponge off of some of these magic fucking people I know, from Brando to Hunter to Patti Smith to Dylan to Ginsberg. I have been so lucky to have met all these folk. I don’t have cards or make notes really. No structure is blocked out. I have reminders. I’ll make a list of reminders.”Of events he wants to remember?“Yes, but it’s not written in any kind of linear form. It should be more like the unplanned telling of a story around the campfire.” I ask Depp if he finds it hard writing about some of the more painful memories.“Sure. I mean my childhood was dark. My mum wouldn’t edit. There was no editing. She would say what she meant, what she felt, in that instant. No matter how wrong it might have been even, or how hideously evil it was in the moment, she didn’t edit. It came out: bleurgh! She was out of her mind, obviously, and she didn’t know what the fuck she was doing. She got four kids and she hated the world. Was there fuck loads of verbal abuse? Yeah, man. Was there fuck loads of physical abuse? Yes. And never-ending, to the point that pain, physical pain, was just a given. But the last four, five years that I was involved, let’s say... Well, that was quite a dark time too.“I mean, you can write about those things and what’s interesting is you write about those things early on and once you’ve had a few years away from that chapter you go back and reread what you’ve done so far. And then you realise that you do feel the same way you did, but you’re so far beyond it. It puts everything else into perspective. Because at a certain point one must be able to say, ‘What the fuck else can any of you do now? What else can any of you do to hurt me?’”The patter has changed. He is still calm, still warm, but the emotions are right here on the table with us, right in our faces. Maybe it’s just Depp’s natural charisma, but the intensity of the conversation feels like lifting weights. Not because it’s difficult to talk or that it isn’t natural, but simply because of the rawness, the emotional density of the topics. We sit in silence. Depp doesn’t move, not a single muscle flinches. It’s like he’s looked into the Gorgon Medusa’s eyes to see for himself life’s savage reality.The cigarette hangs unlit, like a stogie to be chewed on or soaked with spit. “What was it that Dylan Thomas said, ‘To begin at the beginning,’ right? And Ernest Hemingway, ‘All you have to do is write one true sentence’ – one of the hardest things in the world to do. And [Allen Ginsberg’s] ‘First thought, best thought.’”Depp has taken his writing lessons from brilliant yet often difficult men. He has strung them together like bunting: to begin at the beginning, all you have to do is write one true sentence: first thought, best thought... Much like Ginsberg, Depp has that ability to perform, to unspool himself and all his kinks. A drive into Depp’s memories, one suspects, would be like trying to control a car on a winding mountain road with its brakes cut, thrilling yet perilous.“And Hunter. Hunter! He was right in the centre of every story. And all those stories were true. I have all the tapes and the napkins. Hunter wanted me to buy his archives, but I’m its custodian. They belong to Hunter’s grandson, Will. I think we are going to take it on the road, to show people, to show people the reality, the madness and the goddamn beauty of it all.”For the first time, Depp takes off his shades. He rubs his eyes, which aren’t bloodshot or kohl-lined, but are clear, backlit and luminous. “I want the truth. That’s really my biggest obsession in the world. It’s just the fucking truth.”Yet to live on impulses, to put down all the raw facts unedited as they come out, well, that’s a powerful type of storytelling. As Hunter himself warned of such precision reporting: “Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity.”The truth has no time for perspective. Or rather, truth is not about perspective as a point of view. But to see the whole truth? The whole story? Now, that sort of perspective will allow you to get the entire picture: the correct height, depth and position of all the facts in relation to one another, something that is absolute.There is no doubt Depp is seeking the truth. That is his mission. One day, maybe he will find the right words, in a conversation or in a book, and when he does they will be simple.Subscribe now to get six issues of GQ for only £15, including free access to the interactive iPad and iPhone editions. Alternatively, choose from one of our fantastic digital-only offers, available across all devices.Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald is out on 16 November.The print version of this story includes errors by inaccurately attributing a quote to Johnny Depp, as well as certain factual inaccuracies. GQ apologises and has amended the online version accordingly. https://oltnews.com/johnny-depp-will-not-be-buried-british-gq?_unique_id=5e9d9d1d5bac7

[samuelpboswell]

Content Marveling: Wonder and Astonishment in Marketing

Two little letters. On the surface that’s all separating your standard issue “marketing” from the extraordinary and entirely different practice of “marveling.” At TopRank Marketing, “Content Marveling" is the practice of bringing greater wonder and astonishment to traditional content marketing, and can be applied in both the worlds of direct-to-consumer and enterprise business-to-business, to engage and delight your audience. Marketing efforts spending huge amounts of paid placement advertising, ever-more-ludicrous click-bait headlines and tactics, and even illicit black-hat methods are all used to simply get us to pay attention to marketing messages. Among senior B2B marketers, a sizable 82 percent view content as important for achieving marketing goals, however only 48 percent believe their content is somewhat effective — or even ineffective, according to recent study data. In the U.S. alone digital ad spending grew to $28.4 billion for the first quarter of 2019, up 18 percent from the same quarter a year ago. Thankfully there are still many genuine people and professional organizations delivering truly helpful content in beautifully-delivered formats — the type of material that builds long-term fans and keeps audiences subscribing, liking, and coming back for more. We've explored a variety of B2B brands delivering great content recently, including Cannes Lions award winners, which are some of the best examples to learn from:

