#never thought I needed a TV adaptation of Hitman

[faust-lane]

[fuckyeahwomenfilmdirectors]

20 Most Anticipated of 2020 Part 1: 1-10

20 films directed by women that will debut in 2020.

Part II HERE

DNA dir. Maïwenn

French actress/director/writer Maïwenn steps in front of and behind the camera once more with the semi-autobiographical DNA in which a woman from an abusive family reluctantly reunites with her toxic family members after her beloved grandfather dies.  Maïwenn has a stellar reputation among the French critical elite but it would be nice if one of her films could break out beyond that. Here’s hoping DNA is that film.  

Emma dir. Autumn de Wilde

Yes, I am a Janite, thank you for asking. Jane Austen has long been reverred, adored, propped up and consumed: mainly by women. So it makes sense that finally after a bajillion adaptations we’re getting one directed by a woman. Can’t wait to see how photographer turned director de Wilde interprets the classic tale and how it will measure up against other adaptations including Amy Hecklering’s genre bending modern adaptation of the tale, Clueless.

The Glorias dir. Julie Taymor

I don’t always love Taymor’s films but I am a huge admirer of all of them; it’s so clear watching each one that she’s a genius with incredible vision. The Glorias has her turn her remarkable eye on the life of American feminist Gloria Steinem played across several generations by several actresses including Alicia Vikander and Julianne Moore. Can’t wait.

The Half of It dir. Alice Wu

It’s been sixteen (!) years since Wu’s debut feature film, the lovely lesbian rom com Saving Face. Wu was a software designer before coming out of nowhere to direct Saving Face, and then disappearing just as abruptly. I was thrilled when Netflix announced that her latest film would be a loose adaptation of the play  Cyrano de Bergerac and would focus on a nerdy teenage girl who helps the school jock woo the girl they both have a crush on.  

Happiest Season dir. Clea Duvall

Actress turned director Duvall makes her transition to mainstream studio work with a romcom about a woman who plans to propose to her girlfriend at her girlfriend’s family’s annual Christmas party only to discover that her partner isn’t out to her parents. Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis play the conflicted couple. 

Kajillonaire dir. Miranda July

It’s been nine years since the release of July’s last film which is sort of crazy given how consistently well reviewed and critically loved her films are. Kajillionaire has been in the works for a few years and stars Evan Rachel Wood as a young woman from a crime family who (falls in love? Unclear from the vague plot description) is shown another way of life by a woman who unwittingly is tangled up in her family’s latest schemes.    

Marry Me dir. Kat Coiro

Coiro burst onto the scene nearly a decade ago with a trio of easily consumable indies and then got swallowed up by TV. It’s nice to see her back and directing her first feature film in 7 (!) years. An adaptation of a graphic novel of the same name Marry Me is a romcom about a star who is jilted at the alter by her celeb boyfriend and then, to cover her humiliation, abruptly marries a random fan she picks from the crowd. Not only does the concept sound like the tooth achingly sweet premise needed to kick off a decent romcom but Jlo herself plays the star. Bring on the Jlo-naissance!

Mr. Malcom’s List dir. Emma Holly Jones

In 2019 Refinery 29 released the short film Mr. Malcolm’s List, a period piece romcom about a wealthy gentleman with ridiculous standards for what he wants in a wife and the woman who schemes to win his affections. The twist? This neo regency tale went full colour blind and cast poc (including Gemma Chan) in the lead roles. The short was so successful that it was announced that a full feature film would be developed with Jones and Chan returning.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always dir. Eliza Hittman

I remember Hittman talking about this film during the promo tour for Beach Rats, back when it was going under the title A. The film is about two teenage girls, one of whom is pregnant, and a day trip they take to NYC to experience the magic of the city and to access abortion services they can’t in their homestate. Hitman is a delicate and thoughtful director and this film promises to hit all the subjects I’m interested in including the power of female friendship and the importance of abortion rights.

Nomadland dir. Chloé Zhao

One of two films Zhao is releasing in 2020 (she’s also directing a little film for Marvel, maybe you’ve heard of it, called The Eternals). Nomadland cleaves closer to Zhao’s indie roots and stars Frances McDormand as a woman made homeless by the Great Recession who lives out of her van. As someone who was scared that Zhao’s work with Marvel would flatten out the lush and beautiful cinematic style she developed in her previous work I’m so glad that in 2020 their will be at least one Zhao indie that promises to stay true to her early vision. 

[crowdvscritic]

round up // JULY 21

‘Tis the season to beat the heat at the always-cold theatres and next to fans set at turbo speed. While my movie watching slowed a bit with the launch of the Summer Olympics on July 23rd, I’ve still got plenty of popcorn-ready and artsy recommendations for you. A few themes in the new-to-me pop culture I’m recommending this month:

Casts oozing with embarrassing levels of talent (sometimes overqualified for the movies they’re in)

Pop culture that is responding or reinterpreting past pop culture

Stories that get weEeEeird

Keep on-a-scrollin’ to see which is which!

July Crowd-Pleasers

1. Double Feature – ‘90s Rom-Coms feat. Lots of Lies: Mystery Date (1991) + The Pallbearer (1996)

In Mystery Date (Crowd: 7.5/10 // Critic: 6/10), Ethan Hawke and Teri Polo get set up on a blind date that gets so bizarre and crime-y I’m not sure how this didn’t come out in the ‘80s. In The Pallbearer (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7/10), David Schwimmer and Gwyneth Paltrow try to combine The Graduate with Four Weddings and a Funeral in a story about lost twentysomethings. If you don’t like rom-coms in which circumstances depend on lots of lies and misunderstandings, these won’t be your jam, but if you’re like me and don’t mind these somewhat-cliché devices, you’ll be hooked by likeable casts and plenty of rom and com.

2. The Tomorrow War (2021)

I thought of no fewer movies than this list while watching: Alien, Aliens, Angel Has Fallen, Cloverfield, Interstellar, Kong: Skull Island, Prometheus, A Quiet Place: Part II, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith, The Silence of the Lambs, The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and World War Z. And you know what? I like all those movies! (Okay, maybe I just have a healthy respect/fear of The Silence of the Lambs.) The Tomorrow War may not be original, but it borrows some of the best tropes and beats from the sci-fi and action genres, so much so I wish I could’ve seen Chris Pratt and Co. fight those gross monsters on a big screen. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 6/10

3. Dream a Little Dream (1989)

My July pick for the Dumb Rom-Com I Nevertheless Enjoyed! I CANNOT explain the mechanics of this body switch comedy to you—nor can the back of the DVD case above—but, boy, what an ‘80s MOOD. I did not know I needed to see a choreographed dance routine starring Jason Robards and Corey Feldman, but I DID. All I know is some movies are made for me and that I’m now a card-carrying member of the Two Coreys fan club. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 6.5/10

4. Black Widow (2021)

The braids! The Pugh! Black Widow worked for me both as an exciting action adventure and as a respite from the Marvel adventures dependent on a long memory of the franchise. (Well, mostly—keep reading for a second MCU rec much more dependent on the gobs of previous releases.) Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 7.5/10

5. Liar Liar (1997)

Guys, Jim Carrey is hilarious. That’s it—that’s the review. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 7/10

6. Sob Rock by John Mayer (2021)

It’s very possible I’ve already listened to this record more than all other John Mayer records. It doesn’t surpass the capital-G Greatness of Continuum, but it’s a little bit of old school Mayer, a little bit ‘80s soft rock/pop, and I’ve had it on repeat most of the two weeks since it’s been out. Featuring the boppiest bop that ever bopped, at least one lyrical gem in every track, and an ad campaign focused on Walkmans, this record skirts the line between Crowd faves and Critic-worthy musicianship.

7. Double Feature – ‘00s Ben Affleck Political Thrillers: The Sum of All Fears (2002) + State of Play (2009)

In The Sum of All Fears (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7.5/10), Ben Affleck is Jack Ryan caught up in yet another international incident. In State of Play (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7/10), he’s a hotshot Congressman caught up in a scandal. Both are full of plot twists and unexpected turns, and in both, Affleck is accompanied by actors you’re always happy to see, like Jason Bateman, James Cromwell, Russell Crowe, Jeff Daniels, Viola Davis, Morgan Freeman, Philip Baker Hall, David Harbour, Rachel McAdams, Helen Mirren, Liev Schreiber, and Robin Wright—yes, I swear all of those people are in just those two movies.

