The Shallow Pocket Project is a series of conversations with the brilliant filmmakers behind the independent films that we love. Check our last chat with Dan Gilroy (writer/director of ‘Velvet Buzzsaw’). Special thanks to Lisa Gullickson and the other Dorks at In The Mouth of Dorkness.

Who the hell would love me? It’s a question all of us ask at one point or another. Trapped inside our heads, forced to confront ourselves each day in the bathroom mirror, we can fall into some cavernous voids of self-loathing. Good morning, I am a monster. Let me fetch that noose.

Love occurs when another person sees you at your most exposed and accepts your self-proclaimed wretched meat sack. They even recognize your flaws as strengths and find validation of their own questionable persona in you. Such human understanding does not necessarily translate into a romantic connection, but we all need that companion who will consent to this revelation of identity.

We want to believe that person exists for all of us, and thankfully we have films like Paddleton to give hope to the hopeless. Alex Lehmann’s follow-up to Blue Jay is another improv-heavy character exploration that relies just as much on the actors to craft the story as it does the director and the editor. Mark Duplass and Ray Romano play a pair of oddball Kung Fu film aficionados who would wallow in solitary misery if not for their routine bouts of the titular fictional sport. When one of them is diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, the two set out on a journey of emotional confrontation.

The plot summary does not necessarily scream “good time out at the movies,” but entertainment is undeniable when you have Duplass and Romano in a room together. The actors bring tremendous warmth, cheer, and authentic love to their characters. As credits roll on the film, you are struck by how absent platonic romance seems from the rest of cinema. Paddleton is one of the truest creative expressions of friendship, highlighting the necessary bond required to get all of us across the finish line.

We spoke to Duplass and Romano over the phone shortly after their film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film seriously struck a chord between Lisa and myself, and we could barely contain our gushing at the beginning of this conversation. Please, forgive us. After a quick burst of tearful confession, we move the discussion to why Duplass encouraged Lehmann to tackle death head-on, and how Romano embraced the improv method of storytelling. We talk a little bit about Kung Fu movies and where this particular bromance originated.

Here is our conversation in full:

Brad:          This film destroyed us. We were both in tears by the end of the film, just gushing.

Mark:          Thanks.

Lisa:          It is such a beautiful ode to platonic love and how all kinds of love can be true and complete love. I just thought that that was so wonderful.

Mark:          Well, thank you very much. You’re our ideal audience.

Ray:            Where did you see it? What showing did you go to?

Brad:          At Sundance. We caught it at a Press & Industry Screening.

Ray:            Oh nice, nice.

Mark:          That’s just great that you liked it because that’s the worst possible environment to watch a movie in. That’s great. (Laughter)

Brad:          That can be true. When we talked to Alex [Lehmann] he mentioned how after Blue Jay, he didn’t want to tackle death. He’d had just come out of some film at a festival, and it was something with a bunch of gratuitous death, and Mark, you said, “Well, because you don’t want to deal with death, you’ve got to deal with death for the next movie.” Why were you pushing him there?

Mark:          I think I said that as a joke, but I think he was really into it, so we just went with it. And I think, for us, the key to this movie was doing something that was in a similar form to Blue Jay, that was, sort of, a deep dive, two-hander, personal relationship story, but kind of taking it to a different level and exploring something a little bit deeper. So, to Alex’s point, that was something that was a little scary for him, and I thought it would be interesting for all of us to go into that.

But the core of the movie, for me, at the end of the day, it’s really about what it means to have a truly intimate, platonic, male relationship because I just don’t really see those onscreen that much. There are, sort of, jokey bromances, and things like that, but this represents the kind of relationships that I have with my brother and my male friends. I haven’t really seen it on screen, so that was a big goal of ours.

Lisa:          For the more medical side of the story, what kind of research did you do? Or did you have any kind of source material you were pulling from?

Mark:          Alex did a bunch of that stuff, but I also helped a little bit with it. It was really, for us, more about getting the facts down of, how this is done, as opposed to, why it was done. Because, needless to say, first and foremost, this is really a movie about friendship. So we wanted to make sure we understood what it did, and how it worked, and that was really the focus, so that it could support the friendship storyline.

Brad:          And, Ray, we heard you came up with a pretty extensive backstory for your character. Why was that necessary for you, going into this film?

Ray:            I just find it helps. I started doing that, I don’t know, about five or six years ago on every project. I heard Denzel Washington say it, so I thought, “Okay, if I can be like him …” (Laughter) He was actually giving that advice to young actors. He was saying, “Always write a backstory.” And I tried it. Another director once told me, “Yes, write a backstory, read it, and then forget about it. Just put it away and forget about it.” I thought it was a little important to know how this guy got to where he was, and what made him tick a little bit, and how lucky he was to have found the one guy that he can relate to. So, yeah. I did it, I showed it to Mark, and Mark said, “Whatever you need, just …”

Brad:          That could have been dangerous. What if Mark was like, “No, this is not Andy”?

Ray:            Well, no, that’s why I show it to the director every time. I say, “Hey, this is just for me. If you think it’s contradicting something you think about what’s going on, let me know.” Yeah, I want to know that, but it seemed to fit, right?

Mark:          Yeah, well also, this was a different process in that, it wasn’t a script already written. We were creating and building the story on the characters together. So, it wasn’t a question of, “Is it Andy or not?” It was a question of, “Do we want this to be Andy?” And it became Andy.

Brad:          Where did the mutual appreciation of Kung Fu cinema come from?

Mark:          I think that when we started creating Michael and Andy, we knew that their interests were very specific, and that, they didn’t have a lot of chances of making friends in the world. We wanted to build things for them that felt very small and very strange, and that included made-up racquetball games and strange, sort of niche, Kung Fu movies, and badly frozen pizzas. So, for us, it was really just a question of, what are the interests we can give these guys that will make you feel, as an audience member, “Holy shit. I hope nothing bad happens to one of them, because this may be their last chance of getting a good friend.”

Lisa:          So, Ray, this is your first time doing a treatment-style film. How was that for you?

Ray:            Yeah, it was a little nerve-racking. I remember talking with Mark and Alex about it, and they told me how Sarah Paulson felt in the movie Blue Jay, which they did right before this because it was the same process. And she’d be a little nervous and scared right before the cutscenes.

I wasn’t just worried about the comedy part of it, where we knew we wanted to keep things light. I was more worried about the dramatic part. How was that gonna go? I’ve done improv where, on a scripted piece, you add a line here, you change a line here, but never in the dramatic scenes. So, that seemed to be a little tricky for me at first. But it ended up being perfect, because the improv-ing, I thought, it is what made me feel so close to this character because you were creating his reality, his words, for 20 days in a row. So, I felt very embodied within this guy, and so the dramatic scenes were easy to get to.

Lisa:          Initial trepidation aside, at the end of creating this character and making this movie, did you find that the improv style related closer to your work doing stand-up?

Ray:            I mean, just my style is very conversational. It may seem like I’m improv-ing up on stage, but in that sense, it’s the same, because that’s what you want the movie to feel like, like we’re just speaking extemporaneously.

Mark:          Mm-hmm. Yes.

Ray:            And that’s how I try to make it look on stage in stand-up, but it’s all written. The stand-up is word-for-word the same, night after night. Yes, I do change a few things here or there, but I’m not just winging it up there. But making it seem natural is kind of important in my stand-up, and it’s a good thing to be able to do, especially in this movie.

Brad:          This film lives or dies on whether or not the audience buys into this relationship. How did you guys build that chemistry, that relationship?

Mark:          Ray and I didn’t know each other before we got involved in this movie. We were sort of mutual fans of each other. And so, part of the way you build that chemistry is through meeting up before we shoot, discussing the backstory, getting to know each other. Another part of it is that we try to shoot the movie, as much as possible, in the chronological order of the film, so that you yourselves are going through the same journey that the characters are going on. But I think, by and large, the major factor is that we improvised, so that there is an element of surprise for us every time we’re acting. The laughs seem a little more genuine, and the fumbling with the words are a little more genuine because they’re real. And, while improvising can be a scary process, and you can certainly fall on your face if the scene’s not working, when you get it right, I think it’s a natural chemistry generator.

Brad:          And because of the way you shoot it, the run and gun, you’re able to have a few more passes than your average movie production.

Mark:          Yeah, we do a lot more takes than the average shoot does. I’d say, when you’re on a movie, I don’t know if you’d agree with this, Ray, but I feel like you spend 80% of your time waiting around, and maybe 20% of your time acting. And, on this set, it was almost reversed. We had very little time in between and then when we get up, we’re doing six, seven, eight, nine, ten takes, two cameras, one on each of us the whole time to try and get it right, because we didn’t have car crashes to offer in this. All we had to offer was the relationship, so we had to spend all our time trying to get that right.

Ray:            There are gonna be a lot of DVD extras on this.

Mark:          And they’ll all be terrible. You’ll say, “Thank God, they cut this out.”

Ray:            Yeah, yeah.

Brad:          Well, that brings up an interesting question though. You’re putting a lot of faith in the edit. How do you know as an actor, when that’s the cut you want, or that’s the way you want the scene to go?

Mark:          Yeah, it does seem like you’re swimming in the sea of infinite possibility, and it can be confusing at times. But, more often than not, everyone on set feels that when it clicks in, from the actors to the directors, down to the boom operator. When the chemistry’s clicking, you kind of know. And, of course, editing is where the movie really comes together. That’s almost the last part of the writing process, is in the editing room. You have all these options. And that’s good, because it allows us the ability to show the movie to people and say, “Is this working? Is this not working,” and change it. We have quite a while to get this movie to the place where we want it to be.

Lisa:          So part of this movie is a road movie, but they really only interact closely with two other characters, the pharmacist and the hotel lady. Was there any time where you wanted to open up this world more, and we could see this couple through more characters’ eyes, or close it down, where it really was just a two-man movie?

Mark:          I think, for us, we really felt like we were opening it up with those other two characters. We really wanted to just show these two guys, and it was nice to have a couple of other lenses in, but there was never a point where we thought we would go wider than what it was. If anything, we thought we might just keep it smaller.

Paddleton hits Netflix on February 22^nd.

The post Mark Duplass and Ray Romano Discuss Their Platonic Rom-Com Cancer Movie ‘Paddleton’ appeared first on Film School Rejects.

Last Friday at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, Bruce LaBruce was present for a screening of his latest film, The Misandrists, which premiered at the 2017 Berlin International Film Festival. The Misandrists is a clever and unapologetically queer film that tells the story of the Female Liberation Army (FLA), a small radical group presided over by Big Mother (Susanne Sachβe, a LaBruce regular). One overcast day while Isolde (Kita Updike) and Hilde (Olivia Kundisch) spend a romantic afternoon in the field beside their home, they discover a wounded anticapitalist soldier, Volker (Til Schindler). Isolde makes the dangerous decision to keep him in the basement of the home and take care of his injuries – dangerous because the FLA has a strict no-men policy, and their mission is to ensure political, social, sexual, and personal liberation for all women.

Jude Dry at Indiewire writes that the film is “a wild romp with all the campy noir you might expect in a film by the father of queercore,” distinguishing LaBruce’s reputation as an outsider filmmaker and a legendary figure of queer cinema. Bruce LaBruce, the Canadian filmmaker, writer, artist, and activist, notably distinguishes his work from the New Queer Cinema of the 80s and 90s, instead favoring an underground punk outlaw sensibility. LaBruce’s films are defined by their references to old Hollywood films, teasing out the queer subtext in works by filmmakers such as Robert Altman and Billy Wilder. For example, LaBruce’s Hustler White (1996) draws heavily upon Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950), from the opening image of a body floating face down in water to its narrative of artistic obsession, transported from the Paramount back lots to the gay porn industry. The Misandrists itself resembles Don Siegel’s 1971 The Beguiled, albeit bringing its feminist potentiality and violence to the surface. LaBruce also makes constant use of B-movie tropes such as graphic violence and sexuality, often featuring nightmarish creatures like zombies and vampires, and his actors always perform in a stilted manner, a style common to low-budget movies.

The Misandrists utilizes a camp aesthetic to sort through some feminist ideals – celebrating some while critiquing others. The film critiques aspects of second-wave feminism such as anti-pornography arguments and trans exclusion from a decidedly feminist perspective and the film explore a wide range of feminist issues, dismissing some (biological essentialism) and celebrating others (the fight against patriarchal violence). In Teo Bugbee’s review for the New York Times, she notes that the characters are confronted with the limitations of their particular ideology, noting that lesbian characters find subversive inspiration in gay pornography, and Volker, a straight man, is just one liaison (and surgery) away from being aligned with the FLA’s cause. The characters are challenged to develop a more fluid and inclusive belief system that acknowledges the limitations of gender binaries and sexual essentialism. When Isolde is outed as a trans woman by a member of the FLA who turns out to be a cop, Big Mother and the other girls react violently, as their feminism has no room for trans, non-binary, or gender-fluid folks. LaBruce offers a hopeful vision of growth and understanding, however, and in the end, all of the women share the realization that being a woman is a different experience for every person who identifies as such.

Jürgen Brüning Filmproduktion

Its sense of camp and humor come through in its highly stylized visuals and performances. The camera is always moving, capturing small details such as LaBruce himself dressed as a nun who keeps an eye on the FLA, and at one point performs a Charleston-esque dance for no particular reason. The lighting is frequently warm and colorful, and the frame rate slows down significantly during a pillow-fight sequence, offering a queered take on the “male gaze” that traditionally governs the framing of such scenes. Instead of a salacious focus on women’s bodies for male pleasure, the film makes it very clear that men are not welcome in this space. Big Mother constantly reiterates that one way to achieve female liberation is to engage in free love and sex with one another, and this pillow-fight is a joyful, affectionate moment of playfulness and eroticism between the women. LaBruce’s use of camp as a referential queer aesthetic that is at the same time reverent and parodic allows for a nuanced exploration of gender and sexuality.

While the film is committed to upholding feminist politics, at times, it feels as though there are so many ideas being introduced that there is not enough time to adequately explore them all. During the post-screening Q&A, one audience member pointed out that references to Indigenous mythology and Two Spirit figures were underdeveloped and conflated ideas stemming from different parts of the world. There are frequent references to the radical potential of pornography, yet there seems to be a lack of discussion about why it is, and what makes feminist porn, in particular, a freeing and powerful medium of expression. LaBruce notes that his goal was not to provide a deep exploration of these themes but to instead offer a narrative saturated with feminist notions. He acknowledges that his knowledge about Indigenous experience is incomplete, but argues that including a flawed account is better than completely ignoring this important configuration of queerness. Although this makes sense, it does not make up for the fact that the film is messy at times.

Jürgen Brüning Filmproduktion

Regardless, LaBruce has proven himself to be a unique figure of queer cinema, and continued critical evaluation of his work is important in expanding our notion of what cinema can do. Bugbee writes that “[w]ith ‘The Misandrists,’ Mr. LaBruce announces, here is queer cinema: confrontational, pansexual, gender-fluid, racially inclusive, angry and surprisingly romantic.” His time as a part of both gay male and lesbian separatist groups lay the activist groundwork for his films, and LaBruce has a keen understanding of art that is simultaneously grotesque, campy, intelligent, beautiful, and horrifying. He is perhaps most closely aligned with someone like John Waters, the king of all things queer, over-the-top, and in delightfully bad taste. Make no mistake, however: Bruce LaBruce is a singular artist, and his work deserves to be seen and discussed. To quote Big Mother: “We must tell the world to wake up and smell the estrogen.”

The post ‘The Misandrists’ Review: Bruce LaBruce, Feminism, and Camp appeared first on Film School Rejects.

