#Kevin and Andrew are bros and I will not take criticism | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jemej3m · 5 years

Text

gaming au

headcannons because im lazy but i love this idea

- neil is the same sort of vibe as RTGame, who plays whatever the fuck he wants, screws everything up majorly every time, and loves to roast everyone and everything

- andrew is callmecarson and his career is literally just fucking with people

- they’re both mostly streaming on twitch: Neil has no face-cam, whilst andrew does and its just him being completely deadpan and apathetic

- “person101 has subbed for 3 months!” andrew: looks deadpan into the camera, says “you’re wasting your money”

- kevin and riko used to be fOrtNitE bOiiiis WHERE WE DROPPIN but then kevin didn’t want to play fortnite anymore and riko kicked him out, so he moved in with andrew cuz andrew hates fortnite

*this was getting too long yikes*

- nicky’s a sims player bless his soul, he loves sims 3 and wont let it go even though it breaks his computer

- dan and matt absolutely obliterate 1st-person shooter games together

- renee loves story games: life’s strange, detroit: become human, etc

- allison’s a survival games bitch, loves don’t starve together, hardcore minecraft, but also plays shitty barbie fashion games and nitpicks at the programming

- i imagine seth as like an angry 12 year old on twitch, that everyone just laughs at for getting aggressive too easy

- aaron plays whatever, mostly riding the mediocre cash inflow for med school and gets popular because of his criticism of surgeon games, but he loves VR (andrew does too) and sometimes he streams instead of andrew until someone notices

- gamers always coordinate into little groups: this bunch have a discord chat together and often collaborate, except andrew, cuz he’s a *lone wolf* (get over urself andrew)

so how do andrew and neil meet, u wonder? how does neil get initiated into this discord group? where does the nickname foxes come from? where’s wymack in all this?

- so basically i imagine wymack as a game developer and he’s found this group of gamers who are actually funny and are slowly getting popular, so he reaches out and asks them if they want to try this game out, he’s just getting started with it, what are their opinions?

- it obviously can’t be everything each of them every dreamed of, but Mission F0X is actually a lit fuckin game with aspects that everyone can enjoy:

- nicky loves making new characters

- dan and matt fucking ace the shoot outs

- renee loves the choose-your-destiny aspect, and how you can see the percentage of people who went different routes

- allison just loves the adorable fox companion

- seth is pumped for when it’s getting released so he can blow other people up

- aaron doesn’t care but him and kevin end up finishing all the minigames in two weeks so wymack has to make more because kevin’s getting pissy

- andrew zones out as soon as anyone mentions fox because he couldn’t care less

- until

- this “””””neil josten””””””” streamer plays Mission F0X upon its beta release, and tears into the game. like, brutally. he actually praises it too, but everyone’s distracted by his character, who he’s designed to have eyebrows on his chin and backwards ears and eyes on his forehead because wymack allowed that for some reason, and then he’s able to yeet the fox companion over a cliff but it bounces back, and all this ridiculous, crazy shit

- the foxes (as theyve dubbed themselves) think he’s high-key hilarious. they’re planning to reach out to him, but andrew doesn’t trust a streamer who doesn’t have a face cam, it’s fuckin 2019 bro, wtf

- so he goes onto Neil’s minecraft server, because he has this series, where he goes onto famous streamer’s servers and griefs shit until he gets kicked, because he’s andrew

except this time, it’s not one of neil’s mods (robin or brian or jack or sheena), it’s neil himself. he’s streaming. they’re both live, looking at each other as a building behind andrew blows up

- “thats not very nice”

- “whaddaya gonne do, kick me?” (andrew is like an angsty emo 12 yr old i love him)

- neil instead says “nah ill let you be a mod”

- everyone’s like ????? he’s griefing your shit, and you’re gonna make him a moderator?

- andrew is also thoroughly confused

- neil’s popularity, meanwhile, is skyrocketing. everyone wants him to get together with the foxes and play Mission F0X. Wymack has gruffly acknowledged all of the glitches and quirks neil’s criticised and is working to change them. andrew’s a mod on his minecraft server, and sometimes they work together (out of stream) in complete silence (not even on a call, just sometimes private messaging on discord about details or coordinates) as they clean up some shit on neil’s crazy server. they also work super hard on a map room (like RTGame’s server’s crazy fuckin map room holy SHIT goals)

- then all of a sudden andrew announces that he and neil are doing a fuckin mission F0X letsplay together, when he’s openly hated on the foxes’ obsession with Mission F0X, and neil has refused to work with the foxes because he’s scared of his new-found popularity.

- everyone, once more, is like ????????

- unbeknownst to literally everyone on the planet, they’ve met up. neil explained why he’s avoiding kevin, even if his father’s dead, and he’s technically safe. the moriyamas own his ass and he can’t out himself like that. andrew thinks he’s being ridiculous because he’s never signed a contract and there’s nothing legally binding him to play for riko and moriyama gaming.

- i just have this scene in my head where andrew has killed neil’s fox companion, carved “u r hot” onto it and chucking it at Neil’s head (who, mind you, is neil’s interpretation of his appearance, but god-knows he’s watered down his hotness because he’s so oblivious and andrew hates him)

- neil just laughs and tells andrew to pick him up at 7. andrew uses half of his health to revive his stupid fox companion, just like neil knew he would.

- andrew’s the only one streaming this episode: they take it in turns. he’s blushing like mad.

