This is one of the cooler videos I’ve come across in a while, as it traces the creative evolution of filmmaking from a perspective I’ve yet to see in any other video: the title slide.
The title slide is the same thing as the title card, and its name pretty much sums up what it does: tells you the film’s title. In Hollywood’s early days back in the 1910s, 20s, and 30s, title slides were chockful of information: movie title, director, studio, studio logo, copyright information, year of production, producer names, and all sorts of other stuff. As the medium progressed, you started seeing less and less information in title slides and more and more creativity. This creativity hits a tipping point around the 1960s when Saul Bass started working his particular brand of title magic for films like Hitchcock’s Psycho, Vertigo and North By Northwest, Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder, Kubrick’s Spartacus, and dozens of iconic others. After Bass, creativity was king when it came to title slides, entire sequences now being built around them, to the point many — I’m thinking of those attached to James Bond films — are considered artistic achievements all their own.
In the following video from Danielle Del Plato, title slides from 1915 to the present are collected in order to reveal the evolution of the aspect. Note how as time passes, the less the title card says, the more powerful and memorable its impact.
AR, or augmented reality, is the next big thing. As opposed to VR, virtual reality, which completely conjures environments, AR enhances your environment, adding elements instead of fabricating the entire conceit. Think Pokemon GO. What’s just percolating to the surface now will be everywhere in five years’ time, bringing with it new ways of interacting with technology and each other through technology, not all of which are going to be good. After all, if social media has demonstrated anything about society, it’s that we’re all just as comfortable interacting by a degree removed than we are in person, perhaps even more comfortable. Extrapolating off this, we’ve made “games” like The Sims, or Second Life, or No Man’s Sky that create entire universes into which people can disappear for extended periods of time.
The next logical leap from this, at least if you’re writer-director Magali Barbe, are AR applications that never leave us, artificial elements that attach to our real lives and in turn effect the way we live. This is the idea behind Strange Beasts, Barbe’s five-minute mock-infomercial for a new AR game that allows you to grow and raise your very own pet. Think of it as a Tamagotchi that interacts back with you. Pretty appealing, right? Maybe too much so, as the gut-punch end twist reveals.
Like the best near-future sci-fi — Black Mirror being the obvious go-to example — Strange Beasts understands that any perils of new technology don’t necessarily come from the technology inherently, but rather from how we as users apply it (or over-apply it) to our lives. The user, in short, is the virus.
“Ingenious” doesn’t even start to describe the story, and as Barbe’s background is in VFX, you better believe this looks as incredible as it sounds. CGI interacts with live-action seamlessly, further convincing you of the lure of this “reality.”
If you haven’t heard Warner Bros and DC are moving ahead with their Justice League adaptation with director Zack Synder at the helm. This is despite dismal reviews of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad. It wouldn’t be fair to Justice League to put those same expectations on it though, even if it is from the same creative team, because it could be good. Right?
The marketing thus far for Justice League has done an excellent job of reminding you Superman is dead. He passed at the end of Batman V Superman although they left a giant, unsurprising suggestion at the end that maybe he wasn’t really dead. With Superman not able to assist the world against greater foes, Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) must scout the world for some assistance. Will this new league of heroes be able to rely on each other and stop the world’s destruction?
Before the breakdown, here is the full trailer for your viewing pleasure:
The trailer opens with a shot of a man and his horse. What could be better?
I’m the Batman.
Batman is wasting no time finding Aquaman (Jason Momoa) from the looks of it. Batman: “We have to be ready. You. Me. The others. There’s an attack coming from far away.” Wonder Woman: “Not coming, Bruce, already here.”
So there’s a lot to take in on the next sequence, but here goes. This is apparently Victor Stone’s aka Cyborg’s (Ray Fisher) father, Dr. Silas Stone (Joe Morton).
He has in his procession a Mother Box. According to CBR, Snyder confirmed a year ago that a Mother Box, an Apokoliptan living computer, is used by Stone the elder to save Victor and thereby transform him into Cyborg.
So we are to assume that this is part of Cyborg.
The trailer doubles as a reintroduction to the characters we saw briefly in Batman V Superman including your new favorite DC Universe character, Aquaman.
Here is a full shot of Cyborg.
And here is a shot of The Flash (Ezra Miller).
And then you have the great shot of the heroes together including Wonder Woman. Except Batman because he is probably brooding somewhere.
Oh! There is Batman and he is fighting some kind of computer android. Not just any android though. We know that Darkseid’s general Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds) and his troops of Parademons are the main threat of Justice League, but if that doesn’t mean anything to you here’s the quick and dirty background.
Darkseid is one of Superman and the Justice League’s greatest foes. Consider Steppenwolf like the setup guy for a future film featuring Darkseid as the big bad. The Parademons? They are the fodder for the Justice League to destroy while looking cool. So expect plenty of dead Parademons during the film.
Here are some great action shots of Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Cyborg.
We also find out that Batman’s super power is that he is rich.
You might think this is just a random shot of a football player. It is actually Cyborg and probably explains some of his origin, but it feels weird when it shows up this late in the trailer.
Frankly there aren’t enough characters in Justice League, so here a whole bunch of supporting players as well.
We get out first look at Aquaman’s wife Mera (Amber Heard), J.K Simmons playing Commissioner Gordon, Billy Crudup as Henry Allen, and a reminder that Amy Adams is still in this franchise as Lois Lane.
Looks like an epic war is unfolding. The bigger question is whether this is a flashback to a time when the Amazons defended the Earth or whether this is the beginning of the film’s finale.
This definitely looks like this takes place near the finale as Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Cyborg board the Apokolips.
Aquaman seems to be having an absolute blast in this sequence. Hopefully that will be the tone of the entire movie as Batman V Superman was direly serious and ended up not so hot. The success of Justice League will determine where these characters go from here — will they get more of their own features or will DC just jump ship on the whole universe. It isn’t exactly the best news that Ben Affleck really wants to get out of playing Batman already, but if this turns out well everyone will feel a lot better. A successful Justice League film will help a lot of people forget about Batman V Superman. Here’s hoping this turns out well.
P.S. Please bring Superman back stat.
Justice League opens in theaters November 17, 2017.
We’re heading to Texas along with Mr. Roosevelt, Beach Rats, Patti Cake$, and more.
We here at Film School Rejects are big film festival fans as they remain the best and purest way to experience a film in the theater. These are movies that typically have yet to release a trailer or poster, and often the only thing you know going in is the title itself. That’s a cinematic joy that today’s world of hyped-up marketing months in advance just can’t beat.
We’ve attended and covered many fests over the years, but we’re excited that next month will be our first time checking out the Dallas International Film Festival. Even better? Yours truly will be participating as a jury member for the films playing in the Texas Feature Competition. I’m honored to take part, and while I don’t expect to let the power go to my head I should probably clarify in advance if what happens in Texas stays in Texas.
This is the fest’s 11th year, and in addition to a selection of acclaimed newer titles including Buster Mal’s Heart, The Lost City of Z, and Berlin Syndrome they’re also celebrating established classics with screenings of Bonnie and Clyde, Cool Hand Luke, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
2017’s Dallas International Film Festival runs March 30th to April 9th. Check out the official site for the complete schedule and ticket availability, and keep reading for the fest’s full lineup. We hope to see you there!
2017 Dallas International Film Festival Official Selections:
OPENING NIGHT GALA
BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967) Director: Arthur Penn Country: USA, Running Time: 101min Bonnie Parker, a bored waitress falls in love with an ex-con named Clyde Barrow and together they start a violent crime spree through the country, robbing cars and banks.
CENTERPIECE GALAS
THE HERO Director: Brett Haley Country: USA, Running Time: 93min An ailing movie star comes to terms with his past and mortality. The cast includes Sam Elliot, Laura Prepon, Krysten Ritter, Nick Offerman, and Katharine Ross.
REMEMORY Directory: Mark Palansky Country: USA, Running Time: 113min The widow of a wise professor stumbles upon one of his inventions that’s able to record and play a person’s memory.
NARRATIVE COMPETITION
BERLIN SYNDROME Director: Cate Shortland Country: Australia, Running Time: 116min A passionate holiday romance leads to an obsessive relationship, when an Australian photojournalist wakes one morning in a Berlin apartment and is unable to leave.
CORTEZ Director: Cheryl Nichols Country: USA, Running Time: 99min After a canceled tour, flailing musician Jesse Lirette seeks out an old flame in a small town in Northern New Mexico. When an arrogant attempt at inserting himself into her family fails, he must confront the mistakes of his past on his own.
DAYVEON Director: Amman Abbasi Country: USA, Running Time: 75min Mourning the death of his older brother, 13-year-old Dayveon becomes drawn to the camaraderie of a local gang while spending his days roaming his rural Arkansas town.
HEARTSTONE Director: Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson Countries: Denmark, Iceland, Running Time: 129min A remote fishing village in Iceland. Teenage boys Thor and Christian experience a turbulent summer as one tries to win the heart of a girl while the other discovers new feelings toward his best friend. When summer ends and the harsh nature of Iceland takes back its rights, it’s time to leave the playground and face adulthood.
KATIE SAYS GOODBYE Director: Wayne Roberts Country: USA, Running Time: 88min A kindhearted seventeen-year-old in the American Southwest turns to prostitution to fulfill her dream of a new life in San Francisco.
MENASHE Director: Joshua Z Weinstein Country: USA, Running Time: 82min Within Brooklyn’s ultra-orthodox Jewish community, a widower battles for custody of his son. A tender drama performed entirely in Yiddish, the film intimately explores the nature of faith and the price of parenthood.
THE RELATIONTRIP Directors: C.A. Gabriel, Renée Felice Smith Country: USA, Running Time: 90min At an age when everyone around them is settling down and finding love, Beck and Liam are self-proclaimed loners. After bonding over their mutual disinterest in relationships, they decide to go away together on a ‘friend’ trip. And that’s when things get weird. Really, surreally weird.
DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
CITY OF JOY Director: Madeleine Gavin Countries: USA, Democratic Republic of Congo, Running Time: 74min The film follows the first class of students at a remarkable leadership center in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a region often referred to as “the worst place in the world to be a woman.” These women have been through unspeakable violence spurred on by a 20 year war driven by colonialism and greed. In the film, they band together with the three founders of this center: Dr. Denis Mukwege (2016 Nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize), radical playwright and activist Eve Ensler (“The Vagina Monologues”) and human rights activist, Christine Schuler-Deschryver, to find a way to create meaning in their lives even when all that was meaningful to them has long been stripped away.
DEALT Director: Luke Korem Country: USA, Running Time: 85min Sixty-two-year-old Richard Turner is renowned as one of the world’s greatest card magicians, yet he is completely blind. In this documentary, Richard traces his journey from his troubled childhood, when he began losing his vision, to present day as he relentlessly pursues perfection while struggling with the reality that his biggest weakness might also be his greatest strength.
FOREVER PURE Director: Maya Zinshtein Countries: USA, Israel, Russia, Running Time: 85min The Beitar football club in Jerusalem deals with racist outrage from fans in 2012 after signing two Muslim players.
