#when i say i want a cinematographic experience when i go to the movies that’s what i meant

[coffeebooh]

ok so i watched across the spider verse yesterday and let me tell you smth: this movie is a 10/10. the only part i didn’t like abt it was when it ended and it should tell you everything you need to know abt it

[quidfree]

Do you think the rehabiliation/redemption of an abuser is ever a valid storyline?

good question, many possible answers, so excuse my limited attempt at one below.

in the first instance i’d say i don’t think art should be dissected in terms of ‘validity’ because, well, that’s pretty subjective and also restrictive. a lot of sensitive, uncomfortable or downright nasty subjects are always going to be depicted in media for various reasons, because they’re a part of the human experience and humans create art. so whether a storyline is ‘valid’ isn’t really a question i can answer.

that said, i think if we’re looking at topics like these a lot depends on framing and intent. so, for example, in lolita the book, nabokov set out to create in his protagonist a self-deluding monster who abuses a child, and framed the story through his eyes with that in mind- something which movie adaptations of lolita have strayed from by replicating his predatory gaze and delusions rather than using cinematographic language to clue the audience in to his lies. it will depend on what a story wants to do: critique? glamorize? observe?

rehabilitation and redemption are tricky by nature, of course. yes, redemption is obviously a good thing, and something society should encourage, but i think we often shift the focus from the person doing the redemptive work to whoever they’ve wronged, with the expectation that the ‘final step’, or what’s key to unlocking redemption, is forgiveness. and that rubs me the wrong way, because no one is owed that just because they’re improving. especially in terms of abuse, and especially when this is a parent abusing a child for years and years on end (since i assume our point of reference here is the todoroki situation).

what grinds my gears with the todorokis, going back to my point on intention and framing, is that i think horikoshi kind of dropped the ball there on both counts. in going so hard on the extent of enji’s abuse, the lasting trauma he’s caused in his family, the way this lasted well into the youngest son’s teenage years, he made it very hard to swallow the change in enji’s narrative role, and also made everyone else’s in-text response to it frustrating. yes, the todoroki boys retain some spite against him after his midlife crisis, but this is 1) contrasted with their saintly female relatives holding 0 grudge and being framed as morally correct 2) routinely challenged by the narrative purposefully creating dramatic situations where they worry for enji’s life and/or are in high stakes emotional moments almost forcing them to acknowledge his various heroics. their reactions make sense to some extent given the above, but it’s horikoshi who decided to write the story that way- to switch from enji being shouto’s traumatic backstory to suddenly a principal member of the cast, with all of his own extended plotlines and inner turmoils and sympathy-inducing traumas. for me, if this was always the end game, he misstepped in the framing by making him so vile for what, twenty years of mistreating his wife and young children for no reason than his own ego, and then about-facing and beating the reader over the head with ‘no but actually he’s trying to be better now so everyone has to forgive him immediately and if they don’t they’re just as bad as he is’ (lest we forget touya the villain son).

maybe controversially but i think mitsuki is kind of a good example of this whole intent and framing thing. mitsuki is, by definition, also an abusive parent to katsuki, since she physically hits him and also berates him pretty constantly. however, this is very clearly meant to be played for laughs from the start, and we are meant to infer that she actually has a good relationship with katsuki, but they just have similar short-fused temperaments. some people may not like any kind of parental abuse being framed for laughs, which is fair; for me, arguing and the stereotypical slapstick physicality is within acceptable bounds. so if we saw mitsuki have a sitdown with katsuki to awkwardly say she’s working on her temper, i would buy into that far more quickly than enji’s schtick, since the initial issue was never presented in-text as that serious. with enji, because his abuse is taken so seriously at the start, the way it subsequently gets ignored and ‘forgiven’ feels incredibly jarring.

people always jokingly compare shouto to zuko but i think that’s actually a fair comparison in this regard. if ozai, mid ATLA, suddenly looked inwards and decided to be a good father, would we all expect his kids to forgive him / acknowledge him as a good person? despite the abuse he inflicted on ursa, the way his kids grew up fundamentally fucked up, the fact he defaced his teenaged son in combat? i would hope not, because personal reinvention does not mean anyone else needs to acknowledge that. and people who do bad things don’t need to be redeemed at all costs.

anyways that was a very reductive answer but in short yes i think it can be a ‘valid’ storyline, it just depends on why the author wants it and how they presented it.

[denimbex1986]

'THE POWER OF LOVE

When lensing an amalgamation of haunting and precious memories and heartbreak, director Andrew Haigh and cinematographer Jamie D. Ramsay SASC wanted to avoid being too heavy handed with nostalgia, instead opting for a subtle and organic visual expression of reminiscence and relationships.

Much like the journey of reflection and discovery that unfolds in author Taichi Yamada’s novel Strangers – a traditional Japanese ghost story of love, loss, the afterlife, and treasured and sometimes painful memories – the process of translating the book for the screen took writer-director Andrew Haigh (Lean on Pete, 45 Years, Weekend) on his own emotional voyage.

In Haigh’s cinematic reimagining, All of Us Strangers, we meet Adam (Andrew Scott), a 40-something gay screenwriter who lives alone in a high-rise flat in London. Still impacted by grief from the traumatic incident in his childhood which claimed the lives of his parents, when Adam meets Harry (Paul Mescal), who lives in the same block of flats, the love that grows has a transformational power.

Returning to his childhood home, Adam is transported back to the ‘80s and as past and present collide in a nostalgia-infused dreamlike world, he has the opportunity to spend moments with his parents who have been frozen in time at the age they were when they passed away. Memories of those he has lost and feelings of grief and suffering are revisited as Adam has conversations he wished he could have experienced if his parents had lived to see him reach adulthood.

In the telling of an ethereal tale of the power of love, Haigh wanted to “pick away” at his own past in the same way as protagonist Adam, even choosing to shoot the scenes with Adam’s parents at the director’s childhood home in Croydon, South London. “I was interested in exploring the complexities of both familial and romantic love, but also the distinct experience of a specific generation of gay people growing up in the ‘80s,” says Haigh, wanting “to move away from the traditional ghost story of the novel and find something more psychological, almost metaphysical.”

Speaking on a panel session following a BAFTA screening of the film which British Cinematographer attended, Haigh spoke of his interest in “the need to connect, or to soften whatever the pain is that you carry around with you.” While some changes were made to the story that unfolds in Yamada’s book, the central idea of the protagonist getting the chance to meet his parents, and “go back in time to have those conversations again, get to know them and them get to know him” felt really powerful to Haigh.

“I wanted to incorporate the idea of a love story into that and see how those two things connect and bounce off each other,” says the director. “There is a sense of yearning – he has lost his parents and is yearning for them as well as yearning to find someone to give him comfort and love. His parents are also yearning to be alive again and to spend more time with their child.”

A fresh narrative

The script stood out as extraordinary to Jamie D. Ramsay SASC, a cinematographer who finds it “rare to come across a piece of literature in script form that excites you, feels fresh and unlike something you’ve seen before.” He was fascinated by exploring the way people deal posthumously with trauma. “It touched me because there’s a lot of emotion attached to the subject, especially for those who grew up feeling prejudice against homosexuality and uncomfortable to come out to their parents. That was a childhood trauma that stuck with Adam, coupled with the grief he experienced,” says Ramsay, speaking to us from the location of his next production.

The feeling and “the way the movie moves you” always come first for the cinematographer, and is then “serviced by the next layer which is the choice of lights, glass, and style. “So in this film, there’s the feeling of loss as well as the emptiness of never being able to get the acceptance of the two most important people in your life. The relevance of the story to the current day when isolation is all too common struck a chord with me, and I also wanted to be part of making the movie because I love Andrew’s previous work – he’s an incredible filmmaker.

“He’s a rare director who has impeccable taste and direct sharp vision about what he wants to do. However once you have aligned with him and understand what he’s looking for creatively, he hands it over to you and trusts you completely.”

The South African/British cinematographer is familiar with lensing heart wrenching stories with sensitivity and creative flair, having won the Bronze Frog at Camerimage 2022 another adaptation of a book – Oliver Hermanus’ Living which sees a civil servant reflect on his life and how to spend his remaining days when faced with a fatal diagnosis. Ramsay’s work on All of Us Strangers also struck a chord with audiences and immersed them in another emotional story, resulting in the film being selected in this year’s Main Competition at Camerimage and scooping multiple British Independent Film Awards including Best Cinematography, Best Film, and Best Director.