Earning just a little over $10.4 at the box office this weekend, Liam Neeson’s latest revenge drama Cold Pursuit sputtered into third place. While it is hard to deny that the controversy surrounding his use of racist rhetoric while promoting the film hindered the film’s financial chances, I think there are several other factors that contributed to its floundering failure at the box office. First and foremost, we are tired of this particular game.

Since Taken redefined his persona in 2008, Neeson has spearheaded ten grizzled action ass-kicker roles: The A-Team, Unknown, The Grey, Taken 2, Non-Stop, A Walk Among the Tombstones, Taken 3, Run All Night, The Commuter, and Cold Pursuit. Maybe we take out The Grey and replace it with Battleship, or one of those Clash of the Titans extravaganzas. A few years back he threatened to retire from these physically absurd endeavors, but then came The Commuter and Cold Pursuit, and he still has Honest Thief waiting in the docket.

So, yes, we’ve seen Neeson pushed to his limits in a variety of situations, and we’ve enjoyed a multitude of mutilations perpetrated in the name of vengeance. As is our want, we’ve beaten the dead horse; it’s time to move on down the stable and find another stallion to ride into oblivion. Or not. Depending on the fallout of his apology tour he could crank out another ten of these blunt instruments before shuffling off this mortal coil.

Whether we allow him to recommit to this genre or not, can we at least agree to ease off the European action movie remakes? Cold Pursuit is based off the Norwegian thriller In Order of Disappearance starring Stellan Skarsgård. The plots are nearly identical and revolve around an upstanding citizen who spends his days plowing roads free from snow and his nights tracking down the gangsters who killed his son. Skarsgård went by the name of Nils Dickman while Neeson goes by Coxman. Hmmmm. Yes. I see what they did there.

Cold Pursuit is a deeply faithful adaptation due in large part by the fact that the original film’s director, Hans Petter Moland, jumped across the pond to direct his own remake. The result is a strange viewing experience for anyone familiar with the original. While Moland allows for some variation, several of the original film’s most memorable moments are closely replicated for American audiences. The only deviation stemming from how Neeson and the other new actors interpret the sequences.

Comparing Cold Pursuit to Neeson’s more recent adventures, the film is a dark, glum affair. In films like The Commuter or Non-Stop, the actor emits playful accessibility to the action absurdity. That is not present here. Cold Pursuit is very much rooted in the dark nature of Scandinavian thrillers. While it never scrapes the bottom of moral depravity in the same manner that The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is all too happy to partake, Moland does delight in the nasty business. There are no winks winked.

I may be ready to move on from the Neeson action vehicle, but I am even more so willing to flee American remakes of Nordic horrors. We just don’t have it in us. David Fincher may have brought a lot of money and style to his The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo remake, but it was a defanged, hesitant interpretation. At the very least, just as Stieg Larsson’s bestsellers were quickly consumed here in the states, Fincher’s film fed an appetite. This at-the-time salivating Scandinavian hunger from audiences would have to wait seven years before the arrival of a Hot Topic sequel and by then a distaste for such gluttony had developed. The Girl in the Spider’s Web took in less than a third of its production budget domestically.

Al Pacino was another actor who tried to follow in the footsteps of Stellan Skarsgård. In Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia, he played an apathetic police detective on the trail of Robin Williams’ serial killer. Beyond the gimmick of a night-less arctic setting, the film drastically reduced the venom of its lead character. Where Stellan was allowed to be scum, Al had to carry some possible redemption. The best thing Insomnia did was prove to Warner Bros. that Nolan had the dramatic chops to revitalize Batman from Joel Schumacher’s Day-Glo hell.

Hollywood is remake hungry, and nothing will change that. The way they see it – what works for one filmmaker/audience should work for another filmmaker/audience. Yet, rarely does the European action film redo result in box office glory. Cold Pursuit is just the latest Brick Mansions, Contraband, The Gunman, and Pathfinder. American studios won’t succeed with this particular point of view until they find confidence in their dark hearts.

The post America’s ‘Cold Pursuit’ of European Action Cinema appeared first on Film School Rejects.

A Star is Born has had its fair share of renditions. Technically, four different stories exist about an alcoholic mega-star and his greatest musical discovery. Director Bradley Cooper chose a new adaptation of the material as his first time directing. It’s hard enough navigating the new responsibilities that direction brings when making a feature film. Nevermind the fact you’ve decided to adapt a well-trodden story that has been performed by iconic actors and actresses throughout the last century.

Cooper needed someone to capture his vision and turned to cinematographer Matthew Libatique, ASC. They were introduced through their shared acquaintance in Jennifer Lawrence, according to a feature in American Cinematographer Magazine. Cooper had appeared with Lawrence in films like Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, while Libatique had just worked with Lawrence while shooting the Darren Aronofsky film, mother! Libatique has been working with Aronofsky throughout his career shooting films like Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, Black Swan, and Noah. Libatique has also shot a significant amount of music videos including Suit & Tie and Mirrors for Justin Timberlake.

But it is Libatique’s collaboration with Cooper for A Star is Born that has brought him his second Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography. Libatique and Cooper capture the concert footage as if you are there performing and looking out over the audience. This perspective allowed audiences to connect with Lady Gaga‘s Ally as she was taking on the daunting task of performing before a live audience. Each of the live performances is thrilling in their own right, but Ally’s performance of Shallow has become an iconic scene by itself.

Libatique took some time away from shooting his new project for Warner Bros. Pictures, Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), to speak to Film School Rejects on some of the most memorable shots from A Star is Born.

You had a history in music videos before A Star is Born. How did that influence your approach to shooting the music sequences in the movie? 

It didn’t really influence me. I didn’t think about the videos. For me, each scene that was on stage was a narrative scene. The way we photographed it and the way we set up cameras was less about the music and more about what was happening narratively. I mean “Shallow” the scene where she comes on stage with him for the first time is case in point. But in music videos, some of the performances aren’t live per se. They’re stylistic and performances. It’s really a relationship between the artist and the camera. But with this, I had to sort of take an almost documentary point of view, but also a narrative point of view and make sure that the relationship is between Jack and Ally. And the relationship is between Jack and Ally and the audience. The music video thing never really crossed my mind because of that.

That’s interesting that you say it was almost like a documentary that you were shooting.

[Cooper] had the idea early on where we were thinking about how we were going to shoot the stage performances. Remembering an experience he had being backstage at a show and the feeling that he had. Just being there looking out at the audience amongst the stage and amongst the band and all people around the stage. What that sort of feeling was. He had the idea to shoot it from that perspective only and forget about the audience’s point of view.

How was working with a first time director like Cooper?

I don’t regard [Cooper] as a first time director. He didn’t act like that, and he didn’t perform that way. Of course, when you’re talking with him and speaking with him, that’s in your mind. But it’s not in any way shape or form with how he was dealing with things. He had the utmost confidence in every decision. He was very bold and able to change directions because of something that’s inspiring on set. A lot of first time actually have this angst between what they intended and what they can accomplish. But experienced directors understand when they’re being offered something in the moment that it is something to be treasured. [Cooper] has that skill and he has that intuitiveness. He didn’t resemble a first time director to me. I’ve worked with second time and third time directors that felt more like first-time directors.

The first time we see Ally perform is during the La Vie En Rose musical number which culminates in the first face-to-face between Ally and Jackson. What decisions were made setting up the shot and how did you decide on the red light to accentuate Lady Gaga during that pivotal moment? 

When we were prepping, [Cooper] and I…We would shoot footage in prep at his house. I was just trying to get an idea of what his silhouette was like. You know, let’s try a hat on, check out different angles, and I brought an Alexa mini to his house. He has this beautiful red neon sign in his home. There’s something quite beautiful about it, and it was the inspiration for the sign you see in the film later when Ally moves into Jack’s house. But red became this thing that I really wanted it to be present. You don’t see it in Jack’s stage show first [the opening] because it’s a day exterior the first time you see him perform. So the first opportunity I had to use color was with Ally.

Because I knew that we were going to use that sign later at the house and he was going to buy, as a gift, a La Vie En Rose sign. All these things sort of mixed together, which is why that color is present. I tried to light it from the bar, not from the stage. When [Cooper] first walks into the bar, [you can see] the cyan glow of the stage. But then the red light when [Ally] comes down, there’s something about that song and something about where I knew we were going to go with that sign. I wanted to tie in together, which is why that color existed there.

Another one of my favorite shots in the club comes when Jackson is performing “Maybe It’s Time.” Ally is partially covered by the tinsel in the club while she watches Jackson perform. What is it about this moment that tells so much about who Ally is? 

She’s a person who is destined for a greater thing. I think that’s one of my favorite closeups of her in the entire movie. We just came from the scene where he’s basically peeling tape off her eyebrow, surrounded by people who are very dressed up for the occasion. And she’s in street clothes, just standing next to a mirrored pillar, and she’s going through a tinsel curtain. On the one hand, it’s the glamour of that place or the would-be glamour of that place. And the other hand, she’s about to meet one of the largest, greatest rock and roll stars of our era. It was important to me from a filmmaking standpoint that people believe that Jackson Maine is a real character. There is a lot going on there in terms of performance and script wise with how he was treated by everybody in that club. The design, in performing on that stage even so small, there’s a lot of little subtleties that go on. A lot of that was from [Cooper] and production designer Karen Murphy. A lot of very small, subtle choices.

“Shallow.” Probably the moment that has become more synonyms with the film than anything else. Can you talk a little about the setup for that sequence?

From the moment [Jackson’s] driver knocks on the door of [Ally’s] home, with Andrew Dice Clay there and all the way through her going to work, quitting her job, again in the car, driving out the tunnel, getting to the plane, going inside the plane, getting out, being greeted by the greeter, and going through the bowels of the arena, past the crowds, and finally backstage into a wide shot.

She’s looking at thousands of people watching Jackson play was uber specific for what [Cooper] wanted to do. He described it and even knew what part of the music he wanted that all to happen to. So he described that completely. So specifically that’s what we did. [Cooper] really wanted her to arrive in a place where Jack was in all his glory. And he’s in the middle of a solo at that point. Going to the very last verse kind of perfectly, and then the song ends, and then he’s introducing Ally, unbeknownst to her she’s about to perform on stage for the first time.

The wedding sequence. The pivotal moments of A Star is Born all come from these extreme close-ups of Ally. Was the thought to always tell the story through her eyes? 

Just a sense of subjectivity where you’re concentrating on the emotion of the person’s face. There’s also a certain honesty to that. We were very fluid in scenes where we played the entire scene out. We didn’t leave any pickups. That happened in the middle of the scene as we were going through it.

The first take, the first time it happened, it was this magical moment. A discovery to be honest. The proximity wasn’t a discovery, it was intentional, but there was something about the eye line. The way it happened at that moment that sort of informed us to the end of the film as well. Part of it was where we put the camera, and part of it is how she reacted to where the camera was which was insane. It speaks volumes about her show business I.Q. You talk about basketball I.Q., about baseball I.Q. She just has an entertainment I.Q. and she knows how to connect.

The first time it happened in the wedding scene was absolutely magical. So much so, that I told [Cooper] I can do this better. And I knew that moment was going to happen. I just wanted to be completely 100 percent happy with how everything looked. I wanted it to be perfect. Luckily she was able to repeat it. That’s the main thing for me. It’s just giving these guys space, both [Cooper] and Lady Gaga; to create, discover, improvise, repeat, whatever they felt was necessary.

Ally and Jackson looking at her billboard before the SNL performance. That billboard actually exists right? How important was it that it was real and not a trick done digitally? 

Anytime you can do something real and not have it created, it’s just [better for] everybody. I don’t know how to explain. Is it essential? No. Is it important? Yes. As much, as much as you could possibly do something.

The “I’ll Never Love Again” Sequence. Gaga has said in an interview that her “dear friend Sonja died of cancer that day.” How did you approach shooting that sequence during that difficult time? 

Professionally you don’t pry. [As an actor] you use whatever you have to use to stay in character. I don’t think anybody felt any undue pressure and I don’t think she placed any extra pressure on anyone else either. That speaks to the kind of professional she is. There is an emotion that she used. You’d have to ask her. Whatever pain she was going through was felt, and it was a sort of segregate for the loss of her husband. I think that scene is beautiful because you feel that.

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Art as resistance is about as enticing a subject as anything else in 2019. Everywhere we turn there is a wall to meet our gaze. Such oppressive denial presents us with only three options: 1) Grab a hammer to smash it down. 2) Take a running start to scale the monstrosity. 3) Snatch up a paintbrush to unleash your rage upon it. We need rallying cries; we need others to show us that there is a fight to be had. It is less about winning and more about the action itself. Defiance is possible.

When evil seeps into a society, the damn thing must be brought into the light. To ignore the beast would be a vile act itself. This defiant function of artistic broadcasting is what initially attracted Caleb Deschanel to Never Look Away (a.k.a. Werk ohne Autor). Inspired by the life of German artist Gerhard Richter who transgressively blended photorealism with abstraction across a variety of mediums, the film celebrates rebellion through expression.

Set post-World War II East Germany, a young painter (Tom Schilling) battles Hitler’s leftover notion that art only holds validity in a representational form. Finding no soul in replicating everyday images, the artist bucks convention by mining emotion through abstraction. During this process of self-discovery, he meets and descends deeply into a passionate love affair with a fashion student (Paula Beer). Unbeknownst to them both, her father (Sebastian Koch) is the Nazi gynecologist that condemned the painter’s schizophrenic aunt to a death sentence.

Deschanel was brought on board as a cinematographer well before there was even a screenplay. During the eight years that passed between his last film and this one, director Florian Henckel von Donnersmark spent much of that time interviewing Gerhard Richter. He wanted his film to radiate with the vibrancy of Richter’s work, and he turned to his recent friendship with Deschanel to achieve that goal. While the two filmmakers had never worked before, they had found themselves on numerous Academy committees and their bond formed quickly. Henckel von Donnersmark insisted that no one else could bring this film before a camera.

Even without a script, the enthusiastic confrontational art of Gerhard Richter sparked a desire in Deschanel. When facing political oppression, every artist wants to believe in the weaponization of their craft. Here was an opportunity to champion the power of the eye as well as the heart in which the image is filtered. Never Look Away is one giant spotlight on the darkness we freely welcome into our community.

While attending Gold Derby’s Meet the Experts: Cinematographers panel, Deschanel explained the poisonous normalcy of evil witnessed in the film, “You don’t expose evil in an obvious way as evil. It sort of lurks underneath things in a way. The evil comes out of the characters in the way they behave, and that was the core of what the film is about.” To capture that nefarious nature, Daschenel was not interested in leaning into shadow or any other obvious signifying tricks. He found his inspiration in the work of Richter.

Gerhard Richter is a painter obsessed with capturing “The Blur.” A photograph traps an exact duplication of an image, and Richter is possessed by the idea of replicating that process on canvas. The object is everything, whether it’s a toilet-roll holder, a person, or a curtain, and “the blur” effect that he drapes on top of the photorealistic presentation is a distortion of the image that implies a reality to his oils. In defacing truth, he finds the truth. This is an affront to Adolph Hitler’s two-dimensional thinking, and would certainly be deemed degenerate by the Third Reich.

Translating Richter’s art and philosophy into a third medium of cinema presented plenty of challenges, and the task could have bogged the production down in several more years of debate. Sometimes, however, one must simply trust in a feeling. In speaking to American Cinematographer, Deschanel discussed the gut impulse that drives his framing, “Somehow it felt more appropriate, more old-fashioned, to frame in 1.85, and Florian and I liked that aspect ratio for a lot of our locations, too. I sort of go by instinct and emotions on these things, and this didn’t seem like a movie that wanted to be widescreen. It’s an intimate story.”

