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pwilzfan73 · 3 years

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In Praise of Patrick Wilson, Scream King

The classically trained actor has been acclaimed for his work onstage. But in ghost stories like “Insidious” and “The Conjuring,” he’s proven to be a master of horror.

Patrick Wilson in “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It.” The actor brings both an intensity and a reassurance to the franchise. Credit...Warner Bros.

By Calum Marsh, The New York Times.

June 6, 2021

Ed Warren is sitting in a musty living room in North London, trying to establish contact with a demon. Behind him sits a little girl, said to be possessed. The demon won’t talk, she insists, unless he faces away and gives him some privacy. With his back to the girl, Ed gets down to business. “Now come on out and talk to us,” he says brightly.

Out comes the demon, cackling and taunting in a fiendish, guttural voice, like a cockney Tom Waits. He wants to rattle Ed, but as played by Patrick Wilson, Ed’s not easily rattled. Alongside his wife, Lorraine, he works as a paranormal investigator, and this is hardly his first tête-à-tête with a malignant spirit. “Your father called you Edward,” the demon snarls, trying to get under his skin. But Ed just rolls his eyes and shakes his head impatiently. “You’re not a psychiatrist, and I’m not here to talk about my father,” he says. “Let’s get down to business. What do you say?”

This scene in “The Conjuring 2” (2016), the sequel to the sumptuous, vigorously terrifying “The Conjuring,” encapsulates what these hit movies do so well. The director James Wan shoots the entire conversation in one long, unbroken take, zooming in so slowly that the movement of the camera is virtually undetectable. The demon, in the background, is a sinister blur. Instead, our attention fixes on Ed, staring ahead.

In “The Conjuring 2,” a scene with a demon in the background depends entirely on the range of emotion in Wilson’s face.Credit...Warner Bros.

Wan is demanding a lot of his lead here — the effect of the scene hinges entirely on Wilson, and without a cut, in extreme close-up, he has nowhere to hide. But he proves more than capable. The five-minute scene is an acting tour de force, and one you might not expect in the middle of a haunted house picture.

The range of emotions in Ed’s face is mesmerizing. Wilson, a classically trained actor with a background in stage dramas and Broadway musicals, is able to do so much with subtle changes in the cast of his eyes and his manner that you can tell from moment to moment exactly how he is feeling — apprehensive, irritated, disturbed, chagrined. For a split second, his composure waivers. Then he steels himself, blinks and gains it back. This is a frightening confrontation, to be sure. But it’s compelling mainly for the intensity that Wilson exudes.

Of course, Wilson, who plays Ed again in the new sequel, “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It,” has been a known talent for more than 20 years. In the early 2000s, he earned Tony Award nominations for his starring roles in the musicals “The Full Monty” and “Oklahoma!,” and in 2003 he was nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe for “Angels in America,” the television adaptation of Tony Kushner’s play in which he played a gay Mormon attorney struggling with his sexuality during the AIDS crisis.

“Angels in America” is a more straightforward acting showcase, and Wilson’s performance, full of stifled passion and moral compromise, is sensitive and powerful. He shares scenes with Al Pacino and Meryl Streep, but his is the most affecting turn.

Like many celebrated stage actors before him, Wilson soon tried to parlay his growing prestige into movie stardom. The results have been mixed. Over the next few years, he appeared in a number of high-profile Hollywood movies, but many of them were poorly received, like the limp remake “The Alamo,” the over-the-top domestic thriller “Lakeview Terrace” and the big-screen version of “The A-Team.” When he starred as the reluctant superhero Nite Owl II in Zack Snyder’s ambitious adaptation of the graphic novel “Watchmen,” critics complained that he was miscast.

It was in 2010 that Wilson found an unexpected niche: the horror movie. That year, he starred in “Insidious,” an early experiment in the producer Jason Blum’s low-budget horror revolution and a creepy, atmospheric ghost story with a playful touch of David Lynch.

Wilson played Josh Lambert, who, for the first two acts, seems like the typical horror movie patriarch: stalwart, steadying and, as the haunting begins to escalate, staunchly disbelieving. He spends a lot of time reassuring his wife that she must be imagining the scary things she’s been seeing around the house and that ghosts aren’t real. Until it turns out that ghosts are real, and that in fact Josh has a history with them.

Patrick Wilson opposite Rose Byrne in “Insidious.” He does so much with a stock character. Credit...FilmDistrict

In “Insidious: Chapter 2,” he’s an evil spirit pretending to be human to his family, which includes Barbara Hershey, left, Ty Simpkins and Byrne.Credit...Matt Kennedy/FilmDistrict

At the end of the second act, it’s revealed that Josh had an encounter with a demon as a child, but that his memories had been repressed. And Wilson, as he accepts this information, manages to subtly disclose a lifetime of trauma. With a faint shifting of the eyes and delicate tensing of the muscles, he conveys flashes of bone-deep dread lingering at the back of his subconscious. Suddenly, a familiar and somewhat flat character gains a new dimension, as Wilson transforms a stock type into someone dynamic and real.

Wilson reprises the part in “Insidious: Chapter 2,” with Josh’s body inhabited by a malevolent demon and Josh’s soul trapped in the spirit world. As the demon-Josh, Wilson has the difficult task of playing an evil spirit pretending to be human, convincing his loved ones that he’s the same old Josh as he secretly conspires to kill them. Occasionally, the mask of the happy husband slips, and Wilson reveals a glimpse of frenzied menace. It’s a terrifying performance reminiscent of Jack Nicholson in “The Shining.”

Ed Warren is Josh Lambert’s opposite. Ed’s role in “The Conjuring” movies is a stabilizing presence.

He and Lorraine (played by the wonderful Vera Farmiga) are called on to investigate happenings that seem to defy scientific explanation, and their arrival on the scene, usually after ghosts and demons have done some preliminary haunting, is accompanied by a sense of reassurance that is rare in horror movies. Wilson gives the calming impression of unflappable expertise, an almost fatherly stolidity, not unlike what Tom Hanks brings to many roles. However frightened we may be, we’re heartened that Ed knows what he’s doing.

Patrick Wilson with Vera Farmiga in “The Conjuring.” Their chemistry helps ground the movie.Credit...Michael Tackett/Warner Bros.

Ed is a man of God, investigating the demonic possession on behalf of the church, and one of the most striking things about Wilson’s performance is the intensity of his religious conviction. When he thrusts a cross at a spirit to dispel its power or reads Scripture in Latin to save the day, he doesn’t seem to be simply holding props or quoting dialogue but to regard these objects and rituals with palpable awe. He makes you feel Ed’s faith, as well as his belief in evil and the supernatural. It makes the scary stuff scarier and feel more real.

Wilson and Farmiga’s screen chemistry has been widely praised, but it’s difficult to overstate just how potent they are together. Their warmth and tenderness are a crucial reprieve from the pulse-quickening horror around them, and the affection they show one another is appealing precisely because it contrasts so sharply with the rest of the action. They are so magnetic that their minor roles at the beginning of the “Conjuring” spinoff “Annabelle Comes Home” practically spoils the rest of the movie: Having had the pleasure of watching them at the start, you’re disappointed to see them leave.

Shortly after Ed’s confrontation with the demon in “The Conjuring 2,” he notices an acoustic guitar in the corner of the same room. The family of the possessed little girl hands it over to him, and he proceeds to imitate Elvis Presley and sing “Can’t Help Falling in Love” in its entirety. The scene does not advance the plot. It’s not a misdirect; it doesn’t culminate in some twist or revelation or jump scare. The openness and gentle humor Wilson embodies is worth a dozen heart-stopping scares: Indeed, that openness and humor are what makes the scares worth anything in the first place. “The Conjuring 2” is already 136 minutes — a more prudent editor might have advised cutting the extraneous scene. But this moment, so earnest in its sentiment, is the heart of the movie. Like Wilson’s performance, it’s perfect.

#patrickwilson #pwilzfan73 #actor #movies #verafarmiga #patrick wilson #theconjuringthedevilmademedoit #edwarren #lorrainewarren #insidiouschapter2 #insidious #rose byrne #the new york times

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Summer Movie Preview: From Black Widow to The Suicide Squad and Beyond

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The summer movie season has returned. Finally. Once something we all just took for granted, like handshakes and indoor dining, a summertime season stuffed with pricy Hollywood blockbusters and cinematic escapism suddenly feels like a long lost friend. But, rest assured, the summer movie season is genuinely and truly here. It’s maybe a little later than normal, yet it’s still in time for Memorial Day in the States.

This is of course happy news since many of the big screen events of this year have been 12 months or more in the offing. A Quiet Place Part II was supposed to open two Marches ago, and In the Heights is opening almost an exact year to the day from its original release. They’re here now, as is an impressive assortment of new films. There are genre fans’ long lost superhero spectacles, with Black Widow and The Suicide Squad leading the pack (and Shang-Chi closing out the season unusually late in time for Labor Day weekend), and there are also horror movies like The Conjuring 3 and M. Night Shyamalan’s Old, aforementioned musicals, family adventures in Jungle Cruise, psychedelic Arthurian legends via The Green Knight, and a few legitimately original projects like Stillwater and Reminiscence. Imagine that!