Discovering the look

It is the smooth-flowing conversation between director and DP during the five-week prep and five-week shoot which Ramsay believes was key in the creative process and a result of Haigh being “super smart and knowing what he wants.” For Ramsay, a DP is “a visual ideas engine which the director then guides into place” and as Haigh knew so specifically what he wanted in terms of the story being told, the pre-production period of fleshing out their approach to the film was a joy.

“Andrew didn’t have a fixed idea of what it should look like though, which is great for me because I love the process of finding out what it should look like with the director,” adds Ramsay. “When the director is autonomous and has a strong visual idea, it’s difficult for you to collaborate and truly imprint your personality onto the film. We discovered it together through deep conversation, starting with what the narrative was really about, who the characters were, and then just talking about the references that appealed to us over the years.”

These inspirations included Ingmar Bergman productions such as Swedish period drama Cries and Whispers (1972) due to its unsettling movement, even though the narrative themes differed to All of Us Strangers. Taking creative influence from that production subconsciously and “allowing it to sit in the background” of their decision making, the filmmakekodrs explored Haigh’s wish to “create a sense of nostalgia but not be too heavy handed with it,” producing a subtle memory of sadness.

While Yamada’s book was a strong influence on Haigh, when shooting an adaptation of a novel, Ramsay “tries to avoid being affected by outside sources besides the script” and rarely reads the book because it “overprescribes your creativity and imagination”.

Discussions led them to explore the organic feeling of memories, and decide that those recollections of the filmmakers’ and protagonist Adam’s past would feel analogue. “We knew it would probably be things like 35mm prints from the ‘80s and early ‘90s, 300g printed records, a photo diary, or a tape deck which are all indicative of the era we grew up in, and the era in which the lead character went through this trauma,” says Ramsay.

The duo agreed this organic and analogue feeling would drive the visual approach – they wanted “to feel the dust on the negative, to feel that human touch to the film. We never wanted something that felt overly structured and overly perfect, it had to feel flawed.” With the touch of the filmmakers behind the lens combined with the creations of the art department shaping the final result on screen, the choice to shoot on 35mm 3-perf film was made quickly, working with Arricam LT and Kodak VISION3 500T, 250D and 50D film stocks and processing, scanning and dailies colour carried out at Cinelab.

“You can’t argue the value of shooting on 35mm film and I had great support from the teams at Kodak and Cinelab in terms of the tests and the dailies. Choice of film stock was largely driven by function as much as aesthetic. When you don’t have a huge budget for lighting and you’re using a lot of practical light, having the speed of 500T is really useful,” says Ramsay. “From a light perspective, we also did a lot of transitionary filming and having the extra bit of love out of the 250D allowed us to transition between day into night smoothly. For a lot of our daily life sequences we went for 50D because we love the robust strength it offers.”

The more vintage aesthetic was paired with cutting-edge technology in line with the filmmakers’ aim to “not be overly dramatic with the feeling of nostalgia.” Already venturing into a more organic technique of shooting on film, they wanted to avoid “adding another layer by using vintage lenses to achieve flares”. Instead they sought “the reality and responsibility of a sharp set of lenses, offset with the romance and organic nature of film” which led them to test multiple options before landing on Zeiss Master Primes.

“That contrast played with the analogue versus digital, the pastels versus the primaries which we kept leaning into,” says Ramsay. Colour palette was largely inspired by the era, selecting signifying tones that felt aesthetically pleasing as well as true to the time period. “We then worked out the evolution of those tones in a contemporary context. And whenever we went back in time, we imprinted those tones onto those moments,” says Ramsay.

A “journey of colour” that was birthed in Adam’s childhood found its way into his apartment in adulthood. “From the art department through to the camera and lighting crew, we all wanted to convey the feeling that Adam never quite grew up. He got Peter Pan syndrome and was locked into an area of his life he couldn’t move past.”

Haigh and production designer Sarah Finlay spoke about the design of the film needing to look quite naturalistic and avoid jumping in and out of the different time periods visually. Haigh’s childhood home needed to be modified in some ways to look as he had remembered it. He “wanted the past and present to bleed into each other and a lot of the design was more about feeling the past.”

Vintage meets cutting-edge

Both Haigh and Ramsay are fans of the look and feel of film, but they also wanted to create a “feeling of being out of touch with reality – a symptom of the self-induced isolation and loneliness Adam experienced.” This resulted in a collision between the analogue and digital filmmaking world, and Adam’s apartment being built in a studio at Wembley Park Studios in London. Incorporating virtual production techniques, the set was surrounded by an LED wall comprising ROE Visual Ruby 2.3mm (running on the Helios processing platform), upon which all of the views from Adam’s apartment were displayed. The 120ft by 50ft volume was built with the help of the team at Creative Technology – which supplied the LED screens – and plates were captured in and around Stratford, East London.

“In doing so, we could manage the time of day, luminance, position of the view, cloud structure, movement of traffic, or whether we wanted to do a time lapse with the clouds,” says Ramsay. “It just allowed us to put the reality a little bit outside of the realm of normal, just beyond his apartment. This helps create a slightly strange feeling in his apartment, which is a significant location as it’s where 30 minutes of the movie takes place.”

Ramsay enjoyed a harmonious combination of old and new technology, using ARRI SkyPanel LED lights to create an ambience matching the colour of clouds displayed on the LED wall in addition to 12K or 24K ARRI T12 or T24 tungsten fresnel lights to create the feeling of a sunset illuminating the room.

“I haven’t been able to achieve that with any other light besides the fresnel tungsten head which have a warmth and analogue feel,” he says. “My sweet spot is a specific combination between old and new such as using 35mm film against the LED wall to soften the wall. And by embracing LED technology to marry the colour tone of the wall with the ambience, you then create an interesting synergy with the analogue feel of an old fresnel.”

Helping Ramsay achieve this synergy was Warren Ewen, a gaffer the DP has collaborated with a number of times in the UK, who “goes above and beyond” and is “one of the strongest hands on set.” Working with a stellar lighting crew, the DP learnt about safeguarding himself from an exposure perspective and making sure there is enough lighting in place to service what is needed when shooting on film.

In addition to the benefits Ramsay and the crew enjoyed when working with the virtual set, the cast expressed their appreciation for having a visual context of the outside world displayed on the LED wall in contrast to their experiences of green screen shoots. However, Ramsay’s greatest challenge when shooting on the volume was occasionally discovering moiré in the dailies. “It gave me sleepless nights because when we got our dailies moiré might be introduced in the strangest situations – in reflections on the set as if a glass, mirror or wall was acting as a sensor,” he explains.

“That’s still a mystery that needs to be solved. It’s the hard thing about seeing your dailies 16 hours later when shooting on film. But Andrew was so collaborative and supportive throughout, knowing we were going down the 35mm and virtual production route and the emotional turmoil we might encounter along the way. But the results were well worth it.”

Prior to shooting commenced Ramsay explored technical challenges that might arise for scenes which were to be shot against the LED wall with his longtime colour collaborator, Joseph Bicknell, colourist at Company 3. “After understanding the story in broad strokes and Jamie’s perspective on it, I like to create a strong show LUT for him to load in camera during tests, so he can see live how it might react before photography,” says Bicknell. “Once we have that test footage we’ll dial in the look further, I’ll make a few adjustments and he shares his thoughts which we built into the final show LUT. The overarching look of the film didn’t end up straying far from this in the final grade.”

Bicknell felt the production was a “masterpiece” from the first time he watched the cut without final mix or colour as “all the mood and intensity was there”. Haigh and the cinematographer’s shorthand was so strong that Ramsay had a clear idea of the visual vibe the director desired when it came to collaborating with Bicknell again in the final grade. “Andrew is very supportive in that way and has a lot of confidence in the HODs he’s picked because he loves what they do. He trusts them and that’s why it’s wonderful to work with him,” says Ramsay.

Exploring the film’s emotional qualities, in the grade Bicknell and Ramsay worked with DaVinci Resolve to achieve a “light blend of magical realism to help the audience travel through the story”. On specific scenes they used colour to more forcefully convey emotion, for example during moments of distress such as the sequences that take place on the underground. “Inspiration for this was partly taken from the performances but also what was happening in the sound design,” says Bicknell.

Reacting to the moment

The majority of the narrative plays out in Adam’s childhood home, which Haigh was keen to shoot in the house he grew up in. But, as Ramsay highlights, shooting in quite restrictive spaces such as those in the house location with low ceilings and small windows would have been tricky even when working with small digital cameras. “The fact we are shooting on 35mm cameras with 1,000 foot loads made filming and lighting tough,” he says. “We managed to get permission from the property’s current owner to cut out a doorway to extend the lounge but it was still very challenging.”