8. Loki (2021-)

Unlike Black Widow, you can’t go into Loki with no MCU experience. The show finds clever ways to nudge us with reminders (and did better at it than Falcon and the Winter Soldier), but be forewarned that at some point, you’re just going to have to let go and accept wherever this timeline-hopper is taking you. An ever-charismatic cast keeps us grounded (Owen Wilson, Jonathan Majors, and an alligator almost steal the show from Tom Hiddleston in some eps), but while Falcon lasted an episode or two too long, Loki could’ve used a few more to flesh out its complicated plot and develop its characters. Thankfully, the jokes matter almost as much as the sci-fi, so you can still have fun even if you have no idea what’s going on.

9. Double Feature – Bruce Willis: Die Hard With a Vengeance (1995) + The Whole Nine Yards (2000)

Before Bruce Willis began starring in many random direct-to-DVD movies I only ever hear about in my Redbox emails, he was a Movie Star smirking his way up the box office charts. In the third Die Hard (Crowd: 10/10 // Critic: 7.5/10), he teams up with Samuel L. Jackson to decipher the riddles of a terrorist madman (Jeremy Irons), and it’s a thrill ride. In The Whole Nine Yards (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10), he’s hitman that screws up dentist Matthew Perry’s boring life in Canada, and—aside from one frustrating scene of let’s-objectify-women-style nudity—it’s hilarious.

10. This Is the End (2013)

On paper, this is not a movie for me. An irreverent stoner comedy about a bunch of bros partying it up before the end of the world? None of things are for Taylors. But with a little help of a TV edit to pare down the raunchy and crude bits, I laughed my way through and spent the next several days thinking through its exploration of what makes a good person. While little of the plot is accurate to Christian Gospel and theology, some of its big ideas are consistent enough with the themes of the book of Revelation I found myself thinking about it again in church this morning. (Would love to know if Seth Rogen ever expected that.) Plus, I love a good self-aware celebrity spoof—can’t tell you how many times I’ve just laughed remembering the line, “It’s me, Jonah Hill, from Moneyball”—and an homage to horror classics. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7/10

July Critic Picks

1. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Television Could Not Be Televised) (2021)

Even director Questlove didn’t know about the Harlem Cultural Festival, but now he’s compiled the footage so we can all enjoy one of the coolest music fest lineups ever, including The 5th Dimension, B.B. King, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, and Stevie Wonder, who made my friend’s baby dance more than once in the womb. See it on the big screen for top-notch audio. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 9/10

2. Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

Robin Williams takes on the bureaucracy, disillusionment, and malaise of the Vietnam War with comedy. Williams was a one-of-a-kind talent, and here it’s on display at a level on par with Aladdin. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 9/10

3. Against the Rules Season 2 (2020-21)

Michael Lewis (author of Moneyball, adapted into a film starring Jonah Hill), is interested in how we talk about fairness. This season he looks at how coaches impact fairness in areas like college admissions, credit cards, and youth sports. 

4. Bugsy Malone (1976)

A gangster musical starring only children? It’s a little like someone just picked ideas out of a hat, but somehow it works. You can hear why in the Bugsy Malone episode Kyla and I released this month on SO IT’S A SHOW?, plus how this weird artifact of a film connects with Gilmore Girls.

5. The Queen (2006)

Before The Crown, Peter Morgan wrote The Queen, focusing on Queen Elizabeth II (Helen Mirren) in the days following the death of Princess Diana. It’s a complex and compassionate drama, both for the Queen and for Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen, who has snuck up on me to become a favorite character actor). Maybe I’ve got a problem, but I’ll never tire of the analysis of this famous family. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9.5/10

6. The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)

This month at ZekeFilm, we took a closer look at Revisionist Westerns we’ve missed. I fell hard for Roy Bean, and I think you will, too, if for no other reason than you might like a story starring Jacqueline Bisset, Ava Gardner, John Huston, Paul Newman, and Anthony Perkins. Oh, and a bear! Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 10/10

7. New Trailer Round Up

Naked Singularity (Aug. 6) – John Boyega in a crime thriller!

Queenpins (Aug. 10) – A crime comedy about extreme coupon-ing!

Dune (Oct. 1) – I’ve been cooler on the anticipation for this film, but this new look has me cautiously intrigued thanks to the Bardem + Bautista + Brolin + Chalamet + Ferguson + Isaac + Momoa + Zendaya of it all.

The Last Duel (Oct. 15) – Affleck! Damon! Driver!

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (Nov. 11) - I’m not sure why we need this, but I’m down for the Paul Rudd + Finn Wolfhard combo

King Richard (Nov. 19) - Will Smith as Venus and Serena’s father!

Encanto (Nov. 24) – Disney and Lin-Manuel Miranda making more magic together!

House of Gucci (Nov. 24) - Gaga! Pacino! Driver! 

Also in July…

Kyla and I took a look at the classic supernatural soap Dark Shadows and why Sookie might be obsessed with it on Gilmore Girls.

I revisited a so-bad-it’s-good masterpiece that’s a surrealist dream even Fellini couldn’t have cooked up. Yes, for ZekeFilm I wrote about the Vanilla Ice movie, Cool as Ice, which is now a part of my Blu-ray collection.

Photo credits: Against the Rules. All others IMDb.com.

[findmyrupertfriend]

August 1, 2015

For a lot of people, it’s hard not to think of Rupert Friend as being the prim-and-proper British gentleman type, as the actor is perhaps best known for his performances as prim-and proper British gentleman characters. Most notably, he played the charming George Wickham in the 2005 movie adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice” and the regal Prince Albert in “Young Victoria.” Of course, his actual acting range covers a much wider selection of character types and has rather recently expanded to include cold-blooded spies/assassins. Fans of TV series “Homeland” are, of course, familiar with his on-screen alter ego Peter Quinn, and we’ll see Friend’s take on the eponymous bald and barcoded assassin in this month’s “Hitman: Agent 47.”

Off-screen, however, Friend brings funny and gentlemanly in equal doses. The latter comes into play especially when his fiancée is concerned. The English actor, director, screenwriter and producer is currently engaged to an American athlete, actress and fashion model Aimee Mullins. Ms. Mullins, by the way, is also a whiz on prosthetic innovation and a double amputee with three Paralympic records to her name. And that’s on top of a lengthy filmography and her incredible modeling career, which includes being the muse to Alexander McQueen. If this isn’t a match made in heaven, we don’t know what is.

DA MAN: So, the scuttlebutt is that you’re also into video games, including the “Hitman” series. Well, at least “Hitman: Absolution” and, yes, we peeked at your AMA on Reddit. Now, do you feel that “Hitman: Agent 47” is a good adaptation of its source material? Rupert Friend: I feel that it’s important to reinvent rather than be literal when interpreting existing source material. It’s not so much an adaptation as an extension of the world of Agent 47. This new film is a window into an earlier time in the life of this character.

DA: The character that you play, while definitely a good guy, earns his paycheck by offing people in cold blood. How do you manage to manifest these contrasting traits in your portrayal of him? RF: I wouldn’t be so sure that he’s a good guy. I always thought anti-heroes were cooler than superheroes, anyway.

DA: You did a lot of your own stunts, right? Were there any particularly memorable sequences you can tell us about? RF: Breaking a guy’s neck, with my legs, while my hands were handcuffed to a table. [Beat] Fifty-three times.

DA: Of course, we’re also starting to hear about “Barton & Charlie & Checco & Bill.” Can you give us a brief rundown about this upcoming movie you’re directing? RF: It’s a classic story about con artists, each thinking they’re ahead of the other. At the same time, it’s also a love story about finding out what really matters.

DA: While “Barton & Charlie & Checco & Bill” will be your feature directorial debut, you’ve also directed, written and produced several short films. What is it that you like the most about being behind the camera? RF: I don’t have to wear makeup.

DA: Will directing become a bigger focus in your career from now on? RF: Yes, I love making up stories and then writing them down. I also get excited when collaborating with other people. I’m very interested to work on new material, and not just my own.

DA: Moving on to TV, we’re now waiting for the fifth season of “Homeland” to start airing. Is there anything you can tell us about what to expect from the show this time around? RF: It’s another reboot for “Homeland.” It’s two and a half years on, Carrie is working in the private sector, Quinn’s been in some kind of hell hole for most of the past two years. They’re all reconnected in Berlin. Days are long, fuses are short, fireworks will happen.

DA: After five seasons, what’s the best part of being on the “Homeland” cast for you? RF: You never really know what’s going to happen next …

DA: What about the most difficult or challenging part? RF: You never really know what’s going to happen next …

DA: A lot of people know you from titles like “Pride & Prejudice” and “The Young Victoria” where you’re always playing the role of a prim and proper gentleman. And even in your newer and more action-oriented roles, like in “Homeland” and “Hitman: Agent 47,” you tend to fit the “cultured warrior” type. Have you ever played a part that was more laidback, boisterous or all-out crazy? RF: I wore lederhosen, danced a Bavarian jig, and coughed out my own heart in “The Continuing and Lamentable Saga of the Suicide Brothers,” which you can get on iTunes.