QUEST Director: Jonathan Olshefski Country: USA, Running Time: 90min Filmed over a decade, ‘Quest: the Fury and the Sound’ was originally planned as a documentary portrait of the Rainey family and their home music studio, which serves as a special sanctuary within their North Philadelphia neighborhood. When a stray bullet wounds their youngest daughter, the film shows the family’s strength in the face of adversity and their dedication to being a force for good in their community.
SPETTACOLO Directors: Jeff Malmberg, Chris Shellen Country: USA, Running Time: 91min Once upon a time, villagers in a tiny hill town in Tuscany found a remarkable way to confront their issues — they turned their lives into a play.
UNREST Director: Jennifer Brea Country: USA, Running Time: 90min When Harvard PhD student Jennifer Brea is struck down at 28 by a fever that leaves her bedridden, doctors tell her it’s “all in her head.” Determined to live, she turns her camera on herself and her community, a hidden world of millions confined to their homes and bedrooms by ME, commonly called chronic fatigue syndrome.
WHAT LIES UPSTREAM Director: Cullen Hoback Country: USA, Running Time: 89min In this detective story, filmmaker Cullen Hoback investigates the largest chemical drinking water contamination in a generation. But something is rotten in state and federal regulatory agencies, and through years of persistent examination, we learn the shocking truth about what’s really happening with drinking water in America.
TEXAS COMPETITION
A BAD IDEA GONE WRONG Director: Jason Headley Country: USA, Running Time: 85min A BAD IDEA GONE WRONG is a comedy about two would-be thieves who accidentally arm the alarm system and have to break out of the house they just broke into. When they discover an unexpected house sitter, they suddenly have to deal with a hostage situation, double crosses, sexual tensions, and discoveries that make their difficult escape even more dubious.
THE BIG SPOON Director: Carlyn Hudson Country: USA, Running Time: 80min An unromantic comedy about the perils of staying together when you should really be apart.
BOMB CITY — WORLD PREMIERE Director: Jameson Brooks Country: USA, Running Time: 93min BOMB CITY is a gritty-drama, about the hatred and oppression of a group of punk revolutionaries in a conservative Texas town. Their ongoing battle with a rival clique leads to one of the most controversial hate crimes the U.S. has ever seen. Based on the true story of Brian Deneke.
THE HONOR FARM Director: Karen Skloss Country: USA, Running Time: 74min On prom night, a group of kids wander deep into the woods and come back changed forever.
MR. ROOSEVELT Director: Noël Wells Country: USA, Running Time: After a loved one falls ill, struggling comedian Emily Martin returns to her college town of Austin, Texas and must come to terms with her past while staying with her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend.
MUSTANG ISLAND Director: Craig Elrod Country: USA, Running Time: 86min After his girlfriend dumps him at a New Years Eve party, Bill and his friends drive to an off-season beach town to win her back.
THE SECRET LIFE OF LANCE LETSCHER Director: Sandra Adair Country: USA, Running Time: 95min The Secret Life of Lance Letscher is a deeply personal and psychological portrait of internationally known, and Austin based, collage artist Lance Letscher. Told through memories of trauma and triumph, the film provides a doorway into Letscher’s profound insights on creativity, the subconscious, work ethic and spirituality. Through his intricate artistic process, we witness the artist’s unwavering determination to stay in the moment — free of mind, thought and preconception. Featuring detailed images of more than a hundred of his collages, sculptures, and installations, viewers are offered a visual feast while gaining intimate access into Letscher’s methodical techniques and brilliant mind.
PREMIERE SERIES
BEACH RATS Director: Eliza Hittman Country: USA, Running Time: 95min Frankie, an aimless teenager on the outer edges of Brooklyn, is having a miserable summer. With his father dying and his mother wanting him to find a girlfriend, Frankie escapes the bleakness of his home life by causing trouble with his delinquent friends and flirting with older men online. When his chatting and webcamming intensify, he finally starts hooking up with guys at a nearby cruising beach while simultaneously entering into a cautious relationship with a young woman. As Frankie struggles to reconcile his competing desires, his decisions leave him hurtling toward irreparable consequences.
BUSTER’S MAL HEART Director: Sarah Adina Smith Country: USA, Running Time: 96min In this bold thriller spiked with dark humor, Rami Malek (Mr. Robot) is Buster, a family man whose chance encounter with a conspiracy-obsessed drifter leaves him on the run from the police and an impending event known as The Inversion.
FRANTZ Director: François Ozon Country: France/Germany, Running Time: 113min A haunting tale of love and reconciliation begins in a small town in Germany in the immediate aftermath of World War I when a young woman mourning the death of her fiancé encounters a mysterious Frenchman laying flowers on her beloved’s grave.
THE LOST CITY OF Z Director: James Gray Country: USA, Running Time: 141min A true-life drama, centering on British explorer Col. Percival Fawcett, who disappeared while searching for a mysterious city in the Amazon in the 1920s.
MINE Directors: Fabio Resinaro, Fabio Guaglione Countries: USA, Spain, Italy, Running Time: 107min This action-packed military thriller stars Armie Hammer (FREE FIRE, THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.) as a U.S. soldier who, stranded in the desert for 52 hours after a mission falls apart, must fight for survival against his enemies, the hostile environment, and the creeping psychological toll of his treacherous situation. Annabelle Wallis (ANNABELLE, THE MUMMY) and Tom Cullen (WEEKEND) co-star in this tense, explosive film from the producer of BURIED and THE CONJURING
PATTI CAKE$ Director: Geremy Jasper Country: USA, Running Time: 108min PATTI CAKE$ introduces Australian native Danielle Macdonald in a breakout role, as aspiring rapper Patricia Dombrowski, a.k.a. Killa P, a.k.a. Patti Cake$. Fighting an unlikely quest for glory in her downtrodden hometown in Jersey where her life is falling apart, Patti tries to reach the big time in the hip hop scene with original and affecting music. Cheered on by her grandmother (Cathy Moriarty) and only friends, Jheri (Siddharth Dhananjay) and Basterd (Mamoudou Athie), Patti also shoulders her mother’s (Bridget Everett) heartaches and misfortunes.
THE PROMISE Director: Terry George Country: Spain, USA, Running Time: 133min When Michael (Oscar Isaac), a brilliant medical student, meets Ana (Charlotte Le Bon), their shared Armenian heritage sparks an attraction that explodes into a romantic rivalry between Michael and Ana’s boyfriend Chris (Christian Bale), a famous American photojournalist dedicated to exposing political truth. As the Ottoman Empire crumbles into war-torn chaos, their conflicting passions must be deferred while they join forces to get their people to safety and survive themselves.
A QUIET PASSION Director: Terence Davies Countries: UK, Belgium, Running Time: 125min Director Terence Davies details the wit, intellectual independence and pathos of Emily Dickinson (Cynthia Nixon), exquisitely evoking the manners and spiritual convictions of her time that she struggled with and transcended in her poetry.
STEP Director: Amanda Lipitz Country: USA, Running Time: 83min STEP documents the senior year of a girls’ high-school step dance team against the background of inner-city Baltimore. As each one tries to become the first in their families to attend college, the girls strive to make their dancing a success against the backdrop of social unrest in the troubled city.
TOMMY’S HONOUR Director: Jason Connery Countries: UK, USA, Running Time: 117min In every generation, a torch passes from father to son. And that timeless dynamic is the beating heart of TOMMY’S HONOUR — an intimate, powerfully moving tale of the real-life founders of the modern game of golf.
DOCUMENTARY SHOWCASE
ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL Director: Steve James Country: USA, Running Time: 88min ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL tells the incredible saga of the Chinese immigrant Sung family, owners of Abacus Federal Savings of Chinatown, New York. Accused of mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., Abacus becomes the only U.S. bank to face criminal charges in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The indictment and subsequent trial forces the Sung family to defend themselves — and their bank’s legacy in the Chinatown community — over the course of a five-year legal battle.
CITY OF GHOSTS Director: Matthew Heineman Country: USA, Running Time: 90min A documentary that follows the efforts of “Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently,” a handful of anonymous activists who banded together after their homeland was taken over by ISIS in 2014. With deeply personal access, this is the story of a brave group of citizen journalists as they face the realities of life undercover, on the run, and in exile, risking their lives to stand up against one of the greatest evils in the world today.
DINA Directors: Dan Sickles, Antonio Santini Country: USA, Running Time: 101min An eccentric suburban woman and a Walmart door greeter navigate their evolving relationship in this unconventional love story.
DOLORES Director: Peter Bratt Country: USA, Running Time: 98min Dolores Huerta bucks 1950s gender conventions by starting the country’s first farm worker’s union with fellow organizer Cesar Chavez. What starts out as a struggle for racial and labor justice, soon becomes a fight for gender equality within the same union she is eventually forced to leave. As she wrestles with raising 11 children, three marriages, and is nearly beaten to death by a San Francisco tactical police squad, Dolores emerges with a vision that connects her new found feminism with racial and class justice.
ELLA BRENNAN: COMMANDING THE TABLE Director: Leslie Iwerks Country: USA, Running Time: 96min When 18-year old Ella Brennan went to work at her family’s bar on Bourbon Street in New Orleans in the 1940’s, America had no idea what was about to hit the culinary world. While overcoming a lifetime of personal and family struggles, she persevered to not only raise the bar in the New Orleans culinary world, she launched the careers of Paul Prudhomme, Emeril Lagasse, Tory McPhail, among others, created iconic dishes from scratch that have since become world famous, and built two of America’s most renown restaurants from the ground up; Brennan’s and Commander’s Palace. Through it all, Ella Brennan was driven by one goal: to bring true hospitality and the finest dining experience to The Big Easy.
IN LOCO PARENTIS Directors: Neasa Ní Chianáin, David Rane Countries: Ireland, Spain, Running Time: 100min Long careers are drawing to a close for John and Amanda, who teach Latin, English, and guitar at a stately home-turned-school, where they are legends with a mantra: “Reading. ‘Rithmetic. Rock ’n’ roll!” But leaving is the hardest lesson.
TROPHY Directors: Christina Clusiau, Saul Schwarz Country: USA, Running Time: 108min This in-depth look into the powerhouse industries of big-game hunting, breeding and wildlife conservation in the U.S. and Africa unravels the complex consequences of treating animals as commodities.
WHOSE STREETS? Directors: Sabaah Folayen, Damon Davis Country: USA, Running Time: 103min WHOSE STREETS? is an unflinching look at how the killing of 18-year-old Mike Brown inspired a community to fight back and sparked a global movement.
DEEP ELLUM SOUNDS
CASSETTE: A DOCUMENTARY MIXTAPE — NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE Directors: Zack Taylor, Georg Petzoid, Seth Smoot Countries: USA, Germany, Netherlands, UK, Running Time: Cassette inventor Lou Ottens digs through his past to figure out why the audiotape won’t die. Rock veterans like Henry Rollins, Thurston Moore, and Ian MacKaye join a legion of young bands releasing music on tape to push Lou along on his journey to remember.
MAN IN THE CAMO JACKET — WORLD PREMIERE Director: Russ Kendall Countries: USA, Israel, Japan, Nepal, Peru, Tanzania, UK, Running Time: 80min The story of iconic Welsh rock musician Mike Peters (of The Alarm), his rise to fame, battle with cancer, and inspiring climb back as he enlists some of the world’s top musicians to help save the lives of cancer patients around the globe. Ultimately though, the life he saves may be his own.