Wanting to work within a wider frame to allow themselves the option to isolate characters, but also centralise characters in important moments led the cinematographer and director to adopt a 2.39: 1 aspect ratio. “There are scenes where we isolate the characters on either side of the 2:39 aspect ratio and others where we centralise the character and tighten the eyeline to a great extent,” says Ramsay, using the sequence where Adam and his parents are all in bed together as an example. Haigh and Ramsay wanted this to be an uncut scene, and to hide when the cast members in the bed needed to switch and move, creating a beautiful yet strange and jarring experience.

“This was difficult as we were on location at the house in Croydon and needed to build a cage inside the bedroom from which we could suspend the 35mm camera with a 1,000 foot mag above the characters,” says Ramsay, who likes to operate and “react to the feeling of a moment”, and was behind the camera for All of Us Strangers. “I had my grip Kevin Fraser seven inches above this rigging, operating the dual slider as the scene developed. It’s tough to find 35mm familiar crew but Kevin’s very comfortable with rigging film gear.”

Meanwhile, Ramsay was on the zoom, timing it precisely to push in so another character disappeared from the frame. “Each time they had to leave the bed without us feeling the bed move, and then another character got in and they were revealed. Building a structure to support the 35mm gear on location was difficult but what was most important to us was having absolutely no cuts in that sequence, so there was no chance to lose the audience’s attention, locking them in this dream.”

As well as not being too heavy handed with the sense of nostalgia, Haigh wanted to avoid being overbearing with the suggestion of Adam’s different states of mind, wanting the subtlety to almost make the audience question where they were and whether it was the past or present. “The only time we pushed it was the club sequence where Adam is intoxicated and that feeling was motivated more by the drugs he had taken than by the state of mind and the presence of ghosts in his life,” says Ramsay. “For the club scene, we had more free rein to really push the lighting, transitions, use reflections and break the fourth wall by Adam looking into the camera, confusing the situation.”

While pushing the camera movement and making it more confusing in that sequence, the filmmakers wanted everything else to be fairly stable, with a “slight movement and breath to it” achieved by shooting on zoom lenses and moving “constantly in and out of the zoom, to make everything feel like it was breathing a little and slightly strange.”

Difficult locations to control where the crew were at the mercy of what already existed included the Whitgift Centre shopping centre in Croydon. Shooting there demanded the crew carefully pick the time of day they were filming due to the large glass ceiling through which the sun would shine.

“Sequences that were fun to work out included the tube scenes which were shot on a tube line we had access to for a certain amount of time and could go back and forth on,” says Ramsay. “Adam’s journey always needed to appear to be in one direction, so I needed to work out when to mirror his placement on the tube and when to switch extras, so he always seemed like he was going in the right direction.”

In scenes taking place on the train, reflection was an important motif because “reflection is your self-identity” and the filmmakers “wanted to represent the decay of Adam’s psychology through the way he was seeing himself in those moments.” In line with Haigh’s subtle storytelling, the director wanted the use of reflections to be gentle and quiet rather than overbaked. “So, it was a case of choosing when to do it and leaning into what exists in reality,” says Ramsay. “For example, tube windows morph your face naturally, so we thought let’s lean into what happens in this environment and use it as a tool.”

Haigh emphasises the importance – “especially when lensing a story with queer identity at the heart of it – that the reflection a person gives to the world can be very different to how they feel. It can be quite problematic and traumatic.” The director felt it was important that Adam sees himself in a different light each time he looks at his reflection “and things are changing and he’s learning or coming to terms with things.” Another central and constant theme running through the film for crew and cast was conveying the power of love and that “long after you’re gone, that feeling of love remains.”'

[narumi-gens]

hi mel hope you're doing well!! i managed to convince a friend to drive us nearly 40 min to a movie theater to see the zone of interest and you were not kidding when you said this truly is one to experience in a theater. (and also rereading your post about the tech mishap during your viewing is even more comical because i knew what was going to happen with the black screen for the first 5 min but my friend was so visibly distraught he was like 'who's gonna speak up about the screen not working?'😭)

but on a more serious note, what a haunting film, especially the ending soundtrack. the sound design was spectacular and really set the tone. (when i found out the sound designer was johnnie burn it all made sense. i'm still upset he didn't get more recognition for his sound design in nope.) i wanted to share this bts video i saw because i think the film (and just the process of making it) does a really good job at showing while critiquing the ethical dilemmas with making movies about historical traumas and conveying these atrocities without fetishizing them. i'm going to be thinking about this movie for so long, it really is quite timely and will take some time to process fully

ugh i'll stop typing before i write you a thesis but wow thank you for posting that snippet of your review because it really was the final push for me going out to see this movie!

nessa! you are always allowed to wear your little film nerd heart proudly and write me a thesis bc I also wear my little film nerd heart proudly!

I'm so glad you made the trek to go see zone of interest bc 1) it's an amazing movie that needs to be seen in a theater and 2) now you know exactly why my experience was so comically absurd 😭

thank you for sharing the bts video! hearing jonathan glazer talk about trying to get the audience to project themselves onto the characters was so interesting bc there's that scene where hoss goes around the house and turns out the lights and locks the door before going to bed and I couldn't stop thinking about how my dad always does the same bc he's always been the last one to go to bed. and the entire ending just felt almost revolutionary, like I couldn't believe what he was showing and how he was connecting the desensitization towards an atrocity in the past with the desensitization towards that same atrocity in the present. I'm just so impressed with the entire film bc it manages to say something new about a topic that's seen so so so many depictions in film and is so incredibly timely.

gah! no one I know has seen it yet so this is the first time I've been able to just vomit all my thoughts out to someone about it so thank you 😘

also, how dare you come into my inbox and re-open the nope snub wounds 😾 how could the academy not recognize the cinematography of a movie about cinematography shot by one of the greatest living cinematographers???? 😭

[dontthinkaboutcookies]

Annabeth’s blonde-ness is not important.

Some argue that Annabeth’s blonde hair is important to her character. While that is somewhat true, it is only the case because it is a feature that causes some people to underestimate her. That is relevant to one of Annabeth’s most important features— one that can be seen not in her appearance but in her behavior and actions— her drive to prove herself. Because of stereotypes about blondes and women, people judge Annabeth as soon as they see her. Annabeth Chase is intelligent, resilient, wise, skilled in combat, very experienced in fighting for her life and the lives of others while having limited resources. She is an invaluable asset to any team and a formidable, terrifying opponent to any foe. Yet she is constantly underestimated and dismissed because of her gender, hair color, and —especially at the beginning of her story— her age (Annabeth has a lot more experience with monster fighting and combat strategies than most her siblings did because she ran away from home when she was seven). But one of the things people love about Annabeth is her fiery determination. She’s quick to disprove people’s assumptions about her and has a commanding presence to those who know her.

I read a writing tip once that said that a character’s greatest weakness is related to their greatest strength. Annabeth has said before that her ‘fatal flaw’ is pride. As dangerous as pride can be, it can also be a powerful tool in motivating her. While she is driven by inquisitiveness and morality and loyalty, she is also, undoubtedly, driven by spite. When people first meet her, they don’t always expect much, and she can’t let them be right. Annabeth’s blonde hair is important solely because of the purpose it serves.

To think that Annabeth can’t be the same character if she does not have her blonde hair to motivate her is simply unfounded. It is no secret that black people face discrimination and that racists form opinions about them because of their appearance. Annabeth being a black girl stays very true to character. The motivation is the same. People are stupid enough to believe that physical features are relevant to what a person is capable of. Annabeth resents this and wants to prove people wrong. What’s important about Annabeth is not her physical features, it is that she overcomes people’s expectations of her in spite of the assumptions they make about her based on her physical appearance. (side note: Annabeth’s gray eyes aren’t important to her character. Despite being mentioned so often in her descriptions, they are described as “stormy gray eyes.” Yeah there’s the comparison between the intensity and emotion in her eyes and the intensity of a storm via them both being gray but c’mon, clearly what’s important there is that you can see her fiery determination in her eyes)

People were upset that Leah Jeffries was cast as Annabeth because they were expecting the cast to look exactly like the books described. But let’s be real. When we say we want a cinematic adaptation of a book, what we really mean is that we want an audiobook with stunning visuals to go along with it. But cinematic adaptations are inherently different from their source text specifically because of the different medium that is used to tell the story. While “show-not-tell” is an important aspect of quality writing, novels are reliant on narration and dialogue in order to convey information to the reader. But for cinematic works, the “show-not-tell” rule applies differently. Movies and shows aim to convey as much information to the viewer as they can through visuals. Movies that are heavily reliant on narration and dialogue are kind of a waste. May as well just listen to a podcast. Cinematographers take advantage of the fact that they can show you what’s going on without having to put it into words. Not to mention, lots of things happen more quickly than they can be described, like fight scenes, or scenes that are very chaotic and have a lot going on simultaneously. And new places might be described in several pages but on screen would only be dwelled on for about 10 seconds. So we can’t realistically expect them to be exactly the same and that is a good thing. The story is being told in a different way. Switching from novelistic communication to cinematic communication is a fundamental difference. There are improvements that need to be made in order to tell the story efficiently and effectively. Cinematic adaptations are inherently different from their source material and they are all the better for it.