DA: What else do you usually do when you’re not working? RF: I like building fires and reading, cooking, and watching movies. I also like video games, but have to be careful as I can lose days.

DA: Right now, what’s the most important thing in the world for you? And why? RF: Aimee Mullins. As if she needed explaining.

DA: Last question: What, do you think, is your most defining trait? RF: I don’t really know how to answer this particular question. The idea of having a “defining trait” depresses me. I do like doing funny voices though.

[into-september]

Banana Fish episode 20-21

The short version is that the only things I even like about this show any longer is Max and Yut Lung.

So chalk this up to the proud tradition of watching-stuff-just-to-complain-about-it, because I've invested enough time in this show to be talking about it at length anyway. There's going to be too much to say about its existence as an adaptation, about the timing of the release, about the inexplicable fact that they updated the setting but didn't update the content. If sullen complaints are going to be what it takes for me to get through the last four episodes, then complain I shall, and I'll be sharing it with the internet so that maybe some other lost soul might find comfort in it.

Sailor Moon's ending was spectacular, by the way, by which I mean that I would never have gotten over it if I'd watched the show when it was actually airing and I was actually smack in the middle of the intended audience. But I really loved it a lot okay, and certainly more than this contemporary.

Seriously, guys. Go watch Sailor Moon instead. It's funny and charming and way more entertaining and there are ACTUAL GAY PEOPLE BEING GAY AND SAYING THEY LOVE EACH OTHER AND INDISPUTABLY BEING IN A RELATIONSHIP AND ALSO WOMEN.

Oh, screw it all. I just realised that there have been no named women on this show who were around for more than two episodes (Max's wife and Ash's stepmum. Shorter's sister was at least named in the manga, and possibly Dr. Vegetable's housekeeper who was really working for Yut Lung was, too). I'll be re-watching this with my sister come Christmas break, and I swear I'll COUNT the number of women who aren't background extras because the last woman I recall having lines the nurse who tried to kill Ash some six or seven episodes ago.

EPISODE 20

- ugh WHY did you have to sully Canon's good name by putting it into this anime and putting it into DINO'S PARTY of all places. Maybe the cellist owed him money.

- I'm pretty sure this whole thing about people adressing Dino as "Monsieur" was just something the mangaka came up with halfway through and introduce because she thought it was cool, and then the anime didn't realise that adaptations are where you take the chance to fix the fuckups of the source material

- Cute how this is America and a mob-boss with more enemies than George Soros and yet no-one thought to pat down the staff and oh, Eiji, showing off that gun is not a good idea if you're trying to be undercover. Mostly I'm just disappointed that the show thinks it needs to remind the viewers that this gun existed, as if EIJI of all characters requesting one at the end of last episode is something we just forget

- Eiji runs at Dino with a gun drawn, is shot down before he gets within ten metres of him. Dino is arrested and is locked up for life. Max adopts Ash, who goes on to use his genius to find a way to cure climate change and cancer. Ibe returns to Japan owing Eiji's family some explanation. Yut Lung lets go of the ghosts of his past. Sing lets go of avenging Shorter. I can quit this anime reasonably satisfied, and turn my attention to re-reading the No. 6 novels and probably moan about the weird pacing or something. WELL THAT WAS A HAPPY ENDING BOY AM I GLAD THERE ARE NOT FOUR EPISODES AND TWENTY MINUTES LEFT OF THIS SHOW OR NOTHING HA HA HA ha

- And there goes Yut Lung with his Eiji hateboner. I KNOW it won't happen but let me hope for the miracle where he gets his wish granted and gets to shoot him in the face personally.

- Yeah Sing, IDK, maybe someone's should've told the civillian to stay home or at least wait behind the wheel of the getaway car so that someone who had fired a gun before could've not missed the child rapist trying to take over the country standing a metre and half away from him.

- Also: Most anticlimatic shootout ever. I thinkthey spent more time talking about the super important party last episode than on showing us the super important party in this one.

- WELL FOR SOMETHING THAT IS GENUINELY INTRIGUING: How upset Yut Lung is about Blanca's betrayal and how emotionally invested he is in whatever the hell it is he wants with Ash. I'm pretty sure he's in a position to get rid of whichever brothers of his he hadn't already killed, and whatever reason he has for cooperating with Dino, it sure as hell isn't because he LIKES him. So why exactly he's got such a personal vendetta against Ash is pretty much the only thing I honestly care about at this point.

- I like this entire "oniichan" thing between Ash and Eiji, and probably for all the wrong reasons. Just let me compare it to Digimon Frontier, which similarly established the "Takuya-oniichan" dynamic between Takuya (parted from his younger brother) and Tomoki (parted from his older one). Was it profound, on any level? No. Was the relationship between Takuya and Tomoki notable outside of it? No. But the fact that they on some level treated each other as the brothers from which they were parted gave their relationship this little flavour of some more profound psychological issues at hand, even if it was probably just to foreshadow and highlight the Kouji-Kouichi disaster. And even if it's a stretch to apply the same to Ash and Eiji, it would at least explain something if the two of them saw each other as the absent family members: If Ash saw Eiji as a chance to have a Griffin-who-lived, if Eiji saw Ash as subtstitute for his younger sister, then that would go a long way in explaining why the hell they're so irrationally invested in each other's safekeeping. I mean, it makes absolutel no sense because even goddamn Digimon Frontier had more elaborate sibling relationships than Banana Fish has, but let me pretend a bit, okay? Because even oniichan jokes lend more narrative logic than the absolute silence that has been entertained about the love that dared not speak its name in 1892 but if you're going to tell that omg cencorship, LET ME REMIND YOU THAT THIS AIRED ON JAPANESE TV IN 19 FUCKING 92

- Oosa still lives on in our memories

- Oh good, I can appreciate Ash just waking up in time to instantly tear into someone for not being a feral genius child like him

- Eiji takes off on another ill-adviced suicide mission, and Cain speaks for all of us when he knocks Ash out

- Not that I question Cain's decision to have Ash tied up on the bed here, but ouch being tied up on beds is not the thing this boy needs to experience ever

- Other things to be counting upon the re-watch: Ash's body count, now increased with at least one

- On the one hand: How the hell did he just get into that museum just like that. I mean, surely there must be guards? Alarms? Locks on the doors that require more than blunt gun-induced force to open?

But on the other hand: IS THIS ZOOTROPOLIS OR IS THIS ZOOTROPOLIS and I'm fully on board with this if it's going to end with Ash pretending to be hit with Banana fish and fake-killing Eiji in front of Dino's eyes while secretly recording his premature bragging about his evil plans for using this drug to take over the world

- I can't believe I'm seriously hoping they shoot Eiji. What have this show reduced me to. I used to like him.

- oh good, I was hoping that Ash would just shove Yut Lung head first down the stairs and for once the show did not disappoint

EPISODE 21

I don't think "torture porn" is the right description for this story, and I'm getting the definite impression that The Manga Is Better, but someone being lippy in other fora means that I've got some expectations that I've no doubt will come about, given the story's previous track record. But my orchestra is having the Christmas programme from hell tomorrow and I sure won't be doing this after getting home from that past midnight, so let's just get it over with, shall we.

- Not to get into the fandom's internal debates or anything here, but Eiji ridiculing his sister's doki-doki good luck charm is a pretty good indication of the status of Eiji/Ash and "super canon confirmation" is not it

- I don't know the Japanese word for "hitman" but I sure perked up at recognising it here anyway. Thank you, Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens, a far dumber anime that was ultimately a far greater joy to watch, and which also had a better track record at depicting gay men than Banana Fish has this far, with a good 100% of them being depicted as a) relatively nice guys since they’re the allies of the hero, b) not rapists, c) not pedophiles. 

- My god is Sing actually going to have some plot relevance what is this trickery

- I just realised that we never learn enough about Eiji's babysitters for their names to be worth remembering. Because I actually do think these names were mentioned at some point, but don't ask me what they were.  As far as I can tell, they're Scrawny Guy, Black Guy Who Was Somehow White In The Manga, and Not!Oosa

- In no news, I suppose, Yut Lung is seriously the only thing I'm enjoying about this show all the time Max isn't around, and I'm immensly enjoying his getting his own hands dirty and also his hear being wild and free to symbolise his deteriorating mental control

 - Sing's plot relevance lasted for a full minute and half

- DADDY IS BACK

- And now also a sugar daddy. I approve.

- Oh this darling show, this is... what, the third? Yeah, the second or third time it's mentioned gay men, and all of them have been when showing us child rapists. Such representation, much progress.

- The one guy I'd LIKE to see Ash kill, and Max stops him. Boo.