5 B2B Brands Delivering Great Customer Experiences

6 Cannes Revelations About B2B Marketing in 2020

5 Examples of Remarkable Content Marketing in Action

They say the more things change the more they remain the same, and people have known the power of all things marvelous for thousands of years, as Aristotle himself observed. [bctt tweet="“In all things of nature there is something marvelous.” — Aristotle " username="toprank"] via GIPHY

Content Marveling: A Marvelous Peak With No Summit

Content marveling sets the bar higher. It aims to inspire us to use marketing to deliver a sense of awe, gives us cause to stop and reflect, and can become a profound example we’ll refer back to throughout the rest of our career. At first glance this may seem nearly unattainable. Thankfully, another tenet of content marveling is to simply think of marketing as a peak with no physical summit, offering an ever-evolving and infinite pinnacle of the very best marketing.

via GIPHY Our greatest emotional reactions know no bounds, and similarly, no matter how much a superb marketing effort has succeeded, by its very nature there is always the opportunity to do better the next time out, and push to newfound levels of marketing achievements. [bctt tweet="“‘Content Marveling’ is the practice of bringing greater wonder and astonishment to traditional content marketing.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

Finding a Quark or Neutrino In a Sea of Marketing Messages

It’s no secret that online interactions today see us inundated with vast numbers of efforts to catch our attention, coming at us a mile a minute from seemingly every possible digital direction. Today’s professional has just an eight-second attention span, according to Debra Jasper, and working within this speedy framework of micro-moments is harder than ever. Finding great authentic marketing examples that inspire a sense of wonder these days can be difficult — not quite like detecting a quark or a neutrino wave — yet surprisingly challenging. Striving to incorporate the wonder and astonishment of content marveling can go far in taking your own campaigns to a level of content marketing greatest, and we’ll look at examples from several marketing superheroes who are doing this today. Taking a cue once again from the distant past, however, we can learn the importance of wonder in marketing and elsewhere from Socrates. [bctt tweet="“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.” — Socrates " username="toprank"]

via GIPHY

The Longstanding Successes of Ann Handley

Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs, is an outstanding content marketing practitioner who has been at the forefront of crafting innovative and memorable marketing wisdom for years. Ann produces one of the content marketing industry’s most popular newsletters — Total Annarchy — offering up a deftly-curated collection of inspiring and hyper-relevant digital marketing news, on display most recently in the newsletter’s forty-third edition, “TA #43: ? Mindy Kaling's Marketing Tips, What's Wrong with Newsletters, B2B Influencers Done Right.” In it, Ann shared writing and marketing advice from comedian, actress and writer Mindy Kaling, who was the closing keynote speaker during the most recent Content Marketing World conference. Fear of the unknown is common in marketing, and Mindy revealed how it can be used to create the kind of memorable content and messaging that content marveling encourages. [bctt tweet="“When you're scared, that's when the most memorable things happen.” — Mindy Kaling @mindykaling" username="toprank"] At the event Ann delivered a much-anticipated presentation on using a strategic approach for achieving marketing success that’s both sane and sustainable, and our own Senior Digital Strategy Director Ashley Zeckman was there to cover it in the following article:

Create a Stellar Audience Experience By Slowing Down with These Tips from Ann Handley

50 More Content Marvelers To Follow & Learn From

At TopRank Marketing we strive to highlight top marketers in a variety of marketing niches, and our most recent is a list of 50 of the world's best content marketers who presented at Content Marketing World — a handy resource for easily following great marketers and learning how to create your own marvelous campaigns by watching their fine examples. You can find it here:

50 Content Marketing Influencers and Experts to Follow 2019

During the event, our CEO Lee Odden and Ashley Zeckman each presented insightful sessions, and a team of our staff was also on hand to provide in-depth coverage of many of the top speakers delivering presentations throughout the week, culminating in a complete wrap-up with top take-aways and insights. To help drive your content marveling efforts, here are some of our live-blogging articles from the event:

Lee Odden Shares His Secret to Content Marketing Fitness

Get Heroic Results from B2B Influencer Marketing with Advice from Ashley Zeckman

April Henderson on Data-Driven, Empathetic B2B Content

Zari Venhaus’s Framework for Gaining Executive Buy-In for Marketing Technology

How to Drive Better Content Marketing Results with Integrated Marketing Teams: Top Tips from NewsCred’s Shafqat Islam

Carlos Abler Details How Content Marketing Can Contribute to the Greater Good

I hope that you’ll use the information and examples we’ve explored here as you strive to be your own content marveler, and that you’ll work to infuse your marketing campaigns with a new level of wonder and delight.