What really matters is an actor’s ability to believably portray a character.

I have a friend who is an actress. She’s also a brunette; she told me her grandparents lived in the Middle East. She told me once that she was auditioning for a role as a murder victim. After her audition, she was told that her performance was the best but “Sorry, you’re just not White Trash enough.” So they picked the blonde actress over her. Because it was a one-episode character who barely had any screen time before dying and whose main trait was probably meant be “white trash. ” Would you really want to sacrifice the quality of the show for something as superficial as appearance?

Rick Riordan said himself that during the casting/ auditioning process, they weren’t looking for people who looked like the characters but people who were the right age and who could play the characters the best. Leah Jeffries was cast to play Annabeth Chase. I am fully confident in her ability to give us a great portrayal of Annabeth and I look forward to seeing her performance.

[nancydrewwouldnever]

The tea I want is what it was like to work with him when he directed "Before we go". I guess we'll never have that. I wonder what he's like in the director role cause that's a position where he's more in control of the whole thing therefore there's more room for assholery. Not as much as an actor.

Here are the few things I remember being said from some of his BWG interviews. There are probably more things that other people remember.

The entire shoot for the movie was only 19 nights in December 2013.

He hired Alice Eve for the lead role because she was British, and he liked the idea of the female lead being British in the movie. They literally talked about this in pre-production. And then she showed up to film the movie and was like, nah, I'm doing this role as an American. And he was miffed about it, but didn't say, I'm the director and that's not my vision for this project. So, I think that's a red flag right there about his ability to control situations.

He said he deferred a lot to the cinematographer on the project for camera placement and framing and shot choices. That's fine as far as I'm concerned, because the guy had a lot more experience and got really beautiful shots of NYC. You can't say the city doesn't look magically beautiful in that movie.

[philhoffman]

This week’s Monday Philm is one that every time I watch it, I remember that it is probably my favorite movie ever: Doubt (2008), dir. John Patrick Shanley. I’m a sucker for a stage-to-screen adaptation, I love melodramas, it’s one of the first PSH movies I ever saw (my first Monday Philm, before I wrote these little reviews!), and, of course, hot priest Phil.

Tonight I watched it with the commentary track by writer and director John Patrick Shanley. After the first few minutes I thought, is it possible that listening to a commentary could make me like one of my favorite films less? but it greatly improved once JPS got past recounting his childhood as a Catholic schoolboy beat-by-beat and talked more about the filmmaking. Even already knowing that Doubt is partly based on his experiences, it is neat just how many details from his life he packed into this film—he knew a priest with “disturbingly” long fingernails!

A few of the biggest revelations from his commentary:

Phil was sick as a damn dog with one of those awful, dragging colds the entire time they filmed the “Frosty the Snowman” office scene with Meryl and Amy. JPS said he was lying around practically comatose between takes (which, I suppose, is better than when he was vomiting in a bucket off-camera while filming Almost Famous with the flu).

They filmed in New York in December and January, and the garden scene between Father Flynn and Amy Adams’ Sister James was shot when it was 15 degrees out! No wonder JPS said Phil always looked like he was in pain on set!!!!

Speaking of the garden scene—Shanley mentioned that one of the potential inspirations for that scene was Shakespeare’s Richard III, when the murderer seduces his victim’s widow. That reading certainly puts Father Flynn in a certain light! This scene is a kind of seduction, JPS says, Flynn goes there with the intention of convincing Sister James of his innocence, and he does.

On the other hand, in the final fight between Father Flynn and Meryl Streep’s Sister Aloysius (The Final Boss Battle), when she asks if Flynn gave Donald Miller the wine and he tearfully denies it, JPS whispers, “I must say, when Phil says no, I believe him.” He mentions that he and Phil had a conversation about the character’s background, but he doesn’t know where Phil took it beyond that—so really Phil was the only person who knew the truth. The rest of us, as they say, will always have doubts!

Also two great special features on the Blu-Ray, including Doubt: Stage to Screen, which consists of talking head interviews with the adult cast, including some cute photos and behind-the scenes footage (filmed the same day as the Synecdoche, New York special features lol). There’s also a really fun press interview with Viola, Meryl, PSH, and Amy—Phil is in full teddy bear mode and quite funny, and he bashfully tells a sweet story about Meryl. His cute little set crushes that never go away. Between this and Synecdoche (and even The Savages), it’s clear how much Phil shines and truly enjoys his work when he’s surrounded by incredibly talented actresses.

I barely talked about the movie but! It’s gorgeous, cinematographically one of my favorite films to just LOOK at, I love the Dutch angles, Amy Adams we WILL get you your Oscar, the child actors are wonderful, Howard Shore’s scores can do no wrong, I couldn’t be an actor (for many reasons but mainly) because if Phil OR Meryl yelled at me like that under any circumstance I would cry.

Meryl said Phil is one of her favorite people she’s ever worked with in her life and she wants to work with him a thousand more times ❤️

[adamwatchesmovies]

The Wizard of Speed and Time (1989)

There will never be another film like The Wizard of Speed and Time. Even if Mike Jittlov hopped in a time machine, reassembled the original cast, used the same equipment, the same locations and shot the film using the same techniques on the same budget, it could never be duplicated. Difficult to track down unless you know where to find it - at which point it becomes ridiculously easy to view - it’s got that “lightning in a bottle” quality.

Based on his original short film, writer, cinematographer, animator, composer Mike Jittlov plays himself as he attempts to create a short film highlighting his DIY special effects techniques for a TV network special. He’s a complete unknown and more than a little odd, prompting the executives to place a bet on whether Jittlov will meet the deadline.

A childlike sense of enthusiasm, giddiness and pleasant naivete radiates from every frame of The Wizard of Speed and Time. As you might’ve guessed, Mike Jittlov is essentially playing himself. He creates and then sells the film he made in 1979 to a system which has stomped all potential for off-the-wall thinkers and radicals with its unions, business models and rules. He’s ambitious and gullible. Of course making a movie isn’t as easy as he expects it to be. Although the obstacles standing in his way are recognizable to us onlookers as completely necessary - although perhaps a little restrictive - he nonetheless brings you to his side. You want nothing more than for him to overcome the odds and show the world what wild abandon can do.

You know the movie is going to get made because you’re watching the movie the real-life Mike Jittlov made. This makes his triumphs feel like your own. The meta aspect turns The Wizard of Speed and Time into an experience rather than a story you simply watch. If he can make his dream come true, so can you. You can “see the strings” in all of the special effects sequences - that’s to say you know how they were done - but it doesn’t matter. Your jaw drops seeing them because you know this man did it all on his own. More than that; he invented the techniques. Particularly striking is the stop-motion animation - the best of which features Jittlov himself as the titular Wizard.

This picture is inspirational and hilarious. It’s big and wild and colourful and cheerful and clever. Watch it a half-dozen times and I bet you’ll still discover previously unseen jokes tucked away in the corners of the screen. Rather than self-congratulating and self-important, it’s a humble little picture that never takes itself too seriously and takes every opportunity to make fun of how crazy it is.

The number of successful gags makes the film’s lack of a proper DVD release even more disappointing. You want to be able to pause and take a look at what’s written on those sheets of paper on the wall in the background, or turn on subtitles to make sure you don’t miss a thing while the room is filled with laughter. Be honest; you’d never heard of this movie before and it’s largely faded away… except to the die-hard fans who, frustrated with the studio’s utter lack of enthusiasm when it came to a new home release, created a version you can find online - all with Jitlov's approval.