Both the director and cinematographer wanted to root this vision in the era, and contemporary digital techniques seemed antithetical to what Deschanel hoped to achieve in Never Look Away. How can an ARRI Alexa contain the vibrancy of Richter’s work let alone the actuality of 1940s East Germany? Such tried-and-true notions must contend with the budgetary demands of producers and the fact of dwindling craftsman. “There are no more professional film labs in all of Germany; when we started prep, the nearest lab was in Vienna,” says Deschanel. “After looking at the tests, Florian and I were still convinced we should shoot on film, and a couple of weeks later, we called the lab in Vienna to let them know we’d be sending more tests, and they said, ‘Don’t bother, we just went out of business.’ That sealed the deal, so we went with the Alexa.”

Grain then became a great concern in relaying historical authenticity. Working with the Digital Intermediate (DI), “I added grain, using more earlier in the story and progressing to finer grain as we went along.” During this process, Deschanel rediscovered his fervor for the material, finding that his interpretation of scenes on set was not necessarily the same when he watched them weeks/months later. He says, “I sometimes find the emotion I experience watching a finished scene is slightly different from the emotion I was thinking about when I shot it.”

This means that Deschanel often doesn’t put his finishing touch on a film until he’s seen the whole thing strung together in one cut. During the edit, as scenes jumble around the timeline, their effect changes and may require correction. A trick that would have been much more complicated if the film was shot traditionally.

“I’m not one who believes in timing the film as I go along because how I finally orchestrate the look depends on how the film is put together,” explains Deschanel. “I don’t believe you can time each scene separately and then put the picture together and have it work. The DI gives you a lot of flexibility to move colors around and create a symphony that goes from one color to another – warm to cool, for instance.”

Deschanel sees himself as just another storyteller on set. In defining his role to Deadline, he described cinematography as a job that “distills the visual images down to certain aspects of a story. There’s lighting and camera moves, whether a close-up of an actor that enhances performances or helps express emotion of that story.” The best thing a craftsman can do is study and work his way to mastery over the technicalities, then let it all slip away so the humanity can take over. “It’s all part of what I do,” he says. Simple enough.

Pushing him further to explain the magic behind the craft, Deschanel looks to another passionate-bordering-on-fanatic filmmaker. Hidden within Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining, the DP sees the perfect metaphor for his gig. “Jack Nicholson is writing his novel, and then his wife comes up and sees what he’s writing over and over again, and it’s ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,'” he describes possibly the most iconic moment of the entire film. “There it is, a perfect way to describe what visual images do. You find the visual equivalent of expressing the insanity or joy or emotions of these characters.”

Never Look Away marks the sixth time Deschanel has received a nomination for an Academy Award, but despite honored work on The Right Stuff and The Natural, the cinematographer only donned the tux to watch others walk away with the prize. While it’s impossible not to deny excitement at finally scoring a possible win, Deschanel is simply shocked at the nomination. Chatting over the phone with the Boston Herald, he expressed total adulation over the recognition, “This nomination was really unexpected and wonderful because I thought nobody had seen it. The other foreign film entries [Roma and Cold War] spent lots of money, and they hardly spent any money on this movie.” As such, Never Look Away is the underdog of the night, but if cinema has taught us anything, it’s that we should never count out the underdog.

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When Roma was first announced and still shrouded in a good deal of mystery, one of the few things that were confirmed about Alfonso Cuarón‘s next film was that it would be shot by his recurring collaborator, Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki, who took home the Oscar for Best Cinematography a record three years in a row for Gravity (2013), Birdman (2014), and The Revenant (2015).

But then other commitments forced Lubezki to leave the project shortly before filming. Instead of bringing in somebody new, Cuarón, who started as a DP in film school, decided to wear another hat on the set of what was already his most personal film to date. Following a year in the life of Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a live-in maid working for an upper-middle-class family in 1970s Mexico City, Roma was inspired by Cuarón’s childhood and the domestic worker who helped raise him.

Rather early in the development of Roma, Cuarón decided he wanted to film in black and white — a fitting choice for a film looking into the past — but in a way that he hadn’t seen before. He did not want a vintage feel, but a digital black-and-white that looked the part. “I would refrain from that classic, stylized look with long shadows and high contrast, and go into a more naturalistic black-and-white,” Cuarón told American Cinematographer in a recent interview. “I didn’t want to try to hide digital in a ‘cinematic’ look but rather explore a digital look and embrace the present.”

In terms of cameras, it was Lubezki who suggested Arri’s Alexa 65. Cuarón was initially skeptical about the large format but was ultimately won over by its “unbeatable” dynamic range, allowing for deep-focus wide shots in which both foreground and background could be utilized, each informing the other.

As far as inspiration is concerned, he told The Hollywood Reporter‘s Behind the Screen podcast that while he didn’t have any visual points of reference in mind when developing Roma‘s look, in terms of his working method, “the constant reference was Ansel Adams.” Specifically, Adams’ “Zone System,” a collection of principles and techniques to optimize exposure by taking into consideration all the various “scene elements” within the photographic frame.

“Every frame needs to have information in every single inch of it, meaning I want it to go into deep blacks but still have some detail, and I will go into highlights but still have detail,” Cuarón explained on the podcast. This meant re-shooting scenes (sans actors) at higher and/or lower f-stops (that is, letting less and/or more light into the camera lens) to gather all the information needed to ensure the finished film image had absolutely no clipping. Basically, in raw footage, the most extreme highlights and shadows tend to get “flattened” into pure white or black, respectively, beyond particular thresholds, and through this additional shooting, Cuarón and his team could go back in post-production and fix this clipping in the digital intermediate (DI).

While Lubezki did not technically work on Roma, his influence still lingers in a variety of ways. When discussing the film’s cinematography with Lubezki himself, Cuarón admitted that one of his mottos on set was, “What would Chivo do?” He also utilized a LUT used by Lubezki for Birdman and The Revenant for Roma (LUTs, or Look-Up Tables, basically modify the look of footage in-camera by manipulating the way a digital camera interprets what it’s “seeing” in terms of hue, brightness, and saturation). Shooting in color, this LUT “allows some contrast and the color tends to be desaturated,” Cuarón told American Cinematographer, resulting in a “melancholic naturalism.” Once converted to black-and-white, though, and modified for a little bit of additional contrast, it resulted in a “soft naturalism” that he liked.

With its long, exquisitely choreographed tracking shots, most of Roma is a single camera affair. A notable exception is a scene that takes place when Cleo accompanies Sofía (Marina de Tavira), her employer, and her children on vacation to a relative’s hacienda for the winter holidays. The group has a lakeside picnic, and several of the adults practice their shooting skills while the children — including one dressed as an astronaut, seen in the shot below — run around in the surrounding woods. (It’s also worth mentioning that this scene is also arguably among those that most recalls the work of Ansel Adams; while known for landscape photography in general, several of his most iconic works are forest images.)

This sequence of the children playing was one of the few to be shot with two cameras– to ensure the sunlight would be in the perfect position for both shots and also guarantee “perfect continuity” when cutting between the two angles in the editing room, as Cuarón told American Cinematographer.

The holiday trip also features another tricky technical challenge in the form of a forest fire. While everybody is celebrating New Year’s Eve, Cleo steps outside and notices smoke in the distance. All the partygoers hurry to try to put out the flames.

Cuarón wanted the scene to be illuminated by fire. The burning trees in the foreground of the scene were real, and the film’s special effects supervisor Alejandro Vázquez further illuminated the scene with giant gas-controlled flaming grills — the biggest was 20’x12′ in size — that were then suspended from tripods and cranes. Due to regulations, they could not burn the trees in the background, but to maintain a convincing look, LED panels projecting videos of fire were used to light these trees in a flickering way.

Another scene that presented a complicated lighting situation was Cleo’s cinema date. With a movie being projected in the background, and Cleo sitting in the audience in the foreground, achieving the shot ultimately seen in the film required the reshooting technique described earlier using different configurations of LED lights to make sure the actors, the room, and the film being projected were all properly lit in the finished version.

In terms of overall logistics, one of the most complicated — and most impressive –scenes in Roma comes around three-quarters of the way through the film, when Cleo, now heavily pregnant and shopping for a crib, finds herself a witness to the Corpus Christi massacre, in which the ruthless team of army soldiers known as Los Halcones killed around 120 student protesters. Cuarón was adamant about shooting the massacre scene in the very location it occurred, but first hundreds of extras and stunt performers ran through extensive practices on a football field. On location, they only had two days to shoot.

While the lead-up and the aftermath of the massacre are shown at street level, Cuarón made the bold choice to only film the carnage itself at a glance from a second-story window. After starting on Cleo, the camera begins to pan around the store as the noise from outside grows louder and more frenzied. Shots ring out, and store patrons rush to the window to investigate; by the time the camera reaches the window, a wave of fleeing protesters has flooded the street below.

Instead of lingering on the spectacle, the camera continues on the same trajectory until it comes all the way back around to Cleo. “Sometimes you are tempted with amazing angles, but you know you have to do only the one that is right,” Cuarón told American Cinematographer. “Part of our approach was to extend every shot through to its natural consequence, and not do long shots just for the ‘Olympics’ of it. I decided to cut from that shot before it calls attention to itself.” A herculean effort then swept over with a casual glance for a finished product that is at once convincingly organic and elegant — a sentiment which reflects not only this scene but the entire look of Roma.

Editor’s note: Film School Rejects did reach out to Alfonso Cuarón to speak with us for this series, but he was sadly unavailable.

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Cold War is an irresistibly beautiful romance about two people so passionately in love that they self-destruct when together, but find it unbearable to be apart. When Wiktor, a sharp pianist played by the dashing Tomasz Kot, meets the young and vastly talented Zula, played by the enchanting Joanna Kulig, it’s love at first sight in Soviet Poland. The film follows the couple through a decades-spanning romance that’s just as tumultuous as the war that rages on in their country and across the globe in the film’s background. They’re madly in love in every sense of the phrase, repeatedly betraying each other one moment, only to turn around and give up whatever necessary to be together again in the next.  This explosive yet universal love story was deftly co-written and directed by Paweł Pawlikowski and brought to life visually in crisp black and white cinematography with breathtaking artistry by Director of Photography Lukasz Żal.

When Pawlikowski set out to make Cold War, he enlisted Żal after the two had previously collaborated on Ida in 2013, another black and white Polish film that was similarly lauded by the Oscars. Żal is also known for his work on films such as The Here After and Loving Vincent. When I spoke with Żal over the phone, he told me he had only one small reservation when embarking on this second project with Pawlikowski: “I don’t want to be known as a black and white DOP,” he joked. “That would be a disaster for me.” It was worth the risk though; Żal’s phenomenal work on Cold War has earned him his second Academy Award nomination for best cinematography, following his first in 2015 for Ida.

Despite some initial hesitance, both Żal and Pawlikowski knew Cold War needed to be shot in black and white. The story demanded it. “In Poland, there was no color in those days, in those years. Everything was black and white,” Żal explained. When discussing why color would’ve been impossible for Cold War, he goes into detail about how de-saturated the palette would’ve had to have been, and how this wouldn’t have been true to Zula and Wiktor’s romance. Żal admires the color cinematography in Todd Haynes’ 1950s period romance Carol but says that the reason it works so well in that film is that Carol takes place in New York. “The US, in the 50s and 60s, there was very strong colors. It was so vibrant. And Poland… it was completely… there was communism, you know. Everything was grey.”

When it comes to cinema, though, no two black and white films are the same. “The idea from the very beginning was that first of all we wanted to make this different than Ida,” Żal told me. Ida was created with “shades of grey,” but Żal and Pawlikowski approached Cold War with an entirely different plan. “The idea was to have a very contrasted look in this movie because the story was very contrasted, the relationship was very contrasted and very tumultuous and messy. Going back and forth, meeting each other, betraying each other. So there was this idea that, visually, the movie should be very very contrasted. We wanted to have a strong black and a very bright white.”

Viewers may be surprised to learn that Cold War achieved this striking look on digital, and not film. This decision not to shoot on film didn’t come about from either Żal or Pawlikowski’s personal preference, but rather, due to budgetary reasons. However, Żal made do. “We wanted to have the image which will be somehow similar to film — to 35mm, in which you didn’t have so many details in blacks.” They shot with an Arri Alexa XT camera and tried to evoke “this very high contrast and very grainy image.”

Every decision about the aesthetics of Cold War was made with careful consideration for the film’s narrative. Żal didn’t want the film to simply look good; the cinematography had to fall neatly into place with the themes Pawlikowski was working toward, it had to tell its own story. “The world, in the 50s and 60s was much more simple. The world was less cluttered. There wasn’t so much information. And you know, especially in Poland, and in this communist bloc, the world was simpler, relationships were simpler. There wasn’t a choice. Everything was less cluttered, with things, with information, with everything. Everything was more black and white.”

When you sit down to watch Cold War in a theatre (if you haven’t done so yet, run, don’t walk!), it’s like stepping into a time machine back to 1950 and watching the glamour of a classic Hollywood romance unfold on screen. Pawlikowski encouraged Kulig to turn to Lauren Bacall whenever she needed inspiration for her role. But Żal’s inspirations for his work in the film aren’t what you might’ve predicted. “I was inspired by photography,” he explains when describing how he crafted the film’s look. Ralph Gibson and Helmut Newton understood the high contrast black and white that he wanted: “these were very very strong influences.” For the most part, Żal found himself turning to less traditionally cinematic inspirations: “I think mostly, for me, the inspiration was photography and archives. There was Stalinist pictures, images, paintings, propaganda. There was a lot of archives, archives from Berlin. And also concerts, Jazz concerts, like Thelonious Monk.”

But Żal assured me that a fair share of classic films influenced the film’s look, too. “Of course, there is Casablanca. Tarkovsky, too. There was Godard, maybe Vivre Sa Vie and also Breathless.” But if you felt Jean-Paul Belmondo or Humphrey Bogart in Cold War, this was, of course, a given. “I mean, you know, everybody carries with them films that inspire them.”

Żal wanted to strike a balance between portraying what Postwar Europe was actually like at the time, and also imbuing the imagery with a sense of his and Pawlikowski’s own memories of growing up in Poland during the war. “I love how the film looks. It doesn’t reproduce the world, you know, it doesn’t mimic reality, it creates a kind of image where there aren’t so many details, and there isn’t too much information that we don’t need to see. It focuses on what is essential. That was very important to me.”

Zula and Wiktor’s love story is one that is living and breathing; it will undoubtedly rouse strong emotions and memories in any viewer. So it may not come as a surprise that the story is loosely based on a real romance: that of Pawlikowski’s parents, from whom these characters take their names. As Żal describes it, the personal nature of this story very much affected what it was like to work on Cold War. “Working on this movie, it was so very special. This movie was… and I am not joking, or just saying this, it was was so special, and everyone, the whole crew was saying this. The way that Paweł was able to create this atmosphere, and this amazing working process, it made it so that we all wanted to put a piece of ourselves into the film.”

Working on Cold War was a far cry from modern studio filmmaking; it was an intensely personal and intimate experience that one can only find in the world of independent cinema. “It’s [Pawlikowski’s] personal story, but it also becomes, when it’s so important and so close to you, it also becomes a personal journey, where you discover something about yourself and about love. I was so happy to have this privilege, to somehow be with Paweł on this journey. I learned so much, also about myself. It wasn’t just work. When it comes from inside, from the body and flesh, and when it comes from memories and from such personal feelings, it works in cinema so well.”