The post Content Marveling: Wonder and Astonishment in Marketing appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

from The SEO Advantages https://www.toprankblog.com/2019/09/content-marveling/

[ralphlayton]

Content Marveling: Wonder and Astonishment in Marketing

Two little letters. On the surface that’s all separating your standard issue “marketing” from the extraordinary and entirely different practice of “marveling.” At TopRank Marketing, “Content Marveling" is the practice of bringing greater wonder and astonishment to traditional content marketing, and can be applied in both the worlds of direct-to-consumer and enterprise business-to-business, to engage and delight your audience. Marketing efforts spending huge amounts of paid placement advertising, ever-more-ludicrous click-bait headlines and tactics, and even illicit black-hat methods are all used to simply get us to pay attention to marketing messages. Among senior B2B marketers, a sizable 82 percent view content as important for achieving marketing goals, however only 48 percent believe their content is somewhat effective — or even ineffective, according to recent study data. In the U.S. alone digital ad spending grew to $28.4 billion for the first quarter of 2019, up 18 percent from the same quarter a year ago. Thankfully there are still many genuine people and professional organizations delivering truly helpful content in beautifully-delivered formats — the type of material that builds long-term fans and keeps audiences subscribing, liking, and coming back for more. We've explored a variety of B2B brands delivering great content recently, including Cannes Lions award winners, which are some of the best examples to learn from:

5 B2B Brands Delivering Great Customer Experiences

6 Cannes Revelations About B2B Marketing in 2020

5 Examples of Remarkable Content Marketing in Action

They say the more things change the more they remain the same, and people have known the power of all things marvelous for thousands of years, as Aristotle himself observed. [bctt tweet="“In all things of nature there is something marvelous.” — Aristotle " username="toprank"] via GIPHY

Content Marveling: A Marvelous Peak With No Summit

Content marveling sets the bar higher. It aims to inspire us to use marketing to deliver a sense of awe, gives us cause to stop and reflect, and can become a profound example we’ll refer back to throughout the rest of our career. At first glance this may seem nearly unattainable. Thankfully, another tenet of content marveling is to simply think of marketing as a peak with no physical summit, offering an ever-evolving and infinite pinnacle of the very best marketing.

via GIPHY Our greatest emotional reactions know no bounds, and similarly, no matter how much a superb marketing effort has succeeded, by its very nature there is always the opportunity to do better the next time out, and push to newfound levels of marketing achievements. [bctt tweet="“‘Content Marveling’ is the practice of bringing greater wonder and astonishment to traditional content marketing.” — Lane R. Ellis @lanerellis" username="toprank"]

Finding a Quark or Neutrino In a Sea of Marketing Messages

It’s no secret that online interactions today see us inundated with vast numbers of efforts to catch our attention, coming at us a mile a minute from seemingly every possible digital direction. Today’s professional has just an eight-second attention span, according to Debra Jasper, and working within this speedy framework of micro-moments is harder than ever. Finding great authentic marketing examples that inspire a sense of wonder these days can be difficult — not quite like detecting a quark or a neutrino wave — yet surprisingly challenging. Striving to incorporate the wonder and astonishment of content marveling can go far in taking your own campaigns to a level of content marketing greatest, and we’ll look at examples from several marketing superheroes who are doing this today. Taking a cue once again from the distant past, however, we can learn the importance of wonder in marketing and elsewhere from Socrates. [bctt tweet="“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.” — Socrates " username="toprank"]

via GIPHY

The Longstanding Successes of Ann Handley

Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs, is an outstanding content marketing practitioner who has been at the forefront of crafting innovative and memorable marketing wisdom for years. Ann produces one of the content marketing industry’s most popular newsletters — Total Annarchy — offering up a deftly-curated collection of inspiring and hyper-relevant digital marketing news, on display most recently in the newsletter’s forty-third edition, “TA #43: ? Mindy Kaling's Marketing Tips, What's Wrong with Newsletters, B2B Influencers Done Right.” In it, Ann shared writing and marketing advice from comedian, actress and writer Mindy Kaling, who was the closing keynote speaker during the most recent Content Marketing World conference. Fear of the unknown is common in marketing, and Mindy revealed how it can be used to create the kind of memorable content and messaging that content marveling encourages. [bctt tweet="“When you're scared, that's when the most memorable things happen.” — Mindy Kaling @mindykaling" username="toprank"] At the event Ann delivered a much-anticipated presentation on using a strategic approach for achieving marketing success that’s both sane and sustainable, and our own Senior Digital Strategy Director Ashley Zeckman was there to cover it in the following article:

Create a Stellar Audience Experience By Slowing Down with These Tips from Ann Handley

50 More Content Marvelers To Follow & Learn From

At TopRank Marketing we strive to highlight top marketers in a variety of marketing niches, and our most recent is a list of 50 of the world's best content marketers who presented at Content Marketing World — a handy resource for easily following great marketers and learning how to create your own marvelous campaigns by watching their fine examples. You can find it here:

50 Content Marketing Influencers and Experts to Follow 2019

During the event, our CEO Lee Odden and Ashley Zeckman each presented insightful sessions, and a team of our staff was also on hand to provide in-depth coverage of many of the top speakers delivering presentations throughout the week, culminating in a complete wrap-up with top take-aways and insights. To help drive your content marveling efforts, here are some of our live-blogging articles from the event:

Lee Odden Shares His Secret to Content Marketing Fitness

Get Heroic Results from B2B Influencer Marketing with Advice from Ashley Zeckman

April Henderson on Data-Driven, Empathetic B2B Content

Zari Venhaus’s Framework for Gaining Executive Buy-In for Marketing Technology

How to Drive Better Content Marketing Results with Integrated Marketing Teams: Top Tips from NewsCred’s Shafqat Islam

Carlos Abler Details How Content Marketing Can Contribute to the Greater Good

I hope that you’ll use the information and examples we’ve explored here as you strive to be your own content marveler, and that you’ll work to infuse your marketing campaigns with a new level of wonder and delight.

The post Content Marveling: Wonder and Astonishment in Marketing appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Content Marveling: Wonder and Astonishment in Marketing published first on yhttps://improfitninja.blogspot.com/

[mrmichaelchadler]

Home Entertainment Consumer Guide: May 10, 2018

8 NEW TO NETFLIX

"Amelie" "Beautiful Girls" "Faces Places" "God's Own Country" "Red Dragon" "Scream 2" "Shrek" "Sliding Doors"

8 NEW TO BLU-RAY/DVD

"All the Money in the World"

Ridley Scott made two films in 2017 and neither really got the attention they deserved. He's one of our most consistent living craftsmen, a man who makes the difficult art of filmmaking look easy. His telling of the story of the kidnapping of John Paul Getty III was one of those films for which the making of the movie became more enticing than the project itself. It started with the recasting of Kevin Spacey with eventual Oscar nominee Christopher Plummer but continued with the pay disparity between stars Michelle Williams and Mark Wahlberg. Now that the noise around the film has quieted down, you can watch it for yourself and decide how it fits in the history of Ridley Scott's career, one that shows no sign of slowing down even as he enters his eighties.

Buy it here 

Special Features Eight Deleted Scenes "Ridley Scott: Crafting a Historical Thriller" – Director Ridley Scott and the cast and crew discuss the fast-paced and exciting way he filmed this epic movie. "Hostages to Fortune: The Cast" – A look into the award-winning actors and their connections to their real-world characters. "Recast, Reshot, Reclaimed" – This piece follows the unprecedented recasting of the character J. Paul Getty a little over a month before the film's theatrical release.

"Dead Man" (Criterion)

Jim Jarmusch is one of my favorite filmmakers even if his beloved postmodern western with Johnny Depp was never a film that really worked for me. It seems like Roger had a similar love-hate relationship with Jarmusch over his career, giving him plenty of positive reviews, including four stars for "Mystery Train" and "Broken Flowers," while also hating "The Limits of Control" and this film, which he gave only a star and a half. When I saw it for the first time, I felt similarly to Roger in that Jarmusch's approach felt more half-baked than the deep philosophy some see in this project. Being given the chance to revisit the film by Criterion, I'm now somewhere between Roger's original opinion and those who adore "Dead Man," able to appreciate how it fits into Jamrusch's career but still not completely won over. However, this is a great edition for those of you that are. Maybe I'll join you in another twenty years.

Buy it here 

Special Features New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Jim Jarmusch, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack New Q&A in which Jarmusch responds to questions sent in by fans Rarely seen footage of Neil Young composing and performing the film’s score New interview with actor Gary Farmer New readings of William Blake poems by members of the cast, including Mili Avital, Alfred Molina, and Iggy Pop New selected-scene audio commentary by production designer Bob Ziembicki and sound mixer Drew Kunin Deleted scenes Jarmusch’s location scouting photos PLUS: Essays by film critic Amy Taubin and music journalist Ben Ratliff

"Den of Thieves"

Before the release of his latest action film, a few critics were discussing the career of Gerard Butler, and trying to find the highlights. The funny thing is that he's always been an actor I relatively liked, but he picks BAD projects, from "The Ugly Truth" to "The Bounty Hunter" to "Geostorm." It feels like he's struggled to find what's next but he really works as a cop on the edge in the relatively smart and tense "Den of Thieves," a movie that's been compared to "Heat" because of its plot and length. Even if it doesn't have nearly the depth of that Michael Mann classic, it's a better movie than its release date may have suggested to you, anchored by good work from Butler and O'Shea Jackson Jr. It's WAY too long, but it's the kind of thing that's easy to watch at home, and lands nicely with a twist that I honestly didn't see coming. It's the kind of thing I expect will play on basic cable channels like TNT for the next twenty years. 