The Wizard of Speed and Time isn’t just a movie. It’s has romance, humour, likeable characters, crowd scenes, chase scenes, special effects, etc. but they're used in wholly original ways. To watch it is to open up an old cardboard box in your attic and rediscover your favourite toy all over again. (On VHS, May 10, 2019)

[mcnobi]

Send this to people you'd like to know better.

thank you lovely @lowkeyanakin for tagging me. and i'm also sorry to everyone because I can't be concise even if you paid me.

What book are you currently reading? I haven't picked up my kindle in an age but last time I read it was Critical by Matt Morgan, who is an Intensive Care Doctor, talking about some of his experiences, particularly through Covid. Going to try and read a couple of new things over the Christmas break.

What’s your favorite movie you saw in theaters this year? To be fair it was the ONLY film I saw in the cinema this year, but it was Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio. I love that tiny blue cricket and I don't care who knows it.

What do you usually wear? At the moment it switches between midi dresses and ankle boots or trainers, or leggings and big slouchy tops with ankle boots or trainers. I almost always have a scarf on from about October to March. (Can you tell it's -3 here and that's all I'm preoccupied with?)

How tall are you? Small enough that I had to stand on a pallet when I had to be on camera for some filming a couple of weeks ago. Rude.

What’s your Star Sign? Do you share a birthday with a celebrity or a historical event? I'm a gemini and I fit it right down to the ground. One of the most famous people I share my birthday with is now a notorious anti-semite unfortunately so I'm going to go with Tim Berners Lee instead.

Do you go by your name or a nick-name? Usually my name IRL but I have a ton of nicknames, some of which have absolutely no relation to my actual name. I get cas, cassiopeia, casserole from the online besties. My old work pals call me johnson (which is not my surname and isn't even close but it's a long story) but usually it's case if it's a RL pal, or sweetpea if it's my dad.

Did you grow up to become what you wanted to be when you were a child? I don't know, because I flitted between ideas for a long time. I wanted to be a magazine editor for a time when I was about 8, and did work in magazine publishing for a couple of years, but really when I was a teenager, I wanted to be a doctor in emergency medicine. I wanted to be a cinematographer during university, but I ended up in marketing and comms instead, like most humanities grads.

Are you in a relationship? If not, who is your crush if you have one? Single and 100% good with it. There's this fit Scottish guy though who keeps making films about these wars in space, I don't know if you've heard of them or anything....?

What’s something you’re good at vs. something you’re bad at? I never know what to say for these things. I know I'm very thoughtful, and I put a lot of thought into my friendships, and my gifts, and my work, because that's just how I'm made. I'm terrible at asking for help, because the fear of burdening people is embedded deep down in me. Even though I would never ever see anyone else as a burden, ever. It's weird how it works.

Dogs or cats? CATS ALL DAY EVERY DAY.

If you draw/write, or create in any way, what’s your favorite picture/favorite line/favorite etc. from something you created this year?  I thought I'd written something this year but it was actually LAST YEAR. Good god. However I did do a couple of little crappy sketches a couple of weeks ago (the drawing was crappy, not the content) of @thetorontokid and @weaponizedwit's beautiful little cats which I quite liked doing.

What’s something you would like to create content for? I'd literally like to create content for ANYTHING at the moment. My brain is a bit atrophied from constantly creating work content but never fun fandom stuff. I'd like to try and write some fic soon, and do more art too.

What’s something you’re currently obsessed with? Ewan Gordon McGregor.

What’s something you were excited about that turned out to be disappointing this year? This is going to be a controversial one for some so I'm going to be very specific; Obi Wan Kenobi's WRITING. All the right parts were in play, but it never felt like the writing ever went below a shallow glance over the story. And the acting was so great and deserved so much better. So yeah, Joby Harold - do better, you prick.

What’s a hidden talent of yours? Again, I have no idea what to put for these things. I don't know that I even have any talents!

Are you religious? No.

What’s something you wish to have at this moment? For one of my best pals, who is currently in labour, to have her baby safely and without any drama. Beyond that, I'd like to be able to hang out with my gremlin pals without an ocean in the way. Otherwise, I'm all good.

I'm never on here much now (I know I know I'm sorry) so I don't know who has already done this - so I'm just going to tag the gremlins @thetorontokid and @weaponizedwit and lovely brit @obiknights

[mysavagebeauty]

Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities

Lot 36

Teleplay by Regina Corrado and Guillermo del Toro

Based on a Short Story by Guillermo del Toro

Directed by Guillermo Navarro

Lot 36 is a good episode to begin an anthology series helmed by del Toro. It has the creepy yet curious nature that is almost synonymous with the auteur. Although Navarro is better known as a cinematographer, his experience as a television director shone through with the pacing and overall storytelling.

Although the story itself felt cliché—a down on his luck right-wing veteran gets screwed over by his own actions—the use of an almost claustrophobic setting, the inclusion of a demonic ritual, and the cinematic production contributed to an exciting first episode. Additionally, the beautiful set designs and liberal use of practical effects set Lot 36 apart from the media we've grown accustomed to these past few years.

The actors also did a wonderful job, specifically Tim Blake Nelson. While his character was far from likeable, his presence on screen made it that you couldn't take your eyes off him. As you watch him go about his day, you want to know what horrible fate would befall him.

Rating: 4/5

The Graveyard Rats

Teleplay by Vincenzo Natali

Based on a Short Story by Henry Kuttner

Directed by Vincenzo Natali

The Graveyard Rats, if I'm being honest, took me off-guard. I'm unsure if this was Natali's intention, but there was something comedic about. This isn't meant to be an insult. Rather, I found the levity in this episode pleasant, especially right after watching the first. It's good as a second episode because it keeps the viewers on their toes for the rest of the series.

Natali, much like del Toro, is known for sci-fi and horror. The latter of which is shown in full display here. It takes a lot to unnerve me but even I shuddered at all of the gluttonous rats that appeared on screen. From the thousands that fell on Masson (David Hewlett) to the human-sized abomination under the graveyard, this type of horror creature(s) is rare these days.

Story aside (although it's a good story), the set design was what really captured my attention. I absolutely loved the scene in the mortuary, specifically when the widower and her son were walking past the cadavers. Masson's apartment was also beautiful, with his personality showing through in every set piece. And the graveyard! Or should I say the hidden world underneath it... What I liked most about it was that it made me feel trapped and desperate for escape, something hard to capture and even harder to convey via screen.

Rating: 3.5/5

The Autopsy

Teleplay by David S. Goyer

Based on the Short Story by Michael Shea

Directed by David Prior

The Autopsy has the best dialogue, so far. Maybe because it was written by Goyer or maybe because F. Murray Abraham, Glynn Turman, and Luke Roberts had excellent deliver, either way it made the story more compelling. You could feel each of the characters' motivation behind their words, creating an emotional connection that makes the events of the episode better felt.

I also enjoyed this episode because of how cinematic it was. To misquote Harry Styles, "It felt like a movie." From the picturesque shots of the small mining town to the angles chosen to present the autopsy, all of it added to the overall production value of the episode. Although I'm unfamiliar with Prior's works, The Autopsy made me curious to check out his filmography.

Additionally, I'm usually not a fan of alien parasite storylines because they tend to be redundant. This was nice though. I liked the mystery aspect of it, especially since it felt like the audience was invited to join in on solving it. I also like the horror elements sprinkled throughout, from the eerie almost haunted feel of the makeshift mortuary to the disembodied voice warning Dr. Winters (Abraham) to get out. Overall, this was an enjoyable episode.

Rating: 4.5/5

[deuterosapiens]

So, politely, what the fuck did I just watch?

This marks Day Four in our decent into madness and after a solid start, we are now on incredibly shaky ground with Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth.

Not doing a full scene for scene breakdown like I did for the second one because quite frankly, that was exhausting to write and because this one is a tremendous series of extremely audible oofs.

So, first and foremost, a glance at the Wikipedia for this one reveals that it had a roughly higher budget that Hellraiser II. Where that budget has gone, I cannot say. Certainly not to a cinematographer, because this one looks and feels so, so direct-to-home-video. But that's fine, after all, the story's got to be good, yeah?

Uh... no.

Look, my man Clive Barker, he's a busy guy. I'm sure he was working on something of extreme importance at the time and therefore didn't have as much of a role in story details and whatnot. It happens. I can't blame him. Who do I shift blame to?

Tony Randel, who directed Hellraiser II, and Peter Adkins, who wrote the screenplay for II based on a story by Clive Barker. Huh..? Can someone verify that my notes on this are right? I'm genuinely confused. And director Anthony Hickox's only major film of note is... Hellraiser III. Some action movies and whatnot, but nothing of note.