SCORE: A FILM MUSIC DOCUMENTARY Director: Matt Schrader Country: USA, Running Time: 93min SCORE: A FILM MUSIC DOCUMENTARY brings Hollywood’s premiere composers together to give viewers a privileged look inside the musical challenges and creative secrecy of the world’s most widely known music genre: the film score.
STRAD STYLE Director: Stefan Avalos Country: USA, Running Time: 104min STRAD STYLE follows a backwoods dreamer from Ohio with an obsession for ‘Stradivari’ and all things violin, who, through the magic of social-media, convinces a famous European concert violinist that he can make a copy of the most famous and valuable violin in the world. Fighting time, poverty, and most of all — himself — Danny Houck puts everything on the line for one shot at glory.
WORLD CINEMA
CHEER UP Director: Christy Garland Countries: Finland, Canada, Running Time: 86min CHEER UP takes us into the teenage lives of a team of losing cheerleaders in the Arctic Circle, Finland. They try their best to get better and look perfect doing it, while really, life just sucks. For Patricia, Aino and Miia, finding out who they are, where they belong and what family means is much more important than any trophy.
I AM NOT MADAME BOVARY Director: Feng Xiaogang Country: China, Running Time: 128min Li Xuelian and her husband Qin Yuhe stage a fake divorce to secure a second apartment in the city reserved by the government for single people. Qin remarries six months later — as agreed — but to a different woman. Furious, Li files a lawsuit with the county court but loses the case. Refusing to accept the court’s findings, Li appeals to the chief justice, the county chief, and even the mayor, but fails at every turn. After Qin publicly accuses Li of being a “promiscuous woman” because she was not a virgin on their wedding night, Li is driven back to the courts to redeem her reputation. Li makes her way from county to city, enduring one trial after another, until she decides to make her appeal in far-off Beijing.
IT’S ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD (Juste La Fin Du Monde) Director: Xavier Dolan Countries: Canada, France, Running Time: 95min Louis, a terminally ill writer, returns home after a long absence to tell his family that he is dying.
LIKE CRAZY (La Pazza Gioia) Director: Paolo Virzi Country: Italy, France, Running Time: 118min In a center for mentally disturbed women, Beatrice and Donatella become friends. During educational work outside the clinic, they take a chance to flee from custody, starting an adventurous trip that will disclose their past and change their lives.
LIPSTICK UNDER MY BURKHA Director: Alankrita Shrivastava Country: India, Running Time: 116min In rural India, a burkha-clad college girl struggles with issues of cultural identity and her aspirations to become a pop singer. A young two-timing beautician seeks to escape the claustrophobia of her small town. An oppressed housewife and mother of three lives the alternate life of an enterprising saleswoman. A 55-year-old widow rediscovers her sexuality through a phone romance. Caught in a conservative society, these women set forth to break the mold, in search of a little freedom.
LOST IN PARIS (Paris Peds Nus) Directors: Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon Countries: France, Belgium, Running Time: 84min Fiona visits Paris for the first time to assist her myopic Aunt Martha. Catastrophes ensue, mainly involving Dom, a homeless man who has yet to have an emotion or thought he was afraid of expressing.
MAD WORLD (Yat Nim Mo Ming) Director: Chun Wong Country: Hong Kong, Running Time: 101min An ex-stockbroker diagnosed with bipolar disorder struggles to reconcile with his estranged father and his perturbed ex-fiancée.
OLD STONE (Lao Shi) Director: Johnny Ma Countries: Canada, China, Running Time: 80min A psychological thriller about a taxi driver battling bureaucracy and legal manipulation in China.
SKY ON FIRE (Chongtian Huo) Director: Ringo Lam Countries: China, Hong Kong, Running Time: 100min n this driving, non-stop action thriller, the chief security officer at a top-secret medical facility (Daniel Wu, Into the Badlands) finds himself caught in an explosive battle when a young thief and his accomplices steal a groundbreaking curative medicine. After discovering the true origins of the medicine, the officer must decide whom he can trust to protect the cure from falling into the wrong hands and prevent an all-out war from bringing the city to its knees.
TUNNEL (Teoneol) Director: Kim Seong-Hun Country: South Korea, Running Time: 127min When a tunnel collapses on Jung-soo, his ensuing rescue operation becomes the subject of widespread media coverage and frenzy. But days go by, nerves stretch thin, and Jung-soo must struggle for his life in the suffocating darkness alone.
LATINO SHOWCASE
CRAZY IN LOVE (Locos de Amor) Director: Frank Pérez-Garland Country: Peru, Running Time: 111min CRAZY IN LOVE tells the story of four cousins who have to face different situations life puts on their way: love, heartache and endless tragicomic adventures; all part of fun songs played by the same actors. Fragments of known songs, sung in comedy tone by this fun cast.
THE PRESENT ONES (Los Presentes) Director: Alejandro Molina Country: Mexico, Running Time: 90min Ana, a former actress, gets the chance to reunite herself with Ophelia, a character she played years ago on the stage, when she met and fell for the man who is her husband now. However, at this point in her life, her marriage is facing a difficult time, tenuously kept together is their 6-year old son. By playing the character, and “becoming” Ophelia once again, and under stressful circumstances, Ana suffers a personality split which leads her to an extreme and life changing juncture, something she has never faced before.
SIZE DOES MATTER (El Tamaño sí Importa) Director: Rafa Lara Country: Mexico Running Time: 95min A typical average Mexican woman away from the established standards of beauty, try to conquer his former boss, a handsome and charismatic socialite who is used to date actresses and models. A history of uneven and unpredictable love.
X500 (X Quinientos) Director: Juan Andrés Arango Garcia Countries: Canada, Colombia, Mexico, Running Time: 104min Thousands of kilometers apart, three young migrants undergo mental, emotional, and physical transformations in order to survive the violence of their new worlds.
FAMILY FRIENDLY
44 PAGES Director: Tony Shaff Country: USA, Running Time: 97min 44 PAGES is a portrait of Highlights Magazine following the creation of the cultural phenomenon’s 70th Anniversary issue, from the first editorial meeting to its arrival in homes, and introducing the quirky people who passionately produce the monthly publication for “the world’s most important people,”…children. Along the way, a rich and tragic history is revealed, the state of childhood, technology, and education is explored, and the future of print media is questioned.
INTO THE WHO KNOWS! — WORLD PREMIERE Director: Micah Barber Country: USA, Running Time: 72min Ten-year old Thomas has a best friend: Felix the Fox. But his parents want him to make “real friends”, so they send him to summer camp. However, he hates it, so he and Felix make a midnight escape. Deep in the forest of the Who Knows they pursue a mythical being called the Totem, and decide to catch it.
THE JUNGLE BOOK (1967) Director: Wolfgang Reitherman Country: USA, Running Time: 78min Bagheera the Panther and Baloo the Bear have a difficult time trying to convince a boy to leave the jungle for human civilization.
PETE’S DRAGON (2016) Director: David Lowery Country: USA, Running Time: 103min The adventures of an orphaned boy named Pete and his best friend Elliot, who just so happens to be a dragon.
MIDNIGHT SPECIALS
SWEET, SWEET LONELY GIRL Director: A.D. Calvo Country: USA, Running Time: 76min Soon after moving in with her aging aunt Dora, Adele meets Beth, seductive and mysterious, who tests the limits of Adele’s moral ground and sends her spiraling down a psychologically unstable and phantasmagoric path.
THE VOID Directors: Jeremy Gillespie, Steven Kostanski Country: Canada, Running Time: 90min When police officer Carter (Aaron Poole) discovers a blood-soaked man limping down a deserted road, he rushes him to a local hospital with a barebones, night shift staff. As cloaked, cult-like figures surround the building, the patients and staff inside start to turn ravenously insane. Trying to protect the survivors, Carter leads them into the depths of the hospital where they discover a gateway to immense evil.
SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
GOOK Director: Justin Chon Country: USA, Running Tine: 94min Eli and Daniel, two Korean American brothers, own a struggling shoe store and have an unlikely friendship with Kamilla, a street wise 11 year old African American girl. Kamilla ditches school, Eli stresses about the store, and Daniel tries to have a good time. It’s just another typical day at the store until the Rodney King verdict is read and riots break. With the chaos moving towards them, the trio is forced to defend the store while contemplating the future of their own personal dreams and the true meaning of family.
THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940) Director: George Cukor Country: USA, Running Time: 112min When a rich woman’s ex-husband and a tabloid-type reporter turn up just before her planned remarriage, she begins to learn the truth about herself.
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS (2008) Director: David Gordon Green Country: USA, Running Time: 111min A process server and his marijuana dealer wind up on the run from hit men and a corrupt police officer after he witnesses his dealer’s boss murder a competitor while trying to serve papers on him.
THE SPEARHEAD EFFECT Directors: Brandon Moore, Caleb Smith Country: USA, Running Time: 88min After a journalist exposes widespread police corruption, he soon finds himself a target of the violent vigilantes he unwittingly inspired.
SALUTE TO THE FILMS OF 1967
CAMELOT (1967) Director: Joshua Logan Country: USA, Running Time: 179min The story of the marriage of England’s King Arthur to Guinevere. The plot of illegitimate Mordred to gain the throne and Guinevere’s growing attachment to Sir Lancelot, threaten to topple Arthur and destroy his “round table” of knights.
COOL HAND LUKE (1967) Director: Stuart Rosenberg Country: USA, Running Time: 126min A man refuses to conform to life in a rural prison.
DAVID HOLZMAN’S DIARY (1967) Director: Jim McBride Country: USA, Running Time: 74min Young filmmaker decides to make a movie of his life.
GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER (1967) Director: Stanley Kramer Country: USA, Running Time: 108min A couple’s attitudes are challenged when their daughter introduces them to her African American fiancé.
HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING (1967) Director: David Swift Country: USA, Running Time: 121min Armed with the titular manual, an ambitious window washer seeks to climb the corporate ladder.
SHORT FILMS (IN COMPETITION)
AUDIBLE STATIC Director: Sai Selvarajan Country: USA, Running Time: 11min
BAYARD & ME Director: Matt Wolf Country: USA, Running Time: 16min
BILL’S RECORDS Director: Chuck Przbyl Country: USA, Running Time: 10min
BLACK HOLES Directors: David Nicolas, Laurent Nicolas Countries: USA, France, Running Time: 13min
THE CHOP Director: Lewis Rose Country: UK, Running Time: 16min
CLOWNS Director: Dana O’Keefe Country: USA, Running Time: 13min
COLLECTION Director: Adam Roffman Country: USA, Running Time: 12min
COMMODITY CITY Director: Jessica Kingdon Countries: USA, China, Running Time: 11min
A discussion of Zack Snyder’s first full trailer for Justice League cannot wait for a full episode — we need an Emergency Pod.
This weekend, Warner Bros. dropped the first full trailer for Justice League, the next DC Expanded Universe film from Zack Snyder and the follow-up to Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. The trailer itself created an immediate firestorm of discussion around a number of topics, including whether or not Snyder and co. have learned any important lessons from the criticism they received following the release of both Batman v. Superman and Suicide Squad.