- Ash kill count: +1

- It's sad how they just mentioned the French Foreign Legion and my interest just perked 20%, isn't it

- Max goes down like Dr. Marco and Ash, couldn't you just... you know... CALL HIM, THIS IS 2018, YOU HAVE SMARTPHONES

- Ash kill count +2

- A woman? In MY Banana Fish???

- Jesus, I completely forgot that Max is a goddamn Iraq veteran

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 8/13/21 - CODA, FREE GUY, DON’T BREATHE 2, RESPECT, THE LOST LEONARDO, WHAT IF, and More!

Well, that was kind of a disappointing last weekend as James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad pretty much tanked at the box office, making less than Birds of Prey did back in February 2020 with all sorts of backseat analysis explaining why it didn’t do well as anyone, other than a scant, few thought. I mean, I’m still kind of stunned, even though COVID and the Delta variant seem to be losing steam as far as being news. It certainly didn’t help that HBO Max decided to release the movie concurrently on HBO Max on Thursday at 7pm.

The nice thing about this week is that we have three new movies, none of which are on streaming or On Demand at the exact same time, so if you want to see any of them, you’ll have to put on your N96 masks and get yourself to theaters. Two of the three movies are originals, while the third is a sequel to quite an original horror movie from about five years back. All of them are pretty good, actually. We’ll get to them soon...

But first, let’s start with this week’s “The Chosen One” and it’s gotta be Siân Heder’s CODA i.e. “Child of Deaf Adults,” which will play in select theaters and on Apple TV+ starting Friday. If you hadn’t heard, it was the belle of the ball at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, winning the Jury Prize and Audience Award alike. Heder previously directed Tallulah and is the showrunner on Apple’s Little America, but this really is a very special film that I’ve enjoyed on repeat viewings now.

It stars Emilia Jones as Ruby Rossi, the sole hearing person in her family of Gloucester fishermen, who are out every day on the sea making the latest catch in their nets. Ruby has other aspirations, and when she joins the school choir, the teacher, Mr. Villalobos (Eugene Derbez) sees talent in Ruby that he thinks might get her into the Berklee College of Music. Ruby has to weigh that with her family’s need to have her as an interpreter while dealing with the other fishermen of the town.

I didn’t know what to expect when I saw this at Sundance back in January, and it still surprised me when I rewatched it again, because it’s a movie that involves a lot of elements that shouldn’t necessarily work, between the fishing and the singing and all the ASL between the amazing ingenue, Ms. Jones, and the deaf actors playing her family, including the one and only Oscar-winning Marlee Matlin. If not for these disparate elements, Coda might be a fairly standard indie family drama, but Heder finds just the right balance of showing how these disparities in Ruby’s life make it hard for her to pursue her dreams.

Ferdia Walsh-Peelo from Sing Street plays the classmate who Ruby is set up with to perform a duet at their high school recital, and of course, he also becomes an unwitting love interest. Unfortunately that’s the aspect of the film that’s the weakest, because Jones’ scenes with Matlin and the other actors, including Derbez, as well as Troy Kotsur and Daniel Durant, as Ruby’s father and brother, are just so powerful and moving even if they’re all in ASL with no dialogue or even incidental score.

Coda is Heder’s second film after Talllulah, a movie starring Elliot Page that never really connected with me, but Coda is such a strong and exceedingly crowd-pleasing film that I have to imagine that this would connect with everybody. I’m not sure if Apple’s gonna be able to get this movie all the way to Oscar night, but I do like its chances for Adapted (?) Screenplay, and maybe Matlin and Kotsur Supporting? I don’t know, because it’s so early and hard to tell, but hopefully the decision to wait so long after the virtual Sundance won’t hurt this movie as it hurt other Sundance award-winning films. Coda is just a joy that I’m sure will be many people’s favorite movie.

You can read my interview with Ms. Heder over at Below the Line.

Incidentally, in last week’s column, I talked about the 20th New York Asian Film Festival, but I didn’t realize that it was only running at Film at Lincoln Center for a week before going down to the SVA Theater on 23rd Street, and you can check out the schedule of movies playing there at the official site. And of course, there’s still the Virtual Festival that’s running through August 22. Also, Fantasia is still going on in Montreal, and I still haven’t had time to watch very much. What can I say? I suck.

Let’s get to some wide releases, shall we?

First up and probably the most likely to win the weekend is Ryan Reynolds’ new action-comedy, FREE GUY (20th Century Studios), directed by Shawn Levy and co-starring Jodie Comer from Killing Eve. The high-concept comedy has Reynolds playing Guy, a bank teller, who actually is a non-player character in a video game called “Free City” that’s kind of a cross between Grand Theft Auto and Fortnite. When he meets Comer’s character in the game, he falls mady in love and decides to do whatever it takes to get on her level. (Get it?) In doing so, Guy ends up becoming a hero for Free City, as well as a viral sensation across the globe as gamers thrill to Guy’s adventures.

Free Guy is Ryan Reynolds’ first live-action starring role theatrical release since…. Oh…. the action-comedy sequel The Hitman’s Bodyguard’s Wife a little under two months ago. Considering that barely made half of what its predecessor did, and that’s with Reynolds sharing the screen with Samuel L. Jackson and Salma Hayek, one wonders if his draw as an A-lister can be maintained during a pandemic. Before that, you’d have to go all the way back to 2018’s Deadpool 2 for a fully live Reynolds movie, because he wasn’t seen as himself for most of his role in and as Detective Pikachu. Of course, Reynolds’ unmistakable voice was back in DreamWorks Animation’s The Croods: A New Age, the sequel to the 2013 blockbuster that made the ballsy move to be one of the first movies to open during the pandemic. It grossed $58.6 million in theaters, which was slightly more than Christopher Nolan’s Tenet and even more than the Warner Bros. sequel, Wonder Woman 1984.

This is also a big movie for Jodie Comer, who won an Emmy and was nominated for two Golden Globes for Killing Eve, but hasn’t really been in too many movies, other than playing Rey’s Mum in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Later this year, she’ll star in Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel and may possibly be back in the awards game again, we’ll see. The movie also stars Lil Rel Howery, who seems to be everywhere and in everything these days, as well as Taika Waititi who is super-hot right now due to 2019’s Jojo Rabbit, and his various television projects, as well as having a small role in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad last week.

In some ways, Free Guy is gonna be a test for a lot of things, the first one being whether Reynolds is a big enough draw when not playing Deadpool to get people into theaters, just as people are starting to get skittish again about going into movie theaters. More importantly, it will show whether not having a movie on streaming or VOD means that people who want to see it will put aside their fears and return to theaters… like they did with F9 and Black Widow and Godzilla vs. Kong. Is an original non-franchise movie like Free Guy enough to get people interested in getting their butts off the couch and into a far more comfortable movie theater seat? (I’m being facetious, if you didn’t guess.)

After The Suicide Squad last week, I’m really not sure whether I can trust my own instincts, but I also don’t want to lower my prediction to something ridiculous out of fear that the pandemic really is destroying any chance of the box office fully recovering. One thing working in Free Guy’s favor, besides its PG-13 rating is that it’s not available on streaming and VOD. Anyone who has been intrigued by the film’s great reviews will HAVE to go out to a movie theater to see it or else, they’ll have to wait 45 days.

Maybe if this opened last month, I could see it open in the $30 million to $40 million range, but with things being the way they are, I’d probably go with high $20 million, so close to $30 million but not quite.

You can read my review over at Below the Line, and I’ll have an interview with the film’s Production Designer, Ethan Tobman, fairly soon.

Also opening Friday is the horror sequel DON’T BREATHE 2 (Sony/Screen Gems), starring Stephen Lang as the blind former Navy Seal who terrorized a bunch of kids who broke into his house in 2016’s Don’t Breathe.

The original movie, which starred Jane Levy, reuniting with director Fede Alvarez after the two remade Evil Dead for producer Sam Raimi, opened in late August, on the fourth weekend of the original Suicide Squad, in fact, and it knocked the movie out of the #1 spot. Its $26 million opening in 3,000 theaters was impressive for the time, partially because late August has never been great. It stayed #1 for a second weekend, over Labor Day, and it ended up grossing $89.2 million in North America, which is great for an R-rated horror film.

Levy isn’t around for the sequel and Alvarez has moved into a co-writer/producer role for his creative partner, Rodo Sagayes, to take over the directing reins, but honestly, I’m not sure how many people will know or care, because Lang’s character and the film’s violence and chills are it’s real selling point. Like many horror movies, there isn’t much in terms of star power other than Lang, but that has never really hindered the success of a horror movie in the past.