I'm not going to talk about our lead, Reporter Joanne Summerskill, because I legitimately do not care about her at all. She exists as a replacement for Kirsty (who gets a cameo), but as her journey here isn't really connected to these events in the same way as Kirsty, or Julia, she kind of doesn't connect as well. Actually, she's kind of just a weird vehicle for the storyline the movie actually does want to focus on, the character the movie wants to focus on.

The nail-headed Hell Priest died at the end of Hellbound. Not a good thing if you want him to be the antagonist of a sequel, right? Luckily, this series has an established history of allowing dead things to return to life, though we also seem determined to disregard the rules to that. So we do spend a bit of time bringing the nail-headed Hell Priest back to life.

We explore a bit more his former, human life, something touched upon in the previous film. You see, former human, the late Captain Elliot Spencer, manifests himself to our reportagonist to exposit a bit about how the nail-headed Hell Priest is a darker side of him, one which had given in to the allure of pain and pleasure and not at all who he truly is and yeah, this was a pointless contribution to the character.

I actually like this idea of a human giving in to the excesses offered by (the tragically absent) Leviathan and the Labyrinths of Hell, and being transformed by it into the Cenobitical Gash. This is good stuff. Having this character say "yes, I succeeded in becoming a master of pleasure and torment, and yes I delight in inflicting grievous bodily manglement onto others, but it's not really ME, it's not really who I AM!", is remarkably dumb. You cannot expect to garner sympathy when I've literally watched you rip your victims to tiny little pieces via meat hook. No dice.

Since none of the nail-headed Hell Priest's compatriots from the previous film bothered much with the whole "accept a blood sacrifice on the place of your death" thing, our Lead Cenobite goes about creating a new horde of loyal servants. Not equals, these new Cenobites are clearly subservient.

I cannot bring myself to like any of their designs, the new Cenobites. They feel so, I don't know, rushed. These are obviously not persons who have taken to bodily disfigurement and self-mutilation as a means of exploring the farthest reaches of pain and experience, they are just sort of, well, impaled with random things and given black leather.

Yes, yes, Doctor Channard had a similar thing going for him, but I think he is not quite a victim of the same thing as the new ones. His Cenobitical forme expanded on his own desires to torment his patients. It works as an outward expression of his own masochism. Cameraman Doc's is just sort of, now he has a video camera shoved through his eye socket. I guess it's hard to give designs that reflect a character's inner desires when none of these characters have a significant personality to begin with.

Aaaaaand once again, we seem to have completely forgotten the rules of the Lemarchand Box. It is now a glorified Pokéball. Is it really that damn hard to remember that the Lemarchand Box is a key? Really? Can we do this right, please? And what's with this "he cannot take it, it must be willingly given" rule? I'm not saying this directly conflicts with our established understanding of the Lemarchand Box, I'm just saying it feels like it conflicts with our understanding of how the Lemarchand Box is used by the Cenobites in the first film.

I'll give this movie one thing though. The scene with the church did kind of amuse me a bit.

This also marks the first time the films use the name Pinhead properly, which again, out of respect for Clive Barker, I will not be using.

Please tell me that I can forget all about this one and disregard it entirely for the next one.

[greensparty]

Movie Review: Stop Making Sense & Album Review: Talking Heads "Stop Making Sense" Expanded Edition Remaster and TIFF Q&A Coverage

In Dec. 1983, NYC art rockers Talking Heads did four concerts at Hollywood's Pantages Theater. Those shows were filmed for the concert documentary film Stop Making Sense that was directed by one of my all-time heroes Jonathan Demme. After some 1984 film festivals, it was released theatrically in October 1984. Today it is considered to be one of the greatest concert films of all time. For music geeks and film geeks it always comes down to this and The Last Waltz. This month, A24 is celebrating the 40th anniversary of those legendary concerts with a re-release in 4K and IMAX. Last month, Rhino re-released the companion live album originally released in 1984. I got to cover both of these releases this week as well as the Talking Heads reunion that occurred at the Toronto International Film Festival following the IMAX screening with a Q&A moderated by Spike Lee.

original 1984 movie poster

I guess you could say I’ve written a great deal about Stop Making Sense (for proof, read here). In 2015, my documentary was screening at Noise Pop in San Francisco and the night before my screening I caught an anniversary screening they had of Stop Making Sense at The Independent. It was an amazing sound system and the packed audience was dancing and singing along throughout. I later read an interview with Jonathan Demme and he said when Stop Making Sense first opened, people were getting up and dancing in the movie theater during the movie and that was exactly what we wanted from the film. In 2020 when I interviewed Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz he said “ That’s what we wanted. We were going for a live concert experience. Without a lot of superfluous stuff like interviews between the songs. The thing about Stop Making Sense was the entire crew, the band, the camera crew - everyone was at the top of their game. The cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth had recently shot Blade Runner! It was a top notch operation. And the people who recorded the live album from The Record Plant Mobile, they did an excellent job too. So hat’s off to everyone involved.” As I said at the time of the Noise Pop festival, I was truly honored to know my film was at the same festival as this legendary film! 

Movie Review: Stop Making Sense

2023 movie poster

By 1984, Jonathan Demme had graduated from the Roger Corman school of exploitation films into more offbeat character driven work like Handle with Care and Melvin and Howard. By the early 80s he had attended some Talking Heads concerts and was blown away by the visual elements of their music. At the very moment Demme was directing these Talking Heads concerts in late 1983, he had been in the middle of one of his worst filmmaking experiences on Swing Shift, a film where star/producer Goldie Hawn had final cut. So the creative solace he was finding at the time was in this concert film, which marked Demme's first documentary and first concert film, two genres he would return to quite often over his career.

Demme and Byrne circa 1984

Unlike other concert films, each band member comes out a little at time. First - singer David Byrne comes out with a boombox and plays along to "Psycho Killer", then he is joined by bassist Tina Weymouth, then drummer Chris Frantz, and then guitarist Jerry Harrison. They then are joined by guests for these shows including keyboardist Bernie Worrell, percussionist Steve Scales, and more. Each song is like it's own iconic moment: Byrne singing to the lamp during "This Must Be the Place", the legendary big oversized suit and so many more. Every musician here is tight and they all look like they are having fun. There was also time for brief interludes like Frantz and Weymouth's side project Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love" (yes we all know, later sampled by Mariah Carey, but the original is superior), and some solo Bryne soundtrack songs.

I am by no means an expert on Talking Heads or their biggest fan, but this concert film is legendary! You actually see the sweat on the forehead of the performers, the scratches on the instruments and the incredible lighting even more so on the big screen than you do on the small screen. I have to acknowledge this: I saw this IMAX screening at a unnamed movie theater and there were some projection issues. A colleague of mine actually walked out as he was disgusted with the aspect ratio cutting off the heads during some shots. I am not going to give this a bad review based on the one specific projection at this one particular theater I was at, as I am judging a movie itself. Over the last few years several movie theaters in the area such as the Coolidge Corner Theatre and the Somerville Theatre have done revival screenings of Stop Making Sense and it's always an event. Any excuse to see this movie on the big screen is worth cancelling your plans and going!!! The 2023 cut also had an incredible music mix too. It's kind of impossible to watch this movie and not tap along to the music. Very little can possibly compete with my experience of seeing it at Noise Pop in 2015 when fans were getting up and dancing along to each scene (not possible in stadium seating unfortunately), but this movie shows both Demme and Talking Heads in their prime, a meeting of the mind that still stands up today!

IMAX release is on 9/22 and standard 2D release is 9/29: https://tickets.stopmakingsense.movie/

5 out of 5 stars (I rarely give 5 stars BTW)

Album Review: Talking Heads Stop Making Sense Expanded Edition Remaster

2023 album from Rhino

Talking Heads were co-founded by Chris Frantz with his college girlfriend bassist Tina Weymouth and studious singer David Byrne. They soon moved to NYC and became a big part of the Downtown NYC scene. They were hip and cool enough to get played on MTV and college radio, but artsy and edgy enough to be a non-punk band accepted by the CBGB’s crowd. Just as the band was taking off, Frantz and Weymouth formed a side group Tom Tom Club. For me, I always dug the Talking Heads, but I never got heavy into them. Probably because by the time I was getting into music, it was towards the end of the band. But I always liked their sound and had great respect for them being early music video pioneers, i.e. “Once in a Lifetime”, “Burning Down the House” and “Road to Nowhere”. In the last few years I've actually gotten way more into them and have picked up a number of their albums.