So sit back, put your feet in the pool, or up by the grill pit, and toast with us the summer movie’s resurrection.

A Quiet Place Part II

May 28 (June 3 in the UK)

Fourteen months after its original release date, the first movie delayed by the pandemic is finally coming to theaters for Memorial Day weekend. And despite what some critics say (even our own), most of us would argue it’s worth the wait. As a movie about a family enduring after a global crisis that has left their lives in tatters, and marred by personal tragedy, A Quiet Place Part II hits differently in 2021 than it would have a year ago. And it’s undeniably optimistic view of humanity feels like a warm balm now.

But beyond the meta context, writer-director John Krasinski (flying solo as screenwriter this time) has engineered a series of intelligent and highly suspenseful set pieces which puts Millicent Simmonds’ Regan front and center. Also buoyed by subtle and affecting work by Emily Blunt and Cillian Murphy, here as a neighbor they knew a few years and a lifetime ago, this is one worth dipping your toe back into cinema for, especially if you liked the first movie.

Cruella

May 28

We’ll admit it, we had the same initial skepticism you’re probably feeling about a Cruella de Vil origin story set in punk rock’s 1970s London. But put your cynicism aside, Disney’s Cruella is a decadent blast and the rarest of things: a live-action Disney remake that both honors its source material and does something creative with it. Neither a soulless scene-by-scene remake of a better animated film, or a lazy Maleficent like re-imagining, Cruella more often than not rocks, thanks in large part to its lead performance by Emma Stone.

Also a producer on the picture, Stone takes on the role of Cruella de Vil like it’ll be on an awards reel and absolutely flaunts the character’s madness and devilish charm. She also finds an excellent sparring partner via Emma Thompson, young Cruella’s very own Miranda Priestly. Once these two start their verbal battle at the end of the first act, the movie is elevated into an electric period comedy (with plenty of heavy handed period music). It’s a pseudo-thriller for all ages, enjoying some very sharp elbows for a kids movie.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

June 4 (May 26 in the UK)

The latest big-screen adventure for real-life ghostbusters Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) sees the two drawn into the unusual case of the first ever U.S. murder trial where the defendant claimed he was innocent because he was possessed by a demon. This is the eighth movie in The Conjuring expanded universe—director Michael Chaves has already made a foray into this supernatural world with The Curse of La Llorona—and as with all the main Conjuring films, the hook is that it’s (very loosely) based on a true case that the Warrens were involved with.

Peter Safran and James Wan are back on board as producers, although with this being the first time Wan isn’t directing one of the main Ed and Lorraine investigations, we’re a little cautious about this return to the haunted museum.

In the Heights

June 11 (June 18 in the UK)

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first Tony award winning musical is getting the proper big screen treatment in In the Heights. A full-fledged movie musical—as opposed to a taped series of performances, a la Disney+’s Hamilton—In the Heights is like a sweet summer drink (or Piragua) and love letter to the Latino community of New York City’s Washington Heights neighborhood.

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Closer in spirit to the feel-good summertime joy of Grease than the narratively complex Hamilton, this is perfect multiplex escapism (which will also be on HBO Max if you’re so inclined). Directed by Crazy Rich Asians’ Jon M. Chu, In the Heights has a euphoric sense of movement and dance as it transfers Miranda’s hybrid blend of freestyle rap, salsa rhythm, and Caribbean musical cues to the actual city blocks the show was written about. On one of those corners lives Usnavi (Anthony Ramos), a bodega owner with big dreams. He’s about to have the summer of his life. You might too.

Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard

June 16 (June 21 in the UK)

You know Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard is a throwback when even its trailer brings back the “trailer voice.” But then the appeal of the 2017 B-action comedy, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, was its very throwback nature: a violent, raunchy R-rated buddy comedy that starred Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds, who exchanged quips as much as bullets between some genuinely entertaining stunts.

Hopefully the sequel can also be as much lowbrow fun as it doubles down on the premise, with Reynolds’ Michael Bryce now guarding Samla Hayek’s Sonia, the wife of Jackson’s Darius. All three are on a road trip through Italy as they’re chased by Antonio Banderas in what is sure to be a series of bloody, explosive set pieces. Probably a few “motherf***ers” will be dropped too.

Luca

June 18

Pixar Studios’ hit rate is frankly incredible. With each new film seemingly comes a catchy song, an Oscar nomination, and a flood of tears from anyone with a heart—and there’s no reason to believe that its next offering will be any different. Luca is a coming-of-age tale set on the Italian Riviera about a pair of young lads who become best friends and have a terrific summer getting into adventures in the sun. The slight catch is that they’re both sea monsters.

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This is the feature directorial debut of Enrico Casarosa, who says the movie is a celebration of friendship with nods to the work of Federico Fellini and Hayao Miyazaki. The writers are Jesse Andrews and Mike Jones—Andrews is new to Pixar but has experience with coming-of-agers, having penned Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, while Jones co-wrote Soul. Jacob Tremblay and Jack Dylan Grazer voice the young boys (sea monsters)—13-year-old Luca and his older teenager friend Alberto—with Maya Rudolph as Luca’s sea monster mom. After a year of lockdown, this could be the summer movie we all need.

June 25

You better start firing up the grill, because the Fast and Furious crew is finally ready to have another summer barbecue. And this time, it’s not only the folks whom Dom Toretto calls “mi familia” in attendance. The big new addition to F9 is

John Cena as Jakob Toretto. As the long-lost little brother we didn’t know Vin Diesel’s Dom had, Jakob is revealed to be a superspy, assassin, and performance driver working for Dom’s arch-nemesis, Cypher (Charlize Theron). Everything the Family does together, Jakob does alone, as a one-man wrecking crew, and he’s coming in hot.

Fans will probably be happier, though, to see Sung Kang back as Han Seoul-Oh, the wheelman who was murdered in Fast & Furious 6, and then pretty much forgotten in The Fate of the Furious when his killer got invited to the cookout. It’s an injustice that brought veteran series director Justin Lin back to the franchise to resurrect the dead. So it’s safe to assume he won’t be asking Cypher to bring the potato salad.

The Forever Purge

July 2 (July 16 in the UK)

We know what you’re thinking: Didn’t The Purge: Election Year end the Purge forever? That or “are they really still making these?” The answer to both questions is yes. Nevertheless, here we are with The Forever Purge, a movie which asks what happens if Purgers just, you know, committed extravagant holiday crime on the other 364 days of the year? You get what is hopefully the grand finale of this increasingly tired concept.

The Tomorrow War

July 2

Hear me out: What if it’s like The Terminator but in reverse? That had to be the pitch for this one, right? In The Tomorrow War, instead of evil cyborgs time traveling to the past to kill our future savior, soldiers from the future time travel to the past to enlist our current best warrior and take him to a world on the brink 30 years from now.

It’s a crazy premise, and the kind of high-concept popcorn that one imagines Chris Pratt excels at. Hence Pratt’s casting as Dan, one of the best soldiers of the early 21st century who’ll go into the future to stop an alien invasion. The supporting cast, which includes Oscar winner J.K. Simmons and Yvonne Strahovski, Betty Gilpin, and Sam Richardson, is also nothing to sneeze at.

Black Widow

July 9

The idea of making a Black Widow movie has been around since long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe first lifted into the sky on Tony Stark’s repulsors. The character has been onscreen for more than a decade now, and Marvel Studios has for too long danced around making a solo Widow, at least in part due to the machinations of Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter.

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But the standalone Black Widow adventure is here at last, and it now serves as a sort-of coda to the story of Natasha Romanoff, since we already know her tragic fate in Avengers: Endgame. Directed by Cate Shortland (Berlin Syndrome, Lore), the movie will spell out how Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) kept herself busy between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, primarily with a trip home to Russia to clear some of that red from her ledger.

There, she will reunite with figures from her dark past, including fellow Red Room alumnus Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Russian would-be superhero Alexei Shostakov, aka the Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz), another survivor of the Black Widow program and a maternal figure to Natasha and Yelena.

It’s a chance to say goodbye to Nat and see Johansson as the beloved Avengers one more time. But this being Marvel, we suspect that the studio has a few tricks up its sleeve and in this movie about the future of Phase 4.

Space Jam: A New Legacy

July 16

In the annals of synergistic branding, Space Jam: A New Legacy might be one for the record books. A sequel to an older millennials’ 1990s touchstones—the thoroughly mediocre Michael Jordan meets Bugs Bunny movie, Space Jam—this sequel sees LeBron James now trapped in Looney Tunes world… but wait, there’s more! Instead of only charmingly interacting with WB’s classic stable of cartoon characters, King James will also be in the larger “WB universe” where the studio will resurrect from the dead every property they own the copyright to, from MGM’s classic 1939 The Wizard of Oz to, uh, the murderous rapists in A Clockwork Orange.