As with every movie I cover in this column, there’s the pandemic in the room and whether that might hold people back from going to theaters. I wish there was a way to calculate the effect that’s had on moviegoing, because it seems to affect movies differently. For instance, the recent The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It was able to open with $24.1 million just two months ago, although that was down from the $40 million of the previous two chapters. So that’s about a 40% drop-off in a similar five-year gap between movies. (Actually, it’s kind of strange that 2021 is replicating 2021 with three sequels to movies from five years earlier.) There’s no denying that the number of Covid cases are way up since June and movie theaters are still being painted as the “enemy” even though no significant cases have been traced back to the movies.

We also have to look at Sony’s last horror sequel, Escape Room: Tournament of Champions, which I quite enjoyed, but it ended up opening with about $10 million less than the original movie a few years back. We can probably expect Don’t Breathe 2 to have a similar pandemic drop-off even if it’s another movie that won’t be on streaming or VOD this weekend.

I think Don’t Breathe 2 should be good for around $15 million this weekend since it’s catering towards a young audience that’s a bit more devil-may-care about going out to theaters. It will also probably appeal more to older single guys than something like Free Guy, which seems different enough to pull in a different audience.

My review will be posted over at Below the Line later on Thursday, plus I have a bunch of interviews coming, including this one with Rodo Sayagues and Fede Alvarez.

Next up is RESPECT (MGM), the long-awaited Aretha Franklin biopic (for those that didn’t see Genius, like me, I guess), starring Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson as the Queen of Soul. The movie directed by Liesl Tommmy was supposed to be released in January to take part in last year’s Oscars race, but I guess MGM wanted to make sure it got a proper theatrical release, which wasn’t possible since NYC and L.A. movie theaters didn’t reopen until March after the cut-off. But MGM had already decided to push the movie back to the summer in hopes of having more theaters able to play the movie, which is kind of true now?

It’s been a while since we’ve seen JHud in a high-profile theatrical release, and unfortunately, the last one was 2019’s Cats, a movie in which she probably was the best thing, although it still only grossed $27 million domestically, a flat-out bomb. Before that, she provided her voice for the animated blockbuster Sing in 2016, and then a bunch of smaller movies before that. She’s joined in the movie by the likes of Oscar winner Forest Whitaker, Marlon Wayans, Titus Burgess, Mary J. Blige, Marc Maron, and Audra MacDonald, quite an impressive array of talent that shows how many wanted to be involved with this project. Director Liesl Tommy is making her feature directorial debut after directing a ton of theater and TV shows like The Walking Dead and Jessica Jones.

Even so, it’s obviously that the ongoing popularity of Aretha Franklin, especially since her death in 2018, is going to go a long way into getting people into theaters, which includes a lot of older black women who really haven’t had much to get them out into theaters in recent months. Will this be enough?

Before Respect was delayed from its original January release, many thought that Hudson would receive another Oscar nomination for her performances. Having not seen the movie at the time of this writing, I can’t confirm or deny those chances. If that’s still the case, then releasing the movie towards the end of the summer (similar to The Help, successfully, and The Butler, not so much) is an odd decision rather than just holding the movie for festival season by holding until next month.

Either way, I think the love Aretha’s fans have for the Queen of Soul as well as Hudson’s fans, Respect should be good for between $8 and 10 million this weekend -- hard to pinpoint exactly without knowing how many theaters MGM is getting for it against the stronger summer movies.

Mini-Review: I wasn’t really sure what to expect from Respect, even after seeing the trailer a couple dozen times in front of other movies, but it’s a respectable biopic that cover 20 years in the life of the Queen of Soul from singing at a young age in her father’s church to returning to church for the gospel records as captured in the recently-released doc, Amazing Grace.

But first, we go back to 1952 where Aretha is a young girl (played by Skye Dakota Turner) is uncertain of her future as she’s being ordered about by her preacher father (Forrest Whitaker) and trying to find direction. The movie casually sets up the fact that young Aretha was sexually abused by a family friend, and maybe she got pregnant, too? It’s hard to tell and maybe a little odd since she would only have been 10 at the time, but it’s something that will be brought up (just as subtly) over the course of the film.

Jennifer Hudson takes over as Aretha as she turns 19 and goes to New York City to start recording, meets Marlon Wayans’ Ted White, makes him her manager and marries her, which basically has her going from one abusive man in her father to another one. It feels like the movie spends a long than normal time on the ‘60s, which is when Franklin’s career really took off with “Respect” and then a series of hits that took her all around the world. That whole time, she’s dealing with Ted’s abuses and jealousy while trying to write and record those hits, before her dark demons return and she starts drinking heavily.

As you might imagine, you go to see Respect to see how well Jennifer Hudson pulls off the Queen of Soul, and she’s an incredibly complex character that needs a nuanced performance, which Hudson tries to pull off by bringing different aspects of her life into different scenes.

There are some scenes that don’t work as well as others, and it feels like there’s a bit of time-crunching or futzing around so that at a certain point, her father seems to be de-aging, although I was just as impressed (possibly even moreso) with Forrest Whitaker, whose performance as Aretha’s father is more than just a full-on villain despite his violent treatment of his daughter. Wayans is also good and almost unrecognizable at first, and there are a few other nice performances in there as well, including Marc Maron as record label head Jerry Wexler.

But the performances Hudson gives as Franklin are goosebump-inducing, leading up to the recording of her record-selling gospel record as depicted in the aforementioned doc.

A fairly decent representation of Franklin’s little-known life leading up to her fame, Respect probably succeeds the most when Jennifer Hudson is performing as the Queen of Soul, but she’s also created a fairly moving portrait with strong dramatic moments that far outweigh any of the film’s issues. Rating: 8/10

With that in mind, this is how I see the weekend looking with two of the new movies bumping Suicide Squad down to third place where it will be facing off against Respect.

1. Free Guy (20th Century/Disney) - $28.5 million N/A

2. Don’t Breathe 2 (Sony/Screen Gems) - $15 million N/A

3. The Suicide Squad (Warner Bros.) - $10 million -62%

4. Respect (MGM) - $9.6 million N/A

5. Jungle Cruise (Walt Disney Pictures) - $8.7 million -55%

6. Old (Universal) - $2.5 million -36%

7. Black Widow (Marvel/Disney) - $2.4 million -39%

8. Stillwater (Focus) - $2 million -39%

9. Space Jam: A New Legacy (Warner Bros.) - $1.3 million -43%

10. The Green Knight (A24) - $1.1 million -56%

Donnie Yen stars in Bennie Chang’s RAGING FIRE (WELL GO USA), which premiered at the New York Asian Film Festival on Monday and at Fantasia in Montreal on Tuesday, and I’m not going to review this, because honestly, it’s such a cookie-cutter Hong Kong police action-thriller that I’m not sure I really have much to say about it, so I won’t.

On the other hand, I do have more to say about Andreas Koefoed’s documentary, THE LOST LEONARDO (Sony Pictures Classics), the Leonardo being Da Vinci, the master artist behind the Mona Lisa and many other works. Since I don’t really follow the world of art, I really didn’t know about the Salvator Mundi painting found about 10-12 years ago that was thought to be an original Da Vinci worth in the hundreds of millions, often dubbed “The Male Mona Lisa.” But it’s also a painting that was surrounded by controversy due to the 5-year restoring job that may have left very little of the original painting.

As the film began, I was groaning a little about sitting through another movie of art experts and historians talking about how important a find this is and why it’s either great or horrible, depending on who is being interviewed. Eventually, the film gets more interesting as it starts getting into the idea of selling it. After being sold to a wealthy Russian oligarch by an unscrupulous Swiss art dealer who made a nice profit on it, the painting ends up being auctioned by Christie’s, and the story just keeps getting more and more interesting as it goes along.

While I’m not one to go ga-ga over any painting by Da Vinci or otherwise, I do like a good mystery or suspense-thriller, so good on Koefoed for realizing about halfway through this movie that the talking heads will never be as interesting as actual footage. And that’s what happens here, too. I actually feel a little ignorant that I wasn’t aware this was going on as it was, maybe because I don’t really follow the art world in that respect. Maybe I just missed it, so it’s good that Sony Classics (who loves making movies about art) is giving this a fairly high-profile release following its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival a few months back. In that sense, The Lost Leonardo is quite a gem.

Heinz Brinkman’s USEDOM: A CLEAR VIEW OF THE SEA (Big World Pictures) is a somewhat intriguing doc about the Baltic island of Usedom, the location of a number of imperial German health resorts, beaches and such, and how the Jews were kicked out by the Nazis before Usedom was split into a German and Polish half after WWII. I wish I could get into this more, but I just have a limited mental capacity for a lot of German talking heads.