Talking Heads with their additional Stop Making Sense musicians

Which brings us to the Stop Making Sense live soundtrack album. By 1984, Talking Heads had released five solid studio albums, notably Remain in Light (got my copy on vinyl!). The band was mostly big in the college radio scene, but they bubbled up to the mainstream with some Top 40 hits like "Take Me to the River" and "Burning Down the House". Their groundbreaking music videos that were popular on MTV definitely introduced them to a whole new audience too. When the concert film was about to be released, Sire released the companion live album in September 1984, but it only featured 9 songs clocking in at under 40 minutes, hence not the whole concert. In 1999, there was a special edition released to coincide with the 15th anniversary, this one featuring 16 tracks. For the 40th anniversary Jerry Harrison oversaw the full concert which includes some tracks that were actually cut from the film itself.

Something very noteworthy about both the film and the album is that it was one of the very early uses of digital audio. The sound is incredible...even as I listened to a digital download. It also serves as a great example of what a good soundtrack should do, which is being both a companion piece to the film and a souvenir of sorts for the excitement of what that film did for you upon seeing it. For big fans who already have the previous editions, this does mark the first time the entire concert is on vinyl and it includes a reproduction of the original booklet as well as notes from the band members [NOTE: the edition I reviewed did not include that booklet] and it might be worth trading in the old one for the new one.

For info on Rhino's 2023 re-release: https://store.rhino.com/en/rhino-store/artists/talking-heads/stop-making-sense-2lp/603497832835.html

4.5 out of 5 stars

TIFF Q&A on 9/11/2023

In the years that followed Stop Making Sense, Demme worked the members of Talking Heads a few more times: Byrne and Harrison contributed music to Something Wild, Byrne did the score for Married to the Mob, and Byrne acted in Demme's episode of Trying Times. But sadly Demme didn't do another Talking Heads concert film. The band broke up in 1991. Bryne announced the band was over, but the other three recorded and toured as the Shrunken Heads and later as The Heads. While there was some bad blood between them, they did reunite in 1999 for the 15th anniversary of Stop Making Sense. One of those Q&As was featured on the blu-ray. In 2002, they reunited and actually performed music together when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But the closest we came to a Stop Making Sense sequel was in 2020 when Spike Lee directed one of Byrne's broadway shows David Byrne's American Utopia for the HBO concert film. I named it my #1 Documentary of 2020 and in my review I wrote "Byrne and Lee have come together with something to say in 2020. I just hope we don’t need to wait another 36 years for Byrne’s next epic concert doc!"

Byrne, Harrison, Frantz, Weymouth and Lee at TIFF

At the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival screening, all four Talking Heads reunited for the screening and Q&A moderated by Lee, which was simulcast at the IMAX screening I attended. Here were a few of the highpoints:

Spike Lee said "Give it up for the late great Jonathan Demme! The great director Jonathan Demme" Amen! Chris Frantz said "I miss Jonathan Demme! He would have been so happy to see this tonight and hear it".

David Byrne said "When I was watching this just now I was thinking, this is why we come to the movie theaters! This is different than watching on my laptop." Big applause!

Spike Lee declared this the "greatest concert film ever"! Hard to disagree with that!

They discussed working with Demme. Frantz even mentioned Caged Heat (impressed they saw that early film Demme did for Roger Corman). Byrne said after he saw an early cut Demme did with editor Lisa Day, "I realized that he was looking at it as an ensemble film. Like you get a bunch of characters in a location and you get to know them each one by one, get familiar with them, and then you watch how they all interact with one another. I thought, I'm in my own world, but he saw that and he saw what was going on there."

Frantz went on to say that Demme really made everyone involved feel "what we were doing was worthy of being a movie and worthy of being remembered".

Jerry Harrison said that as someone who had been in a band before this one with The Modern Lovers, he felt there was "nothing going on like this. I don't know how big an audience we will have but I think we're treading new ground. I think we did and that's why it's timeless".

Bryne went on to say about Demme that there wasn't a lot visually in his previous films that was similar, but he was very aware of how people relate and "he brought that to a concert movie, and you don't see that in a lot of concert movies"

Me seeing Stop Making Sense on the big screen!

I am incredibly jealous of anyone in L.A. attending the American Cinematheque screening with Talking Heads doing a Q&A moderated by Paul Thomas Anderson on Tues. 9/19/23!

[humdelhi]

"As a girl belonging to an orthodox Rajasthani family, I could never have imagined that I would become an actress, much less play a role in a major Netflix film like AK vs AK. We were five sisters and one brother in my family, and there was a clear gender divide. Although my sisters and I were never denied the opportunity for education, our learning also centred around housekeeping activities such as cooking, sewing and beautification. My elder sisters were married off and had started their families by the time they reached their early twenties, but I knew that I wanted to forge a path different from the one prescribed to them by my family and our culture.

I came to Delhi University to study Computer Science, but was in fact more interested in participating in the dramatics events that occurred in the university’s theatre circuit. I found that theatre helped me not only to express myself, but also effect change against the social norms that I had myself struggled with. After graduation, I went to Bombay for work in a marketing role, where I chanced upon the opportunity to participate in a culinary TV show called Femme Foodies. The show was to be set in Goa, and my family was strictly against my wearing Western clothes of short length on national television. Yet, as it was a cooking show, they relented, and after a lot of disagreement, allowed me to contest on it.

That small culinary show paved the way for my career in acting. As I returned to Bombay, I started auditioning for advertisements. It was hard entering the industry as an outsider. Each morning, I had to wake up early, pack a variety of outfits for the different roles I might need to audition for that particular day, and travel from my flat in Worli to Andheri for work. From small advertisements, I gradually moved to doing parts in soap operas, and finally got my big break into the movies last year as I became part of Vikramaditya Motwane’s Netflix film AK vs AK.

The entire experience of shooting for the film was surreal - not only was I working a double shift as I was acting in a TV show and AK vs AK simultaneously, but I was also a camerawoman on the film. In fact, the role I played, that of Anurag Kashyap’s assistant and cinematographer, entailed that I shoot almost half of the film! As I had practically no experience with cameras, it was a really tough task. I remember shooting a fight sequence set in Anil Kapoor’s house, wherein a glass table would break during the scuffle - a shot that had to be taken in one go as there could be no retakes after the table broke. I was terribly nervous, and worked very hard on my skill for that particular shot, and emerged a victorious actor-cum-cinematographer by the end. I can now proudly say that when it comes to working in the movies, I have not one skill, but two!

My family too, has now become fairly supportive of my endeavour. I’ve always believed that no matter how much one rebels against one’s parents’ wishes, one subconsciously seeks their family’s love and validation when it comes to their success, and I finally have both.”

[frontproofmedia]

Dolo Flicks: Pearl - Ti West and Mia Goth Gift Horror Fans With Rare Prequel Greatness

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By Hector Franco

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Published: September 26, 2022

"It’s not about what I want anymore, Mitzi. It’s about making the best of what I have. "  -- Pearl

Director Ti West has pulled off one of the most challenging tasks in film. He has written and directed two films this year, and both are of the best in the horror genre. With the release of Pearl, he has given fright fanatics the rare prequel that is arguably just as good as its predecessor. 

West has been part of the horror world since the 2000s producing cult classics such as 'The House of the Devil.' However, in 2022, West has separated himself from the pack that could put him with the likes of the best Directors the horror genre has seen. 

Pearl is a prequel to 2022's X and goes into the background of the main character aptly named Pearl. Mia Goth in X took on dual roles of playing both Maxine and Pearl. Using practical makeup and prosthetics along with Goth's performance, you couldn't tell that the English actress was playing the elderly woman. Goth has stepped up her game even further with Pearl, arguably surpassing her showing in X. 

The success of Pearl sits as much on the shoulders of Mia Goth as it does on Ti West. Goth wrote the film with West and put forth such an effort that, at times, her character is endearing even when committing horrific acts. The film's predecessor, X, shows how Pearl will end up as an elderly woman full of regret and desperate for intimacy. In Pearl, the movie takes its time unraveling the depths of Pearl's delusions and mental illness. Beginning with the killing of a goose and feeding it to her pseudo-pet alligator, Theda, it seems like Pearl has a prototypical start before turning into the killer, she will become. That is until, when on her way home from town, Pearl dry humps a scarecrow, does the audience realize that they are in for a ride. 