… yay for easter eggs?

Old

July 23

Though he might be accused of being a little bit hit-and-miss in the past, the release of a new M. Night Shyamalan movie should always be cause for celebration. Especially one with such a deeply creepy premise. Based on the graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters, Old sees a family on vacation discover that the beach they are on causes them to age extremely rapidly and live out their entire lives in a day.

This is surely perfect fodder for Shyamalan, who does high-concept horror like no one else. The cast is absolute quality, featuring Gael García Bernal, Hereditary’s Alex Wolff, Jo Jo Rabbit’s Thomasin McKenzie, Phantom Thread’s Vicky Krieps, Little Women’s Eliza Scanlen, and many more. The trailer is pleasingly disturbing too as children become teenagers, a young woman is suddenly full-term pregnant, and adults seem to be decaying in front of their own eyes. Harrowing in the best possible way.

Snake Eyes

July 23 (August 20 in the UK)

Snake Eyes will finally bring us the origin story of the G.I. Joe franchise’s most iconic and beloved member. Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) stars in the title role, with Warrior’s Andrew Koji as his nemesis—conflicted baddie (and similar fan fave) Storm Shadow. Expect a tale heavy on martial arts badassery, especially with The Raid’s Iko Uwais on board as the pair’s ninja master. Samara Weaving will play G.I. Joe staple Scarlett after her breakout a few years ago in Ready or Not, while Úrsula Corberó has been cast as Cobra’s Baroness. Robert Schwentke (The Time Traveler’s Wife, Red) directs.

Jungle Cruise

July 30

Jungle Cruise director Jaume Collet-Serra is best known for making slightly dodgy actioners starring Liam Neeson (Unknown, Non-Stop, Run All Night) and half-decent horror movies (Orphan, The Shallows), so exactly which direction this family adventure based on a theme park ride will take remains to be seen.

Borrowing a page and premise from Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen (1951), Jungle Cruise stars the ever-charismatic Dwayne Johnson as a riverboat captain taking Emily Blunt’s scientist and her brother (Jack Whitehall) to visit the fabled Tree of Life in the early 20th century. Like the ride, the gang will have to watch out for wild animals along the way.

Unlike the ride, they’re competing with a German expedition team who are heading for the same goal. A solid supporting cast (Jesse Plemons, Édgar Ramírez, Paul Giamatti, Andy Nyman) and a script with rewrites by Michael Green (Logan, Blade Runner 2049) might mean Disney has another hit on its hands. Either way, a lovely boat trip with The Rock should be diverting at worst.

The Green Knight

July 30 (August 6 in the UK)

There have been several major Hollywood reimaginings of Arthurian legends in the 21st century. And every one of them has been thoroughly rotten for one reason or another. Luckily, David Lowery’s The Green Knight looks poised to break the trend with a trippy, but twistedly faithful, interpretation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Dev Patel stars as Sir Gawain, a chivalrous knight in King Arthur’s court who takes up the challenge of the mysterious Green Knight (The Witch’s Ralph Ineson under mountains of makeup): He’ll swing a blow and risk receiving a returning strike in a year’s time. Gawain attempts to cheat the devil by cutting his head clean off, yet when the Green Knight lifts his severed head from Camelot’s floors, things start to get weird. As clearly one of A24’s biggest visual fever dreams to date, this is one we’re highly anticipating.

Stillwater

July 30 (August 6 in the UK)

The Oscar winning-writer director behind Spotlight, Tom McCarthy, returns to the big screen with a fictional story that feels awfully similar to real world events. In this film, Matt Damon plays Bill, a proud father who saw his daughter Allison (Abigail Breslin) go abroad to study in France. After she’s accused of murdering her roommate by local authorities, the deeply Southern and deeply Oklahoman father must travel to a foreign land to try and prove his daughter’s innocence.

It obviously has some parallels with the Amanda Knox story but it also looks like a potentially hard hitting original drama with a talented cast. Fingers crossed.

The Suicide Squad

August 6 (July 30 in the UK)

You might have seen a Suicide Squad movie in the past, but you’ve never seen James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. With a liberating R-rating and an old school vision from the Guardians of the Galaxy director—who likens this to 1960s war capers, such as The Dirty Dozen or Where Eagles Dare—this Suicide Squad is absolutely stacked with talented actors wallowing in DC weirdness. One of the key players in this is Polka-Dot Man, another is a walking, talking Great White Shark, voiced by Sylvester Stallone. The villain is a Godzilla-sized starfish from space!

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So like it’s namesake, there’s probably a lot of characters who aren’t going to pull through this one. Even so, we can rest easy knowing that Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn will be as winsome than ever, and the likes of Idris Elba and John Cena will add some dynamic gravitas to the eccentric DC Extended Universe.

Free Guy

August 13

Perhaps pitched as The Truman Show for the video game age, Free Guy stars Ryan Reynolds as an easygoing, happy-go-lucky “Guy” who discovers… he’s a video game NPC living inside the equivalent of a Grand Theft Auto video game. This might explain why the bank he works at keeps getting robbed all the time. But as a virtual sprite who’s developed sentiency, he just might be able to win over enough gamers to not shoot him, and make love not war.

It’s an amusing premise, and hopefully director Shawn Levy can bring to it the same level of charm he achieved with the very first Night at the Museum movie.

Respect

August 13 (September 10 in the UK)

Before her passing in 2018, Aretha Franklin gave her blessing to Jennifer Hudson to play the Queen of Soul. Now that musical biopic is here with Hudson hitting the same high notes of the legend who sang such standards as “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” “Think,” “I Say a Little Prayer,” and of course “Respect.”

The film comes with a lot of expectation and a lot of pedigree, with Forest Whitaker and Audra McDonald in the cast. Most of all though, it comes with that rich musical library, which will surely take center stage. And if movies like Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman have taught us anything, it’s that moviegoers love when you play the hits.

Reminiscence

August 20 (August 18 in the UK)

Lisa Joy is one of the most exciting voices on television today. One-half of the creative team behind Westworld, Joy steps into her own with her directorial debut (and as the solo writer) in Reminiscence, a science fiction film with a reliably knotty premise.

Hugh Jackman plays Nick Bannister, a man who lives in a dystopian future where the oceans have risen and the cities are crumbling. In a declining Miami, he sells a risky new technology that allows you to relive your past (and possibly change it, at least fancifully?). But when he discovers the lost love of his life (Rebecca Ferguson) is cropping up in other peoples’ memories, which seem to implicate her in a murder, well… things are bound to start getting weird. We don’t know a whole lot more, but we cannot wait to find out more.

Candyman

August 27

Announced back in 2018, this spiritual sequel to Bernard Rose’s 1992 original is one of the most exciting and anticipated movies on the calendar. Produced by Jordan Peele and directed by Nia DaCosta, the film takes place in the present day and about a decade after Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects have been torn down. Watchmen’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays an up-and-coming visual artist who moves to the now-gentrified area with his partner and is inspired by the legend of Candyman, an apparition with a hook for a hand, to create new work about the subject. But in doing so, he risks unleashing a dark history and a new wave of violence.

Tony Todd, the star of the original movie, will also reprise his role in a reboot that aims to inspire fear for only the right reasons.

The Beatles: Get Back

August 27

Director Peter Jackson thinks folks have a poisoned idea about the Beatles in their final days. Often portrayed as divided and antagonistic toward one another during the recordings of their last albums, particularly Let It Be (which was their penultimate studio recording and final release), Jackson insists this misconception is influenced by Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 documentary named after the album.

So, after going through the reams of footage Lindsay-Hogg shot but didn’t use, Jackson has crafted this new documentary about the album’s recording which is intended to paint a fuller (and more feel-good) portrait of the band which changed the world. Plus, the music’s going to be great…

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

September 3

The greatest fighter in Marvel history finally hits the big screen with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Simu Liu (Kim’s Convenience) takes on the title role of a character destined for a bright future in the MCU. Marvel fans might note that the “Ten Rings” of the title is the same organization that first appeared all the way back in Iron Man, and Tony Leung will finally bring their villainous leader, The Mandarin, to life. Awkwafina of The Farewell and Crazy Rich Asians fame also stars. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12), this should deliver martial arts action unlike anything we’ve seen so far in the MCU.