When discussing working with Pawlikowski, Żal immediately brings this up: “Paweł treats working on a film with a lot of care. Eva, our producer, would say: ‘It’s like he’s writing the film with the camera.'” A wonderful visual, and also likely a direct reference to French film critic Alexandre Astruc’s contribution to auteur theory, which is that an auteur filmmaker creates their movie with a “caméra-stylo,” in other words, they use the camera as a writer uses a pen.

Żal explains that when Pawlikowski is your director, the job becomes an incredibly rich collaborative experience. While they ultimately began intensely preparing for the shoot six months before production began, Pawlikowski likes for his sets to be like living organisms. “He’s very open. Paweł is just working to somehow synchronize it all into this one perfect take. So sometimes it would be a little coincidental. We’d capture a piece of light or something that wasn’t in the script, we’d capture a piece of truth with the camera. Paweł’s looking for a piece of real life. Sometimes, when you prepare everything, and everything is so perfect, sometimes it looks staged. Sometimes you need to break that. And sometimes when you break it, maybe something really unexpected happens. Just follow where things are headed and observe what the films tells you and be very aware. I really like this way of making movies. You always discover something.”

In terms of perfect shots, Cold War is absolutely filled to the brim. When I told Żal about my favorite shot in the film, a powerful moment in which a heartbroken Wiktor puts out his cigarette, picks up his suitcase and tearfully crosses the border into West Berlin without Zula, he was glad I’d brought it up: “There’s so much blood and sweat in that shot” he joked. “That was a very hard shot to shoot, so thank you. I love this shot also because it’s a great example of what it’s like to work with Paweł. When, in one shot, you have so much, you have a person, and you also have a background, and just this one shot which contains all the information about the world beyond the frame. It’s like a condensed version of the reality beyond the frame. I think this is one of my favorite shots because it shows our approach to this movie. Just working with mostly scenes that are just one or two shots. I’m happy you like it so much because I think this shot is the hardest thing in the movie, for me. I gained a few grey hairs because of this one so, it’s good that it was worth it.”

Not only is the shot so powerful because it marks the first time a betrayal separates the lovers, but it’s also striking, politically, to watch Wiktor simply walk across the border from East to West Berlin, out of the communist bloc. The moment takes place in 1952, so the Berlin Wall — which would be erected in just nine years — looms over the scene largely.  “[This shot] is so short, that we had to make it very strong so that you could really understand and feel that he’s crossing over to a better place.”

One of Żal’s other favorite shots is a 2-minute long take where Zula dances to the song “Rock Around the Clock.”

But along with these more difficult to shoot scenes, he’s also proud of some of the less complicated ones; “The scene in the meadow, when they are lying together. It’s a very simple scene, but it’s also very nice.”

Or the moment where Zula and Wiktor, each completely disillusioned with life after years spent apart, reunite in a bathroom. “It has such an amazing impact.”

Many of the most memorable moments in the film are made up of long shots, in fact, close-ups are few and far between in Cold War. Żal explains that this was intentional, especially when it came to Zula. The film is full of shots where Zula finds herself in large crowds, or among many faces, but you can almost always instantly spot Kulig. She’s magnetic. “That was the approach. Not to suggest, not to have it seem like someone is pulling the strings. That’s Paweł’s amazing ability; to create this work where you don’t feel like someone is pulling the strings. You can see very quickly that she’s there, but you don’t have to have her portrait or her face on the whole screen. But of course, you know, it’s also Zula… It’s probably mostly her, her energy. Maybe we just helped her a bit with image.”

Żal explains how pivotal Zula’s first big scene is, the moment where she meets and auditions for Wiktor, and thus entirely changes the style of the cinematography. “She’s the power who starts to make the camera work like this,” Żal tells me, referencing the camera work in shots like the “Rock Around the Clock” one. “The beginning part of the film is like a documentary, but the second part, as soon as Zula appears, she triggers the camera.”

In the future, Żal plans to stay true to his work ethos; “What’s important for me is to work on projects which are challenges in terms of image, but also very important stories for me personally. Because every film is like a long chapter in your life, so I think it’s important to make films which are like a journey for me.” One thing he can say for sure is that he might like to shoot his next few projects in color. He agrees with me, though, when I tell him that I hope he and Pawlikowski will work together again in the near future, in black and white or otherwise.

The post The Cinematography of ‘Cold War’ appeared first on Film School Rejects.

Shot mostly on 35mm (with the occasional 6mm fisheye lens), utilizing almost entirely natural light, and punctuated with whip pans, long shots, and intermittent slow motion, The Favourite is one of the most gorgeous and visually sharp films in recent history. Like the precise verbal parries among its central trio of royal court-bound women (Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, and Emma Stone), the film’s cinematography repeatedly knocks viewers off balance through surprising choices and impressive craftsmanship.

Irish Cinematographer Robbie Ryan was perhaps previously best-known for the poetic verisimilitude he’s helped bring to the films of Andrea Arnold, including Fish Tank and American Honey. The Favourite marks his first team-up with Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, who has helmed some of the 21st century’s most provocative dark comedies, including The Lobster and Dogtooth.

The Favourite is nominated for ten Academy Awards, among them Ryan’s first nomination, but in a season of change and controversy, the Academy has (as of publication time) decided not to air the category during its February 24th Oscars telecast. We hope the powers that be change their minds, but in the meantime, we spoke with Robbie Ryan about the many perfect shots of The Favourite, film moments that have inspired him, and another vital factor of filmmaking that the Academy isn’t honoring on-air this year–editing.

I polled some people I know about their favorite shot, and quite a few said it was the dance sequence. I do like that, but my favorite shot in the movie is the end of that scene, the close-up on Queen Anne’s face. For me, that’s Olivia Colman’s most memorable scene.

She’s so amazing, and every emotion goes through her face without you knowing how she does it. You get exactly what’s going on in her head. It’s a really beautiful shot, I agree. It’s all down to her in that one, to be honest. I think the dance scene is quite good because it’s quite an unusual dance and becomes a bit like a music video of sorts. Not really a music video but a performance toward camera happens, and I can see why people enjoy that, but the shot on her is really equally brilliant.

When you say good shots, I think it has a lot to do with good edits as well, and a film like The Favourite has very, very well done editing, and that sequence is good because you’re uncomfortably long on the queen watching this. You don’t realize you’ve not gone back to the dance for a while because you can get drawn into her mind and what she’s thinking and just the sadness that she has, and the jealousy that her friend is having a better time. All of the emotions. The fact that she’s happy for her friend, then the great thing is the longer it stays, the more you read into what she’s thinking.

I think the editing of that shot is really important because the sound begins to change and you slowly focus on how something’s going to happen, and she’s going to do something. She’s got such a fantastic voice that when she finally does speak out, it’s quite a jump moment, in a way. The thing I like about it is the way you can tell so much through her expression, and her eyes are so expressive themselves. There are so many candlelight reflections in her eyes that it becomes a beautiful but sad image. I like that juxtaposition of very gorgeous, soft candlelight and a really kind of harsh sadness.

Were you the person who decided to use mostly natural light?

No, Yorgos and myself both. I would call myself someone who really enjoys filming with natural light if possible and using the kind of lighting that revolves around natural light. It was fantastic that Yorgos really wanted to do that as well, so he really pushed the whole [thing]. I regard myself as enjoying that way, but I would probably go, “Okay, I need to have something else to help it along.” He really was adamant to try and make it work with just candles. Sometimes I was like, “Well, maybe you can’t get the full exposure and we could help it a bit here,” and he’d give me a bit of a cold stare. I only did that on very, very rare occasions where I felt it had to be done and even then, these days he says they were the trickiest scenes to grade because there was a bit of embellished light that was helping the candlelight along.

I learned along the way how Yorgos worked. He really was very keen to never use lights if he could, and I think I learned a heck of a lot from that and I would probably follow that road now if possible myself without using lights. To use lights is kind of like, “Aw, shit, we didn’t win!” At the same time, we had a lot of candles though. [There were] a heck of a lot of candles lighting the queen in that scene. If you imagine the camera filming her, all around the camera were the candles, and the actors had to try to get around the candles to get to the queen, you know?

I have a couple shots I’m thinking about, but if you have any in mind, that’s alright too.

I guess my favorite shot since I’m thinking about it now is not really a shot, but it’s a sequence. It’s the last scene in the film because I just find that scene makes my hair on my neck go up every time I watch it because, again, amazingly long edits where you don’t know what’s going on. It lets you kind of breathe a thought into what it’s like to be these characters at this moment, and what have they both done to get where they’re at? The whole film is about power and within that bit with the two of them at the end it’s about “I still have the power.” I think there’s an echoing scene early on in the film, after the bit where [Queen Anne]’s watched Sarah dancing. She kind of gets in a grump and Sarah’s walking along. She apologizes, and she slaps her in the face, and you know that who has the power is the queen at the end of the day. That echoes again in the last scene where the new favorite has to know her limits because the queen is still the queen. I thought that was brilliant and that makes me sort of tingle every time I watch it.

You don’t know which way it’s going to end, really. It’s a sad thing that she sort of won, Abigail’s character. She got what she wanted to get, but what is it she got? It’s really nicely anti-ending in a way. Nobody ends, and everybody is sort of lost in a way and life goes on. The film before that is all about who’s trying to get what they want, and everybody’s driving to get to what they want, but when you do get to what you want, what’s the point? You’ve lost friendships, you’ve lost a lot of things on the way. That scene tends to really somehow sum all that up. I love that it does that and I don’t know how it does that.

I remember it was like excruciatingly long and when we filmed it I remember filming Olivia. I think actually they’ve almost used the length of the take we used because I remember her going “I don’t know what to do now. What else am I meant to do?” But because it was filming for an uncomfortably long amount of time she didn’t know where to end [it] herself. I think she just sort of naturally stopped and that’s when maybe they edited it out. I don’t know, maybe it was longer than that because I remember it being an awful long take and maybe it’s not that long in the film, but it feels long.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the fisheye lens that everyone’s talking about. I’m most interested in when you chose to use it.

That’s a good way of observing that because essentially I was as much in the dark about how this film was going to look as any of us were, and Yorgos is definitely the vision in all this. He really has a distinct kind of idea about what he’s doing visually, and he’s very much a visual sort of maestro. He’s kind of like a cinematographer in his own way, and he loves taking photographs, and a lot of the photography of the film you see for promotions is taken from his [photos]. Not that the other guy was not good, he was amazing as well, but because Yorgos was designing it in his head how he wanted it to look, that’s the way we ended up filming it.

With the fisheye lenses idea, with any film, you do you have a few things you like to visually do and you just sort of have them in the package ready to go, “Oh, let me try that then” or “We’ll do this for this bit.” The fisheye was obviously something he was wanting to do because he used a wide lens on [The Killing Of A] Sacred Deer and he really loved that cinematography, so he wanted to push it further. Post-film we’ve all kind of rationalized that the absurd wideness of the thing helped the absurdity of the environment and to a point that’s true. Then the painters of the time like [Jan] Van Eyck painted, and you have these mirrors in the background which were of that almost 260-degree angle sort of mirror. That’s what the fisheye lens gave us. He just loved it. The way it made the image look was something he fell in love with. It was a case of whenever he felt it was going to work or not. I think as the filming process went on we used it more and more, so because the filming schedule isn’t necessarily consecutive it means you might–we started doing it lots more toward the end of the film[ing] but those scenes might have been earlier on, so in the final edit it’s all over the place. The main thing is we just began to really like using it a lot, so it got put into more scenes as we went on. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, to be honest.

So there’s no throughline where every scene it’s in also has some other element in common?

Not really. It’s like slow motion. Yorgos would say “Let’s do slow motion!” We never knew when the slow-motion scenes were coming up. He’d go, “Yep, this one’s slow motion.” I’d go, “Oh, really?” and he’d go, “ ‘Course it is.” Why wouldn’t you know that? Oh, because I’m expected to read your mind, you know? His mind is complicated, so it’s hard to figure out what he’s going to do next.

Some of my favorite shots were in motion. There’s one from behind Sarah as she’s going across the room.

Oh, I know that shot! That’s one I really like. She kisses her husband goodbye to go to war. Yeah, I love that shot. I don’t know how that one just feels like the camera’s flying. The timing of the choreography of the shots is very like a musical composition. The music used in the film really enhances that so much. I was watching that for the first time and sort of went, “Wow, the camera feels like it’s flying!” I don’t really know how it’s doing that. We did do a lot of different kind of dolly moves and different kinds of camera rigs, but that one was just a camera on a dolly with the grip pushing it like crazy and stopping in time. That’s a heavy piece of machinery, and I think it [works] because she’s so free, the camera is almost just attached to her.

We really wanted to try and do this thing–Yorgos had me try and explore this rig that was kind of like a body rig that would circle around the character. Unfortunately, we were shooting with a heavy camera so any of those kinds of rigs would weigh down the actor too much so we tried to get something near that with the way we moved the dolly, and I do feel that that shot, in particular, felt a bit like a body rig.

That one stuck out to me. There’s lots of moving camera stuff but that one, it’s a mixture of her body movements with the speed with the–I don’t know. I’m glad you spotted that one. Some of the pans are great as well, very well-timed. The panning, you don’t see it too often the way he did that and again, that could be seen as a gimmick but for some reason the timing of it works so well, it just is part of the language. I was really happy with the way that worked out.

Is there any shot or sequence you can think of that when you filmed it you definitely knew, “Okay, we’ve got it”? Or maybe one that you didn’t know would come together before you saw the final film?

What’s interesting about the final film is I think there are some scenes that didn’t edit together quite the way they wanted them to so the thing that I don’t ever remember us talking about was sort of intercutting scenes. So there’s a bit where Abigail is brought to [Queen Anne’s] chamber at night time, and she’s putting meat on her gout, and that’s intercut with her going out in the morning to get some herbs. I absolutely adore those sequences because they’re so well-timed and you don’t know what’s going on because the soundtrack is connecting the two sequences. I do think that’s because something wasn’t working in the scene on its own so they decided to kind of bring it to a different place and be brave in the edit. The more I watch that, the more I go, “Well that’s just brilliantly edited.” I can’t say enough about how the editor and Yorgos brought that together. There’s a couple of times where that happens. The other one is when Sarah rides on her horse, and she gets sick, and she falls. That intercuts with the sequence when [Abigail] is poisoning her with that cup of tea and there are three scenes cut together. Those sort of sequences were something I didn’t expect that we were going to do like that or that it would end up like that, but I was very pleasantly surprised.

The scene to say “We got it,” where it’s like, “that’s really amazing” is that one I really like which is the two of them at the end. That felt like some crazy energy in that scene. I knew that scene wasn’t going to be bad, put it that way.

I know Yorgos does this in all his movies, but this one is maybe a little gentler as far as sudden acts of violence go. For example, when they go shooting, and blood spatters on Lady Sarah, or when Harley pushes Abigail off the edge, there’s a suddenness to it that serves as punctuation which I love.

You’re right, it’s basically punctuation. What better way to punctuate than to have a slap. I was talking to an elderly lady about it on an interview, and she goes, “What’s going on with those slaps? They’re so sore looking!” A slap is like a full stop, isn’t it? The way a slap is like a whip pan as well, if you imagine that slap makes the camera move the way it does. It helps for a lot of purposes. It’s an expression, it’s a violent move, it’s comedic, and it is snappy. There are lots of things to come out of that violence, whatever it may be, but Yorgos really does like a slap.

Can you think of any shots or sequences that have inspired you?