Which brings us to Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein’s THE MEANING OF HITLER (IFC Films), the new doc from the team behind Gunner Palace, which looks at the cultural fascination with Hitler and Nazism and the recent rise in white supremacy, antisemitism and the “weaponization of history itself.” I don’t know what that last part means, because I got so swamped this week that I didn’t get to watch this, and like another recent doc on the subject of Naziism and the Holocaust, I just couldn’t get into the right head space to hit play on this doc. Maybe I’ll watch it sometime down the road.

Similarly, I didn’t get around to watching Dutch filmmaker Jim Taihuttu’s THE EAST (Magnet Releasing), which I may like as a fan of Paul Verhoeven’s Dutch WWII films, and I probably should give this a look, but I just ran out of time this week. It’s about a young Dutch soldier who joins an elite unit led by a mysterious captain called “The Turk,” and it takes place in the Indonesian War of Independence after World War II.

As far as TV goes, Wednesday sees the debut of Marvel Studios’ WHAT IF...? on Disney+. I’ve seen the first three episodes, and I was a pretty big fan of the comics in the ‘70s (sadly, part of the giant collection that I sold a few years back), and I guess this is okay. The first episode is the one with Haley Atwell voicing “Captain Carter” i.e. Peggy Carter gets the Super Soldier Serum, which is one of the more obvious What Ifs that could possibly done, so that we can get another “women are as good as men, and they need to be heard” storyline that’s in 90% of the Marvel movies already. On the other hand, the first episode does include the voices of Sebastian Stan and others, so it’s quite a coup in that sense, but whoever wrote it, clearly doesn’t understand that people spoke differently in the ‘40s. I liked the 2nd episode, a mash-up of Black Panther and Guardians of the Galaxy, which is a fun idea that brings together a lot of great characters -- including Chadwick Boseman’s last voice performance -- but again, hearing the voices just isn’t the same when the writing isn’t as good as the movie. I feel like the animation for the show is okay, maybe not quite on par with some of the great Batman or Superman cartoons we’ve gotten over the years. On the other hand, the entire series features the great voice of Jeffrey Wright as The Watcher, acting kind of like the Rod Serling for the series, much like the Watcher does in the comics. I also dug the music by Emmy winner Laura Karpman (Lovecraft Country), and I’ll watch the rest of the series as it debuts, but I’m not sure it’s as much a rush to see each episode to avoid spoilers as with Loki or WandaVision.

Hitting Netflix this week is the limited series, BRAND NEW CHERRY FLAVOR (Netflix), starring Rosa Salazar, Eric Lange, and Catherine Keener. The tagline is: “Lisa Nova (Rosa Salazar) comes to LA dead set on directing her first movie. But when she trusts the wrong person and gets stabbed in the back, everything goes sideways and a dream project turns into a nightmare. This particular nightmare has zombies, hit men, supernatural kittens, and a mysterious tattoo artist who likes to put curses on people. And Lisa’s going to have to figure out some secrets from her own past in order to get out alive.”

Also, TITANS Season 3 debuts on HBO Max, but since I haven’t watched seasons 1 or 2 yet, it might be some time before I get to it.

Next week looks like it could be a bit of a dog with four or five new wide releases but nothing that really jumps out, plus I’ll be in Atlantic City all next weekend, so who knows how much I’ll be able to watch or write about?

[in-flagrante]

'The Downton Abbey movie will happen': Michelle Dockery on playing Lady Mary, a toilet-cleaning con artist and a feminist cowgirl

For now, she's sweeping away her genteel reputation in Good Behavior and Godless – as well as starring alongside Bryan Cranston in Ivo van Hove's stage adaptation of the 1976 film ‘Network’

Gerard Gilbert Wednesday 27 September 2017

It must have come as a shock to fans of Michelle Dockery's Lady Mary Crawley in Downton Abbey – or perhaps as a sneaking satisfaction to those who thought the haughty aristocrat verging on the insufferable – to have witnessed the actress's follow-up television role in the American drama Good Behavior.

The establishing shots of Dockery's character, a paroled junkie grifter called Letty Raines, see her flipping burgers and cleaning a lavatory pan in a scuzzy diner and kneeing a would-be rapist in the groin. It almost feels like some form of self-abasing penance – the type that medieval nobility might practise – for all those years playing the imperious Lady M.

"I wasn't actively out to do something so vastly different," says Dockery, back in the UK after a long summer shooting the second season of Good Behavior in North Carolina. "I loved Mary, I loved that character so much, so I would be doing a disservice to go 'eugh...I want to do something completely different'. But then most of the British people watching the show, the last thing they would have seen me in was Downton, so there's no denying that will draw people to seeing Lady Mary cleaning the toilet..." 

Actually Good Behavior, which sees con-woman Letty, who is desperate to be reunited with her young son after a spell in prison, teaming up with a hitman called Javier (played by Argentinian actor Juan Diego Botto), was a role that came her way not entirely on the merits of Downton Abbey.

"I did an episode of Waking the Dead a long time ago – I must have been 24 or something – and I played this character Gemma who was a rape victim who then goes out to avenge her attackers," says Dockery, who is now 35. "She is the closest to Letty actually of all the characters I've played and it was on my show-reel, and the producers had seen it. You never know what job is going to lead to the next part in the next ten years."

It also helped that Good Behavior's writer, former Wayward Pines showrunner Chad Hodge, was "a Downton Abbey devotee" – but Dockery still couldn't believe her luck in being offered the part. "I loved the pilot when I read it: this deeply flawed complex woman. You're being constantly surprised by her life – by the fact that she has a son, that she's a con artist and a very good one. After I read it I rang my agent and said 'I have to play this woman.'"

The new season has a feel to it of The Americans, the drama in which Soviet sleeper agents pretend to be an ordinary suburban US family, as Letty and Javier try to live a normal life with Letty's son Jacob while both being hunted by the FBI. "The first three episodes of the second season are very funny because you're seeing this hitman and this thief trying to be normal and Letty cannot help herself," says Dockery. "She'll go this store and she can steal her son's school clothes rather than pay for them."

Filming took place in Wilmington, North Carolina, with 16-hour shooting days as opposed to the 12 hours on Downton Abbey. "Plus you got weeks off on Downton when they filmed the servants quarters", says Dockery. "But this show, Letty's in just about every scene, and you're like this hamster on a wheel.

"Wilmington is a wonderful place to work though because you have downtown, which is really cool and hip, and then the beach. But even then my weekends really were filled out with just resting or learning my lines. I'm constantly learning lines."

Dockery had a dialect coach to help with Letty's "general American" accent. "It takes a while to get into the movement of it," she says. "With American, you're using different muscles, with my accent as well... my Essex twang is still there and it's a little lazy at times, so the American accent is rhotic, you're pronouncing all your rs."

In person, the Romford-raised Dockery sounds nothing like Lady Mary, although she says the estuarine accent has softened over the years – except when she's had a few drinks. She won't be needing English English for quite a while however as she firmly establishes herself across the Atlantic, most recently in New Mexico shooting Godless for Netflix, a limited-series cowgirl drama being dubbed "a feminist western".

"That's what people are calling it," says Dockery. "I've certainly never seen a western before with that many female characters. The premise is Frank Griffins, played by Jeff Daniels, and his gang of outlaws are on this mission of revenge against Roy Good, played by Jack O'Connell, who's a son-like protege who betrays him. So while Roy's on the run he seeks refuge on my character's ranch, and this relationship develops between them, if you want to call it a relationship."

Her character, Alice, whom Dockery describes as a "hardened widow and outcast", lives in a town governed mainly by women as a result of a mining accident; all the men were killed. And in what sounds like a feminist High Noon, the women must come together to protect themselves against the outlaws – Dockery learning how to handle a gun in preparation for her role.

"The first thing we all did when we arrived on set was to go to cowboy camp," she recently told Vogue. "I remember when I shot a gun – the adrenaline was crazy. On Downton Abbey we had the shooting parties, but the women just stood back and wore a nice outfit and assisted the men."

"Alice was another character I was mad about and I put myself on tape for it when I was in North Carolina," she says. "I just loved her. Then I was offered and nearly fell off my chair."

Dockery won't be able to park her American accent quite yet – she makes her homecoming stage appearance at London's National Theatre later this autumn, in Lee Hall's adaptation of Paddy Chayefsky's Oscar-winning screenplay for the 1976 movie Network. Directed by Ivo van Hove, Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston takes the Peter Finch role of the messianic news anchor Howard Beale, while Dockery takes the part played by Faye Dunaway, that of Beale's ruthless producer Diana Christensen.

"We start rehearsals in a couple of weeks and I'm so excited by the opportunity to be back at the National and working with Bryan Cranston," she says. "The timing is great because I've felt a real urge to be home again, and in the strongest sense it's kind of happened because I feel like I'm going back to my roots. The National was my first job out of drama school [in His Dark Materials in 2004], so it's a wonderful feeling to be back home."