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liesofthelonely · 5 years

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( VERA FARMIGA. FORTY-EIGHT. CIS FEMALE. SHE/HER. ) in texas, LESLIE CLÈMONTE is known to most as LES. they have been riding with the diablos for EIGHT YEARS. they originally from HAGERSTOWN, MARYLAND and the TAIL GUNNER is known to be very CONFRONTATIONAL & VULGAR but the other club members will tell you they are CONFIDENT & OPEN MINDED. as the years go by, they’ve gained a lot of respect in the club and around town. they rarely ever drive a car but when they do LIVIN' ON A PRAYER by BON JOVI is usually heard blasting. ( flannel shirts/blouses, chokers, ankle bracelet tattoo, fresh made pasta, afterglow & rainbow flags. )

quinn here again not jackie @prodigalscns, with a second babe ! she’s a ton different in both backstory & personality, at least i hope and try lol. here goes nothing, hope you love her as much as my first bb jackie !

hope abernathy. her birthname, though the opposite of what she was taught or ever stood for. the abernathy’s were more than negative, they were horrible, if not the worst. but nothing of that was shown to the world, only behind curtains. they were less than fit to be parents, but no neighbors worried in a fancy neighborhood where the police were rather avoided than called in. more times than a handful hope was found home alone, she was a child the two called an accident, she was unwanted and lord did she realize that soon enough.

they didn’t bother teaching her how to talk, to walk or any of the basics. she was considered lucky if she got fed, diapers changed and some attention. next to nominated as the worst parents of the century, erika & pete’s relationship wasn’t that stable either. arguments and fights were normal to say the least, yet they lacked the ability to walk out in fear of their career status outside the house.

needless to say, hope didn’t have any playdates either, there was no socializing for the toddler, her vocabulary was nearly non existent when she started daycare. she doesn’t remember much, but due to her fighting parents being her only example, hope had no issue with/seeing the red flags in hurting other kids.

that trait of anger never left, no matter how kind her teachers were in both primary school and high school. her vocabulary had grown, and not entirely in a positive light. she picked up swear words faster than anything else and she didn’t see the bad in pushing anybody who picked at her down to the ground. it wasn’t til high school other kids liked the roughness in her, how careless she was and she got drawn towards the kind that liked creating havoc as much as she did.

after school they’d crash at the town’s dump, smash in old cars with baseball bats and pretend the world didn’t exist for a while, each of the kids she hung with living through their own version of hell. hope had a hard time opening up, but over time she learned about trust and felt safe enough to fall. the small group of five, hope included, promised to be there through the worst shit. they all knew hope's anger issues weren’t just about a set curfew or a concert being canceled after failing another test, it was different and much more underlying than they’d ever want to experience.

flash forward to six months before graduation, at the age of 18, it was when she met the love of her life at another average party in town thrown by students. although, nothing was average about that night. allegra was more to her at first glance than she could ever put into words, and still to this day she’s unable to express herself vocally about the beauty that she calls her wife for the past twenty seven years now.

it was odd, allegra possessed something her friends didn’t have and hope was hooked for life. from the moment she got called ‘leslie’ instead of hope, her heart dropped. something clicked, in a way she’d never heard about. love was unfamiliar to the blonde, in a romantic way, definitely a familial one and the one of friendship she only discovered recently in comparison to most kids.

hope liked being called leslie, it was new. new but right. little did she knew a whole lot of new was awaiting for her after graduation. in those six months allegra had become her girlfriend, it was love at first sight after all, a secret to her parents. til graduation day. something she never should’ve done. or done sooner. their daughter being a lesbian? an utter disgrace and she got spat in her face in utter disrespect by both her mother and father. it broke her heart as much it infuriated her. there were no parents to be seen at the graduation, but her friends and girlfriend cheered twice the decibel in order to make her feel loved.

two hours later, the two drove by her house in order for leslie to reason with her parents, but there the mess was; her entire wardrobe spread all over the driveway, parents screaming from inside the house. plates smashing, if not vases. for the first time it scared the shit out of leslie and she couldnt’ve picked up her clothes faster to get outta there. she was not welcome anymore. she had never been welcome. and now she had confirmation, she made sure to never return to the house anymore.

for a couple of months she crashed at allegra’s place, where she had been welcomed by her caretakers from the moment she had set foot into the place like never before. it was an experience leslie needed more than she could say, the comfort of a real home, before the two took off to live in an r.v.

school didn’t matter to leslie, she built a passion for art and found a talent hidden in drawing tattoo designs. something she later made her profession of alongside of conning people with her allegra. her girlfriend she got to call her wife at the age of twenty one, forever married in las vegas.

over the course of twenty one years they drove through all fifty states, disguised to the public, unclothed behind doors. taking in stray animals here and there, meeting trustworthy people along the way as much as people leslie had no fear of landing a right hook on. she did everything in order to protect her wife, allegra being right there to keep leslie from crossing a line.

nine years ago they moved to newton, finally feeling like settling down and buy a house. for a year they decided to ‘keep calm’, but danger soon enough called for them and they joined the diablos without a second of hesitation. and here we are, the two still very active in the gang as much as out of sight to the gang. they love each other passionately, danger keeping them together nice and safe.

#rideintro.#&&. intro #abuse tw #child abuse tw #/ i'm not going into details but still putting the tw there !#also this got long wtf i applaud u with love if you decide to read the whole thing

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fuckyeahwomenfilmdirectors · 6 years

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Leave No Trace dir. Debra Granik (2018)

In the years since Debra Granik made her Oscar nominated Winter’s Bone, Jennifer Lawrence, the star of that film, racked up 4 Oscar nominations, starred in two major film franchises and had time to take a year long break in between projects. Granik meanwhile released one film, an underseen documentary called Heart of a Dog. Despite the massive star launching success of Winter’s Bone, Leave No Trace is Granik’s first feature film since 2010, a painful reminder of how hard it can be for even successful directors to keep making films.

I missed out on Leave No Trace in theatres and I started watching it at home in a bad mood. I had one idea of how I thought the film was going to go but as the minutes passed and I kept watching my mood dissipated. If I was foolish enough to think that Leave No Trace would be a variation on a theme I had seen many times before, the actual film was something completely different proving that not only is Granik a wonderful director, but she’s also a talented writer full of gentle surprises.

In the state park around Portland, Sam (Thomasin McKenzie) a 13 year old girl lives with her father Will (Ben Foster). The two live a simple life, an idyllic version of what it means to be a hermit: they forage for food, live a paired down lifestyle so that they can easily keep their campsite moving, and Will spends a lot of one on one time taking care of and nurturing his daughter. As soon becomes clear though Will isn’t keeping his daughter in the woods because of some higher purpose. He’s no paranoid survivalist or eco warrior. A former war vet with PTSD, living in the woods completely isolated from everyone but his daughter is the best way he can manage his trauma. To buy anything they can’t scavenge Will illegally re-sells the meds he would need if he wasn’t living in the forest.

Sam and Will’s lives come crashing down when Sam is spotted by a park ranger, she and Will are caught, and the two of them end up in the care of social services. And this is where the previous harmony between father and daughter begins to be painfully teased apart. Sam is a loving and obedient child, but she’s one that is entirely without her father’s lived in experiences, his overwhelming pain at loud noises, enclosed spaces, and mistrust of other people. As Will painfully struggles to adapt to a more conventional life, Sam begins to thrive.

If there is one thing that comes to mind while watching this film it is grace. There are some movies that explore the crueler aspects of humanity and I love those, but Leave No Trace is populated by people who have suffered at the hands of cruel people but who have come out the other side with kindness and compassion. Time and again Granik’s film surprised me with its gentleness. This isn’t a cynical film or one where goodness is sneered at. Here is a film where government bureaucrats, from social workers to park rangers, are well-meaning people doing their best. When Will is forced to take a computerized psychiatric test and is overwhelmed the man running the test prints out the questionnaire and goes through the test at a pace he can cope with, one question at a time. A social worker assigned to Sam and Will goes above and beyond to find them a home close to nature, and while a Christmas tree farm where Will has to routinely slaughter trees is a far cry from the majestic forest he once lived in, the effort put into assuring Will and Sam’s comfort is obvious.

But the biggest act of empathy comes from Sam, played by Thomasin McKenzie. Both she and Foster are really wonderful here. A lot of Will’s stripped down dialogue is due to Foster’s influence as he asked Granik to remove many of his lines. It’s a choice that works. While I’ve seen plenty of other filmmakers use quickly edited flashbacks to simulate the symptoms of PTSD, there’s no such overt devices employed here. A scene where Will, overhearing a helicopter, crouches down and runs his hands over his head is able to communicate the depth of his pain by simple reaction. But McKenzie as his young daughter is something else entirely. Proving once again that one of Granik’s gifts is an eye for undiscovered talent (she also cast a pre-fame Vera Farmiga in her debut film, Down to the Bone) McKenzie is one of those rare child actors with an unnerving gift for being completely natural and still in front of the camera. She’s utterly mesmerizing as she guides us on Sam’s journey as she makes the painful realization that all children come to with their parents: that the people they trusted to nurture and guide them, the people who they thought knew all the answers and made all the correct decisions are just humans after all, with the same frailties and weakness as everyone else.