In order to break down the trailer and talk about the issues around it, Neil welcomes Gizmodo and io9 writer Germain Lussier for this emergency episode of One Perfect Pod. They talk DC fandom, Zack Snyder’s literal darkness, visiting the set, what they like about this trailer, and what gives them reason to worry.
Before you listen, it helps to have watched the Justice League trailer, which can be found below:
Be sure to follow us on Twitter (@OnePerfectPod) and Facebook (facebook.com/oneperfectshot). Subscribe in iTunes, Stitcher, on TuneIn, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also follow host Neil Miller (@rejects) and guest Germain Lussier (@germainlussier).
We’d very much appreciate your feedback, as well. Leave us a review on iTunes or email us: pod@filmschoolrejects.com.
The films are an example of diminishing returns, but the collection is more than the franchise’s fans could have wished for.
There are rumors that Lionsgate’s fantastic Vestron Video line of remastered, supplement-filled Blu-rays celebrating horror films from the ’80s and ’90s may be closing up shop. It’s unconfirmed, and LG themselves have been mum on the subject, but it would be an unfortunate turn of events for genre fans if true. They’re only nine releases in, but already they’ve done tremendous work with fantastic new editions of fun classics like Chopping Mall, Waxwork, and The Gate.
Their most recent release, and possibly their last if the rumor proves true, is the four-film Wishmaster Collection. As someone who had never seen the first film and was utterly unaware that three sequels even existed this set offered a first-time watch across the board. So of course I binge-watched all four across a single day. Keep reading for a look at the new Wishmaster Collection from Vestron Video.
Wishmaster
An evil djinn (Andrew Divoff) arrives in modern-day America after being released from the statue and gem that have acted as a prison of sorts, and he has a single goal. He wants to unleash hell on earth, but to do so he needs the young woman (Tammy Lauren) who freed him to make three wishes. Per an ancient prophecy, their granting would then invite all the evil djinns to begin new lives as rulers of earth. As bodies start piling up — and falling apart — all over town she races to discover a way to stop the powerful entity.
Director Robert Kurtzman‘s second feature is an absolute blast of gory gags and creative demises, and while the logic behind the djinn’s powers seems a bit inconsistent at times the bloody fun overwhelms the script issues. Kurtman’s experience with practical effects — he’s the K in the legendary KNB EFX Group — lends itself beautifully to a film whose villain is capable of doling out magically-enhanced deaths.
The plot is hampered somewhat by Peter Atkins’ script which sets up an interesting enough premise before deciding it’s not all that interested in the details, but the frequent gory bits and character urgency distracts with momentum. The djinn is a well-crafted character in his natural, monstrous form, and Divoff gives him great personality both in and out of make-up.
Wishmaster is a fun, gory romp that, while never as scary or serious as it wants to be, is an entertaining slice of late ’90s horror.
Vestron Video’s three-disc set puts the first film and its extras on disc one including trailers, galleries, and the following special features:
*NEW* Commentary with director Robert Kurtzman and screenwriter Peter Atkins
*NEW* Commentary with Kurtzman and actors Andrew Divoff and Tammy Lauren
*NEW* Isolated score and interview with composer Harry Manfredini
*NEW* Out of the Bottle — Interviews with Kurtzman and co-producer David Tripet [21:55] — They discuss the film’s origin, how they tried to get John Carpenter on board as a marquee “presenter” name, casting (including how it became The Expendables of horror icons), and more. Some really interesting details in here including some behind the scenes footage showing a risky fire on set.
*NEW* The Magic Words — Interview with Atkins [13:55] — He was offered the job and accepted despite thinking it was a dumb idea, he’s not too proud of his script, and he claims to have never slept with a studio executive’s wife or killed his dog. So yeah, Atkins is a candid guy.
*NEW* The Djinn and Alexandra — Interviews with Divoff and Lauren [25:57] — The two discuss their varied genre interests, highs and lows on-set, and the experience of making the effects-heavy film.
*NEW* Captured Visions — Interview with director of photography Jacques Haitkin [12:43] — He discusses what drew him to the field and the genre.
*NEW* Wish List — Interviews with Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, and Ted Raimi [12:04] — The three genre vets talk about the fun of the production.
Vintage making-of featurette [24:45]
Vintage EPK [5:39]
Vintage behind the scenes footage [11:58]
Wishmaster 2 — Evil Never Dies
The djinn (Andrew Divoff) is once again released from the gem and statue that hold him, but he winds up in jail after taking the identity of a dead art thief. He eventually escapes and once again needs a young woman to complete the prophecy that will allow his ilk to overrun the earth, but not even an evil djinn gets everything he wishes for.
Writer/director Jack Sholder is best known for the terrific late ’80s sci-fi/action film The Hidden, but he deserves equal respect and love for his feature debut Alone in the Dark. What I’m saying is the man made two great horror movies, so we’re going to forgive him for the utterly dull, ridiculously boring Wishmaster 2.
After the first film’s epic amount of gory goodness this sequel brings the fun to a screeching halt. We get one good gore gag early on involving a man being squished through some jail cell bars and then nothing until the film’s final ten minutes. In between we’re left with lifeless characters and repetitive plot turns. The djinn is in prison for half the movie — in prison! — and while he kills a couple inmates it’s in the most uninteresting ways as instead he’s content gabbing with gangsters and trading cigarettes for laundry duty or some shit. It’s rough.
Bokeem Woodbine shows up in the back half, but not even he can give the film a heartbeat. Wishmaster 2 is a dull affair until its third act, but by that point we’re only wishing for it to end.
Vestron once again includes the film on its own disc which includes a trailer and the following extra:
*NEW* Commentary with writer/director Jack Sholder
The djinn (John Novak) is once again released from his ancient prison by a young woman (A.J. Cook) who he once again needs to complete his prophecy. He takes the form of a professor (Jason Connery) and puts his evil plot in motion.
I’m torn between thinking this is worse, better, or just bad in different ways from the bland Wishmaster 2. The gore effects are once again kept to a minimum here, inexplicably — although probably due to budgetary restraints — but it’s boggling to think anyone wants to watch an evil genie movie where the evil genie’s magic is lacking in visual flair.
The trade-off seems to be the inclusion of bare boobs as almost every female on screen finds some reason to remove her shirt. I’m not against this in theory, but here the intent seems to be breast implants will distract viewers from the lack of cool effects, interesting story ideas, and the terrible drop in djinn quality that comes from swapping out Divoff for Novak. His performance is goofy and lacks any of the former’s menace, and as he only acts in makeup we’re stuck with Connery for his “human” antics.
Wishmaster 3 is at best a weak Seventh Sign, and even as a fan of that Demi Moore flick it’s not something to be proud of.
The collection’s third disc includes both Wishmaster 3 and Wishmaster 4, and features the following supplements for this film:
*NEW* Commentary with director Chris Angel and actors John Novak, Jason Connery, and Louisette Geiss
Behind the scenes [5:51]
Wishmaster 4 — The Prophecy Fulfilled
The djinn (Novak) is once again… well, you know. But wait! There’s more! This time the young woman makes her third wish only to leave the djinn flustered and unsure how to grant it. The longer he delays the angrier his djinn brethren get, and soon he’s forced to face off against a mystical swordsman called the Hunter.
On the one hand the final Wishmaster film earns points for mixing up the same plot that’s been used across all three of its predecessors — the djinn finally gets the person who released him to make a third wish — and in better hands it could have been a return to form. Unfortunately both Novak and director Chris Angel (no, not that one) return from part three ensuring that none of what happens ever feels all that interesting.
The Hunter character should have been a cool new spin, but he’s a ludicrous waste of screen time in practice. Similarly, the plot thread involving the djinn’s delay in granting the final wish — the one he’s been desperately craving across four films now — seems ripe with possibility but instead wastes it all on an empty love turn. But hey, at least there are more boobs.
Wishmaster 4 is another generic let down. Not only does it skimp on the gory goods, but it also throws away the final opportunity for the djinn to be defeated not through swords or running times but through a smartly-written wish.
The collection’s third disc includes both Wishmaster 3 and Wishmaster 4, and features the following supplements for this film:
*NEW* Commentary with director Chris Angel and actors Michael Trucco and Jason Thompson
*NEW* Commentary with Angel and actor John Novak
Wishmasterpiece Theater featurette [7:13]
If this is the swan song for Vestron Video’s retro horror collection then at least it’s going out with a fantastic presentation of a truly fun, incredibly gory, and highly entertaining ’90s horror film in Wishmaster. And yeah, it also includes the three sequels.
Look! It’s just what every multiplex needs: a playground for the boring moments in any movie.
A couple weeks ago, Film Twitter was lit aflame anew, but not by the latest potentially overhyped festival release or the fallout from last month’s Oscars. No, what raised folks’ ire this time was an announcement of a new kind of innovation offered by a Mexico-based movie theater chain, Cinepolis. There are already a slew of options intended to lure audiences away from their living room into the theater, from dine-in possibilities at chains like Alamo Drafthouse to reserved seating and extended legroom at the Arclight. Cinepolis went the opposite route of chains like Drafthouse, which try to emphasize the moviegoing experience as opposed to distractions. They now have Cinepolis Junior, which offers a “colorful play area near the screen in front of the seats, a jungle gym, and cushy beanbag chairs.”
Social-media responses ranged anywhere from “This is a painful monstrosity” to “No, seriously, this is a painful monstrosity.” The best defense was barely a defense at all, as some tweeters pointed out that Cinepolis Junior — which currently is only available in two Southern California theaters — would logically only be applicable for family films, so anyone worried about their experience of watching Kong: Skull Island or Get Out being ruined would be relieved. As with a number of add-on options to a movie ticket, whether it’s 3D or D-BOX or dine-in, Cinepolis Junior tickets will cost $3 extra; thus, it’s probably safe to presume that anyone seeing, say, Beauty and the Beast in the new theater will know what they’re getting themselves and their families into before they step inside. If, the logic goes, people know what they’re getting and are fine with it, where’s the harm?
The harm is much the same as when, last year, the CEO of AMC Theatres said that he would consider encouraging more cell-phone usage in his theaters in the hopes of luring more people to the box office. For various reasons — higher ticket prices, the frequency of new content on Netflix and other streaming brands, etc. — theater exhibitors are worried that they’re losing audiences to the living-room experience. Attempting to right a sinking ship makes perfect sense; attempting to do so by almost literally replicating the living-room experience in a movie theater makes no sense. Adrian Mijares Elizondo, Cinepolis executive, tried to clarify:
“The whole idea is to make it easier for parents to take their kids to the movies and let the kids have more fun.”
Speaking from experience, I can at least agree with this much: it can be challenging to bring a child to the movies. I’m the father of a 2 ½-year old who is (a) a big fan of movies like Inside Out, Zootopia, and (shudder) Trolls, and (b) in no way able to focus entirely on a movie that he would do well in a theater without getting very restless and antsy, even if he’s enjoying the movie.