Oh my God. I can try to figure out what sequence I really like that sticks. There’s plenty of shots I absolutely adore, but I do like the sequence in Goodfellas when Ray Liotta’s cooking dinner with his wife but he’s also sorting out a drug deal, and he’s looking up the helicopter. The music and everything, I just find that scene so perfectly realized and insane. Whenever I watch that sequence I always go, “Wow, that’s amazing.” I’m not really a total Scorsese nut like some people, but I always admire that so well. He really knocks it out of the park.

Probably a David Lynch one would be in there somewhere for me. His images are so brilliant, and definitely, something from one of his films would be in there. I can’t think at the moment of…oh. Actually, I do! I know which one it is! I absolutely love the shot of the woman who comes to knock on Jack Nance’s door in Eraserhead. He opens the door, and she’s in complete darkness, but you could sort of see her. She’s saying, “It’s cold outside, can I stay the night?” With all these crazy gas sound effects, the industrial noise and all that, and her whispering, and the darkness and you just see her. It just creates an amazing tingling in the back of my neck again. I do regard that as one of my favorite images.

There’s a little bit of that feeling in The Favourite actually when Abigail is listening to them, and her face is almost in complete darkness.

Sure, yeah. There’s a lot of darkness in The Favourite that is kind of played with, and it totally draws you in. The soundtrack is brilliant as well so I guess that’d be nice if they were somehow on a par. I’ll take that. She’s amazing [there], though, her face is amazing, and her eyes are so big. She’s such a great comedic actress, Emma Stone. The three of them are great comedic actresses.

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There is nothing wrong with derivative movies. When people complain about something being a mashup of other things, the real issue is that it wasn’t executed well. The sum of the influences isn’t a whole new masterpiece, a la Star Wars. We can stop calling every new science fiction movie a ripoff of Blade Runner or other “better” sci-fi. There is nothing totally original in sci-fi, just an evolution of various ideas.

Alita: Battle Angel may not be the strongest progression of the genre’s familiar elements story-wise, but there’s a lot to enjoy with Robert Rodriguez and James Cameron’s manga adaptation (previously turned into an animated version that’s also recommended before or after this). Hopefully, it can be appreciated for what it is and maybe inspire audiences to seek out those similar movies of the past, not just to see better examples but to enrich a greater awareness and enjoyment of the whole genre and its concepts.

This week’s Movies to Watch After… is not comprised of outright classics. Rodriguez may be inspired by the basic essentials, and those should be a core curriculum for any movie fan. These are, like Alita, imperfect or debatably exceptional works that are worth seeing either way.

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015) and Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2015)

One of the prime reasons to watch Alita: Battle Angel is for the delightful lead performance by Rosa Salazar. But you’re not getting the whole Salazar, because the title character is a mostly CGI entity achieved through performance capture. The actress has been in a number of movies, but for scif-fi fans, the underseen Maze Runner sequels should be the next stop. The first movie is worth seeing, too, although Salazar doesn’t enter the trilogy until part two, The Scorch Trials.

Plus there are only a few things in the first Maze Runner that you need to know about going forward. The Scorch Trials and The Death Cure are more like spinoffs than sequels, even if they continue to follow the same main character. They’re set out in a very different world with very different goals and obstacles. More like Alita, they’re a more common kind of dystopian YA story of youngish protagonists needing to infiltrate and thwart a big boss in some type of fortress. As the rebel Brenda, Salazar is one of the highlights of an ensemble cast that carries the series through a scattered narrative. She especially comes alive, literally in fact, in the final chapter — it’s for good reason she’s the central figure on the poster.

Elysium (2013)

Time and time again we see new movies referred to as knockoffs of old movies that were themselves inspired by the sources of those new movies. That’s a confusing way to put it, so here’s an example: John Carter looked like a Star Wars wannabe, yet Star Wars was partly influenced by the Edgar Rice Burroughs books that John Carter is adapted from. Now we’re seeing Alita called a copy of Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium, which six years ago was criticized as being a ripoff of the Alita manga. Does that make Elysium essential viewing? I think so, not just because it has some good parts to it but also because seeing this evolution of content makes us all more literate of pop culture media.

I didn't rip off battle angel alita in Elysium moron. I have never read/seen battle angel. I come from a country with the largest rich poor gap divide on earth. It's a film about that topic. Don't @ me clown. https://t.co/bM0gFq57fb

— Neill Blomkamp (@NeillBlomkamp) December 8, 2017

Elysium was Blomkamp’s follow-up to his Best Picture-nominated breakout, District 9, and it furthered the filmmaker’s talent for world-building that seamlessly blends mind-blowing digital effects with a dusty, junky Third World aesthetic. Like Alita, Blomkamp’s original sci-fi feature involves characters on a relative wasteland Earth who wish to be up high in the sky on the utopian satellite space station where all the rich and most powerful people (including the movie’s big bad) dwell. Both Elysium and Alita also involve a more direct villain who does most of his work down on the ground. The hero of both movies is also set up with mechanical body enhancements that will help in their efforts to reach the fortress above. Maybe Blomkamp wasn’t familiar with the manga, and it’s understandable if he wasn’t since both movies have genetic material from films as far back as Metropolis and literature published even earlier.

Avatar (2009)

You’ve probably already seen Avatar. It only grossed close to $3 billion at the worldwide box office, after all, holding the top spot for all time. But do you like it? Did you love the experience of seeing it in stunning 3D a decade ago and then stopped caring when thinking just of the story later or seeing it again on a smaller, 2D format, where it just didn’t hold up as well? Avatar is a good but not great movie with extraordinary effects. Sounds like most James Cameron movies after 1984.

Alita, while not directed by Cameron, still follows that Cameron model of spectacle over substance, and that’s not to say that Cameron-produced and -directed films are absolutely terrible in the script department. He’s a good storyteller with some clunky dialogue and corny ideas, especially where romance is concerned. Like Avatar, Alita needs to be seen on a big screen in 3D, maybe a couple times, and then it can be forgotten after that. And Avatar should be re-watched and appreciated or at least remembered for the sort of cinematic experience it was and is.

Space Tourists (2009)

This week’s obligatory documentary focuses on two facets of modern space travel. On the one side, Space Tourists follows Iranian-American billionaire Anousheh Ansari on her self-funded trip to the International Space Station via the Russian Space Agency. On the other side, the film looks at the scavengers in Kazakhstan who dangerously collect the rockets that fall from the sky after they’re disconnected from space shuttles during liftoff and turn the metal into housing.

Directed by Oscar nominee Christian Frei (War Photographer), Space Tourists is the closest thing to a real-life equivalent of the world of Alita. And I’m sure Frei was thinking about that contrast when making the documentary. It’s the classic sci-fi duality of rich people getting to reach the highest of heights and the poor people down below collecting the elite’s scraps. Just watch the 2015 documentary Sky Line to see how engineers continue to think about the idea of a space elevator to know that one day, maybe billionaires will indeed get to travel and even live in an orbiting utopia a la Alita‘s Zalem while the rejects stay down in equatorial Earth dreaming of the chance to get up there — whether to be a part of that life or overthrow it.

Speed Racer (2008)

A lot of moviegoers are likening Alita to Jupiter Ascending, the Wachowskis’ ambitious sci-fi flop that some appreciate as a guilty pleasure. I think it’s more relevant to recommend the filmmaking duo’s failure before even their previous failure. After all, Speed Racer is similarly based on a Japanese property, features a track sport as part of its plot, and aims to find a balance between the colorful Japanese pop influence and the Western perspective that’s thought more accessible to a larger audience. There are no digitally enlarged eyes — you don’t need that when you just cast Christina Ricci anyway — but there are a lot of attempts at faithful character design.

While Speed Racer didn’t fare well with critics overall (40% Rotten Tomatoes score), we gave the movie an A grade. Our review immediately noted the key to a movie like this — and it also applies to Alita: “a movie to experience, not just a movie to watch. It’s a complete package with campy humor, thrilling action sequences, and emotional dramatics – all delivered through the unparalleled visual style…It’s too bad that ‘Eye Candy’ has become such a cliche, because nothing comes close to matching the dextrose-covered, primary-colored, hard-candy shell that glosses over the entire look of the world of…”

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

There’s definitely a Pinocchio element to the story of Alita, as well as a bit of Frankenstein. These are two very influential stories, both of which translate to many of the robot and cyborg tales of today. But I just recommended a version of Pinocchio recently to watch after Aquaman, and anyway Alita is particularly reminiscent of Steven Spielberg’s blatantly Pinocchio-inspired android fairy tale, A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

Both movies have main characters who are built by a man trying to replace his dead child in their image. But the hero of Alita existed in some form prior to that. See, one big difference between A.I. and Alita is that isn’t as obvious as the general plot discrepancies is that the former involves robots and the latter is full of cyborgs, meaning they’re partly organic. But the look of many of the supporting ‘borgs in Alita is very reminiscent of supporting Mechas in A.I., right down to the still impressive effects where parts of their faces are missing. These Mecha extras (Mechstras?) are also similarly shown to be part of a spectator event, although not one of sport like Motorball in Alita.

The Fifth Element (1997)

A being falls from the sky and is salvaged, only in part (a head or a hand). It’s given a new body, that of a young woman. This female-form character, regardless of the maturity of her exterior, has the mind of a naive child. She doesn’t even know to not rush out into traffic. But she’s an incredible fighter. In The Fifth Element, this childlike manic pixie dream girl will creepily become the love interest of a grizzled older man. In Alita, this manic pixie dream girl with a childlike body will gain a love interest a bit closer to her own age, especially once she garners a more grown-up physical form. Okay, there it’s kinda creepy, too.

As much as The Fifth Element is revered by many today, when it was released 22 years ago, the movie received mostly negative reviews outside of Siskel and Ebert’s appreciation of its goofiness. Back then, I was sorely disappointed with what I anticipated as the best that a follow-up from the director of The Professional (Leon) starring Bruce Willis with exceptional production design, costume design, and practical creature effects could be. But it is goofy — dopey even. Ian Holm gives his worst (only truly awful?) performance. And Chris Tucker is even more irritating. Of course, now I overlook most of the dumb script because of those exceptional visual elements, just as I was able to do with Alita right away.

Rollerball (1975) and Death Race 2000 (1975)

Fictional sports were common to sci-fi literature and television, but I don’t think there was anything like the twofer we got on the big screen in 1975. Both Rollerball and Death Race 2000, released months apart and each based on a short story, depict violent sports of the future — well, more specifically a dystopian future. Rollerball is set in 2018 and its game is an arena-based spectator match that’s like roller derby with motorcycles and balls (the recreational street version looks more like the roller-lacrosse of Solarbabies). Death Race 2000 is set in the titular year of 2000 and involves a transcontinental road race with tricked-out cars and messed up rules allowing for murdering people with your vehicle for extra points. Both movies also received terrible sequels this century.

Combine the sports of the two movies and add in cyborgs as the players and you’ve basically got Motorball from Alita. Any good story set in a dystopian future obviously needs is own violent spectator sport calling to mind the gladiator games of ancient times. They have to seem believable, even in their movies’ world, and those of Rollerball and Death Race 2000 have a plausibility that makes sense within their narratives, more so Rollerball but even as gruesome as the race of Death Race 2000 is, you never know at the rate things are truly going for the future. Motorball doesn’t look realistic at all, but it does look cool, and shockingly its action is well-laid-out and sort of easy to follow in at least a fantastically spectacular manner thanks to the strength of the directing and the visual effects.

The post Watch ‘Alita: Battle Angel,’ Then Watch These Movies appeared first on Film School Rejects.

By now, in the year 2019, the world has seen its fair share of superhero romps. Even among all the fantastical high-flying antics gracing screens big and small, Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy manages to break from the mold.

The 10-episode series that brings to life Gerard Way, and Gabriel Bá‘s Eisner Award-winning comic of the same name dives deep into some kooky lore. It’s a solid ode to and subversion of the superhero genre. However, The Umbrella Academy proves to be an incisive family drama at the same time. This ambitious balancing act is delicate but thankfully deftly handled. Here’s The Umbrella Academy‘s ending, explained.

By the season’s conclusion, violin virtuoso Vanya Hargreeves (Ellen Page) has undergone the most striking transformation. Previously thought to be completely ordinary, she discovers untapped and untrained superpowers of her own, accepting her innate ability to convert sound into massive energy blasts. That said, Vanya does this to disastrous results. Her intense, unchecked emotions borne from years of trauma and isolation result in widespread, indiscriminate destruction.

Vanya may have been influenced by the series’ red herring villain Leonard Peabody (John Magaro), who encouraged her to revisit her past in the first place. However, as her brother Number Five (Aidan Gallagher) puts it, Peabody was a mere “fuse” in the grand scheme of things.

As a girl, Vanya was always left out of the Academy’s training sessions, as well as (unintentionally) shunned by her brothers and sister. The biting exposé she subsequently writes about their dysfunctional home life is received with either vitriol or nonchalance. Furthermore, it takes the deliberate disappearance of her orchestra’s long-standing first chair for her to even “earn” the spotlight on stage.

And while Vanya struggles with numerous problems resulting from broken interpersonal relationships, the most vital and regrettable event of her past involves her sister Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman). When they were both very young children, Allison’s insidious ability to warp realities through rumor is manipulated by their distant and arguably asshole-ish father Reginald (Colm Feore) to produce the fateful lie of mediocrity that unequivocally changed the course of Vanya’s life.

This revelation tips Vanya over the edge. The earliest manifestations of her abilities result in violent deaths as well as a particularly harrowing accident that severs Allison’s vocal cords, stripping her of her powers.

Despite the fact that Vanya is shown to be genuinely remorseful about this, she thirsts to prove herself, and by the time of her breakout concert at the Icarus Theater, she fully rejects the presumption of “ordinariness” that had constantly colored her life since childhood. She morphs into the White Violin, the bringer of the apocalypse who uses her music to wreak havoc upon anyone who wishes to silence her. 

Empathy and familial bond become imperative in preventing total annihilation. That said, although Allison is aware of her sister’s contrition and remains adamant to spare her, their brothers are more focused on neutralizing Vanya for the greater good.

It’s important to consider how far each character has come in the lead-up to the final showdown at the Icarus. Luther (Tom Hopper), once considered the leader of the Academy, essentially hit rock bottom during the show’s later episodes. Thankfully, the character — a part-man, part-Martian Ape hybrid with super strength — slowly learns to take charge of his own life.

Diego (David Castañeda) sheds his detached, rebellious persona in favor of respecting the group effort. Granted, to say that the hot-headed vigilante fully refrains from punching, kicking, and his signature knife-throwing would be inaccurate. Still, between losing important people in his life and rekindling some sibling bonds, Diego affirms the value of personal connection.

Meanwhile, Klaus (Robert Sheehan) embarks on a bumpy path to sobriety, revealing his true potential beyond “simply” being able to talk to the dead. That’s already a weird power in and of itself, but there’s so much more to the character than his amazing snark and proudly outlandish behavior.

Klaus — codenamed the Séance — can tangibly conjure the dead. His many interactions with the Academy’s deceased Number Six, Ben (Justin H. Min) reach a badass fever pitch in the finale, showing some bad guys from the Temps Commission a thing or two.

And what exactly is this Commission? Well, in a show rife with countless opportunities for alternate realities, the organization has a supposed responsibility to eliminate threats to the timeline and ensure that certain big-ticket events are bound to happen. Apocalypse included.

The Commission then has close ties by hiring the time-jumping Hargreeves brother Number Five. Little did they know, the “kid” — a 58-year-old trapped in a 13-year-old’s body — always meant to return to his family, despite his proficiency as an assassin. Five’s persistent dissent (for example, breaking his contracts multiple times) is the final necessary element to stop Vanya.