Indeed it's easy to forget that Dockery was foremost a stage actress before Downton Abbey whisked her career off in a different direction. She was twice nominated for an Ian Charlson Award, in 2006 and 2008, and once for an Olivier Award, for her part in the Russian drama Burnt by the Sun. She was also Ophelia to John Simm's Hamlet at the Sheffield Crucible in 2010, "descending movingly into madness", according to The Independent's theatre critic.

However, Downton fans need not despair of ever seeing her again as Lady Mary. According to the president of NBC Universal, Michael Edelstein, a script is being written for the long-mooted Downton Abbey movie and a budget has been set. "Yeah, the phantom script... nobody knows. We'll see," says Dockery. "Ending Downton was very bittersweet for everyone, it did feel like something that would go on forever and felt like the audience didn't want it to end. I think that's why talk of the movie is just endless.

"I'm positive something will happen at some stage. But it is proving difficult to get together a big ensemble cast like ours, so we'll just have to see. But I'm not bored of Mary."

Season 2 of 'Good Behavior' is on Virgin TV from16 October; 'Godless' is on Netflix from 22 November; 'Network' is at the National Theatre from 4 November

From The Independent

[mariocki]

The Hard Way (1979)

“You tell him from me - this is the last.”

There isn’t a lot of information out there about The Hard Way, making it a bit of a mystery. It was produced by ITC in 1979 - that much is fact - and appears to have been intended for theatrical release. ITC had been moving steadily from TV to film production throughout the 1970s, although their films had always been licensed to other companies for release. 1979 was the year this changed, as ITC partnered with Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment (itself a conglomerate of the seperate Thorn and EMI entities, also a 1979 baby) to produce Associated Film Distribution. AFD would distribute films made by both ITC and Thorn EMI, as well as any other films the companies could pick up and sell.

AFD would be a short lived disaster, producing two of the biggest flops of 1980 before being unceremoniously wound down (prompting the retirement of ITC head honcho Lew Grade into the bargain). Those two films, incidentally, were Can’t Stop The Music (a musical-comedy faux biopic of The Village People, released just as disco was going out of style, and which inspired the Razzie awards) and Raise The Titanic (an overly long, incredibly expensive adaptation of a Clive Cussler novel that was absolutely trashed by Cussler himself). These were two hugely costly mistakes that lost millions of dollars. So why had the cheap, safe The Hard Way not made it into cinemas the year before?

I don’t have the answer, I’m afraid. Like I said, details are sparse. A little digging around, however, does hint at a troubled production. The script was written by Kevin Grogan and Richard F. Tombleson (actually Richard Ryan), with Tombleson to direct, Michael Dryhurst to produce and John Boorman to act as executive producer. How exactly a director of Boorman’s stature got involved with this minor production is also shrouded in mystery, though its worth noting that the film was made almost entirely in Ireland (where Boorman had long been based) and that the director was fresh from his own cinematic disaster (1977’s absolute mess Exorcist II: The Heretic, once described by Mark Kermode as “demonstrably the worst film ever made”). Whatever happened next, Tombleson was soon dropped as director and replaced by producer Dryhurst - anecdotal legend has it that either Tombleson found the ‘hard living’ nature of his cast too much to deal with, or that he clashed (personally or professionally) with star Patrick McGoohan.

Dryhurst had experience as an associate producer and as an assistant director, but this was to be his first project in the senior positions (his only credit as director, in fact). Whether or not ITC lost confidence in an inexperienced crew, or doubted the financial return of such a quiet, maudlin film, is pure speculation. I just don’t know (sorry, I never promised to have answers). Whatever the case, the film never got a theatrical release and instead became a TV movie and, in a few years, an early home video release. There it seems to have picked up a (very) small but devoted following.

The plot is nothing much new; McGoohan is John Connor, an aging hitman who works for hire, usually for a mercernary organization headed by McNeal (Lee Van Cleef). Connor has retired, but McNeal needs him for one last job and eventually pressures him to come out of retirement by threatening Connor’s estranged wife. Connor doesn’t go through with it, McNeal loses face and orders him killed; the scene is set for a suitably dramatic showdown. This isn’t groundbreaking, or even particularly special. But the final product is, just a little, special. Something went right, somewhere along the line, and The Hard Way turns out to be a surprisingly memorable film. I’m not saying ITC would have made a fortune, had they distributed the film to cinemas, but they certainly wouldn’t have lost millions and I’m sure it would have at least broken even…

The best word I can use to describe this film is sparse. Everything is just a little bleak, a little grey. Country landscapes are autumnal, grubby and wet. City shots seem especially grimy and gaunt. Dryhurst - who actually equips himself pretty well as a first time director - eschews closeups and keeps everyone at a middle distance, where its difficult to properly read their faces. Even the script is sparse. The whole film revolves around Connor and he’s not often offscreen for any length of time, yet he has only a handful of lines in the entire thing. Dryhurst didn’t even use an original score, instead using two ready-made pieces from Brian Eno’s 1978 experimental album, Music For Films.

The cast (Van Cleef and McGoohan aside) are mostly semi-familiar faces from British and Irish television - Donal McCann, Joe Lynch, Kevin Flood. The notable exception is Connor’s wife, Kathleen. Played by celebrated Irish novelist Edna O'Brien - in her only credited screen role - Kathleen spends most of the film isolated from the other characters. She provides much of the background and insight on Connor, delivering melancholy monologues directly to camera in what looks like a cave. Its disconcerting at first, having such a particular tone and presence for just one character (the context of her one sided conversation and its setting is not revealed until the very end of the film) but it ends up working. As the very human side of an inhumane business (Kathleen is the only truly sympathetic character in the film) she anchors everything in a state of reality and consequence. Its what prevents the film from becoming just another generic action film, or an overly grim mood Piece; the idea that though Connor is A Bad Man, and not really suited to any other life, there was a time that he was capable of love, when he was a husband and a father and not just a man with a gun.

Really though, the film belongs to the two stars - it was always going to. Van Cleef is Van Cleef; an actor who, although typecast early on as villains and murderers, was always elegant and subtle in his performances. As McNeal he is the other face of the coin to McGoohan’s Connor. Both men are getting old and getting tired, but where Connor is determined to quit, McNeal is more than ever obsessed with carrying on. His demand that Connor perform the fateful hit feels less about ‘hiring the best’ and more about preventing someone from taking the easy way out. “Men like us don’t stop”, he tells Connor when they first confront one another. In that line is his major misunderstanding of the situation, the idea that he and Connor are the same, with the same goals, drive, needs. He offers more money, but its clear from the very beginning that Connor has never been overly interested in the pay - he takes enough for himself and sends the rest to his family. “I have enough”.

McNeal is proved right in the end, in that both men find themselves unable to stop once the wheels are in motion. The final showdown - Connor entering a certain trap, McNeal rigging the house with tripwire and microphones - is a minor masterpiece of its kind. Connor is wounded early in the scene and spends the rest of it prowling around, using one arm to fire his shotgun at anything and everything that spooks him. Its a paranoid moment but you never feel like Connor has lost control - rather that he’s beyond caring, or has made peace with whatever outcome he expects.

McGoohan is incredible in these scenes, as he is throughout. As I said, he gets precious little dialogue, but it works to his advantage. Always a very physical actor, McGoohan hunches his shoulders and stalks his way slowly through the film conveying his feelings and reactions with a tilt of the head or a movement of his hand. There is a moment where Connor recieves a letter from his daughters, emigrated to America, and begins a reply. Its a simple enough scene, but as Edna O'Brien speaks in voice-over, about how he was a good father, but distant too, McGoohan holds the letter from him; he wanders to the window, stares out as if considering his reply; goes to put the letter down and apparantly move away; has second thoughts, sits and looks at the letter again; slowly, hesitantly pulls a piece of paper towards himself and picks up a pen; holds the pen as though he doesn’t know what to do next and finally, almost resigned, begins to write. Its a fantastic piece of theatre which is a lot more subtle played out than it is described here - the quiet, controlled, fastidious killer faced with the one aspect of his life which visibly makes him uncertain, which he can’t entirely control, which could be exploited as his weakness (as Kathleen is). It’s never really explained why the kids are in America, but watching the film you can’t help but feel its at least partly because Connor had no idea what to say to them.

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Welcome to the world of creative destruction apk where all the pieces is absolutely destructible! In Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942), Joseph Schumpeter developed the idea out of a cautious studying of Marx's thought (to which the whole of Half I of the ebook is devoted), arguing (in Part II) that the artistic-damaging forces unleashed by capitalism would eventually lead to its demise as a system (see under).7 Despite this, the term subsequently gained reputation inside neoliberal or free-market economics as an outline of processes corresponding to downsizing to be able to improve the effectivity and dynamism of a company. You can easily download creative destruction apk game from our Gamersofperu website.