So, on one hand, I get the impetus: if my son had the ability to run around on a jungle gym while a movie like Zootopia is playing right next to him, it would be an “easier” moviegoing experience. (Of course, as the LA Times article notes, “running is prohibited” in the American version of Cinepolis Junior. This either means there would be a jungle-gym attendant in the theater policing the kids, or the parents would do that themselves. I’m betting on the latter, which means I’m betting there would be a lot of kids running around.) But no matter how it’s sold to me, both as a cinephile and as a parent, I have no idea why on Earth I would want to spend upwards of $40 for the privilege of not really paying attention to a new movie while my son plays on a jungle gym. There’s an indoor jungle gym near my house that’s presumably larger than the one Cinepolis Junior offers; admission for my son would be $8. And there are countless outdoor playgrounds my wife and I could bring him to for free. Why would a jungle gym be a value-added option to my family’s moviegoing experience?
My living-room experience isn’t that extreme: I don’t have a fancy sound system, just a fairly standard (for the current TV climate, at least) 40-inch HDTV. And, as the parent of a toddler, there are a lot of toys in our living room. So when my son’s desire to watch Trolls last weekend wasn’t sated by an iTunes rental, we purchased the film for $20. He can now watch it to his heart’s content, while playing rambunctiously in the same room. It’s not a focused experience; neither is the Cinepolis Junior experience, but at least I know which toys my son is playing with in our house, or with whom he’s playing. To pay for the Cinepolis Junior experience is to pay a lot more money than usual for the privilege of accessing a jungle gym, not a movie that my child would ideally have expressed interest in seeing. (Why else would we be at the theater as a family if not to see something he supposedly wanted to see?)
I realize that exhibitors of large theater chains are concerned about losing revenues and audiences to the living room. Because of my current writing load and being a parent of a young child, I can easily admit that my own theatergoing has dwindled over the last few years. Most of them when I do see a movie, it’s at a screening for members of the press as well as members of the public who get free passes; these screenings are almost always overseen by security staff who hope to ward off cell phone usage. That means these are among the least disruptive screenings you’ll ever sit through. So, basically, they’re not representative of the typical experience. The few times in the last six months when I have gone to the theater to see a film outside of the pre-release environment, I’ve gone to one of a few nearby theaters that offer the right kind of value-added options. The mostly local theater chain in Arizona, Harkins, constructed a multiplex near my house with the biggest non-IMAX screen in the state, a bar in the lobby, a slew of concession items that go beyond popcorn and candy, and recliners in each theater. If it was fully dine-in and actually enforced a no-cell-phone policy, it would be the equivalent of an Alamo Drafthouse. (The Phoenix area recently, mercifully got its first Drafthouse, though.) That said, Harkins does have a dedicated play area for kids…to hang around in while Mom and Dad go see a movie for a couple hours.
The experience I had at the fancy new Harkins multiplex, when watching movies like Arrival and John Wick: Chapter Two, was what I want from a movie theater, as a cinephile. As a parent, when I do start bringing my son to the movies — I might try with Cars 3 this summer, but it’s still too early to tell — I would want him to watch the movie. As a nearly-3-year old, he’s already easily distracted and restless. Whenever he gets to an age where I think he can handle sitting down in the same seat for upwards of 2 hours, let alone whether or not a movie is too scary for him, I want him to focus on the movie. (And if he can’t focus on the movie, then we’ll be making an early exit so we don’t ruin anyone else’s experience.) Cinepolis Junior may have been created for the purpose of appealing to families, but what it offers is a more expensive combination of what I can find in my own house. Why not just do that?
Animated arched eyebrows are a plague on creativity.
“Do you feel the taunting power of my eyebrow?” Megamind asks, turning the Dreamworks aesthetic hallmark/crutch into an in-house referential joke. As you may have seen in your daily rounds of the internet, there’ve been various image mashups of animated Dreamworks characters making the same face. Sometimes contrasted against a narrator expounding upon the nuanced characters and profound stories typically found in competitor Pixar’s animated films, the smarmy smirk with one uplifted eyebrow has been dubbed the “Dreamworks Face.”
Even the Madagascar furry has the eyebrows permanently off-kilter.
The plucky underdog — here to slyly joke their way out of tricky situations — is a kid’s movie mainstay, cartoon or live-action. Kids don’t have any power so obviously they will relate to the cheeky anti-establishment type. This face is the easiest, laziest way to convey that character archetype. It’s a way to tell kids that this character is funny, in the know, and definitely not a square like their parents. Why else would they be waggling their eyebrow so eccentrically?
It’s the same tactic Stephen Colbert used when defining his character from The Colbert Report, an ultra-conservative parody of a man whose manic brow was his egregious physical giveaway. If we didn’t get the joke from his words, we got it from the tic. It worked for his character because he was so overblown. There wasn’t a subtle thing about “Stephen Colbert.” Nor are there any about the stereotypically smug Dreamworks protagonists.
Sure, Dreamworks isn’t alone in their sin. John Kricfalusi, creator of Ren & Stimpy, has called it the “Cal Arts face” after the design school producing the majority of animation studio artists. Yes, Disney, Blue Sky, and even Pixar are perpetrators of the Dreamsmirk. Pixar has Buzz Lightyear, a character built on his clueless confidence, and a racecar voiced by Owen Wilson. I forgive both, because obviously you’d want that car to look punchable and that’s pretty hard to do with a car.
I hate this car. I have never hated a car before.
That these characters are the douches of the Pixar universe is no mistake. If those animators (or, god forbid, Laika) relied entirely on the generic swagger of yet another talking animal or Boss Baby, our kids wouldn’t have a single memorable cartoon to watch. They’d certainly be good at consuming products packaged by marketing as “hip”, well familiar with the cockeyed signifier that is the GoGurt of facial expressions. Attitude is what’s important, not substance. It’s the “Calvin peeing on the undesirable entity of your choice” of faces: it at once says nothing about the wielder and everything.
This irreverence isn’t flying under the radar. Dreamworks clearly knows. Megamind has a whole joke about it. From this it seems that either the animators, directors, and executives simply adore clever facial asymmetry OR the film industry adage has remained true and studios have continued to learn the wrong lessons from successful movies. In this case, Shrek.
The insanely profitable and influential 2001 film paved the way for Dreamworks Animation and its strategy of using thinly-veiled (if veiled at all) “adult jokes” and cultural references as its movie fuel.
These ain’t your daddy’s cartoons. They know about sex and the ’80s and ALMOST say swear words. You know, this kind of well, shit:
It’s a blight. It’s an uninteresting excuse for mediocre character design and sub-mediocre characters. There’s very little room for any character change or growth outside of the same “confidence/failure/redemption-through-teamwork” cycle most of these talking animal capers thrive on. The settings are different; the animals sometimes fail, then succeed, at different tasks. But why curtail the imagination of the least limited cinematic media? Let a character be mopey or completely earnest (Inside Out is a stellar example) to let audiences know that there exist emotions outside of overly-cool detachment. These characters are boring for everyone and train kids to be weird little snarky psychopaths.
When you — a parent — see that face, there’s an implicit agreement that yes, you WILL see this movie and yes, Dax Shepard WILL try his best to elevate extremely tired jokes. It’s a knowing expression that tells you you’re not seeing a movie you need to worry about discussing afterwards with your child, nor one that will receive worrisome critical attention.
However, it will contain at least one (1) film reference from twenty years ago and two (2) on-the-nose needledrops to keep you awake while your sedate child smirks their way through the cinema. It may also contain a Boss Baby. You have been warned.
The latest episode of After the Credits takes on the new Ryan Reynolds-led sci-fi thriller ‘Life.’
For this week’s One Perfect Pod review, Film School Rejects chief film critic Rob Hunter returns to chat with host Matthew Monagle about Life. Not the concept, the Ryan Reynolds/Jake Gyllenhaal movie that some people thought might be a Venom prequel (it’s not). Hear them talk about expectations ahead of the film and review it with full spoilers in the second segment.
Be sure to follow us on Twitter (@OnePerfectPod) and Facebook (facebook.com/oneperfectshot). Subscribe in iTunes, Stitcher, on TuneIn, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also follow host Matthew Monagle (@Labsplice) and guest Rob Hunter (@FakeRobHunter).
After the Credits theme song written by James Young.
We’d very much appreciate your feedback, as well. Leave us a review on iTunes or email us: pod@filmschoolrejects.com.
Plus: A news and article roundup and five perfect shots
If it’s Monday, then it’s time for a new week of episodes from our One Perfect Podcast channel.
Up first and dropping today, the latest installment of After the Credits, our new kind of review show with Columnist Matthew Monagle. This week Matthew is once again joined by FSR Chief Film Critic Rob Hunter, and the film up for discussion is the Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds sci-fi freak-out Life.
Then, coming up on Wednesday it’s the newest episode of Shot by Shot in which myself, FSR Video Content Editor H. Perry Horton, and One Perfect Shot founder Geoff Todd will be discussing the cinematography of the most adrenaline-fueled action film of all-time, Mad Max: Fury Road.
And finally, FSR head honcho Neil Miller is back on Friday with another episode of The Big Idea, his weekly take on the biggest media and entertainment news. This week he’s got The Nerds of Color founder Keith Chow and Mashable movies reporter Angie Han joining him for a discussion on whitewashing and cultural appropriation in cinema, just in time for the release of Ghost in the Shell.
But keep an eye out next weekend, because you never know if there’s going to be a big, breaking story that necessitates another Emergency Podcast.
You can find all the info you need in the first paragraph link, and be sure to give us your opinion on our performances via ratings and reviews wherever you listen to us.
And lastly, take a look at five of the most popular shots we tweeted over the last 24 hours. Want more? You know where to find us.
THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) DP: Peter Suschitzky | Dir: Jim SharmanRAN (1985) DP: Asakazu Nakai, Takao Saitô, Shôji Ueda | Dir: Akira KurosawaBRAZIL (1985) DP: Roger Pratt | Dir: Terry GilliamLIFE OF PI (2012) DP: Claudio Miranda Dir. Ang LeeMOON (2009) DP: Gary Shaw | Dir: Duncan Jones
What this weekend’s flops say about a couple of May releases.
There was plenty of good news over the weekend as box office reports show Beauty and the Beast crossing the $300m mark after only 10 days, Get Out veering very close to the $150m milestone, and newcomer Power Rangers doing decent business ($41m) for something that didn’t seem suited for a large enough audience.
But there was some bad news, as well, with both Life and CHiPs falling short of their expectations for an estimated $13m and $8m, respectively. Considering they both resemble bigger movies coming out in two months, I can’t help considering how those genuine summer blockbusters — Alien: Covenant and Baywatch — might compare.
Huge releases and huge hits are happening year round these days, with seven movies already this year passing $100m domestically (only four of 2016’s releases hit that mark before the first quarter was over). Beauty and the Beast and Logan are two examples of March tentpoles that might have once been considered prime summer or holiday season fare.
But not everything can do well, especially with such consistent competition. Life, which boasts a great cast and a familiar yet entertaining plot involving an alien threat to a space mission, could have been a sleeper hit in March of years past. Maybe. Original sci-fi thrillers aren’t the draw they once were, and even if it received generally positive reviews, it didn’t look too fresh.
CHiPs also might have been more successful in another time, yet it should be noted that it’s the only significant comedy offering in quite a while and should have been met with an audience with a need to laugh, whether or not those laughs were actually delivered. Its negative reviews shouldn’t have done as much harm as its poor advertising.