At first, Luther proposes to diffuse the situation at the Icarus by incapacitating Vanya, which Allison vehemently disagrees with. Honestly, she’s proven right once the men approach the stage. Vanya subdues her brothers with vines of sonic energy, seemingly sucking their life force in the process.

Allison, filled with empathy for Vanya, sneaks up behind her sister and fires a deafening gunshot that breaks her concentration. Unfortunately, the remaining energy within Vanya bursts through the ceiling of the Icarus and blasts a hole in the Moon, sending chunks of rock falling to Earth.

Clearly, the apocalypse is still underway. However, Five determines that there’s still a way to prevent the Earth’s destruction. He encases his six siblings in temporal energy and transports them back in time, allowing Vanya a chance at rehabilitation. We witness each of the (physically) older Academy members de-age and disappear just as the credits roll.

This ending reads as something of a cliffhanger, opening up some storytelling avenues for The Umbrella Academy moving forward. There is a distinct possibility that our maladjusted heroes will get to rewrite history as teenagers once more.

I’d also like to think that that final leap through time and space could hint at something more symbolic. The Academy is finally a team again — like they were as children — and their relationships can pick up where they left off.

The post The Ending of ‘The Umbrella Academy’ Explained appeared first on Film School Rejects.

Since its release early last year, the dialogue surrounding Alex Garland’s science-fiction masterpiece Annihilation has involved everything from its cinematographic references to its larger themes and mind-boggling ending. It’s also a genuinely strong film, one with great writing, performances, and stunning visuals — all of which were snubbed by the Academy.

But this is far from the last we’ll hear of Annihilation. Fans like me haven’t stopped thinking about it, as evidenced by a recent video essay by Michael Tucker of Lessons from the Screenplay. Looking at character design and the location of the Shimmer, Tucker discusses how Garland’s screenplay weaves its biological and existential concepts into a narrative. Watch it below.

The video’s analysis culminates in reading into the film’s captivating final 20 minutes. Using the presence of what Garland calls “an alien alien” as a jumping off point, Tucker examines how the sequence is a striking visualization of the components of human nature — duplication, mutation, and self-destruction — the film plays with throughout. Ultimately, Tucker says, Annihilation is a film that operates as an exploration of an idea. Garland uses the science fiction genre as an opportunity to embody its theme of human’s self-destructive tendencies throughout the story.

Of course, not everyone loved Annihilation. In their video essay, Jonah Koslofsky and Nick Arroyo discuss their frustration with not liking the film more despite all it has to offer. They posit that the film is about whether or not two changing people can stay together, as well as a commentary on change in general seen through its characters. Despite what they call “fascinating ambitions,” it is the nonlinear structure that makes the difference between a film they like and one they admire. Watch that one here:

Even though it wasn’t a universally praised film, it is undeniable that Garland’s screenplay is a feat of an adaptation. These two interpretations of the film join many others, all of which are substantiated by the film’s content and could be “correct.” Of course, there’s not one “correct” answer to this film; it’s a web of details that lead to what seems like a million possible “right” responses. Even though it’s not “Oscar-nominee Annihilation,” the film’s ability to make people think about what they watched, what it meant, and want to start conversations about it all is a triumph all the same. 

Unfortunately, getting the film as we know it came with a cost. After its poor test screenings, Garland was given notes to make the main character Lena more sympathetic and to make some changes to the ambiguous ending. In the end, Garland got to keep his film his way, but Paramount transferred international distribution to Netflix, where it was unceremoniously dumped. We’ll never know what a box office boost from an international theatrical release might have done for the film, its traction, and its possible awards opportunities.

But if that’s what keeps a marvel like Annihilation from receiving awards attention, so be it. We shouldn’t accept that films must be easy, not if this belief has the potential to stifle stimulating conversations like those surrounding this film. It’s the films that take risks that have the greatest reward. I’m thinking of anything from the 2001: A Space Odysseys to the Killing of a Sacred Deers we’ve watched over the years.

In another video essay, Scott Tafoya celebrates Annihilation as a film that evades an easy answer because it is, among many other things, about the pitfalls of trying to make art align with one’s beliefs. Though he is upset by the (lack of) distribution of the film, Tafoya says it will outlast this moment as we continually return to its themes, ideas, and images. Watch below.

It’s the very fact that Annihilation wasn’t an easy film that’s kept us thinking about and discussing it, and that’s what keeps a film alive. As a wholehearted defender of the genius that is Alex Garland, I have to admit I’m a little sad that the Academy didn’t recognize Annihilation outside of its original score shortlist. But watching videos like the three above reminds me that films don’t exist for awards, they’re here for audiences to enjoy and appreciate.

Complex films like Annihilation aren’t guaranteed to be liked or to get awards, but, whichever way your opinion on it skews, it’s an example that shows appreciating a film is sometimes even more rewarding than liking it. It’s a film that will live on without Oscars, one that will be remembered for the brilliance of Garland’s screenplay, what it all means, and those mystifying last 20 minutes.

The post Don’t Forget About ‘Annihilation’ appeared first on Film School Rejects.

There are parts of Eighth Grade that are harder to watch than the bloodiest, goriest, final battle scene of any action movie. I cannot even remember how many times I wanted to disappear into my seat in the theater because the moment on the screen was all too real. But that wasn’t just my reaction, it was everyone else’s, too. It’s impossible for someone not to relate to Kayla (Elise Fisher) because this is not just a story written about an eighth grader, it’s written about all of us trying to find our place in the world.

In a video essay from late last year, Thomas Flight explains how writer/director Bo Burnham drew inspiration from real people when creating Kayla’s story.

As someone who grew to fame thanks to the internet, Burnham had the experience with which to write a film about someone going viral. However, he chose to focus on the average person and the feeling of wanting to belong. In his video, Flight refers to an interview with Burnham, who describes how he would transcribe YouTube videos from channels with very few views. This technique helped him not only write the script for Kayla’s own videos but also understand their perspective. It’s why all of us can relate to Eighth Grade even though not all of us had to suffer the reality of being a girl in middle school during the digital age.

Flight emphasizes how essential Kayla’s YouTube videos are for the film. They break the fourth wall and give Kayla a chance to address the audience directly. She talks about self-confidence, self-positivity, and self-improvement. Flight shows clips of real people posting their advice out on the internet. These clips may have been the inspiration for Kayla’s videos since they discuss similar themes. These people and Kayla share their vulnerability with the intention of helping strangers. However, Kayla does not always follow the positive lessons she teaches. This discrepancy shows the purpose of her videos may not be intended to help others but rather herself. Her YouTube videos become a coping strategy for feeling like she doesn’t belong with her peers. All of these positive ideas discussed in her videos could be a form of self-affirmation.

When Kayla records her videos, she sees herself while she talks about these positive messages. Because she is essentially talking to herself, it becomes clear that these videos are a form of self-affirmation in disguise. Kayla already uses self-affirmation techniques, most notably in the way she has framed her bathroom mirror with positive messages on Post-its. Looking in the mirror, she only sees her reflection and these positive messages. This could help her to solve any cognitive dissonance about herself. Both her mirror and her videos are expressing feelings that Kayla wants to follow but doesn’t. By using self-affirmations, Kayla is trying to convince herself that she can practice the ideas she believes in.

Even though Flight explains his reasoning for only including clips of adult YouTubers in his video, it is hard to ignore the similarities between what they say and what Kayla says in her videos. The self-affirmation techniques used by Kayla are Burnham’s way of giving his own advice to those unpopular YouTubers. He tells them to listen to the positive messages they preach. This further illustrates that the story of wanting to fit in is not exclusively for middle school girls. No one is immune to feeling self-doubt or confusion about their place in the world. What Burnham and Eighth Grade tell us is it’s okay to want to fit in, but as Kayla realizes for herself, it’s okay to not be the coolest girl in the world.

The post The Relatability of ‘Eighth Grade’ appeared first on Film School Rejects.

As a general rule of thumb, Hollywood doesn’t have a lot to offer Robert Rodriguez. The writer-director has spent the last decade playing in the sandboxes he helped create. From the From Dusk Til Dawn television series to Sin City and Machete sequels, Rodriguez seems perfectly happy exploring his cinematic universes at Austin’s Troublemaker Studios.

Then again, when you make movies the way that Rodriguez does, you’re bound to be invited to Los Angeles for the occasional lunch. Rodriguez is particularly adept at working in front of green screens — sometimes to the point of excess — a talent that will always be in high demand for effects-driven summer movies. This week, we look back at some of the would-be blockbusters that almost managed to lure this Hollywood outsider back inside the studio system.

Fire and Ice (2010)

Given his background as a college cartoonist, it should come as no surprise that Rodriguez has a deep love of all things animation. In 2010, Rodriguez shared that he had acquired the rights for Fire and Ice, a live-action adaptation of the 1983 film by renowned animator Ralph Bakshi. In the interview, Rodriguez admits that, as he did with Sin City, he was able to negotiate for the film rights directly with the original creator. “I control the rights to this one, he explained, “So it’s actually in my power to set it up and get it made, which wasn’t the case on other projects.”

Like the original, this version of Fire and Ice would tell the ancient story of a young warrior who seeks revenge on an evil sorceress for the death of his entire village. Rodriguez was confident that this film would be the project to follow Sin City: A Dame To Kill For, telling The Hollywood Reporter in 2012 that his script was “70 percent there.” Progress seems to have stalled out on Rodriguez’s adaptation, but given his status as the rights holder, this may be the one project on this list that never goes away entirely.

Heavy Metal (2011)

But Fire and Ice wasn’t the only ’80s animated classic Rodriguez had his eyes on; that distinction also belongs to the 1981 anthology epic Heavy Metal. Before Rodriguez optioned the film rights from magazine publisher Kevin Eastman, the project had previously been in the hands of David Fincher, who had hoped to invite an impressive group of filmmakers — including Zack Snyder, Gore Verbinski, and Guillermo del Toro (!) — to each direct a short segment.

When that project fell through, Rodriguez swooped in and decided to keep this anthology approach in his own interpretation. “I just love the idea of artists from all over the world coming to show their best work,” Rodriguez told that year’s Comic-Con audience, even hosting a competition at Austin-based Badass Digest (now Birth.Movies.Death) to identify new artists for the project. By 2014, the conversation had pivoted to television, with Rodriguez suggesting that his El Rey Network would be the perfect landing spot for a Heavy Metal series. The project would linger for years before fading into obscurity in the latter half of the decade.

Jonny Quest (2015)

Who better to direct an adventure film aimed at families than the creator of Spy Kids? Rodriguez’s kid-friendly franchise has grossed more than $550 million worldwide, so it makes complete sense that Warner Bros. would ask the director to tackle their big-screen adaptation of the popular animated Hanna-Barbera series. In 2015, The Hollywood Reporter shared the news that Rodriguez would direct and co-write the film alongside veteran screenwriter — and infamous anti-vaxxer, lest any of us forget — Terry Rossio.

For Rodriguez, the hook was that he could play things a little straighter than he did with the Spy Kids movies. “Imagine you’re a kid and James Bond is your bodyguard and your dad is Indiana Jones,” he told /Film that July. “It’s one of those movies and you just happen to be in it.” Rodriguez and Rossio had even combined to write a dynamic script; Forbes contributor Mark Hughes read a version of their work in 2016 and hailed it as “terrifically fun screenplay that is easy to envision as a big, successful summer popcorn flick.” Despite all this, Rodriguez quietly left the project about the same time, paving the way for The Lego Batman director Chris McKay to take over in 2018.

Escape From New York (2017)

Few people may be itching for a remake of John Carpenter’s classic science-fiction film, but the enduring success of the original has kept Escape From New York active in the rumor mill for years. In 2017, it was announced that Rodriguez would direct the latest attempt at a remake for 20th Century Fox. To hear insiders describe it, the studio was looking to launch a Planet of the Apes-esque franchise with Rodriguez at the helm. The film even had the blessing of Carpenter himself; in an interview with IndieWire, screenwriter Neil Cross (Luther) had been given whatever passes for the filmmaker’s “seal of approval” upon submitting his script for consideration.

Cross’s writing may have represented a pretty significant departure from the original — The Wrap made a note of several significant changes in 2016, including the lack of a supermax prison on the island of Manhattan — but it, along with Rodriguez, would be turned out in favor of Upgrade director Leigh Whannell’s new take on the franchise.

“Untitled Troublemaker Crossover Film” (2018)

For years now, fans have been picking up on the hints that Rodriguez’s films may exist in a single convoluted timeline or possibly even share one with the works of Quentin Tarantino. Given that shared cinematic universes are all the rage right now, it was only a matter of time before someone put Rodriguez on the spot and asked if he would ever bring his various franchises into one impressive crossover film. In a 2018 interview with CinemaBlend, the filmmaker admitted that he’d had at least a few conversations about the possibility of a crossover film, noting that he was definitely “aware of the connections all the characters could have in that world, in their own range of kind of larger than life superheroes.”

According to Rodriguez, he had even been pitched the idea to a comic company and gotten an enthusiastic response, suggesting that any future Troublemaker crossover event would exist as panels long before it found its way to the big screen. Still, with M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass grossing $200 million worldwide, it’s hard not to imagine a situation where some studio gives Rodriguez a nudge.

The post The Five Best Films Robert Rodriguez Never Made appeared first on Film School Rejects.

Box office narratives are easily spun one way or another, and Alita: Battle Angel is a strong example of a movie appearing to be either a huge flop or modest success depending on who you read. Or maybe it’s both. The live-action manga adaptation from director Robert Rodriguez and producer James Cameron topped the weekend with an estimated attendance of 3.1 million ($27.8 million). Despite its top placement on the chart, that figure is quite low for a big-budget sci-fi spectacular costing close to $200 million. But it’s also a figure with a lot of promise, especially when joined by Thursday opening day and Monday holiday ticket sales, which can both complicate and help the box office reports. Plus, it exceeded expectations by a lot when you look at how poor it was tracking, according to Box Office Pro, just last week.

Although Alita is not an original movie, its source material is not well-known like a popular series of YA novels or a major publication comic book, so it plays like something lacking in that built-in audience. These days, no matter how many people say they want “original” releases, the fact is that most completely new or even “new to cinema” titles (as Forbes’ Scott Mendelson coins them) either tank or struggle. Even the Cameron-helmed Avatar, which is the record-holder for highest-grossing movie worldwide ever (and second-highest in the US), started out relatively slow for the phenomenon it’s remembered as. The movie sold just 10.1 million tickets its first domestic weekend but 95.9 million overall.

If enough news outlets claim Alita is a bomb, then that’s how the public will see it; if enough claim it’s got promise, then maybe it truly will do well. Poor media literacy translates these two things as the movie is bad or good. Nobody wants to run out and see something deemed a failure. But a positive spin on the box office can translate to free marketing and good word of mouth, especially if paired with an ‘A-‘ grade from moviegoers via CinemaScore polling and a Rotten Tomatoes score accompanied by a full red tomato on a quick glance. Add in and lean on the fact that Alita has made more than $130 million worldwide, and you’ve got some optimism flowing. Alita just needs to be affixed with strong legs, and the movie will have strong legs.

Another way we can promote Alita‘s best case scenario is to look at comparable original sci-fi movies at the box office. Mortal Engines, the Peter Jackson-produced steampunk flick opened late last year with an attendance of 0.8 million, and its critical and audience reception was very poor. The Wachowskis’ last three movies, all big-budget sci-fi efforts were duds upon release. Jupiter Ascending (2015) started out with 2.3 million tickets sold; before that was Cloud Atlas (2012) with 1.2 million; and earlier, Speed Racer (2008) disappointed with just 2.6 million. All but Cloud Atlas received terrible reviews, and all but Speed Racer were graded low via CinemaScore — sadly, Speed Racer‘s ‘A-‘ didn’t translate to greater box office favor going forward. 