Buy it here 

Special Features Alternate Ending Alpha Males – The cast describes how the tough characters in the film blur the lines between the good guys and the bad guys. Into the Den – Director Christian Gudegast and the cast describe the two brotherhoods within the film, the renegades and the outlaws, and their unique sets of skills. Alameda Corridor – The cast and director discuss filming the intense scene that take place on the streets of L.A. and the extensive weapons training it took to film it. Outtakes and Deleted Scenes Audio Commentary with Director Christian Gudegast and Producer Tucker Tooley Den of Thieves Theatrical Cut

"Hostiles"

One of the more interesting business stories out of TIFF this year was this high-priced western from the director of "Crazy Heart" and "Out of the Furnace." Most critics and potential distributors seemed to agree that it was solid enough to warrant an awards season run, especially for the very-good Christian Bale, but the film cost way more than most companies were willing to pay for it. What happens when the Oscar bait is too expensive for studios who win Oscars? That may be too inside baseball for those of you just looking for whether or not you should rent or buy this, so I'll just offer a mild recommendation. The performances are excellent throughout and Cooper has a good sense of the genre, but it's too long and takes itself way too seriously to really register outside of hardcore western fans. Maybe that's the real reason it took so long to sell.

Buy it here 

Special Features "A Journey to the Soul: The Making of Hostiles" 3-Part Documentary -"Provenance" Featurette -"Removing the Binds" Featurette -"Don't Look Back" Featurette

"Mary and the Witch's Flower"

Studio Ponoc's first film is based on "The Little Broomstick" by Mary Stewart and directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, who helmed the excellent "When Marnie Was There." As companies like Ponoc try to usher in the era of Japanese animation that hopes to entrance audiences as much as the work of Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki, there are bound to be a few stumbling blocks, and I have to say that this isn't quite a "block" but it's definitely lesser than some recent GKids offerings. It's one of those films about which it's easy to say "It looks great, but..." The style and animation here is typically phenomenal, with great character design and detail, and that may be enough for you. On the right day, it's enough for me. On the particular day I watched this, I was too often narratively reminded of better films. It really just made me want to go watch "Spirited Away" again.

Buy it here 

Special Features Japanese and English audio tracks for the main feature NTV Special: Creating Mary and The Witch's Flower A Special Conversation: Sekai No Owari, Hiromasa Yonebayashi, and Yoshiaki Nishimura Film Completion Press Conference Theatrical Promotional Movie Interview with the Filmmakers Trailers TV Spots

"Paddington 2"

The world would be a nicer place if there was a Paddington movie released every other year. The follow-up to one of the most charming family films of the last ten years is almost equally charming, featuring the return of everyone's favorite bear in an adventure that takes him behind bars and includes a wonderfully villainous performance from Hugh Grant. The message of the Paddington films feels more urgent than ever in 2018: that just being good to people around you can make an entire community better. Kindness is contagious. These are sweet, funny, smart movies that don't talk down to kids, providing them with just enough physical humor for the lessons to never get boring. I hope they make a dozen of them.

Buy it here 

Special Features Paddington: The Bear Truth How to Make A Marmalade Sandwich Music Video with Phoenix Buchanan The Magical Mystery of Paddington's Pop-Up Book The Browns and Paddington: The Special Bond Knuckles: A Fistful of Marmalade The (Once) Famous Faces of Phoenix Buchanan Audio Commentary by Director/Co-Writer Paul King

"Peter Rabbit"

One of the most shocking box offices surprises of 2018 so far is this relatively massive Sony hit. It was even the subject of a quick Film Twitter shock when someone asked what the #2 film of the year was (pre-Infinity War) and it turned out to be this relatively standard kiddie flick. The cynic in me could point to the $325 million plus worldwide gross here as more proof that people love known brands and this was a familiar name to them. But it's also a more entertaining film than I think people expected, the kind of movie that you can use to distract your little ones without feeling like you're rotting their brains. And that's often what parents are looking for. It's no "Paddington 2," but it gets the job done.