Throughout the movie it is clear that Will loves Sam deeply, but what also becomes clear to Sam is that his love isn’t enough. Not enough for him to magically overcome his trauma or to allow them to live their lives in a way that is best for her. When it comes then the end is painful, but also, in fitting with the rest of the movie, it is incredibly gentle. In a way that feels sincere to both characters and sincere to the tone of the movie Sam accepts the way that her father has failed her with an understanding beyond her years. It’s an enviable action and one that made me wish that we could all have the wisdom and the strength to be so forgiving in the face of another person’s weakness.

#FYWFD reviews #Leave No Trace #2018 #USA #Debra Granik #thomasin mckenzie #Ben Foster #Post 2000 series #Jennifer Lawrence

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dottiep · 6 years

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Modern Love (Amazon, awaiting premiere date)

The individual episodic anthology is based on The New York Times' column of the same name and has attracted some serious star power. Anne Hathaway, Tina Fey, Dev Patel, John Slattery, Andy Garcia, Cristin Milioti, Olivia Cooke, Brandon Victor Dixon and Catherine Keener, among others, have signed on to star in the eight-episode, half-hour anthology that will explore love in its multitude forms, including sexual, romantic, familial, platonic and self-love.

Central Park Five (Netflix, awaiting premiere date)

Yes, Netflix is the lone outlet to score multiple slots on this list — but given it’s the volume of content and talent attached, it's easily justified. With a lineup that easily could have seen RuPaul comedy AJ and the Queen, Idris Elba's Turn Up Charlie and even Tiffany Haddish/Ali Wong animated comedy Tuca and Bertie make this list, Netflix also may have its first Shonda Rhimes show in 2019. Given its impressive pipeline, we're reserving the final slot on this list for Ava DuVernay's Central Park Five, the four-episode narrative series chronicling the notorious case of five teenagers of color who were convicted of a rape they did not commit. DuVernay's follow-up to Oscar-nominated doc 13th is exec produced by Oprah Winfrey and boasts a cast that includes Michael K. Williams, Vera Farmiga, John Leguizamo, Felicity Huffman, Niecy Nash and Aunjanue Ellis, among others.

#tina fey #anne hathaway #catherine keener #ava duvernay #michael k williams #vera farmiga #niecy nash

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crispsevans · 6 years

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Films in 2019

filmpage - filmlist - suggest a film

CAN CONTAIN SPOILERS.

Ralph Breaks The Internet (2018)

seen in theatre production country: USA OV: english seen version: german Starring: John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Gal Gadot Director: Phil Johnston, Rich Moore Plot summary: Six years after the events of "Wreck-It Ralph," Ralph (Reilly) and Vanellope (Silverman), now friends, discover a wi-fi router in their arcade, leading them into a new adventure.

Review: I freaking loved this movie. It’s funny and heartbreaking and the parallels to our lives nowadays regarding the internet are spot on. I was invited to watch this movie before it actually arrives in theatres over here in Germany, so I was very lucky to see it beforehand. It’s a good laugh, a good cry and contains a life lesson, like every disney movie has. Rating: 4,5/5

The Front Runner (2018)

seen in theatre production country: USA OV: english seen version: german Starring: Hugh Jackman, Vera Farmiga, J.K. Simmons Director: Jason Reitman Plot summary: American Senator Gary Hart's (Jackman) presidential campaign in 1988 is derailed when he's caught in a scandalous love affair.

Review: Opened last thursday and is almost cancelled in all of the theatres over here, because it’s running really bad apparently. I have to say, I am not surprised, because this is not a movie for everyone. You need to have a thing for political movies to enjoy this one. I did very much, even though there were a few parts that kind of made this movie unnecessarily long. What I also didn’t like about the movie was that it’s really superficial. It’s only scratching the surface of what could be a very interesting storyline. I know it’s based on real events, but I believe there’s more to tell to the story. The depth of the characters sadly lacked a ton. Jackman’s and also Farmiga’s performances, however, were strong and I enjoyed watching this film whatsoever. Rating: 3/5

Le Flic De Belleville (2018)

seen in theatre production country: France OV: french / english / spanish seen version: german / spanish Starring: Omar Sy, Luiz Guzmán, Biyouna Director: Rachid Bouchareb Plot summary: When a childhood friend from Miami gets killed after he comes to warn of encroaching drug gangs, Baaba (Sy) moves to Miami and teams up with a local officer to bring down the criminals.

Review: It was Sneak Monday you guys and what can I say - I was so confused when the production companies showed off their logos in the beginning, because I’ve never heard of one of them in my whole life before. I’m not really into french movies, don’t really know why to be honest. I still had no idea what this movie was about, not even when the title (ger. ‘Belleville Cop’) was revealed. But it was pretty much self-explanatory after a short time into the movie. It was very entertaining, but it reminded me on ‘CHIPS’ - another movie I’ve seen in a Sneak Preview a few years ago. Had some good laughs and I was pleasantly surprised, it’s nothing special though. No special screenplay or camera work, no special acting achievement or anything. Hence my rating. Rating: 2,5/5

Allied (2016)

streamed on Amazon Prime production country: USA / UK OV: french / english seen version: OV Starring: Brad Pitt, Marion Cotillard, Jared Harris Director: Robert Zemeckis Plot summary: In 1942, a Canadian intelligence officer (Pitt) in North Africa encounters a female French Resistance fighter (Cotillard) on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. When they reunite in London, their relationship is tested by the pressures of war.

Review: I’ve been wanting to see this since I first saw the trailer in the cinema years ago, but no one wanted to watch it with me or we had no time to watch it. So I had to wait a little more than two years to see this. Luckily, Amazon sent me an E-Mail with its 99ct - offers and ‘Allied’ was one of the movies I actually rented for 99ct on christmas eve. But I just watched it today, because I wasn’t in the mood before - I really had to watch it now, because otherwise I would’ve wasted 99ct for nothing and actually missed a really good movie. The trailer gave away very much about the storyline, still I pretty much enjoyed watching the movie. It does create suspense and it builds up to a very tragic ending. I cried a lot during the end, so if you know you’re a crying baby during movies and you want to avoid that, this is not for you. Very dramatic, but not the strongest performances by Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard. Saw both of them delivering stronger performances in other movies, but they did have great chemistry on screen. I also loved the costume design, no wonder this movie was nominated for several awards in this category. Rating: 4/5

#films2019 #reviews

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localdstvinstaller · 5 years

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Watch the 2019 Emmy Awards winners on DStv

DStv viewers are the real winners, with Game of Thrones, Chernobyl, and new seasons of Succession, Barry and more

With the trophies handed out, and the paparazzi still going nuts of Zendaya’s (Euphoria) figure-hugging emerald green gown she wore to the Emmy Awards, DStv customers have a longer-than-ever watchlist of award-winning TV shows and limited series.

The Handmaid’s Tale, based on Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel, earned nominations for directing, costume design and its guest stars. The full boxset of Season 3 is available for you to watch on Catch Up and DStv Now. If you’re more inclined to lighter viewing, the latest season of The Good Place, nominated for Oustanding Comedy Series, is available on DStv Now. And of course, one of Africa’s proudest exports, Trevor Noah of The Daily Show, can be found on DStv Now alone with The Late Late Show with James Corden. Both were up for Outstanding Variety Talk Series. Speaking on reality series, fans are watching the latest seasons of Emmy-nominated The Amazing Race and The Voice on Catch Up and DStv Now. More Emmy-nominated series coming to DStv in the near future:

The Twilight Zone (coming to M-Net and Showmax in October) How to Get Away With Murder (new season coming next year) This Is Us (new season coming next year) Limited series you’ll love Just a few of the limited series that came express from the US to DStv include:

Chernobyl – which won Best Limited Series and is still available to binge-watch on Showmax, in case you missed Jared Harris’s incredible performance that earned him a nomination in for Oustanding Lead Actor. Escape at Dannemora – Another nominee for Best Limited Series, this thrilling series based on a true story was directed by Ben Stiller, starring Benicio del Torro and Patricia Arquette. Sharp Objects – Amy Addams and Patricia Clarkson in the unforgettable, haunting adaptation of the book of the same title by Gillian Flynn is also available to stream on Showmax.