Other comparables that weren’t exactly original ideas but were new for most moviegoers include Warcraft, which kicked off with just 2.8 million tickets sold, and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, which drew in just 1.9 million people in its debut. The manga adaptation Ghost in the Shell initially sold about 2.1 million tickets. Many of these movies were deemed dead on arrival and then performed even worse in subsequent weeks. Whether they deserved their fates is up for debate. They fared poorly with critics and general audiences but some of them have a share of fans today. Alita, in my opinion, deserves much better because its visuals are, even more so than its comparables, best appreciated on the big screen in 3D.

Unlike Cameron’s own leggy blockbusters, particularly his chart-topping movies Titanic and Avatar, Alita doesn’t have a ton of ideas or imagery that’s never been seen before, just visuals that are executed in both direction and effects that its kind of movie is used to. If only there were one or two truly outstanding or fresh talking points for Alita, especially outside of the arguably problematic big eyes (which for me is like E.T.’s neck in terms of showing audiences how much of a non-human character the filmmakers have achieved but for some others seems a disturbing distraction). There’s a wow factor to Alita but not any specific wow moments to make any of it iconic or something that could last in the pop culture conversation. Maybe the bar fight scene. Maybe.

With that lack of something specifically special to inspire a Saturday Night Live sketch or cosplay and fan art or even the guilty pleasure buzz of, say, Eddie Redmayne’s loud-quiet-loud performance in Jupiter Ascending, there’s less chance that Alita will be particularly leggy in North America, but the consistent spectacle will at least keep the movie going strong overseas. But who knows? Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle never had a lot of mainstream cultural currency but the moviegoers kept coming. But that movie also had a more family-friendly appeal. Still, the make or break of Alita is going to be how its second weekend turns out, so we could be revisiting this topic next Monday.

In other box office news, there’s talk of how this was the worst President’s Day weekend at the box office since 2001. With overall attendance at just 12.1 million for all titles over just the three days, we actually haven’t seen anything so low since 2000. And before that, we have to go back another decade to 1990. The ’80s were really typically so low. But who cares? Yes, box office at this point in the year is down compared to recent years, and sadly Happy Death Day 2U opened severely lower than the first Happy Death Day, but at least documentaries are still going strong with Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old passing $15 million! And the Oscar-nominated shorts are doing very well! Also, the well-reviewed wrestling biopic Fighting With My Family is apparently going to be a hit given it posted the highest per-screen attendance in limited release.

Here are the weekend’s top 10 titles by the number of tickets sold with new and newly wide titles in bold and totals in parentheses:

1. Alita: Battle Angel – 3.1 million (4 million)
2. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part – 2.3 million (6.9 million)
3. Isn’t It Romantic – 1.6 million (2.3 million)
4. What Men Want – 1.2 million (4 million)
5. Happy Death Day 2U – 1.1 million (1.5 million)
6. Cold Pursuit – 0.66 million (2.3 million)
7. The Upside – 0.62 million (10.4 million)
8. Glass – 0.43 million (11.6 million)
9. The Prodigy – 0.35 million (1.2 million)
10. Green Book – 0.3 million (7.3 million)

All non-forecast box office figures via Box Office Mojo.

The post ‘Alita’ Could Become a Steady Box Office Hit appeared first on Film School Rejects.

Do you remember when people were looking forward to The Expendables? Every major action legend in the same movie! Now that was a mouth-watering prospect. Unfortunately, the movie itself and its sequels were a far cry from the flicks Sly Stallone and co. made back in their respective glory days. If that saga taught us anything, it’s that we should keep our expectations in check whenever something seems too good to be true.

I don’t have that concern with Triple Threat, though. Like The Expendables, this movie has gathered some bona fide action greats to mix it up together. Only, in this case, these warriors are all very much still in their primes and doing what they do best. If you don’t believe me, check out this incredible trailer below and see for yourself.

Now that’s a trailer. The movie appears to be a cocktail of carnage and an action-packed extravaganza. That’s all it needs to be. The premise is simple. A crime syndicate puts a hit out on the daughter of a billionaire, which draws an elite squad of assassins out in droves to claim the prize. Standing in their way, however, is a team of down-and-out mercenaries who vow to protect the target from the hired guns. Chaos and mayhem then ensue as the opposing factions go to war.

As Matthew noted in our list of the most anticipated movies of 2019, Triple Threat is going to be the action flick to beat this year. While Hobbs & Shaw and John Wick: Chapter 3 will provide the thrills to the masses, Triple Threat is one for the genre aficionados who like their action with less Hollywood sheen and more bloody-knuckled brutality. Punches and kicks will land with force, bullets will fly, and people will be pulverized.

There are plenty of reasons to be excited about Triple Threat, but the cast alone had us sold from the moment it was announced. The unbelievable ensemble consists of some of the most talented onscreen martial artists on the planet right now, including Michael Jai White, Tony Jaa, Tiger Chen, Scott Adkins, Michael Bisping, Celina Jade, JeeJa Yanin, and — the modern face of Indonesian action cinema himself — Iko Uwais. As Neil rightfully pointed out when the film’s Comic-Con trailer dropped in 2017, any movie with this roster of talent involved is a gift that proves the world isn’t always bad.

For the most part, every player involved here has operated on the outskirts of the big time, mostly opting to star in movies that aren’t watered down. Still, several of them have cropped up in movies that lots of people know well. Jai White was one of the first onscreen black superheroes, having starred in Spawn. Adkins briefly appeared in Doctor Strange, but he could easily lead his own superhero franchise and would make a great Batman. Jaa, meanwhile, appeared in Furious 7 and xXx: Return of Xander Cage, but neither movie allowed him to fully showcase his awe-inspiring ability. Bisping also appeared in Return of Xander Cage, but most people know him from his successful MMA career. Uwais, on the other hand, briefly showed up in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and he was completely misused in Mile 22. If you want to see them at their best, then check out the movies where they’ve been the stars of the show.

The good news is that director Jesse V. Johnson will make the most of the talented folks available to him. The stunt co-ordinator made the jump to directing in the late 1990s and has since established himself as a reliable force in the DTV action arena. He knows exactly what fans want, and he’ll damn sure deliver the goods here. His brand of entertainment is bloody, hard-hitting, and visceral, and Triple Threat looks like his most ambitious project to date. This movie is in damn good hands.

Personally, I’m also pumped to see Western audiences become more familiar with Yanin. The Thai actress has deserved to be a massive international action star since making her debut in 2008’s Chocolate. That movie, which saw her play an autistic girl taking on ruthless criminals on her lonesome, is an absolute blast and deserves more recognition. If Triple Threat gives her an opportunity to shine — and it will — she’ll be one step closer to becoming a household name.

As far as action movies go, Triple Threat appears to have it all. It’s a real event movie for the midnight crowd and is bound to please anyone who loves some cinematic smackdowns. If the ingredients mix together well — and they will — this will be one tasty treat. Seeing masters of a craft teaming up to make magic happen together is what cinema is all about, and when it comes to ass-kicking, this cast is untouchable. Don’t be surprised if this flick becomes a genre classic.

The post Action Movie Fans Should Be Excited About ‘Triple Threat’ appeared first on Film School Rejects.

The upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s scariest book, Pet Sematary, is one of 2019’s must-see horror movies. And if the success of IT is anything to go by, moviegoers are hungry for movies based on the author’s work and are more than willing to part with their dollars to see them. There’s no reason to believe that Pet Sematary won’t be a huge box office success, which is why opportunistic hucksters are already trying to capitalize on its release. Case in point: Pet Graveyard.

Of course, Pet Graveyard isn’t content to simply rip off popular Stephen King movies. Sure, the title is cheeky a way to lure in impressionable King fans, but should they decide to part with their hard-earned money by purchasing Pet Graveyard, they can expect something much different from Pet Sematary. Instead, what they’ll get is a horror movie that plucks ideas from all over the place — with a Grim Reaper and his demonic kitty thrown in for good measure.

Check out the official trailer below:

The trailer indicates that this movie is dealing with some high concept ideas, such as people making themselves die temporarily so they can visit the afterlife. The movie also explores the idea of cheating death, as our protagonists must evade the Reaper and his feline sidekick. It’s like Flatliners meets Final Destination, basically. Personally, I’m surprised that no one has made this movie until now.

Thematically, though, there is a spiritual connection to Pet Sematary here. Think about it: the moral of each movie is to not mess with the natural order of life and death. If you’re planning on performing any weird resurrection rituals or death experiments this April, maybe these movies will scare some sense into you. If that is indeed the message that Pet Graveyard is trying to get across, it will be one of this summer’s most important releases.

All joking aside, Pet Graveyard does look quite charming. One of the best things about major new releases is the ripoff nonsense they inspire. Back in the ’70s and ’80s, Italian and Turkish cinema turned the knockoff into an art form, with directors like Bruno Mattei often making shameless copycats that were every bit as entertaining as their original counterparts. In the 21st century, The Asylum has led the charge with their mockbusters, and some of their releases have been absolute gems. We laugh at these movies sometimes, but they never cease to fascinate us, do they? Well, some of us anyway…

Uncork’d Entertainment has unleashed its fair share of wacky knockoffs into the world, as well. If you frequent this site, you might remember that time we shared the trailer for Death Kiss, a Death Wish clone starring Charles Bronson’s contemporary doppelgänger. The company is also responsible for The Jurassic Games, which is a crazy movie that splices DNA from Jurassic World and The Hunger Games together to create a grotesque abomination that deserves your attention. Needless to say, Uncork’d is totally cool with reaping the rewards of copying other movies. But it’s a dog eat dog world out there, and the hustle is real.

Granted, this type of cheap, schlocky cinema isn’t for everyone. If you’re seeking originality or quality then look elsewhere. But if you want to see concepts from other movies tossed into a blender just to see what the end results are, then Pet Graveyard is a movie that might pique your curiosity. Or maybe people will skip Pet Sematary in favor of this one, and we’ll have an unexpected summer hit on our hands? All I know for sure is that the world is a more interesting place with silly movies like Pet Graveyard in it.

The post ‘Pet Graveyard’ Isn’t the Knockoff You Think It Is appeared first on Film School Rejects.

The Polish-born filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski left his home country for the UK as a teenager, ultimately attending Oxford University to study literature and philosophy. In the 1980s he started dabbling in documentaries, and in 1998 he transitioned to fiction with the 50-minute Twockers. After putting several thought-provoking films through the festival circuit including My Summer of Love (2004) and The Woman in the Fifth (2011), it was Pawlikowski’s first Polish film, Ida (2013), that made him a major name in the international film scene. It took home the Oscar for Best Foreign Langauge Film, the first Polish film to do so. He returned to Poland for his next film, Cold War (2018), a decades-spanning tumultuous romance between two musicians, received three Oscar nominations. Pawlikowski took a winding road toward becoming a filmmaker, and he learned plenty along the way. Here are six of his best filmmaking tips:

Be Flexible with Your Screenplay

When it comes to screenplays, Pawlikowski is arguably a financier’s worst nightmare. His scripts are minimalist, and the director considers significant rewrites and modifications throughout filming a standard part of his process. He does what he has to in order to get financing—for instance, putting together a 64-page script for Ida that “dotted the Is and crossed the Ts”—but, as far as he’s concerned, the standard detailed screenplay is more of a hoop to jump through than anything. It’s best, he told The Guardian in a November 2014 interview, not to take a script too seriously:

“A script can be a useful thing, of course. It gives you the general idea; an approximation of the structure; maybe even some good scenes and usable dialogue. But God forbid taking it too seriously and trying to shoot it as written. I’d much rather work from a 25-page outline that doesn’t narrow down the possibilities or lock you into a self-serving filming schedule. As far as I’m concerned, all you really need is a story, with two or three interesting characters, interestingly entangled in an interesting space. You also need some transcendent idea, emotion or urge to carry you through the whole process. The reason why you are doing it in the first place.”

Filmmaking is a Sculpting Process

Okay. So don’t lock yourself into sticking with the script. So what should you do instead? What happens next? More or less continuing on from the last featured quote, Pawlikowski detailed how he lets his films evolve naturally over time when speaking at the 92Y community center in New York City in 2014:

“A lot of stuff comes out in the process when you’re [making a film], when you expose yourself to the reality of the film, to the actors—and even looking for actors makes you realize stuff that you didn’t quite think of when writing—, looking for locations […] driving around looking for locations makes you relive your film differently, things that occur to you while you’re preparing, it all impacts on the film. Even rehearsals are a kind of thinking time and shaping time.

You can watch the entire interview below (quote begins at 9:35):

Audiences Don’t Need to Understand to be Compelled

Pawlikowski’s two most recent films, Ida and Cold War, have both been period pieces. However, as the filmmaker told the Museum of the Moving Image publication Reverse Shot in a February 2015 interview, a historical setting doesn’t mean you should turn your film into a history lesson:

“Very often when you make a film about history, a lot of the dialogue, or scenes even, are devoted to explaining to audiences that haven’t got a clue about history. And I didn’t want to do that. This is the historical moment, these are the characters, a lot is touched upon, and if you make sense of it, great, and if you don’t make sense of it, it still kind of works in a universal way. I’m not going to try to explain, because there’s no one explanation of history anyway, and it’s not the job of cinema to explain. Cinema is some kind of magical exercise that creates a world and draws the audience in, and they have to experience something emotionally, rather than something for journalists to discuss.”

Consider Academy Ratio

In addition to being in black-and-white, both Ida and Cold War are notable for using Academy ratio instead of a widescreen format. While the former standard has largely fallen out of fashion, Pawlikowski made a good case for bringing it back when doing a Q&A at the Hammer Museum in December 2018:

“But what it helps me [do], already in Ida and here, is to limit the field of vision, to guide exactly where the viewer is looking, and to work by not showing too much, by suggesting what’s out of frame. […] It’s a great format for portraits and double portraits. It gives me more control over what I show. What we lose on the sides very often we compensate in depth.”

You can watch the full Q&A below (the quote begins at 13:27):

Explanations Kill The Poetry

Pawlikowski’s latest film Cold War depicts the mercurial love of Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) and Zula (Joanna Kulig) over 15 years and several countries, depicting the evolution of their relationship in vignettes separated by cuts to black. Inspired by the story of his own parents, the filmmaker explained to RogerEbert.com in December 2018 why he very consciously chose a more fragmented narrative style, and in doing so also gave some useful advice:

“I wasn’t going to make a biopic-type of film where you show how A leads to B leads to C and so on. The whole ’cause and effect’ structure in biopics that span a long period of time is incredibly irritating to me. It seems to suggest that everything in the subject’s life has a clear cause and consequence, when in fact there are so many different causes and consequences that I’d rather just show the tableau through these chunks of time and not explain exactly how we got from here to there. Most people can imagine it for themselves, and if I begin to explain what is left unseen, it would reduce everything. When you start explaining a film, you kill all the poetry, so never explain. Never apologize.”

Get Pulled into a (Psychological) Current

One of the most fundamental filmmaking questions of all is why, as in, why make a film? How should a filmmaker pick the project to which he or she will be dedicating all their time and energy? Pawlikowski addressed a guiding principle of his selection process in a December 2018 interview with Vulture that also doubles as good advice for any other filmmaker pondering the same question:

“When you’re directing, half the time you’re depressed and just trying to make this work in spite of practical issues that keep cropping up. But I need to know that I’m carried by some greater current, something to do with what I know or feel about the world. You’re giving over three years of your life, so there better be a current taking you somewhere. Filmmaking is not like engineering or plumbing. It’s not industrial. It’s psychological.”