I haven’t seen CHiPs, mainly because it looks terrible from the trailer. However, worse-looking comedies have performed better. The movie’s problems include the fact that it’s the sort of comedy only 12 year olds could love, yet it’s rated R. Also that younger audience has no idea what CHiPs is, or that it was previously anything. Fans of the old TV show, if they still exist, are simply too old for the kind of raunchy material the movie deals in.
Its upcoming summer blockbuster doppelgänger, Baywatch, has a more familiar name, at the very least. It also has a bigger star in the lead: Dwayne Johnson. He should draw a much larger crowd to his buddy cop movie — it is technically a buddy lifeguard movie, but the formula stands — than CHiPs managed. How much more is difficult to gauge.
Is Johnson a comedy star? Not really, and we can argue that last year’s surprise success of Central Intelligence is more thanks to Kevin Hart. Johnson is capable of disappointing at the box office, as we’ve seen with Hercules and Pain and Gain. His main co-star, Zac Efron, has proven to be a hilarious comedy talent of late, but moviegoers don’t seem that interested.
Similar to the case with CHiPs, the fanbase for the original source material isn’t necessarily going to be on board for Baywatch, which aside from using the same character names and setting as the ‘90s show isn’t all that recognizable. It’s basically just a silly action comedy about people patrolling beaches and could be rejected just as easily as CHiPs was.
Life’s doppelgänger, on the other hand, is likely to be a hit. Alien: Covenant is, of course, another prequel/sequel in the Alien franchise, which has nearly 40 years of built-in brand recognition. That said, the franchise hasn’t always been a success on its name alone. The last movie with “Alien” in the title, Alien Vs. Predator : Requiem, had about the same opening gross as Life.
However, that wasn’t part of the main series, which has had its own share of disappointments, most notably Alien: Resurrection. Actually, Alien hasn’t been a really huge franchise at all since the release of Aliens in 1986. And the last installment, the prequel reboot Prometheus, wasn’t exactly a bomb, thanks to international box office, but it also wasn’t terribly popular with fans. And it seems to be even less favored five years out.
What Covenant has as far as potential for a comeback is a trailer that sells the prequel-sequel as being very scary. Probably the scariest since the 1979 original — it also looks almost like a remake of that movie, to be fair. I’m willing to guess that thanks to its marketing, the new movie will have the franchise’s best opening ever, even with inflation adjustments.
Tracking so far isn’t as promising as my prediction, though, with BoxOffice.com foreseeing only a $35m debut, which would put it well below Prometheus’s franchise topper of $55m (adjusted). Ridley Scott is planning a bunch more Alien movies, so for his sake that number is hopefully not just lowballed but half what the movie will really take in.
What would be particularly unfortunate for Alien: Covenant and Baywatch, especially if they’re better movies, is if their precursor counterparts do any damage to their appeal. I could see that being the case with Baywatch more than with Covenant, given the latter promises more of what someone interested in an Alien movie craves. But maybe there aren’t enough people interested in another Alien movie anymore.
Answers will be here soon enough. Alien: Covenant opens May 19th, followed by Baywatch on May 26th.
A fan trailer reimagines Mike Nichols’ classic coming-of-age story.
It’s always fun to reorient a film’s narrative based on elements of other genres. For example, I once wrote at lengthabout why What About Bob? isn’t just a slapstick comedy but also an intense psychological thriller, and I’ve seen fan-made trailers turn films like There’s Something About Mary and Dumb and Dumber into psycho-killer flicks.
In that tradition, Alejandro Villareal has reimagined Mike Nichols’ classic coming-of-age film The Graduate into a horror film via this trailer he’s calling Hello Darkness.
From Villareal’s intro:
What if “The Graduate” were a horror movie? The 50th anniversary of “The Graduate” is here. And in honor of this occasion, I created a fake trailer with a slight adjustment in perspective. Imagine “The Graduate” meets “Basic Instinct” meets “Cape Fear” with acne and pimples all over. Mike Nichols’s film is its generation’s grand statement about loneliness. The ’60s didn’t have Hamlet, they had Benjamin Braddock. And the movie couldn’t have been more universal in its themes if Nichols and Buck Henry set out to write the Great American Play. But what they did write was a classic movie. And it is to their credit, and the cast’s talent, that the tone of this film didn’t stray into dark, depressing territory. It’s astonishing to re-watch the movie and see how light the tone is given the complex subject matter.
I think that just about says it all. Only thing left to do now is watch. Enjoy.
One of the best video essays to-date on the director’s thematic body of work.
Paul Thomas Anderson, despite the seeming variety of his filmography, only really makes movies about a few things: lost souls, the search for meaning or purpose in life, and the struggle for/against family.
In Boogie Nights the lost soul is Eddie Adams and he is searching for his value, his place in the world, all while struggling against who his parents, particularly his mother, think he is and thus should be, and who he actually wants to be; it’s a search and struggle that lead him into the embrace of an unconventional but accepting new family, that of Jack Horner’s porn enclave.
In Magnolia pretty much the entire cast is made up of lost souls searching for connection, redemption, and/or acceptance from families of blood, circumstance, and their own forging.
In Punch-Drunk Love Barry is perpetually lost in his own person and the image others have of him, and also perpetually searching for a lifeline out of his prescribed existence which is constantly and demeaningly reinforced by his gaggle of overbearing sisters.
I could keep going through the remainder of PTA’s films, but a) you get the point — Anderson makes films about people intent, sometimes fatally so, on finding their purpose in life — and b) the latest and perhaps greatest video essay to-date from Jack’s Movie Reviews does it better than I ever could. His analysis not only eruditely explains the characters who inhabit Anderson’s oeuvre, it also presents their respective dilemmas as uniquely American, a sort of botched manifest destiny of the soul.
There are literally dozens of videos about Anderson and his work out there, I’ve even made one myself, but JMR’s is top 1%, which makes it not only must-see, but indispensable to your education of the director.
Scanning one of David Cronenberg’s most popular, most flawed films.
Memory is a funny thing. Not funny, “haha,” so much, but funny in that hilariously terrifying way that makes you realize your own brain is out to destroy you. The fitting inspiration for this epiphany of corporeal opposition was a recent revisit of David Cronenberg’s Scanners.
You know Scanners. You may not have seen the movie, but at the very least you know it as a meme. If you’ve ever been scrolling through social media on that day when your geeky cousin (the one you forgot to wish a happy birthday because you could not spare the finger energy) has had just about enough, you’ve probably seen a colorful gif (that’s “G-if,” not “J-if” you heathens) of a man’s head exploding in gory detail.
Despite occurring a mere fifteen minutes into the film, that head explosion scene is certainly Scanners’ centerpiece; its sensational calling card. The problem however is that the bursting of that poor fellow’s noggin paints the movie (and the walls, but mostly the movie) as something it is not. Scanners is not as bombastic as we remember — and certainly not as exciting as that instance of human pinata-ism — and that false mem(e)ory is actually one of the few thrilling moments of an extremely dry political thriller.
Don’t be mislead, Scanners is a remarkable film, just as the hosts of the Junkfood Cinema podcast vigorously attest during this week’s episode. In all fairness however, its story is as thin on the ground as the chunks of brain matter are thick on the walls. The structural shortcomings of its plot were lamented by the likes of critics Roger Ebert and Vincent Canby in their respective 1981 reviews. Scanners is a back-loaded mystery in which the big reveal is largely just a buried treasure chest brimming with exposition that could have been parceled out through the previous eighty minutes.
These are not cheap shots nor is this assessment of Scanners anywhere near mind-blowing. Cronenberg himself has admitted that the production of Scanners was less than ideal, once calling it his most frustrating film. The movie’s shooting schedule was truncated in order that it could be considered a tax write-off, a shady studio move that tasked Cronenberg to write and shoot simultaneously. One could therefore forgive the haphazard, eleventh-hour revelations in the plot (of corporate maleficence and fraternal mutation). After all, how was Cronenberg to construct subtle signposts when he wasn’t sure where his road was leading?
Is Scanners a classic? Yes. Is that honor bestowed solely in recognition of Dick Smith’s explosive practical effects? Absolutely not. Even without the luxury of Darryl Revok’s powers, Scanners is an invasive investigation of the mind of David Cronenberg; vital to understanding his creative nervous system.
The most casual of horror fans will tell you that the name Cronenberg is synonymous with the subgenre of body horror. While that is true and Cronenberg is a filmmaker who helped create body horror, the term is reductive to the point of suggesting that, much as some might argue of Scanners, his entire style is predicated upon grisly gore effects. Rather Cronenberg is a man fascinated by the potential of the human body. Moreover, Cronenberg recognizes the danger of this power and his work reflects a marked mistrust of the scientists and corporations who, like Dr. Frankenstein, would seek to irresponsibly harness and utilize that power. The irony of weaponizing the human body and then witnessing how the use of that weapon can lead to a disintegration of our humanity, makes his films, again akin to Mary Shelley’s novel, cautionary tales played out with psychological and, yes, physical consequences.
In that regard, Scanners is a solidification of Cronenberg’s visual style and thematic wheelhouse. But beneath the visual style lie the germ of his substance. Scanners marks the ascent of Cronenberg’s storytelling style. He would learn from the experience of working on Scanners, a self-admitted frustrating endeavor, and with his subsequent films would experiment with story structure with magnificent results. The Fly is a sterling example. We are introduced immediately to Seth Brundle and his teleportation machine. We see, early on, his impetuous decision to test the machine on himself, but it is the deliberate visual distribution of the consequences of that experiment — the slow metamorphosis leading to a foregone conclusion — that proved Cronenberg himself was evolving as a storyteller.
But again, The Fly is an effects-driven movie so the evolution may seem slight. Leap then instead to 2005’s A History of Violence. Many filmgoers were startled at how divergent from his signature work this one appeared to be…on the surface. However A History of Violence is as Cronenberg a story as it gets. Tom Stall is a man whose lethal acumen literally makes his body a weapon, but like Scanners or The Fly, the audience learns their are limits to that control and gruesome consequences to trying to keep that weapon sheathed.
In another filmmaker’s hands, this would have been a standard action film building to a third-act showdown with Ed Harris’ Carl Fogarty. However A History of Violence just creeps into the third act before dispatching with Fogarty and revealing a bigger baddie in William Hurt. That loose end is tied up so quickly that it too feels like a foregone conclusion recognized by none but Tom. The loose end is tied up quickly because the real consequence of the story is how Tom’s family is emotionally and physically altered by the revelation of his former life and his capacity for brutality. He loses his domestic tranquility slowly and viscerally in a fashion not dissimilar from Brundle’s slow rot.
It may not be the movie you remember, but do not attempt to adjust your memory banks. Scanners is still a watershed movie. Without it, Cronenberg misses an opportunity to hone his style and advance his abilities as a storyteller. We may always think of that cranium bursting apart, but Scanners remains a classic for so much more than a meme.
Want to hear more? Why not let the latest episode of Junkfood Cinema into your head? No need to read our minds, you can download, listen and share below!
As a special treat, anyone who backs JFC on Patreon will have access to a weekly bonus episodes covering an additional cult movie, a new movie in theaters, or a mailbag episode devoted to your submitted questions! Have a couple bucks to throw in the hat, we’ll reward you!