Buy it here 

Special Features Peter Rabbit: Mischief in the Making Shake Your Cotton-Tail Dance Along

"The Virgin Suicides" (Criterion)

Sofia Coppola's debut film was a true event in arthouse cinema in 1999 (when it premiered at Cannes) and 2000 (when it opened stateside). I was a huge fan of the Jeffrey Eugenides book on which it was based, loved the Air soundtrack, and adored the film when I finally got a chance to see it. Almost twenty years later, it's held up remarkably well, finding something mysterious and true about youth that so many other similar films completely miss. It's dreamlike and yet dangerous at the same time, a startling formal accomplishment for a young debut filmmaker, and Coppola has fulfilled on that promise with works like "Lost in Translation," "Marie Antoinette," and "The Beguiled." I hope they all end up in the Criterion Collection someday.

Buy it here 

Special Features New 4K digital restoration, supervised by cinematographer Ed Lachman and approved by director Sofia Coppola, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack New interviews with Coppola, Lachman, actors Kirsten Dunst and Josh Hartnett, author Jeffrey Eugenides, and writer Tavi Gevinson Making of “The Virgin Suicides,” a 1998 documentary directed by Eleanor Coppola and featuring Sofia Coppola; Eleanor and Francis Ford Coppola; actors Dunst, Hartnett, Scott Glenn, Kathleen Turner, and James Woods; Eugenides; and more Lick the Star, a 1998 short film by Coppola Music video for Air’s soundtrack song “Playground Love,” directed by Coppola and her brother Roman Coppola Trailers PLUS: An essay by novelist Megan Abbott

from All Content https://ift.tt/2KbluFw

[rubicon3sailing]

How do you title this?? Go Gina Go!!

Greetings from the race track! Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to slickest and happiest crew on the ARC+. Meet: - Skipper Arrrrrr Sprot, Dragoness, still connected to her propane source; - First Mate Holly Vint, also happy to go by “Best Mate”; - Nicky, passage maker and author of “Nicky’s Nautical Notes”; - John and Fraser, headlining the “Two Australians walked into a bar” gig, now streaming live along with Sargasso mid-Atlantic; - Jen and Chris, star-gazing and star-chasing; nothing on this boat can tempt them away from their sextants, which have surely just about fused to their bodies; - Erika of Knots, talented dancer, knitter, all round happiness maker, lady of the kite; - Michelle, circumnavigator and mighty helmswoman; - Tony “CoRiley”, who is serving out a 24-hour swear word-free period and struggling with it; and - Cui, filmmaker who’s sure to clinch the Palme d’Or at Cannes Together, despite the shenanigans we get up to, at one point today we were 8th overall and are constantly teasing, strategizing, planning, thinking, laughing, meeting, deciding. Yay Hummingbird! This morning, as the sun rose, so did the tempo and energy up on deck. Cockpit became moshpit, and DJ John was on his turntable, driving some very energetic dancing undertaken by the planking platoon. All this before the first sun sight by the celestial nav team. Welcome to Hummingbird. Cui captured the frenzy on his GoPro and has now edited this for Rubicon3’s homepage – Bruce, you have never seen anything like this! In pursuit of fitness (apparently, driving Hummingbird downwind with an imminent spinnaker wrap isn’t hard enough), pole dancing has acquired a following. Both Nicky and Jen demonstrated how to walk the downhaul tightrope up to the spinnaker pole, swing up to pole, grab pole between legs, pose, inspect chaffing, aaaaaand land. 10-10-10 scores to both. It is a busy boat, and people find all manners of services to offer. Tony for example, provides shading on demand with a stray umbrella which has found its way on board, a service very much appreciated by helms-people between the hours of 8 and 3. Erika braided Gina’s hair the other day to help keep her cool in the sun (Fraser is wondering if this service might benefit him. Fraser is also bald.) Holly has a remarkable ability to find things people have misplaced, and Nicky whose bunk lies immediately behind the heads, will know if anyone has not been using the LAVAC as per Admiral Miranda’s instructions and shall be transmitting the list of offenders. Miranda will be waiting for you in St. Lucia, just you wait. Cometh the hour of two in the second half of the day, Rachael puts on her sage toga and does teaching in the Great Bird Amphitheatre, open to all members of Hummingbird society. Today, she delivered her ruminations on the SeaPro nav system and also opened the gateway to VMG contemplation for the yearning. Family and friends, you will be pleased to know we are all looking after each other. As a nurse, I am extremely pleased that people have taken a real interest into the urine output, bowel movements and hydration levels of fellow crew. Social well-being is also assured with happy hour, and now, Ship's Cluedo! Everyone’s been given a name, object and venue for their “kill”.Just hand your victim the designated murder weapon in the correct location and its game over. Nicky was the first victim, when Jennifer handed her a butternut squash at the helm. Chris has been suspiciously lurking around with a pink fender but no one has taken the bait yet. There is now a complex spy network in place and traps about, keeping everyone mentally sharp. It’s hot as hell and we are all sweaty and sticky, yet having to get on with our tasks with a massive weight pack (the lifejacket) on at all times. I now have an idea of how Lewis Hamilton feels when he’s all suited up and having to race on a track in the tropics. It can get immensely uncomfortable and at times you think you are going to snap. But then, very soon, the sun takes a chill pill and nestles behind the clouds for the evening sunset that accompanies happy hour and dinner. The 12 of us sit around like a murder of raucous crows, laugh and chow on dinner. With each passing day, the challenge of facing the heat gives way to the bigger, more important challenge of doing everything we can to get a podium spot. And I am now with Nicky as she says there is no other place she’d rather be. But Bruce, you’d better hurry up and get that gelato-maker installed. Tonight’s broadcast is brought to you by number 8 and the letters V, M and G. Gina (now canonised for breadmaking, though my fellow shipmates seem to think my miracle performance also extends to corn popping and have requested a 50% salty, 50% caramel mix)