DStv documentary fans were also served award-winning content:

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (M-Net and Showmax) Leaving Neverland (M-Net and Showmax) Jane Fonda in Five Acts (M-Net) Last but not least, of this year’s Emmy Awards nominees and winners, DStv viewers have watched every season of these amazing series:

Game of Thrones House of Cards Veep FULL LIST OF WINNERS Outstanding Drama Series

Better Call Saul (M-Net City) Bodyguard Game of Thrones – WINNER (M-Net and Showmax) Killing Eve Ozark Pose Succession (Showmax) This Is Us (M-Net) Outstanding Comedy Series

Barry (Showmax) Fleabag – WINNER The Good Place (M-Net) The Marvelous Mrs Maisel Russian Doll Schitt’s Creek Veep (M-Net and Showmax) Lead Actress in a Drama Series

Emilia Clarke, Game of Thrones (M-Net and Showmax) Jodie Comer, Killing Eve – WINNER Viola Davis, How To Get Away with Murder (1Magic) Laura Linney, Ozark Mandy Moore, This Is Us (M-Net) Sandra Oh, Killing Eve Robin Wright, House of Cards (M-Net) Directing for a Drama Series

David Benioff, DB Weiss for Game of Thrones, The Iron Throne (M-Net and Showmax) David Nutter for Game of Thrones, The Last of the Starks (M-Net and Showmax) Miguel Sapochnik for Game of Thrones, The Long Night (M-Net and Showmax) Daina Reid for The Handmaid’s Tale, Holly (M-Net and Showmax) Lisa Bruhlmann for Killing Eve, Desperate Times Jason Bateman for Ozark, Reparations – WINNER

Lead Actor in a Drama Series

Jason Bateman, Ozark Sterling K Brown, This Is Us (M-Net) Kit Harington, Game of Thrones (M-Net and Showmax) Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul (M-Net City) Billy Porter (Pose) – WINNER Milo Ventimiglia, This Is Us (M-Net) Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

Gwendoline Christie, Game of Thrones (M-Net and Showmax) Lena Headey, Game of Thrones (M-Net and Showmax) Sophie Turner, Game of Thrones (M-Net and Showmax) Maisie Williams, Game of Thrones (M-Net and Showmax) Fiona Shaw, Killing Eve Julia Garner, Ozark – WINNER Writing for a Drama Series

Peter Gould, Thomas Schnauz for Better Call Saul, Winner (M-Net City) Jed Mercurio for Bodyguard, Episode 1 David Benioff, DB Weiss for Game of Thrones, The Iron Throne (M-Net and Showmax) Emerald Fennell for Killing Eve, Nice And Neat Jesse Armstrong for Succession, Nobody Is Ever Missing – WINNER (Showmax) Bruce Miller, Kira Snyder for The Handmaid’s Tale, Holly (M-Net and Showmax)

Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

Jonathan Banks, Better Call Saul (M-Net City) Giancarlo Esposito, Better Call Saul (M-Net City) Alfie Allen, Game of Thrones (M-Net and Showmax) Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Game of Thrones (M-Net and Showmax) Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones) – WINNER (M-Net and Showmax) Michael Kelly, House of Cards (M-Net) Chris Sullivan, This Is Us (M-Net) Outstanding Variety Talk Series

The Daily Show (Comedy Central, catch the latest episode on DStv Now) Full Frontal With Samantha Bee Jimmy Kimmel Live! – Comedy Central Last Week Tonight With John Oliver – WINNER (M-Net) The Late Late Show With James Corden – M-Net The Late Show With Stephen Colbert Outstanding Variety Sketch Series

At Home With Amy Sedaris Documentary Now! Drunk History – Comedy Central I Love You, America With Sarah Silverman Saturday Night Live – WINNER Who Is America? – M-Net Outstanding Limited Series

Chernobyl – WINNER (M-Net and Showmax) Escape at Dannemora (M-Net and Showmax) Fosse/Verdon Sharp Objects (M-Net and Showmax) When They See Us Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie

Amy Adams, Sharp Objects (M-Net and Showmax) Patricia Arquette, Escape at Dannemora (M-Net and Showmax) Aunjanue Ellis, When They See Us Joey King, The Act Niecy Nash, When They See Us Michelle Williams, Fosse/Verdon – WINNER Outstanding Television Movie

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch – WINNER Brexit (BBC First) Deadwood (M-Net) King Lear My Dinner with Hervé (M-Net Movies Premiere) Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie

Mahershala Ali, True Detective (M-Net and Showmax) Benicio Del Toro, Escape at Dannemora (M-Net and Showmax) Hugh Grant, A Very English Scandal (M-Net and Showmax) Jared Harris, Chernobyl (M-Net and Showmax) Jharrel Jerome, When They See Us – WINNER Sam Rockwell, Fosse/Verdon Writing for a Limited Series or Movie

Russell T Davies, A Very English Scandal (M-Net and Showmax) Craig Mazin, Chernobyl – WINNER (M-Net and Showmax) Brett Johnson, Michael Tolkin for Escape at Dannemora, Episode 6 (M-Net and Showmax) Steven Levenson, Joel Fields for Fosse/Verdon, Providence Ava DuVernay, Michael Starrbury for When They See Us, Part Four Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie

Ben Whishaw A Very English Scandal – WINNER (M-Net and Showmax) Stellan Skarsgård Chernobyl (M-Net and Showmax) Paul Dano Escape at Dannemora (M-Net and Showmax) John Leguizamo, When They See Us Michael K Williams, When They See Us Asante Blackk, When They See Us Directing for a Limited Series or Movie

Stephen Frears A Very English Scandal (M-Net and Showmax) Johan Renck, Chernobyl – WINNER (M-Net and Showmax) Ben Stiller, Escape at Dannemora (M-Net and Showmax) Jessica Yu for Fosse/Verdon, Glory Thomas Kail for Fosse/Version, Who’s Got the Pain Ava DuVernay for When They See Us Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie

Emily Watson, Chernobyl (M-Net and Showmax) Margaret Qualley, Fosse/Verdon Patricia Clarkson, Sharp Objects (M-Net and Showmax) Patricia Arquette, The Act – WINNER Marsha Stephanie Blake, When They See Us Vera Farmiga, When They See Us Outstanding Reality Competition Series

Amazing Race (M-Net) American Ninja Warrior Nailed It RuPaul’s Drag Race – WINNER Top Chef The Voice (M-Net) Lead Actress in a Comedy Series

Christina Applegate, Dead To Me Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep (M-Net and Showmax) Natasha Lyonne, Russian Doll Catherine O’Hara, Schitt’s Creek Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Fleabag – WINNER Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

Anthony Anderson, Black-ish (1Magic) Don Cheadle, Black Monday (1Magic) Ted Danson, The Good Place (M-Net) Michael Douglas, The Kominsky Method Bill Hader, Barry – WINNER (Showmax) Eugene Levy (Schitt’s Creek)

Directing for a Comedy Series

Alec Berg for Barry, The Audition (Showmax) Alec Berg for Barry, ronny/lily (Showmax) Harry Bradbeer for Fleabag, Episode 1 – WINNER Mark Cendrowski for The Big Bang Theory, Stockholm Syndrome Dan Palladino for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, We’re Going to the Catskills! Amy Sherman-Palladino for The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, All Alone Writing for a Comedy Series

Alec Berg, Bill Hader for Barry, ronny/lily (Showmax) Phoebe Waller-Bridge for Fleabag, Episode 1 – WINNER Maya Erskine, Anna Konkle for Pen15, Anna Ishii-Peters (Showmax) Leslye Headland, Natasha Lyonne, Amy Poehler for Russian Doll, Nothing In This World Is Easy Allison Silverman for Russian Doll, A Warm Body Josh Siegal, Dylan Morgan for The Good Place, Janet(s) (M-Net) David Mandel for Veep (M-Net and Showmax) Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series

Sarah Goldberg, Barry (Showmax) Sian Clifford, Fleabag Olivia Colman, Fleabag Betty Gilpin, GLOW Kate McKinnon, Saturday Night Live Alex Borstein, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel – WINNER Marin Hinkle, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Anna Chlumsky, Veep (M-Net and Showmax)

Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

Stephen Root, Barry (Showmax) Henry Winkler, Barry (Showmax) Anthony Carrigan, Barry (Showmax) Alan Arkin, The Kominsky Method Tony Shalhoub, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel – WINNER Tony Hale, Veep (M-Net and Showmax) Guest Actor in a Drama Series

Michael McKean, Better Call Saul (M-Net) Bradley Whitford, The Handmaid’s Tale – WINNER (M-Net and Showmax) Glynn Turman, How To Get Away With Murder (1Magic) Ron Cephas, This Is Us (M-Net) Michael Angarano, This Is Us (M-Net) Kumail Nanjiani, The Twilight Zone (Coming to M-Net and Showmax in October) Guest Actress in a Drama Series

Jessica Lange, American Horror Story: Apocalypse (M-Net) Carice van Houten, Game of Thrones (M-Net and Showmax) Cherry Jones, The Handmaid’s Tale – WINNER (M-Net and Showmax) Cicely Tyson, How To Get Away With Murder (1Magic) Laverne Cox, Orange Is the New Black (M-Net) Phylicia Rashad, This Is Us (M-Net) Guest Actor in a Comedy Series

Luke Kirby, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel – WINNER Rufus Sewell, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Adam Sandler, Saturday Night Live John Mulaney, Saturday Night Live Matt Damon, Saturday Night Live Robert De Niro, Saturday Night Live Peter MacNicol, Veep (M-Net and Showmax) Guest Actress in a Comedy Series

Fiona Shaw, Fleabag Kristin Scott Thomas, Fleabag Maya Rudolph, The Good Place (M-Net, watch the latest episodes on DStv Now) Jane Lynch, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel – WINNER Emma Thompson, Saturday Night Live Sandra Oh, Saturday Night Live Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special

Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (M-Net Movies Premiere and Showmax) Jane Fonda in Five Acts (M-Net Movies Premiere) Leaving Neverland – WINNER (M-Net and Showmax) Love, Gilda Minding the Gap What is DStv Now? It’s the online version of DStv. If you can’t be at home to watch your favourite shows via your decoder, visit now.dstv.com and watch DStv on your laptop, tablet or phone. It’s no extra cost to all DStv subscribers (just remember to keep an eye on your data).