Sometimes you just stumble across a short film that seems like kismet, if you’re me at least, and The Letter by writers-directors-editors the Moser Brothers is one such of these films. It involves a hitman (Christopher Mur) who gets sick, but when he goes for a little healing, he discovers that his insurance company has denied his claim. For you and me this would be a nightmare of red tape, legal-ese, and bureaucratic headaches. But our hero isn’t you or me, he’s a highly-trained, super-efficient killer for hire, so he reacts, well, a little differently to the news.
This was a test film of sorts for the Mosers and their Canon 7d camera — which makes the film look great, btw, so crisp while emphasizing darker chromatic tones— and though it was made seven years ago, long before our current health care kerfuffle, it feels more relevant today than perhaps ever. And yeah, it’s a tongue-in-cheek scenario, but the humor is kept taut and muted, making The Letter a dark comedic delight.
So whatever frustrations, anger, or burning hatred you have towards the state of American healthcare, vent them in the fun and satisfying three minutes that is The Letter.
With Robert Rodriguez behind the camera, at least.
Everyone hates remakes. As film-critic people, we are obligated to hate remakes and reboots ever more. Remember Ben-Hur with Morgan Freeman? Remember Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes (2001)? But I’m can’t help but get excited about the remake of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York (1981) that 20th Century Fox is starting to get the ball actually rolling on. For one, Carpenter remains on hand as executive producer, which kind of makes the director and now-prolific rock star look like a father watching kid’s play with his old toys. Carpenter hasn’t done anything, movie-wise, in almost decade so it’s nice to see that he’ll be somewhere behind a camera sometime soon. Last year, he announced that he’d be also be on hand to help helm currently-hip Blumhouse Production’s first take on the ninth Halloween movie. So there’s a chance those will stop being awful. Maybe that’s his thing now.
But the other great and exciting thing about the remake of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York, which will hit production sometime later this year and will probably star some earnest-yet-brawny man I secretly hope will be James Franco, is that it just might feature Robert Rodriguezbehind the camera. In a world where writers and directors toss off remakes or sequels of their work to whatever lowly writer or director will make it into something mildly marketable, Rodriguez is one of the few directors to stand by the franchises he has erected: from his early trilogy of hot Western revamps that essentially gave new life to a genre that Clint Eastwood tried to gently kill off in the early ’90s, to the massively-popular and beloved everywhere Spy Kids franchise that was finally forced to peter to a stop after its last round of children, Rowan Blanchard and Mason Cook were no longer children. An animated take on the franchise, Spy Kids: Mission Critical, is currently in production at Netflix.
This dedication to his own product — he wrote and directed every Spy Kids movie, I shit you not — is remarkable. Give me one other franchise that wasn’t largely cooked up in a Hollywood writer’s room and was a Happy Meal-mainstay? They’re not putting in action figures of Richard Linkletter’s Jesse and Céline in your oily paper bags anytime soon. And there are only few directors on this side of Steven Spielberg who can make as much a name for themselves in zombie camp as adrenaline-charged children and, fewer still, who’ve risen up out of the independent filmmaking scene to seamlessly make it in Hollywood. A similar story could, maybe, be said of his frequent comrade behind the camera, Quentin Tarantino, but an argument could also be made that most of Tarantino’s movies are pretty much the same. What I’m trying to say is that Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003) at least feels different than From Dusk Till Dawn (1996).
Of course, Rodriguez’s last franchise notably went down in flames. Which just might be why a director like Carpenter might see a kindred spirit in the Spy Kids-mastermind. A director with a staunch fanbase but notably inconsistent critical acclaim or box office appeal, most of Carpenter’s last few movies: Village of the Damned (1995), Ghosts of Mars (2001) and the unfairly-maligned The Ward (2010) were both box office bombs and hold Rotten Tomato scores south of thirty or forty percent. While the common criticism of Carpenter’s output has been its paper thin characters, the same could equally be said of his greatest work. I mean, we don’t even find out Snake Plissken’s real name. In my opinion, its a harder route: if people don’t immediately feel at home in the dark caverns of a burning-slowly New York City or with the loud punchy-colors you dress your movie in, your characters take the blame. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, anybody can write a script.
Before even choosing Rodriguez, Fox had been getting their own script ready for Escape From New York ever since their Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) made incredible amounts of cash and also didn’t really suck. Consequently, a script and story and whatnot has been sitting around for some time now, penned by Neil Cross, mostly known for being the creative figure behind the BBC’s Luther. Per The Wrap, its full of lots of script-y things: we discover Plissken’s real name, the antagonist will be some biotech billionaire instead of a badass Isaac Hayes and the titular New York will be “the island we know, but with more towering glass structures and a high, undulating glass wall.” Cool. Like Fox’s latest Apes reboot, the idea will be to give the vibe of the original while still, you know, surprising you with Draco Malfoy hiding around the corner or something.
Will Rodriguez give those undulating walls the futuristic pomp of, say, an Organization of Super Spies-headquarters? Or will it be dark in the spirit of Carpenter’s original, with the blood, graffiti and revelry that Rodriguez himself perfected in From Dusk Till Dawn? The best thing about Rodriguez’s Escape from New York is that I have no idea.
Why Daniel Espinosa’s sci-fi horror is very much worth your time.
You might already have a number of personally justified reasons to skip Daniel Espinosa’s outer space horror-thriller Life, written by the Deadpool and Zombieland scribe duo Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. For starters, the general lack of interest in it might be weighing down your own willingness (Forbes’ Scott Mendelson reports the movie only made a measly $12.2 million weekend debut.) Or its overall “meh” critical reception — with an underwhelming 66% score on Rotten Tomatoes (just 46% when you look at Top Critics only) — might be the deal-breaker for you. Or perhaps you have room for one and only one set-in-space horror per year inside of you, which you already reserved for Ridley Scott’s upcoming Alien: Covenant.
Due respect, you will be missing out, and not just on its first-rate and diverse ensemble cast, consisting of Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, Hiroyuki Sanada, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ariyon Bakare and Olga Dihovichnaya. After watching it twice (yes, you heard me), I remain in awe of the economy and integrity on display in Life towards creating a first-rate sci-fi horror that is at once familiar (OK, perhaps a bit too familiar with Alien generously signposted on every corner) and breathtaking. But that’s not all. Life also somehow seems to have heard my secret wishes and recent frustrations with the genre, and answered them one by one. Here, I count the reasons why I welcome Life breathing some new (or perhaps old?) life into the genre.
1. It’s a truly dangerous-feeling survival story.
It was just two years ago that I settled in to see Ridley Scott’s The Martian at New York Film Festival, just a couple of weeks following its exuberant Toronto Film Festival reception. Something felt off for me. I didn’t necessarily get consumed by the survival story or rescue mission at the film’s center. I wondered whether I wasn’t plugged in enough or was simply too tired. But then I watched it again and same thing happened. I found I was never sold on the high-stakes danger the Martian potato farmer Mark Watney (Matt Damon) was in. I liked the film just fine (hey, a group of smart NASA scientists solving problem after problem to bring one of their own back home is not too shabby a story). But I also desperately wished for a film a bit less cheery and a little more frightening. I realized I missed the uncooperative hostility of space in Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity. And I found exactly that in Life. Sure, it’s a bit paint-by-numbers: you know the crewmembers will all be goners from the early moments. But the script smartly enriches the film’s predictable turns, giving the crew just enough things to work with when everything else seems to be working against them. The conditions in Life couldn’t be any more hostile — they somehow feel brand-new, utterly exciting and deeply scary.
2. It’s a lean film.
Thankfully, this is not another Prometheus with layers and layers of plot points, confused timelines and a crowded field of players. Don’t expect a lengthy back story, overly convoluted breadcrumbs for future installments or dragged out plotting in Life. Its chief story — 6 astronauts/scientists study and battle a single-cell life form discovered on Mars — arrives almost immediately and builds and deepens at a swift tempo. That Life is stripped of bells and whistles isn’t a liability that dumbs the film down in any way. On the contrary, this approach works to the film’s advantage, ultimately putting forth a sophisticated, minimalist thriller (sorely missed in this genre) with impressive long takes and camerawork, and an elegantly designed nightmarish alien. Espinoza proves he is a resourceful storyteller who knows how to achieve more with less.
3. The crewmembers in Life are treated with dignity.
Life never loses sight of the fact that we are in the presence of crewmembers that are human first and foremost and are more than capable of making humanly mistakes, like Hugh Derry (Bakare) does at the lab in which he studies the alien form as the expert in his field. But the film also never abandons the fact that these people are scientists and that science is what drives their motivations, curiosities and inner battles. Remember how in Prometheus astronauts inexplicably remove their space helmets at the slightest sign of breathable air outside of their spacecraft? That was the moment that the film lost me by shamelessly betraying the crew’s scientific priorities and instincts to take a plotting shortcut. Life takes a different approach altogether. In one scene, we get to hear Miranda (Ferguson) voice her shame around hating Calvin (the alien). She knows it’s a scientific conflict to breed such feelings. In repeated instances, we observe as crewmembers put each other’s safety and their task’s future ahead of their own interests (or even lives). It’s just one of the many ways Life keeps its viewer engaged and its plot believable.
4. Its claustrophobia is suffocating.
You only know what claustrophobia really means if you have it — it’s not just mere discomfort of being in closed spaces. Life captures that panicky sensation of running out of breath and getting buried alive masterfully. From its early moments, the long camera takes (pay special attention to the opening) that follow the scientists around the spacecraft and the intimate close-ups on their faces start to slowly cut the viewers’ oxygen supply by encapsulating them into this fast-moving world. There is especially one particular death which involves a liquid-filled space helmet that will be the worst nightmare of any individual with the slightest degree of claustrophobia. Thankfully I was prepared for it during my second watch and mostly closed my eyes through it. Mostly.
5. The ending is a stunner.
OK, perhaps you can sniff it from a mile away. But it was still nice to be treated to a fiendishly ruthless ending devoid of hope. Sure, the finale is in part bait for potential future installments (if this one does well, which doesn’t quite seem to be the case currently.) But it’s also a bit more than that. It’s a reminder that we don’t always need to be spoon-fed a hopeful resolution to be entertained in a horror/thriller. In that regard, Life kicks it refreshingly old school.
David Lynch proved himself as a master of film music in his 1986 feature.
“Every note of music has enough breath to carry you away, and as a director, all you have to do is let the right wind blow at the right time” — David Lynch
Sound and music are incredibly important in David Lynch’s films. From Eraserhead (1977) on, Lynch has shown his talent for creating creepy and dreamy soundscapes, which include music and dialogue as well as diegetic and non-diegetic sound effects. Perhaps Lynch’s most popular film, Blue Velvet (1986) perfectly blends together pop music, original score, and Lynchian sound effects. Blue Velvet is especially rich with beautiful music that both comments on and runs counter to the images onscreen. This was the first film in which Lynch focused on both original score/sound effects and pre-existing pop music.
David Lynch is never completely serious or completely joking — he is always both at the same time. In The Cinema of David Lynch: American Dreams, Nightmare Visions, writer Nicholas Rombes refers to this as “sincerity in irony”. There are certainly moments of humor in Blue Velvet — Jeffrey’s (Kyle MacLachlan) “chicken walk”, and the absurd way characters speak and behave — but Lynch does not make fun of his characters or the worlds he creates. This is also true of his other works such as Eraserhead and Twin Peaks. Characters and situations are absurd and silly, but they are still meant to be taken seriously. Lynch is completely sincere and ironic at the same time, which also applies to his use of music.