[ramialkarmi]

A group of New York City ad employees are baiting Planned Parenthood's opponents with a fake petition

As Republicans try to advance toward their goal of defunding Planned Parenthood, a trio of advertising employees think they've found a way to convince people it's misguided: by tricking them into learning more about what Planned Parenthood does.

Alyssa Georg, Elena Knox, and Claudia Cukrov work for New York-based ad agency SS+K. They've launched a website and Twitter account aimed at engaging some of Planned Parenthood’s most vocal critics online.

Defundpppetition.com urges users to sign a petition to cut funding for Planned Parenthood.

But it's actually a bait. The website is designed to educate people about Planned Parenthood’s various offerings. Planned Parenthood is a client of SS+K’s — but the website creators say they're not working for the organization on this. A Planned Parenthood representative also said the organization has nothing to do with the website. 

This is how it works: Users who want to sign the petition must select and acknowledge to cut funding for all 64 of Planned Parenthood’s various services —  including things like breast cancer screenings and pap smears.

It probably doesn't take long for users to figure out they've been duped.

Those who simply select the option to "defund abortion," for instance, are greeted with a red pop-up message that informs them that no federal government dollars have funded abortion since the Hyde Amendment, according to which federal funds cannot be used to pay for an abortion except in the case of rape, incest, or if the mother's health is endangered.

Similarly, those who select all the 64 services see a snarky prompt: "Just want to make sure you're cool with cutting affordable birth control for over 2.8 million people and putting 900,000 women's lives at risk every year?"

Of course, marketing tricks that aren't quite what they seem are a time-tested tactic in advertising. A Burger King campaign that triggered TV viewers' Google Home devices to suddenly start explaining what a Whopper is, for example, won an award at the Cannes Lions advertising festival this week. Similarly, mattress startup Casper's “Late Night Snap Hacks” campaign last year, let users trick their Snapchat followers into thinking that they’re out about town, instead of at home on their beds.

The creators of the site say their intention is to just engage people who have made up their minds about the nonprofit, and won't interact with them otherwise. The Senate Republican leadership just released a draft of its long-awaited healthcare bill, which says that no plans purchased using funding from the bill can cover abortions or be given to healthcare providers that are involved with abortion. This means that in addition to restricting anyone who uses the credits or other funds from getting plans that covers abortions, this would effectively defund Planned Parenthood. It is unclear, however, if this will pass Senate rules.

"People are so polarized today that there is no room for even reasonable conversation," said Cukrov, a senior digital strategist at SS+K. "We wanted to engage with some of those people on the other end of the spectrum, and one way of doing that is to appear to be agreeing with them.”

The trio has also created a fake Twitter account by the name of Gayle Wright, a “happily married country girl and mother to four amazing children,” who is also listed as being a patriot and #ProLife. The aim is to engage their target audience by appearing to be like one of them. The account urges those engaging with the hashtag #defundplannedparenthood to visit the site and “take action.”

Since it launched on June 8, over 14,000 people have visited their Twitter page. While 70% of people have been blindly retweeting their tweet about defunding Planned Parenthood without actually delving into what the site is about, some people have engaged with it and shared tweets of new things they learned from the site, Cukrov claims.

This is isn’t the first political side project for Georg and Knox.

The copywriter-art director duo created readbetweentheheadlines.com back in March, to give people what they called unbiased, impartial news, untainted by any political affiliation. They also worked on a $20 million campaign by Emily’s List and Priorities USA, the super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, to persuade millennial women to vote.

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NOW WATCH: Ivanka Trump's Instagram put her at the center of a controversy over her lavish art collection

[wavenetinfo]

After 12 days of cinema-worship and excessive partying, the 70th Cannes Film Festival will draw to a close on Sunday. Most journalists here seem to find it a lesser year by Cannes standards – which happens just about every year by the way. The truth is, whatever the complaints, this bunch of films will probably still end up among the best of the year. That’s how damn reliable the Cannes seal of approval is.