Visit https://localdstvinstaller.co.za/ for DSTV installations

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ri-vyooblog · 5 years

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When They See Us

This critically acclaimed Netflix original GEM was created, directed, co-written by Ava DuVernay. She's the wonderfully talented African American director behind the Academy Award nominated autobiographical film "Selma" (2014, Oscar nominated documentary "13th" (2016), and the first black woman to direct a film with a production budget between $150 and $250 million in Disney's 2018 "A Wrinkle in Time".

"When They See Us" is a 4 part episodic series chronicling the 1989 Central Jogger Park Case. The cast is an ensemble of talented actors including:

Asante Blackk

Blair Underwood

Joshua Jackson

Vera Farmiga

Niecy Nash

Michael K. Williams

John Leguizamo

Chris Chalk

Jharrel Jerome

DuVernay thoughtfully depicts the horror the five young men of color went through, being illegally coerced into false confessions. The corruption of the judicial system is shown in each episode, escalating as the story unfolds. I tip my hat specifically to the portrayal of Korey Wise played by Jharrel Jerome. I hope he receives an award! The entire cast and crew deserve recognition for triumphantly telling the chilling tale of the hell these five young men suffered for being minorities. If you watch this series, it will likely disturb you and it should! These young men's rights were entirely ignored in ways you couldn't imagine. Parts of Episode 4 alone angered and sadden more than the previous 3 combined. I'd love to do a comparison with the documentary that was released in 2012.

I give this series 2 👍🏾👍🏾 WAY UP!! Great Job!!

#netflix review #when they see us #series review #ava duvernay

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weekendwarriorblog · 5 years

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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND June 21, 2019 - WILD ROSE, TOY STORY 4, CHILD’S PLAY, ANNA

Before I get to this week’s usual column, I want to draw some extra attention to a movie opening this weekend, NEON’s WILD ROSE, a terrific musical drama starring newcomer

Jessie Buckley as Rose-Lynn, a single mother from Glasgow, Scotland who has just got out of prison after spending a year there. She’s a talented singer who has big dreams of being a country star at Nashville’s Grand Ol’ Opry, but she constantly has to choose between this dream career and her two young children.

Directed by Tom Harper (“Peaky Blinders”), the film is pretty amazing, especially to watch Rose-Lynn’s story unfold and how much energy Buckley brings to the role. It’s almost impossible not to love Rose-Lynn’s feisty take-no-shit attitude, which really drives the film but it’s also nice to see Julie Walters as her mother, who is tired of her daughter neglecting her two kids.

This really has been amazing year for musical films between Rocketman, this and the upcoming Yesterday, and I hope that continues since I love inspirational music films. I really hope people seek this one, although I do worry that in some of the places where country music flourishes, audiences might have trouble with the difficult Glaswegian brogue, though I do hope that isn’t a hindrance, since the movie is quite wonderful.

Rating: 8.5/10

Now, let’s get to the other new movies in wide release, and I’m afraid to say that I don’t have a ton to say about any of them other than my actual reviews. Obviously, Disney and Pixar Animation’s TOY STORY 4 (Disney-Pixar) is going to be the big movie of the weekend, and I’ve already reviewed it and loved it. I won’t have a chance to see Orion Pictures and U.A. Releasing’s remake of CHILD’S PLAY until late Wednesday night, but I’m a little trepidatious of it other than the fact it stars the wonderful Aubrey Plaza. (MY REVIEW of Child’s Play is now live.)I guess we’ll see how it goes, but my review will be on The Beat on Thursday at noon. Lastly, there’s Luc Besson’s new action movie ANNA (Lionsgate), starring Sasha Luss from Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, which I actually won’t be able to see before Thursday night but I hope to have a review of that over at The Beat, too.

I talk more about the upcoming wide releases over at The Beat, so do check that column out as well, but if you’re still here, than you know that there’s lots of other stuff to city, especially if you’re lucky enough to live in New York and L.A.

LIMITED RELEASES

Some really great docs opening this weekend, and I want to focus on those first. First up is Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’s TONI MORRISON: THE PIECES I AM (Magnolia), an amazing doc about the influential and inspirational author of books like “Beloved,” “The Bluest Eye” and “Sula,” none of which I’ve read, but I’m definitely more intrigued after reading about the influence she’s had on black culture as well as promoting black writers since her editing career began in the late ‘40s. The movie isn’t just about her history or her process, though, and in some ways it reminded me of Raoul Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro to show how important Morrison has been to literature and the Civil Rights movement. This movie opens Friday at the Film Forum and Film at Lincoln Center in New York and Pacific Arclight and Landmark 12 in L.A., and I highly recommend it. I’m hoping Magnolia will be able to get this out there, and it looks like they have a fairly robust release plan, so definitely seek it out if it plays in your city.

Equally enticing is Oliver Murray’s doc THE QUIET ONE (Sundance Selects), which takes a look inside the amazing archival efforts made by Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman. I’m a pretty big Stones fan and have been for decades and the access Murray gets to his archive of pictures and films really helps painting a picture of his time with the Stones. While I think this will be more interest to Stones fans than anyone else, I do recommend it. It will open at the IFC CenterFriday, as well as in Boston, L.A. and San Francisco and then will be on VOD on June 28. Both of the opened played at the recent Tribeca Film Festival.

It’s kind of crazy that Jordan Roberts’ BURN YOUR MAPS (Vertical Entertainment) (based on the short story by Robyn Joy Leff) premiered at the Toronto Film Festival way back in 2016 and it’s finally being released now, but hey, it happens. It stars Jacob Tremblay as an 8-year-old boy -- Tremblay is now 12 – named Wes who has dreams of becoming a Mongolian goat herder, befriending an Indian immigrant (Suraj Sharma from Life of Pi) and they travel to Mongolia together. Also starring Vera Farmiga and Virginia Madsen, it will be in select cities and On Demand.

Matthias Schoenaerts, Léa Seydoux, Peter Simonischek, Max von Sydow and Colin Firth (woo, what a cast!) star in Thomas Winterberg’s THE COMMAND (Saban Films). It tells the story of the Russian flagship nuclear submarine K-1413 KURSK that sank to the bottom of the Barents Sea in August 2000, and like Saban’s other films, it will get a nomination theatrical release but mainly be seen on VOD.

Let’s get to some fun genre stuff….

A new horror anthology worth checking out is NIGHTMARE CINEMA (Good Deed Entertainment), which premiered at last year’s Fantasia Fest. The premise that ties the five chapters together involves five strangers who come to an abandoned theater to face their greatest fears with Mickey Rourke playing a mysterious character called the Projectionist. The episodes of the anthology are directed by Juan of the Dead’s Alejandro Brugués; the legendary Joe Dante; David Slade, who has directed “Hannibal,” “American Gods” and “Black Mirror” (including Bandersnatch!); Japanese filmmaker Ryuhei Kitamura and the man who put it all together, Mick Garris. It will be in theaters and On Demand Friday.

A late addition to the weekend is Israeli director Guilhad Emilio Schenker’s Madam Yankelova’s Fine Literature Club (Rock Salt Releasing), which premiered at Fantastic Fest last year. It’s about a woman named Sophie who is getting older but who only has to seduce one more victim in order to achieve the rank of Lordess.

Lastly, there’s Carolina Hellsgård’s “post-apocalyptic feminist gothic fairy tale” Endzeit Ever After (Juno Films) follows two young women who develop a friendship while trying to survive after zombies overrun the Earth as they’re stranded in the Black Forest. This opens at the IFC Center Friday and in L.A. at the Laemlle on June 28.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Streaming Weds on Netflix (and opening at the IFC Center in New York) is Petra Costa’s documentary THE EDGE OF DEMOCRACY, which I’m mainly interested since I have family in Brazil who are quite political and this looks at what happened that cause two Brazilian presidencies to unravel.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

On Friday, Metrograph Pictures releases a 4k restoration of Jack Hazan’s 1974 film A Bigger Splash, an intimate portrait of British artist David Hockney at a pivotal time in his life after he breaks up with his boyfriend and muse Peter Schlesinger and is trying to complete his painting “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)”, which sold last year at auction for $93 million (!!!) The Metrograph will have all sorts of guests and QnAs at the screenings of the movie over the weekend.