Angelo Badalamenti wrote the original score for the film. This was the first collaboration between Lynch and Badalamenti, who would go on to work together for all of Lynch’s feature films except for 2006’s Inland Empire. In Michel Chion’s book David Lynch, he notes that the director wanted a score that was “the most beautiful thing in the world,” while also being dark and a little bit scary. Badalamenti’s soaring theme repeats throughout the film, and assists in creating a noirish, dark, yet romantic atmosphere. Clare Nina Norelli refers to the theme as “lush” and “soap-operatic”. His score is largely influenced by classical music, and quotes from Shostakovich’s 15th Symphony. The classical motifs that are repeated within the score give the film a timeless feel, as though this is a classical Hollywood noir such as Sunset Boulevard or The Maltese Falcon.
The original score also features elements of blues and pop music, on tracks such as “Akron Meets the Blues”, “Honky Tonk Pt. 1” and of course “Mysteries of Love”. Badalamenti’s scores are diverse and eclectic, and each track is different from the next, with a few repeated motifs throughout. Norelli notes that Badalamenti also uses orchestral dissonance throughout the score, in order to unnerve viewers. Much of the music in Blue Velvet is unnerving and eerie. There are two versions of the song “Mysteries of Love” throughout the film, one of which has lyrics written by Badalamenti and Lynch and is performed by Julee Cruise. The song is associated with Sandy (Laura Dern), as it plays a number of times when she is onscreen. The instrumental version plays when she tells her dream about the robins to Jeffrey, and Julee Cruise’s beautiful, breathy version plays when Sandy and Jeffrey dance together at a party. This song (and Sandy herself) represent innocence, light, and sweetness — one side of the town of Lumberton, and the world of Blue Velvet itself.
“Through his lens songs that were otherwise innocent, even saccharine in their sentiment, are transformed into the anthems of the demented and the doomed” — Clare Nina Norelli
David Lynch is well-known for his fascination with 1950s Americana. Blue Velvet is filled with white picket fences, roses on front lawns, smiling children, small-town friendliness, and old-fashioned diners. Norelli writes that “…Lynch takes the pop Americana of his childhood and subverts it” — he is obsessed with small-town innocence, but is even more obsessed with the darkness hiding beneath the surface. The lightness represented by Sandy and her musical theme is juxtaposed with the darkness of the town, where children are kidnapped and ears are cut off and women are beaten up in abusive psychosexual relationships. For every sweet-looking nuclear family, there is a tortured Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) and a violent, drug-addicted Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper). Policemen are corrupt, families have secrets, and sometimes the person being spied on is more dangerous than the spy in their closet.
One way in which Lynch expresses this juxtaposition of lightness and darkness is through the use of pop music. Bobby Vinton’s “Blue Velvet” is of course one of the most important songs to this film. After Badalamenti’s main title theme plays over the credits, the film fades in on a sunny neighborhood while Vinton’s dreamy song plays on the soundtrack. Everything appears sunny and happy until the camera reaches Tom Beaumont (Jack Harvey), Jeffrey’s father, as he collapses onto his lawn writhing in pain from a heart attack. The camera moves in closer to the ground, into the blades of grass, as the song fades further and further away and begins to be replaced by a low, rumbling sound. As the camera moves closer into the grass, the screen is filled with images of ants crawling all over one another, and the rumbling sound becomes mixed with the crunching sound of ants’ legs and bodies rubbing against each other. The sweet, romantic love song is replaced with something strange and terrifying.
The song appears multiple times throughout the course of the film. It plays diegetically later in the film when Jeffrey goes to visit Dorothy at her apartment, and of course it is performed by Dorothy herself at the Slow Club. Rossellini’s version of the song is slowed down and melancholy, befitting Dorothy’s personality. The song becomes less romantic and more desperate, much like Dorothy herself, whose son and husband have been kidnapped by Frank, while she is forced to submit to his every desire. The same song is heard four times throughout the movie, and takes on a different meaning each time. Vinton’s version suggest romance and sunshine, while Dorothy’s version suggests despair and secrets. Lynch is able to shift the meaning of the same song in order to display both the light and darkness present within the film.
Notice Mr. Badalamenti playing piano behind Ms. Rossellini
The other prominent pop song used in Blue Velvet is Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams”, a song which Frank is obsessed with. He implores his friend Ben (the amazing and wonderful Dean Stockwell — “here’s to Ben!”) to perform the song for him, and becomes so emotional during the performance that he stops Ben halfway through the song. The song is about longing for someone, and dreaming about being with them — a fairly innocent concept. But of course the words seem to become sinister as they are associated with Frank. He plays his cassette of the song again later when he takes Jeffrey out for a “ride”, and beats him up in the desert. It is a scene of classic Lynchian absurdity: Orbison’s angelic, romantic voice croons over Frank viciously beating up Jeffrey, while a strange woman dances on top of a car as if nothing is happening around her. It is darkly humorous, scary, and sad, all at the same time.
The candy colored clown they call the Sandman…
It is also important to note that both “Blue Velvet” and “In Dreams” are performed by characters at various points in the movie, once again demonstrating Lynch’s sense of “sincerity in irony”. Performing songs (whether a cover or a lip-sync) calls attention to the performance of acting and the artifice of the film world, but this does not mean that Lynch is poking fun at the artificiality of cinema. Rather, music and performance are important to these characters, as it is how they choose to express themselves (although Frank expresses himself through the conduit of Ben). Characters perform in Lynch’s other works as well: Julee Cruise performs her songs at the Roadhouse in Twin Peaks, the Lady in the Radiator (Laurel Near) sings “In Heaven” in Eraserhead, and Rebekah Del Rio performs “Llorando” at Club Silencio in Mulholland Drive. Characters’ emotions are expressed through these performances, which are themselves often absurd and slightly sad.
One of my personal favorite songs in Blue Velvet is Ketty Lester’s “Love Letters”, which plays towards the end of the film as Jeffrey discovers the Yellow Man (Fred Pickler) and Dorothy’s husband (Dick Green) both dead in her apartment. Frank references the lyrics to the song earlier in the film, before he beats up Jeffrey:
“I’ll send you a love letter, straight from my heart, fucker! You know what a love letter is? It’s a bullet from a fucking gun, fucker! You receive a love letter from me, you’re fucked forever!”
Once again, this is a simple love song turned dark and terrifying in the hands of David Lynch. The lyrics tell the story of a young woman who cherishes the love notes she receives from her romantic partner, yet for Frank, “love letters” are bullets meant to threaten his enemies. While the sweet and smooth song plays on the soundtrack, Jeffrey enters Dorothy’s (already pretty creepy) apartment to find one man shot in the head standing straight up, and another with his ear cut off, tied up with blue velvet shoved into his mouth. The song immediately takes on Frank’s meaning, and ends up seeming dark and strange. Even more unnerving is the fact that the song appears to be playing diegetically — as it gets louder when Jeffrey enters the apartment — but the volume stays the same even as the camera cuts outside to the police. The song seems to exist in the space in between diegetic and non-diegetic, furthering one’s sense of strangeness.
Blue Velvet is one of David Lynch’s most masterful works. It is a perfect and terrifying neo-noir psychological thriller, full of Lynchian absurdity, darkness, and humor. Dennis Hopper, Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, and Laura Dern all give some of the best performances of their careers. The widescreen images are gorgeously shot, and the sound design by Lynch and Alan Splet is meticulously crafted. The soundtrack perfectly combines lush and romantic classical score with orchestral dissonance and pop music used in unexpected ways. The music reflects both the light and the darkness present within the film, and the pop songs represent both romance and violence at the same time. The very last moment of the film shows Dorothy reunited with her son. As she watches him play, she stops for a moment and her sad rendition of “Blue Velvet” plays on the soundtrack: “…and I still can see blue velvet through my tears”. This is one final moment where Lynch suggests that even though things look happy, there may be more secrets lurking beneath the surface.
The ‘Deadwood’ creator comes aboard a potential third season.
It’s been a long, strange trip to be sure, and we’re not exactly there yet, but it would seem that the dark spot of gritty storytelling on the horizon could just be the long-awaited and thought-ill-fated third season of the HBO series True Detective.
Following abysmal second season ratings and response, Nic Pizzolatto’s crime-centric character study seemed destined for the televisual graveyard. Since season two bowed, there’s been no word either way as to the fate of True Detective, it’s just been sitting there in our cultural cloud, suspended in network ether. Most folks, myself included, have considered the show dead for at least a year of its two-year hiatus; Pizzolatto signing an additional development deal with HBO in 2016 seemed to be the final nail in the coffin, but then out of pretty much nowhere EW today dropped a pair of exclusive bombshells that reveal not only is a third season in the works, it’s getting an injection of top-notch talent behind the scenes.
Now, this is not a greenlight notification, the third season of True Detective has not been announced by HBO, so it’s still very possible nothing will ever materialize of all this, but EW has it that Pizzolatto has already completed the first two scripts of a tentative third season, and furthermore his writing team has been joined by none other than David Milch, the mastermind writer behind Deadwood and NYPD Blue. Note: this is a collaboration, not a takeover or a hand-off, Milch isn’t being made showrunner, the two writers are said to be genuinely crafting the rest of the season together.
Fans of spectacular television writing should be elated by this news. Deadwood is easily one of the top-three best-written shows of all-time (I personally put it at #2), and regardless of your feelings about Pizzolatto’s second stab at True Detective, it was still incredibly intelligent, thought-out, and narratively one of the most daring shows on TV. You put these two minds together, the possibilities are thrilling.
Again, no stones have been etched in regarding this news, but it is the first and only positive word we’ve gotten on True Detective season three since season two aired. So if you’re holding out hope, keep on holding, it might just work.
In other news and points of interest…
…A24 dropped a beautiful and haunting new poster for David Lowry’s upcoming A Ghost Story starring Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara, as well as the first full trailer. Some folks are already calling the film one of the best of the year — and upon first look this writer is inclined to believe them — but whether it holds up to that or not, the real cause for celebration is that the actors and director have said they plan to reunite every couple of years to make small, intimate, character-driven dramas like this. A Ghost Story is their second collaboration, the first being Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, which if you haven’t already seen you should as soon as possible.
…We got our first official look at Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander in costume as Lara Croft for the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot…
…If you’re one of our British readers, you have the chance to see a newly-restored, 4k version of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive in theaters. The new trailer just dropped…
..and Miles Teller (Whiplash) has signed to play the lead in Too Old to Die Young, the upcoming crime thriller series for Amazon that’s co-written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn.
And lastly, take a look at five of the most popular shots we tweeted over the last 24 hours. Want more? You know where to find us.
RESERVOIR DOGS (1992) DP: Andrzej Sekula | Dir: Quentin TarantinoEYES WIDE SHUT (1999) DP: Larry Smith | Dir: Stanley KubrickINCEPTION (2010) DP: Wally Pfister | Dir: Christopher NolanBATMAN (1989) DP: Roger Pratt | Dir: Tim BurtonTHE GREAT GATSBY (2013) Director of Photography: Simon Duggan | Director: Baz Luhrmann