What We Learned

Pawel Pawlikowski did not take the usual film school path to end up behind the camera, and in many regards, he’s not a usual filmmaker. He knowingly makes creative choices that alienate potential viewers. As he mentioned in the February 2015 Reverse Shot interview referenced earlier in this piece, “I don’t try to seduce the audience too much, so you know you’re going to lose a lot of them. But those who stay might benefit, or like it more.” Considering how Pawlikowski’s reputation as a filmmaker has only grown with the release of Cold War, this gambit seems to have worked out remarkably well, illustrating what might perhaps be the key lesson that ties together all of the featured filmmaking tips: being successful does not have to mean drawing the biggest crowd. No matter how many viewers you lose, so long as “those who stay” are fans, you can go to some pretty great places.

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This piece contains serious spoilers for the Adventure Time series finale. If you haven’t watched it yet, I strongly suggest you do. Go on. It’s 45 minutes long.  It’s on Hulu. And it’s one of the best treats you can give yourself.

Have you watched it? Good. Come along with me.

In 2007, Pendleton Ward created Adventure Time as a short for Nickelodeon. It was a creative and joyful expression of art at the heart of mid-2000s randomcore. In 2010, it found a home as a series on Cartoon Network, where over the course of 10 seasons it evolved into one of the most emotionally satisfying, artistically innovative shows on television.

In the fall of 2018, it ended. And it ended perfectly.

The 45-minute special “Come Along With Me” clocks in at four times the length of a normal episode, but with every 11 minutes, it shifts gears to a different hallmark of what makes the show so special: high interpersonal drama, trippy dream sequences, magical lore, and musical pathos.

It’s a lovely touch in a world that’s always been governed by four elements. These four elements tell a single story about “the end of Ooo,” narrated from the distant future. It’s a beautiful and cripplingly emotional episode. Finn grows up. Lovers reunite and come together for the first time. Not everyone survives.

But while the loose ends of the present are the most pressing, the episode also delights in references from the past and glimpses into the far-flung future, encouraging joyful speculation even if it comes without the promise of explanation.

It’s a celebration of both the fluidity and the unceasingness of time, and it’s expressed beautifully in the song “Time Adventure,” written by Rebecca Sugar. Here’s the song in its entirety within the episode. (And here’s the album version. If you haven’t heard it, I’d encourage you to listen and have a good cry when Jake comes in alone on the last line).

If you don’t feel like listening, here are the lyrics:

Time is an illusion that helps things make sense
So we are always living in the present tense
It seems unforgiving when a good thing ends
But you and I will always be back then
You and I will always be back then, singing
‘Will happen, happening, happened
Will happen, happening, happened
And will happen again and again’
’Cause you and I will always be back then.

BMO sings this song to Jake near the end of the episode, when their home has been destroyed and chaos reigns. We the audience don’t know if the world is ending or not, but we know for a fact that the show is. For the characters, and for us, it’s urging for the peaceful acceptance of the transience of things.

It’s been years since Adventure Time slipped its already shaky classification as a “children’s show,” but this song teaches a lesson that everyone, especially the adults who’ve grown into it, can learn from. Things end, yes, but that makes their having happened no less real.

BMO’s song winds up serving as a weapon, as our heroes harmonizing together staves off the forces of chaos and discord. Within the show, accepting the end actually averts it. But for the audience, the end of the episode — and of the series — remains inevitable, and the lesson we’ve learned is a vital weapon in our own struggle against despair.

The song continues:

If there was some amazing force outside of time
To take us back to where we were
And hang each moment up like pictures on the wall
Inside a billion tiny frames so that we could see it all
It would look like ‘will happen, happening, happened…’

Of course, that’s exactly how Adventure Time exists: as a billion tiny frames that you can play again and again, in whatever order you choose, until your DVDs burn out or you stop paying your Hulu subscription. It’s comforting to know that, as far as we the audience are concerned, time really is an illusion, and we need never stop watching.

But that’s not what’s at the heart of the song, and it’s not what we feel as we watch. In the moment it’s a moving message for these characters we’ve come to think of as real, and for our own lives. It’s a meditation on the nature of time itself, an insistence that everything that’s happened exists somewhere and so can never truly end.

And if nothing ends, what is a finale, really? That’s something that makes “Come Along With Me” so special — it’s an ending that fully acknowledges its identity as such, but at the same time it understands the contrivance of such a thing.

This is expressed masterfully in the episode’s framing device, set a thousand years in the future, in which BMO, unchanged and living as the self-styled King of Ooo, narrates “the end of the world.”

BMO’s house is packed to the gills with treasures from the series, a veritable Easter egg hunt in a sea of nostalgia, and the knowledge that these things are from the past weighs the mood heavy with loss. Outside, things have changed almost beyond recognition, and the sense that time marches on is strong.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Since time advances, that also means life continues. These tiny glimpses into the future raise innumerable questions that will likely never be answered. Questions like: How did the Ice Thing lose his body? And how is Jake’s grandson Gibbon coping with the madness of the crown’s gem?

But there’s a comfort to be found in that open-endedness. It means that, even if we can’t see it, things in Ooo will carry on. There are no real endings, just the ends of stories. BMO’s tale about the end of the world finishes peacefully — there’s heartbreak and loss, yes, but most of the characters are safe and sound. When asked what happened to them next, BMO shrugs and says “they kept living their lives.”

And so they did. We see it in how the landscape and characters have evolved in the far future, and in how our friends in the present continue after the “end.”

The latter is conveyed in a gorgeous final montage, set to LAKE’s “Island Song,” the brief end-credit music that, for the first time in eight years, plays in full. The montage shows just what BMO describes — the characters of Adventure Time, some we love dearly and some we haven’t thought about in years, living their lives.

It’s unspeakably comforting to see Ooo carry on like this, in its happy, recognizable ways.

And even the far-off future, strange though it may be, is familiar. The audience for BMO’s story are Shermy and Beth, stars of a new intro and a weird but recognizable reprise of Finn and Jake.

Are Shermy and Beth literal or just spiritual reiterations of our favorite heroes? Who knows. Reincarnation is a provable fact in Ooo, so anything is possible. But who they are and who they’ve been hardly matters. They’re adventurers, they have a new sword, and they will always be best friends.

Everything will happen again and again.

“Come Along With Me” might very well be the perfect series finale. It knows what its audience loves, and it delivers it in just the right amounts. It understands that it’s a finale, and it uses that status to tie up loose ends and deliver the ultimate emotional impact while it does it. But it also acknowledges that endings are artificial and it assures us that, even if we can’t see it anymore, Ooo is carrying on just fine in the past, present, and future.

It’s a celebration of the minuteness and the vastness of life that leaves us with a simultaneous hope and exquisite sadness, a nostalgia for what’s ended and complete satisfaction that it was at all.

We’re lucky to have had Adventure Time at all, and we’re extraordinarily lucky to have seen it end the way that it did — flawlessly.

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Most triumphant sci-fi comedy Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure celebrates its 30th anniversary this week, and yes, it does spark joy decades later. Bill & Ted has maintained its endearing energy and cult status among longtime fans and new audiences alike, proving that very dumb movies can also be very good movies. Fans can look forward to its upcoming threequel Bill & Ted Face the Music, which will bring back Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves for (hopefully) tons more air guitar.

Following the time travel craze of ’80s cinema, Bill & Ted is the adventure of two SoCal metalheads on a quest to save their grades and the future of their band. After being approached by Rufus (George Carlin), a mysterious man claiming to be from the future, Bill and Ted journey into the past to collect “personages of historical significance.” The two ditzy high schoolers are racing against the clock (literally) to make it back in time for their history presentation — and before Ted’s domineering father carts him off to military school.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure has successfully stood the test of time by being so earnest and downright silly, qualities best reflected in the titular characters. Without a doubt, the heart of the story lies with Bill S. Preston, Esq. (Winter) and Ted Theodore Logan (Reeves). The pair’s naively frank interactions with the other characters throughout Bill & Ted cement the film’s tone as well as providing plenty of laughs.

“I don’t think it’s gonna work, dude.”

Bill and Ted’s ability to bond with their miscellaneous collection of historical figures truly echos their mantra: “Be excellent to each other.” This steadfast kind of positive attitude is what makes the film so refreshing. Bill and Ted find a way to connect with each and every person, from Socrates (or as Ted says, “Soh-craytes”) to Joan of Arc (wonderfully played by Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Go’s).

Again, Bill & Ted is at the same time an incredibly fun and goofy film. It may be one of the most quotable movies of the decade and has gained a special kind of notoriety from the wild concoction of phrases used by Bill and Ted. All of which can be pretty much summed up in the medieval era scene, when Bill comes upon what he believes to be Ted’s dead body. “Bogus, heinous… most non-triumphant,” he says, in the saddest inflection of dude-speak known to man.

Almost every line in this movie is gold, highlighted by the obligatory “dude” and goofy smile courtesy of Keanu’s Ted. Of course, it should be noted that Bill & Ted’s screenplay is not immune from the cringe-worthy drop of an f-slur unfortunately shared by many ’80s classics.

Beyond the sheer amount of personality Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure carries, it also features some amazing late-’80s looks. Bill’s DIY crop top with the patterned shirt tied around his waist has pretty much become an iconic outfit from the film. He appears to have personalized almost every aspect of his outfit, even showcasing a hand-drawn design from their band “Wyld Stallyns” on the back of his shirt. Meanwhile, Ted’s disarray of rolled up pants legs, a vest, and flyaway hair help accentuate his blissfully dumb persona.

Keanu’s Ted shines especially bright in this buddy comedy, allowing for a distinction between the two by being the “dumb one” (at least comparatively). Some of the funniest moments in Bill & Ted come from Keanu’s acting, particularly his infectious and instant smile whenever his character is the butt of a joke. Interestingly, this “lovable goof” performance comes immediately after his roles in serious dramas Dangerous Liaisons and River’s Edge.

Bill: “The only true wisdom is in knowing that you know nothing.”

Ted: “…That’s us, dude!”

If the heart of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is the boneheads traveling throughout history, then the film’s true joy is the reveal of just how impactful the actions of these particular boneheads will be. At the end of their adventure, Rufus finally tells the boys that their band Wyld Stallyns has become the basis for a completely sustainable society in 2688.

His mission was to keep them together by helping them pass History, effectively preventing their separation via military school. Thanks to them, bowling averages are up and the planet’s water slides are “more excellent” than those on any other. More importantly, though, Rufus explains that “eventually, your music will help put an end to war and poverty — it will align the planets and bring them into universal life.”

Besides all that, it’s excellent for dancing. Aside from being a comedic moment — ironically, the band practices that we’ve seen to that point have so far been agonizing at best — this scene does have a somewhat poetic quality to it. The revelation about their future feels as if the movie is telling us that sometimes two dumb dudes with irrepressible optimism are just what the world needs.

Basically, they’ve somehow shaped the future by staying together and making excellent music. Abraham Lincoln put it best, during his final speech in Bill and Ted’s presentation: “These gentlemen are dedicated to a proposition that was true in my time, and is true today: Be excellent to each other… and party on dudes!”

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure sparks so much joy simply by being a film about the importance of having fun. Much as Bill and Ted pair hard rock with a lesson on Ancient Greek philosophy, the movie maintains that there is no wrong way to do things. It succeeds at keeping its audience interested by being unabashedly its own, unique thing. And really, what could be more excellent than that?

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This week, Blumhouse Productions released the trailer for a much-anticipated new release: the horror film Ma, which stars Octavia Spencer in the titular role. The movie follows a group of teenagers who befriend Spencer’s character when she buys them alcohol and offers up her basement for their house parties — but the strange friendship quickly takes a turn for the worse, as Ma is not who she appears.

For many, it’s exciting to see Spencer tackle such an uncharacteristic role, especially one that seems to be a commentary on the portrayal of black women in film. Upon further inspection, it’s a shame to see that Ma has an all-white and all-male production team, but Blumhouse has pledged an encouraging diversity push in the months since the movie began filming.

Perhaps not as overtly as the 2017 Blumhouse release Get Out, the trailer for Ma suggests that a notorious racial trope will be turned on its head. The title itself evokes the “mammy” archetype, a black female character who works as a caretaker for white children. We rarely see the “mammy” outside of her job — and indeed, hardly know anything of her life — because she exists merely for the benefit of the white characters she works for. This trope can be seen on screen most infamously in Gone With The Wind, and more recently in 2011’s The Help, which starred Spencer and was directed by Ma helmer Tate Taylor.

If the trailer is any indication, Ma seems to subvert the “mammy” archetype. Spencer’s character is purposely shrouded in mystery — she doesn’t let the predominantly white group of teenagers upstairs in her home, she inexplicably collects all of their contact information, and she inserts herself into their lives in increasingly sinister ways. Decoding her backstory and understanding her motivations for terrorizing the kids is the whole point of the film, which makes her the most powerful character in it. This contrasts with the typical “mammy” character, who rarely receives a backstory nor seems to have any sort of life beyond her work. In fact, Ma draws the kids in by assuming a persona that is at once chummy and maternal, exploiting their trust — and perhaps revealing their preconceived biases against black women.

This kind of clever commentary on the black female experience is certainly welcome, so it’s disappointing that Blumhouse passed on an opportunity to hire black women. Instead, they tapped Taylor to direct and co-write the script with Scotty Landes (Adam Devine’s House Party, Workaholics), and the film is being produced by Taylor, John Norris, and Jason Blum. Blum, who founded Blumhouse, came under fire this year for claiming that there “are not a lot of female directors period,” and that the ones who do exist are uninterested in directing horror; of course, this isn’t the case at all, and Blum subsequently apologized.

Despite the missteps, Blumhouse continues to release a number of films that tackle racial commentary — they produced 2019 Best Picture nominee BlackKklansman and are behind Jordan Peele’s highly-anticipated sophomore effort Us, which is led by Lupita Nyong’o. As a film starring a black woman, and one that seems to make a statement about the roles that black women occupy in cinema, Ma could certainly have the same cultural salience that Get Out had and continues to have. It’s a step in the right direction, but bringing in black female creative influence for future films would be the true accomplishment, both for an audience that is receptive to these details and for a company that is working on better off-screen representation.

The changes at Blumhouse are warranted. The company has done an underwhelming job in employing female directors, as Blum has acknowledged; only two of its feature films have been directed by women and only one of those was a horror film. Unfortunately, the idea that women directors are scarce or indifferent to genre fare is not new. In 2016, producer Kathleen Kennedy made a similar comment about female directors not having “sufficient experience” to direct a Star Wars film, and director Colin Trevorrow claimed that women do not have a desire to direct genre blockbusters. The reality is that popular horror films led by black women are a viable product, and there’s no reason why those films shouldn’t be produced, directed and written by black women too. In an industry where black women are so frequently shut out of opportunities to direct any film, it seems obvious that they should at least have access to their own stories.

With Ma scheduled for release in May, and Blumhouse set to release a number of other films this year with creative teams that have yet to be announced, there is hope that they’re choosing from a broader pool of talent. It’s heartening to see that they’ve hired Sophia Takal to direct an installment for their Hulu series In the Dark and that they’ve struck a new deal with Amazon that includes employing diverse talent. No matter these small improvements, it’s a shame that they couldn’t come before Ma was put into production, as it could very well be a smash hit. In the meantime, Blumhouse is coming around by fostering diversity in front of and behind the camera — off-screen representation matters, too.

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