This week’s Late Nites at Metrograph is the influential Japanese thriller Battle Royale (2000), while Playtime: Family Matinees will screen Tim Burton’s 1995 family comedy Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. Over the weekend, the Metrograph will also screen two films by Juleen Compton, 1965’s Stranded and 1966’s The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean, neither which I’ve seen so I don’t have much to add.

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Besides the Weds. matinee of Alfred Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain (1966), starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews, the New Bev is doing a double feature of Lady in Cement (1968) and Pretty in Poison (1968) on Weds and Thursday, then Paul Mazursky’s Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) with Cactus Flower (1969) on Friday and Saturday. Friday’s Midnight movie is Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, while Saturday’s Midnight is something called Candy (1968), co-written by Buck Henry. The KIDDEE MATINEE this weekend is one of my personal childhood favorites Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), starring Dick Van Dyke. Sunday and Monday, the theater is showing the Shirley MacLaine/Bob Fosse film Sweet Charity (1969) and Monday is a matinee of Ocean’s 11. No, not the one from 1960 as that would screw up the Bev’s late ‘60s motif.. it’s Steven Soderbergh’s movie from 2001 starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and Matt Damon. The Tuesday Grindhouse is off next week replaced by a double feature of Peter Sellers and Goldie Hawn’s There’s a Girl in My Soup (1970) and Don Knotts’ The Love God? (1969).

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

Out in Astoria, they’re beginning the series Grit and Glitter: Before and After Stonewall in conjunction with the 50th anniversary with screenings of Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures (1962) with two George Kuchar shorts on Friday, Tony Richardson’s 1961 film A Taste of Honey and Kon Ichikawa’s 1963 An Actor’s Revenge on Saturday and Shirley Clarke’s Portrait of Jason (1967) and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1968 film Taorema on Sunday. (All of these are screened separately with separate entrance fees.) On Saturday and Sunday, MOMI screens a special The Muppet Movie 40thAnniversary Celebration, as well as a screening of 1979’s The Muppets Go Hollywood on Saturday. As part of the See It Big! Action series on Saturday, they’re showing Shaft director Gordon Parks, Jr.’s 1974 film Three the Hard Way.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

A new restoration of Jennie Livingston’s 1991 film Paris is Burning continues to play as part of Pride Month and the 50thanniversary of Stonewall, and Alain Resnais’Last Year at Marienbad will continue to play through Thursday. This weekend’s Film Forum Jr. is Gurinder Chada’s 2002 film Bend It Like Beckham starring a very young Keira Knightley. Next Tuesday night, the Film Forum is screening a double feature of Dean Hargrove’s 2015 film Tap World along with his 2004 short Tap Heat.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

On Thursday, the never-ending Scorsese/Cassavetes series continues with Faces (1968) and Mean Streets (1973) and maybe this is the end of that series. Friday night is a screening of Eric Rohmer’s La Collectionneuse (1967) and on Sunday, the Art Directors Guild Film Society screens Steven Spielberg’s 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

AERO (LA):

On Thursday, Cinematic Void is screening a double feature of Brian De Palma’s The Phantom of the Paradise (1974) and Dwight Little’s 1989 The Phantom of the Opera (with Little in person). Friday starts a Tying the Coen Brothers Together series in conjunction with Adam Layman’s fantastic Coen Brothers book with double features of No Country for Old Men and Blood Simple on Friday, The Big Lebowski and The Man Who Wasn’t There on Saturday and Fargo with A Serious Man on Sunday. Adam Nayman will be in person for the first two and actor Fred Melamed will be there for the latter.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

On Friday, the Quad premieres a new 2k restoration of Greta Schiller and Robert Rosenberg’s 1984 film Before Stonewall as well as a new series called Queer Kino playing through June 27, including Frank Ripploh’s German film Taxi zum Klo (1980), Wieland Speck’s Coming Out (1989) and more.

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

This weekend, the Tribeca theaters is showing Toshio Matsumoto’s 1969 film Funeral Parade of Roses, the Wachowski’s Bound (1996), a 20thAnniversary screening of the thriller Jawbreaker with director Darren Stein and a few more recent movies including Booksmart. Not a bad line-up for this upstart arthouse theater.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

This week’s Waverly Midnights: Parental Guidance is David Lynch’s Eraserhead (again) and Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook,Weekend Classics: LoveMom and Dad screens Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life (1959), while Late Night Favorites: Springscreens Pulp Fiction, Alien (again) and Jaws.

FILM OF LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

The Ermanno Olmi series continues through June 26.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

This week’s Friday midnight is Stanley Kubrick’s classic The Shining.

Next week, the month of June closes off with the threequel Annabelle Comes Homeand Danny Boyle/Richard Curtis’ musical rom-com Yesterday.

#WhatToWatchThisWeekend Movies ToyStory4 WildRose Reviews Repertory ChildsPlay LimitedReleases

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iwatchforher · 7 years

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ngl pretty upset about the Vera Farmiga snub but I love how much recognition Westworld, The Handmaid’s Tale and Big Little Lies got.. and 17 nominations for Veep. If Julia Louis-Dreyfus gets her 6th consecutive Emmy I will not complain.

#text #emmys

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spotlightsaga · 7 years

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Kevin Cage of @spotlightsaga reviews… Bates Motel (S05E05) Dreams Die First Airdate: March 20, 2017 @aetv @batesmotel Ratings: 1.360 Million :: 0.38 18-49 Demo Share Score: 9.25/10

**********SPOILERS BELOW*********

Norman doesn’t exactly do well with the truth… Speaking it, facing it, truly understand it… So when it’s thrown into his face, first by tracking down his car he originally thought his mother took to a bar, to a sit-down with his old doctor, Dr Gregg Edwards, to returning to that bar and realizing that the words that Dr Edwards had him speak rang true… Things got a bit overwhelming to say the least. “Sometimes I see my mother when she’s not really there. Sometimes I become her.”

Each word of the sentence sends Norman further and further into a spotted darkness, a K-Hole of sorts… He’s literally in a dissociative state, almost astral-projecting. After all, there isn’t really enough room for both he and his mother to live inside of his body. The scene in which he walks into his kitchen and sees the reality of his living space is absolutely stomach dropping, he’s suddenly on a free fall on a roller coaster and he can’t stop it. It’s too late, he’s strapped in and he must ride it out. That same feeling was amplified with his conversation with Dr. Edwards… And then 10 fold when he return to the bar, a place that should’ve been foreign to him, but was actually a place where everyone knew him. One man even stopping him and asking him if he got home alright. Another man following him into the bathroom trying to initiate what they had started and most likely finished the night before. All of these powerful emotions and epiphanies Norman is having are highlighted by a knock-out performance by Freddie Highmore, some insanely clever editing, and an incredible placement of well constructed original sound.

Norman’s world is finally caving in on him… He accepts it or he continues to pretend it’s not happening. But as this is going on the writers start to brilliantly weave in the original plot of Psycho. It’s stitched effortlessly and with all the amazing performances and writing we’ve seen from ‘Bates Motel’ these past two seasons (S4 & S5), we must continue to trust that Carlton Cuse, Kerry Ehrin, Anthony Cipriano, Erica Lopez, Phillip Bruiser, Torrey Speer, and the entire team of writers, creators, editors, director, producers, actors and staff can and will continue to knock this one out of the park, just like they’ve been doing all along.

I bring all this up because I see there are a lot of people out there giving Rihanna a hard time for her portrayal of the classic character, Marion Crane. This needs to be addressed… And I need to say this first… I, like most of you, feel that the 'triple threat’ in the entertainment world is very rare. I am not a fan of pop music that isn’t Indie, Electronic, or Psychedelia influenced. You won’t catch me jamming to Rihanna or Beyoncé or anyone I feel sounds like a well strung chicken 'Bawking’ or 'BAGAWK!’ in a rhythmic pattern. Yes, that’s a read, Top 40 music is *mostly* embarrassing and has been since a few years after the 90’s. We can’t let our personal tastes in music or any kind of personal feelings towards an artist cloud our judgement. Remember that shot for shot remake of Psycho? Terrible right! Well, Marion Crane from the 60’s is not Marion Crane in 2017, and just like everyone, Rihanna deserves a fair shake and to be judged by her performance alone without any preconceptions or unfair comparisons… Let this woman do her thing, and don’t let the fact that it’s Rihanna ruin this excellent season that’s been carved out for us so far.

Freddie Higmore has NEVER been nominated for an Emmy, but the show has been nominated for 3 total Emmy’s, one of which was Vera Farmiga. 56 total nominations from prestigious collectives… I don’t care if Freddie wins, but he’s been so magnetic these past two seasons that I believe he deserves recognition for his work in this final season. Keep supporting the show, keep watching, keep showing love for Freddie… He deserves at least a nomination. Shout it from the highest high!

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