The 1918 time period is an intelligent and crafty way to relate the film to today's climate, with the Spanish Flu pandemic in the background. Although set in the late 1910s, the look of the film takes inspiration from cinema a few decades later, such as The Wizard of Oz with its utilization of vibrant colors. At some points, the film's visuals are reminiscent of how the colors are used in 1964s' The Masque of Red Death' starring Vincent Price.

West and cinematographer Eliot Rockett use such lively colors that even some individual set pieces, such as a bright pink pipe outside the local theater, stand out. With most of the film taking place during the day, the variation in colors in the setting, landscape, and wardrobes make Pearl West's best-looking film to date. West's experience and ability to execute the framing and tension in terror, Pearl is among the top of horror and film in general for 2022. 

While Goth is the absolute star of the movie, it would be an understatement to say that Pearl is a one-person show. The cast is small, with each character having their own highlights while keeping Pearl in the spotlight. In particular, Pearl's mother, Ruth, played by Tandi Wright, is given some of the most memorable scenes. The final dinner table scene where Ruth and Pearl argue about her daughter's true nature allows both Wright and Goth to shine. The paralyzed father is somewhat of an avatar for the audience as he cannot move or talk and is left in shock about what he is witnessing between his wife and daughter. West's direction and Goth's performance allow both to bring a sense of dread, with the audience not knowing just how far Pearl will go. 

A common issue found in a vast majority of prequels is that they spend time answering questions that the audience either wasn't asking or needed to be answered to progress the story. Pearl, doesn't waste the audience's time over explaining the events that occurred in X. Instead, Pearl does acknowledge the previous film by including some forms of pornography when The Projectionist (David Corenswet) shows Pearl a stag film. Also, the similarities in the personality of X's Maxine and Pearl are demonstrated with both having an issue with anyone staring at them and deep aspirations for fame. In Pearl's case, these aspirations can turn into deadly rampages. 

Taking place over a few days, Pearl has a simple story allowing for more complexity in its main character. The ability to enable the character to expand and dig deep while keeping the film within its slasher-horror roots is best seen in the confession scene near the film's climax.

After being rejected at the traveling troupe audition, Pearl's sister-in-law Mitsy (Emma Jenkins-Purro) offers to take Pearl home. In trying to console Pearl, Mitsy is left aghast and terror-struck at her sister-in-law's confession. Goth has a lengthy monologue where she confesses having killed her parents and cheating on her husband, Howard. She also admits how she harbored resentment towards him for joining the military to fight in World War I and leaving her on the farm where she always dreamed of escaping. 

Horror films are typically ignored when it comes to major acting awards such as the Golden Globes or the Academy Awards. Still, much like Toni Collette's performance in 2018s Hereditary, Goth deserves praise for her exceptional effort as Pearl. 

The confession is just the first of two parts with Mitsy. In arguably the most frightening scene of the movie, Mitsy walks out of the house following Pearl's admission, only to have Pearl right behind her. In the background, you notice an ax, and when Pearl walks out, it's clear what is about to take place. In what looks to be the brightest time of day, Pearl stalks Mitsy, who is unable to evade her killer and is slowly killed. The execution here, not only in suspense but also in visuals, is outstanding. West has to be commended for putting together such a simple and effective kill. 

West and Goth both received praise from legendary director Martin Scorsese in a review given to the film's distributing studio, A24. 

"Ti West's movies have a kind of energy that is so rare these days, powered by pure, undiluted love for cinema," stated Scorsese. "You feel it in every frame. A prequel to 'X' made in a diametrically opposite cinematic register (think 50s scope color melodramas), 'Pearl' makes for a wild, mesmerizing, deeply – and I mean deeply- disturbing 102 minutes. West and his muse and creative partner Mia Goth really know how to toy with their audience…before they plunge the knife into our chests and start twisting. I was enthralled, then disturbed, then so unsettled that I had trouble getting to sleep. But I couldn't stop watching." 

Calling what West and Goth have pulled off in 2022 with X and Pearl a miracle could be hyperbolic, but it does verge on it. Rarely have there been sequels, let alone prequels, that have been as well done as their original. To have done this in the same year is unprecedented. With its performances, direction, and writing, Pearl is one of the best horror films of 2022. Goth's performance alone is worthy of the price of admission. 

(Featured Image: A24 Studios)

[limmastyles]

When don’t worry darling inevitably fails at the box office and gets trashed by critics Olivia Wilde is going to do what Elizabeth Banks did with Charlie’s Angels and basically blame it on misogyny. The writers completely botched the script and we all know Olivia can’t direct so it will fail with the critics ab do truly doubt it will break even. For a movie to make profit and be considered a box office success it needs to make 3x the budget. The budget for DWD is 40 million dollars and that means it would need to make 120 millions dollars to be a box office success and we all know that won’t happen. When this flops that would be Olivias second movie to flop at the box office and we all know that this new movie she’s about to start directing will flop as well so it will be very hard for her to find new jobs because studios won’t want to work with her. Let’s all not forget that Warner Bros. wanted Olivia to push back production and filming because of Covid but she didn’t want to because she know if she did she wouldn’t get hairy to star in it so they took a gamble and because of the fact that they had some of the changes in the cinematographer, actors, Scripts, not to mention two different Covid shut downs the budget of the movie doubled and when it flops The production team will never want to work with her again, Warner Bros. will never wanna work with her again and it will be very hard for her to find a job. Not to mention she will most likely lose out on the marvel job. We all need to remember that she doesn’t have the marvel job. She’s in the running for it. Marvel has no plans and Sony has no plans to do a spider woman movie at the moment. Olivia was in the running to do the new captain Marvel movie but ultimately wasn’t chosen because of the fact that she didn’t have a lot of experience and after this I see her having a very hard time ever getting a marvel job.

No because you’re so right because Warner Bros. warned Olivia and advised her not to shoot in 2020 and her weight and she refused and completely fucked up the project. Don’t worry darling was originally supposed to start filming in September then with the character changes, after changes, and the original cinematographer leaving it got pushed back to mid October. Not long after production they had their first Covid shut down. Also the script changes and the plot changes plus the second Covid shut down everything got fucked up. Don’t worry darling was supposed to wrap right before Christmas but didn’t wrap until two months later in mid February. that’s what caused the budget change plus all the stupid shit that she was pulling with character changes script changes after changes and a lot of the cast leaving. Warner Bros. still took a gamble and continued with all of her shenanigans so that means they expect this movie to do well. But with all of the stupid shit that she has been pulling with this stunt people are going to want to watch this movie. We all know that these days the only movies that do well at the theatres are huge box office successes like marvel movies, DC movies or big huge franchise movies. So a lot of movies these days are word-of-mouth. If I see a bunch of people shitting on a movie on Twitter and I see that the reviews from critics are bad I’m not gonna want to spend 15 bucks on a movie ticket to go see it. I’m gonna wait until it comes out on a streaming service. Not to mention that people are really going to the movies these days everything that you need is on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon or etc. so if people are trashing on don’t worry darling no one’s gonna want to go waste our money to watch it if everyone saying that it’s bad which means that they might not break even and they won’t make profit for the movie. if she blows a $40 million budget Warner Bros. will never work with her again, the production team won’t want to work with her again, and if people see that she blew two movies they aren’t gonna want to take that risk on her again. Not to mention that her popularity with the general public has gone down a lot. She wasn’t someone that people were paying much attention to before but now with the stunt people are paying attention to her but in a very negative way. I truly doubt don’t worry darling will break even but I highly doubt that it will make $120 million at the box office.  with that being said if this movie doesn’t break even that means that she won’t get her back end deal. We all know that Harry is getting a cut out of that deal that’s why he agreed to do the stunt but regardless if this movie breaks even or not Harry is still getting paid and it’s either by Olivia which I doubt or it will be from the studio. So not only would Olivia had put them in a lot of debt because when we didn’t do well and didn’t make a profit they will also have to pay hairy for something that she created. This movie has so much riding on it that if this all fails which it well her career is done for. Warner Brothers are a huge studio so if they won’t ever hire her again it’s gonna be very hard for her to find other jobs not to mention they have the ability to blacklist her so that means no studio will ever wanna work with her again. And it’s really hard to make a movie without a studio. The only reason why book smart did so well is because all the work was done before Olivia joined the production. She joined weeks before they started filming and her and Katie took credit for a script that they didn’t write and all the directing work was done for her. This Is going to crash and burn and she deserves it because I don’t know who she thought she was thinking that she was good enough to pull this off

I love you!💖