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But when falling interest is a big concern and I agree it's and it's have an effect on Juniors, Teenage and Seniors then maybe Free To Air protection could be a great place to start carry Rugby again to the people and never simply those who can afford and if like me struggling to have the time to observe it anyway.

The story of US metal illustrates an necessary lesson about what the economist Joseph Schumpeter known as best android creative destruction apk latest version Long-run economic progress entails more than simply increasing output in existing factories; it is usually implies structural adjustments in employment.

It requires control by means of the choice and motivation of workers quite than by means of management of individuals's actions; ample resources, together with time, to achieve outcomes; figuring out what to measure and when to measure it; and real respect for others' capabilities and potential.

Inventive Destruction is a new sandbox survival cellular recreation that includes the ultimate enjoyable of constructing and firing. You possibly can choose from different stories which fancy you or be the creator and contribute to the ever rising story base of Creative Destruction.

A number of the components which can't be modified within the recreation are background, music, theme as they all are depending on the type of alternative a player makes. I guess loads of rugby gamers would not thoughts enjoying out of Bali for 6 months a year whereas incomes Aussie dollars.

After I heard Bernanke say this yesterday I knew for the first time that he has no idea how markets work. Evolutionary Economics and Creative Destruction (Graz Schumpeter Lectures, 1). Routledge. And it's a reminder that the method of change is an act of creative destruction that appeals to our darker nature as well as our high-minded beliefs.

In a book that's sure to shake the business world to its foundations, Creative Destruction, like Re-Engineering the Company before it, gives a brand new paradigm that will change the best way we take into consideration business. Missing production-oriented control programs, markets create extra shock and innovation than do firms.

In his justly well-known 1942 e book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy , Joseph A. Schumpeter described the dynamics of a market financial system as a technique of inventive destruction.” In his view, innovation—the brand new shoppers' goods, the brand new strategies of production or transportation, the brand new markets, the brand new types of industrial group that capitalist enterprise creates”—drives this process.

In expertise, the cassette tape replaced the eight-monitor , only to be replaced in flip by the compact disc , which was undercut by downloads to MP3 gamers, which is now being usurped by net-based streaming services 23 Firms which made cash out of know-how which becomes out of date do not essentially adapt nicely to the business atmosphere created by the brand new applied sciences.

So they thoughtfully set me up with CEO Frederic Rose, who turned a dying film processing business into a digital production dream manufacturing unit with one eye on the underside line and the opposite on the future, and the amazing promise of fully immersive digital leisure that places you, literally, inside the film or video game.

You can also see the reviews of this game on the playstore. The gameplay of Inventive Destruction isn't any different than the video games of the identical genre. In Artistic Destruction recreation, you can build walls, ramps, floors, and far more. Client expenditure knowledge additionally supports the creative destruction apk of location-primarily based leisure.

The fear of discarding the previous for the brand new (product cannibalization), the concern of channel conflict, and the fear of earnings dilution by way of acquisition paralyze acts of artistic destruction and infrequently effectively protect the corporation from the perception of future bother—as well as the need to act—for a long time.

The principle conclusion have to be that however painful it could be for many who must make the wrenching adjustments required by the economic system's technological progress and changing structure, that ache plays a vital position in motivating the useful resource reallocation and other changes—for instance, adjustments in the types of training, training, and expertise people purchase—that make potential an ongoing means of economic growth by which, in the middle of time, practically every member of society will be better off.

With Creative Destruction already launched on Android, players desperate to play Fortnite Cellular on Android can now experience it on Creative Destruction as an alternative. Now seek for Inventive Destruction” using the Play Store. Just like the gameplay of the identical style, Artistic Destruction for Android will take gamers to the wilderness, the place there will be a lifetime of harsh and extreme struggle, the one survivor is the guy.

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For many who rely on selling items or companies in declining or disappearing demand, for those whose locations no longer match effectively into rising spatial patterns of production, for those whose techniques of production no longer symbolize a means of maximizing web revenues, for those whose abilities and experience now not entice keen patrons within the labor markets—for them and numerous others, the method of economic development brings anxiety, disappointment, loss, and in some cases ruin.

To compete with the comfort of social media, video games and the rest of the digital world, leisure venues need to boost the fidelity of the social experience they offer. The markets silently permit weaker companies to be put up on the market and depart it to the new owners to form them up or shut them down.

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Hitman” is an motion-journey sport that follows the story of a cloned assassin known as Agent 47. Taking jobs from the Worldwide Contract Agency, Agent forty seven travels the globe taking out businessmen, evil scientists and navy leaders in numerous methods.

Lengthy-time period corporate efficiency has not matched the performance of the markets, as a result of companies don't adapt as quick because the markets do. That is as a result of means corporations evolve, not because of the best way they accomplish their day-to-day work.

Developments like digital downloading and mobile gaming are quickly reshaping the marketplace—so much in order that some observers now liken brick-and-mortar video game shops to … well, the strolling lifeless. The system of game of Creative Destruction is virtually equivalent to the one in every of PUBG or, more concretely, to the aforementioned Fortnite (or Fortcraft, of course).

Turning conventional knowledge on its head, a Senior Companion and an Innovation Specialist from McKinsey & Firm debunk the myth that prime-octane, constructed-to-final companies can proceed to excel yr after year and reveal the dynamic strategies of "discontinuity and artistic destruction these corporations "must adopt with the intention to maintain excellence and remain competitive.

The system then should endure not merely the frustrations and relative impoverishment of a succession of (typically solely non permanent) losers within the means of creative destruction, however the frustration and absolute impoverishment of everyone except perhaps a lucky few who profit from the state's channeling loot to them.

Open the chests -> In Creative Destruction Apk sport, search for the chests because you at all times get some higher loot from these chests. Now, let's study some Inventive Destruction suggestions, cheats & a technique guide to the master recreation. In many ways it is a better perspective on the game than you get from the traditional sideline camera, and it gives the TV viewers a greater view of the gamers than what the fans sitting in the entrance row get.

On Wednesday, June 13, 2018, standing on the ARTISTIC DESTRUCTION trademark changed to NON-LAST WORKPLACE MOTION ISSUED - CLARIFICATION NEEDED. Between 2003 and 2010, the amount of time Americans spent taking part in video games and using the computer for leisure elevated 28% and time in entrance of the tv increased 9%. The time spent playing laptop and video games elevated 39%.

Proposing a radical new enterprise paradigm, Foster and Kaplan argue that redesigning the company to change at the tempo and scale of the capital markets quite than merely function nicely will require more than simple adjustments. As I see, Creative Destruction's buildings are not as various as Fortnite, and the quantity is less.

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In placing contrast to such bibles of business literature as In Search of Excellence and Constructed to Last, Richard N. Foster and Sarah Kaplan draw on analysis they performed at McKinsey & Company of multiple thousand companies in fifteen industries over a thirty-six-year interval.

This offers person a passive management over the occasions of the game and thereby enhances user expertise. Finally, company-management programs must be built that may handle each to control operations and to extend the speed of artistic destruction. Since it is a zero sum recreation, time for different leisure activities, including visiting entertainment and leisure venues, has decreased 39%.

A lot of players have tried to go to New Zealand to improve their recreation but typically they struggle to make it into teams. On Thursday, April 19, 2018, a U.S. federal trademark registration was filed for INVENTIVE DESTRUCTION by HONG KONG NETEASE INTERACTIVE LEISURE LIMITED , Sheung Wan.

You will consider Fortnite when playing Inventive Destruction. The process of Inventive Destruction is the important reality about capitalism. These financial partnerships have discovered the way to function at high levels of efficiency and scale whereas engaging in artistic destruction on the pace of the market, exactly as Joseph Schumpeter envisioned.

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Location-based, or what we will even call venue-based entertainment, has been by way of a number of inventive destructions, with perhaps essentially the most dramatic one at present underway. But in response to a new report by Tiger Group's Valuation Services division, a different type of "inventive destruction" is in play within the video game industry itself.

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If operations are wholesome, the speed of creative destruction inside the company will decide the continued lengthy-term competitiveness and efficiency of the corporate. Each at-residence and mobile video games and social media are the primary reason for the creeping inventive destruction of venue-primarily based leisure.

Digital expertise is pushing the boundaries of fidelity and comfort, frequently elevating the bar at each finish—excessive constancy venue-based entertainment corresponding to Cirque du Soleil (see image proper) and Orlando theme park experiences just like the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Common Studios and the convenience of the digital world creative destruction  apk both at-house and on cellular devices.