I myself find this to be a great year. With a few exceptions (in particular THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES, THE BEGUILED, RODIN), I’ve enjoyed/admired/loved the vast majority of films I’ve seen. The question now is: what will Pedro like?

It’s worth noting that predicting what festival juries will do is almost always a futile endeavor. These filmmakers/actors are often inspired by work completely different from their own, so guessing their favorites based on their own filmography I not foolproof. Remember when Tim Burton professed his love for UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES and George Miller’s jury bowed down to I, DANIEL BLAKE just last year?

But in the spirit of AwardsDaily, I shall make my fearless predictions, accompanied by what/whom I think should win.

Palme d’Or Who will win: BPM (BEATS PER MINUTE) Who should win: BPM (BETS PER MINUTE)

Sprawling AIDS-activist drama/love story featuring a great ensemble cast, dynamic direction and an important message. Besides Almodóvar, I could definitely picture Jessica Chastain loving this.

A couple of things count against it: 1) some are calling it Palme bait, which is kind of unfortunate, but the film does have parallels to recent winner BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR, for example; 2) too “obvious” for Almodóvar to pick the only queer film in the competition lineup.

BPM will definitely not be unchallenged. Possible upsets include LOVELESS, THE SQUARE, THE DAY AFTER and…

Grand Prix Who will win: A GENTLE CREATURE Who should win: HAPPY END

The new Haneke has not been as well received as his previous work. And it’s somewhat hard to imagine Almodóvar, who has frustratingly yet to have won the Palme d’Or himself, awarding Haneke his third. That said, the transcendently depressing AND acerbically funny HAPPY END is my second favorite film of the festival.

A GENTLE CREATURE, though, is also an amazing film and could be duking it out with fellow Russian tragedy LOVELESS for the top prizes.

Prix du Jury Who will win: THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER Who should win: YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE

This is really anyone’s guess. Could be any of the titles mentioned above. THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER is the most divisive film this year but I could see Almodóvar, who has done some weird stuff in his time, and especially Park Chan-wook gravitating towards Lanthimos’ wild style.

Or, if the jury is feeling funky, a left-field choice for GOOD TIME is not out of the question.

Best Actor Who will win: Robert Pattinson (GOOD TIME) Who should win: Joaquin Phoenix (YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE)

Speaking of GOOD TIME, Pattinson seems like a strong candidate for the coveted Best Actor prize: a proper Hollywood star who’s slowly established his street cred on the Croisette after a few trips with Cronenberg. And the performance is there.

His competition includes the sensational Joaquin Phoenix, the heartbreaking lead of BPM Nahuel Pérez Biscayart (I’m not predicting his win because the rules preclude additional awards for the Palme or Grand Prix winning films), and – inexplicably – Adam Sandler for THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES (Will Smith, I’ll be looking at you).

Best Actress Who will win: Maryana Spivak (LOVELESS) Who should win: Fantine Harduin (HAPPY END)

The Best Actress race is much lighter than last year. Conventional wisdom seems to favor an ensemble win for the female cast of THE BEGUILED. I guess this would make sense considering how Almodóvar likes his female ensembles and this film was ecstatically received – at least by the critics. However, admitting openly my personal bias, I can’t predict such a result.

Vasilina Makovtseva for A GENTLE CREATURE and Diane Kruger for IN THE FADE are also possible but ultimately my gut tells me the heartless mom from LOVELESS stands the best chance – if the film doesn’t win gold, that is.

Best Director Who will win: Lynne Ramsay (YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE) Who should win: Lynne Ramsay (YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE)

Many worthy choices: Lanthimos, Kornél Mundruczó for JUPITER’S MOON and the Safdie brothers for GOOD TIME. But this is such a great chance to honor a female director on the Cannes stage and I’m betting the jury would want to take advantage of it.

Best Screenplay Who will win: THE SQUARE Who should win: HAPPY END

Again, admitting openly my personal bias, I’m not putting THE SQUARE higher up the predicted winner’s list even though it has plenty of avid supporters, presumably also in the jury.

Otherwise the prolific Korean auteur Hong Sangsoo might also score his first Cannes win for THE DAY AFTER.

And just because at its 60th edition, Cannes presented Gus Van Sant (PARANOID PARK) with a special prize, maybe they’ll also give out an anniversary award of some kind this year. In that case Haneke would certainly look like a fitting winner.

The awards ceremony will take place tomorrow, May 28, at 7:15 PM (CET).

28 May 2017 | 2:32 am

Zhuo-Ning Su

Source : Awards Daily

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