- nicky’s yelling THATS GAY and aaron is shaking his head and kevin is still Fuming that neil has refused to work with him but will work (and hook up) with andrew

- eventually wymack sponsors him to play the prerelease of the Full Game and neil meets up with the rest of the foxes absOLUTELY DEBAUCHED BECAUSE HE HITCHED A RIDE WITH ANDREW AND THEY TOOK ADVANTAGE OF THAT

- and everyones like. yep. okay. this kid managed to wrangle the monster of online gaming, makes him blush on stream and now walks in with their hands entwined like they’ve been dating for years. Respect.

aaaaaaaaand yea thats all for now gnight

#andreil #gamer au #twitch streamer au!#andrew minyard #neil josten #youtuber au #?#technically?#rtgame #callmecarson #the foxhole court #all for the game #jem writes

409 notes · View notes

madebyleftovermuses · 4 years

Text

the one with tangerine

Chapter Sixty-Six: Tangerine

• Jughead reading his submission “the boy in the river” hmmm I wonder what that story is about • Fucking Brett thinking he’s story is so much better than Jugs • DuPont actually giving Jughead the contract and being nice about it • Veronica being rejected from her safety school • Hiram had something to do with that I’m sure • Columbia up next. Probably shouldn’t tell your father what schools you’re applying to he will fuck up your chances • Hiram suggesting community college in Riverdale to stay local so he can keep his eye on her • FP waking Archie up to ask him if he’s the vigilante • Archie just admitting it • Jug asking big bro for help • Jughead isn’t gonna take the contract until he knows grandpa’s truth • I thought the speakeasy was dry since it’s being ran by an underaged high school student where other students hang out • Pop telling Veronica that Hiram wasn’t raised right is amazing!! • Let’s wake Betty up to tell her that her sister just attacked a nurse • Polly only wants to talk to Betty • Side note: the nurse’s name was Betty but sure let’s send Betty Cooper in to visit her sister • I feel like I believe Polly but she is a slight psycho • So, did they just put the metal detectors in storage after Southside High closed? • Oh now we install security cameras • So her grandmother is her godmother am I getting that right? • So, Hiram learned from grandma and she’s so easily willing to share it • :O it’s Hiram’s mommy!! • Grandpa Jones is a forest man!! I had a fucking feeling • Speaking of phone calls • Alice is brainwashed! As Polly! Holy fuck!! • After Veronica told grandma what Hiram’s been doing I knew she was gonna slap him!! • Hiram is like I’m shocked that Mami slapped him and turned against him • Vic wants to buy Andrews construction which Archie refuses • Evelyn is in jail good to know • Grandpa jones lives in a bus • How the fuck you gonna kill a corpse and a doll? You’re only killing yourself Cheryl • Look at this bitch crawling out from the depths of hell • Of course Cheryl would have a red gas mask • Grandpa Jones about to set facts straight with Jug • Archie refusing to let the vigilante die until dodger and his brothers are out of the way • FP giving up talking him out of it so he gotta change into his snake clothes • Damn FP • Of course Cheryl would be the red queen • Does Archie still have a serpent tattoo? • So, grandpa Jones sold his idea for $5000 and became bitter • I feel really bad for FP having to deal with that • Betty visiting Evelyn • Really they turn into Betty and they attack trying to kill bad Betty • Of course it was Edgar’s idea • Tangerine really? That’s the trigger word • Fuck you, Archie! You’re getting everyone’s dad shot! • At least FP is alive and not in critical condition • Look here comes this fucker (Sorry, Fangs I miss the season 2&3 before you joined a cult you) • Still confused how the fuck Darla is the mom • Fang is on thin fucking ice with FP • Archie doesn’t listen FP and he doesn’t go through with promises • Charles testing out the trigger word • Maybe it has to be Evelyn’s voice • Everyone wants Penelope dead • Yet Cheryl wants her to be saved? • How dare Penelope call Toni a she-goblin • Penelope is mad that Cheryl is happy with Jason? Wtf • Reggie is back • What does Hiram get for bumping Veronica’s interview up? • Really does Veronica really have to do hand motion while she sings? • Aw, baby Kevin singing! • Archie won against Dodger! I’m sure he would have killed him if Darla hadn’t cried out for him to stop • Archie’s face when the kids see what he’s done to dodger • Fuck Hiram for sabotaging Veronica and of course he would paten the rum formula he got from his mami • Jug joking saying he can’t leave FP alone for one day without being shot but he leaves him alone during the week • Really we’re locking Penelope in the sex bunker • Despite Hiram’s efforts Columbia might be admitting Veronica • Let’s go back to grandpa thinking he hasn’t bolted • We’re finally burying Jason thank god! • Poor Archie. He just wants a bit of justice and wanted the scum like dodger out of Riverdale • Damn looked like FP got his hopes up to see his father again • Really he put the crown on his signature? • At least you don’t have to do a gauntlet to get into this club • It’s sweet Cheryl included Archie, Veronica, Jughead and Betty for Jason’s Viking funeral • Oh shit! Archie got an uncle! • Was frank ever mentioned? • Betty killed Jughead? Oh sure

#riverdale commentary #betty cooper #Charles Smith #Alice Smith #polly cooper #cheryl blossom #cheryl x jason #veronica lodge #veronica x hiram #archie andrews #archie x fp #fp jones #forsythe pendleton jones i #penelope blossom #s4e9 #chapter sixty-six: tangerine #riverdale season 4

2 notes · View notes

ziggory · 5 years

Text

Riverdale Liveblog 3x14, “Fire Walk With Me”

I have to let it be known that I love the absolute shit out of Fire Walk With Me so this episode is already a disappointment because I know it’s not going to touch those heights. Like unless some David Bowie impersonator phases through the walls of Pop’s Diner while all the teens are caught in the throw of a Fizzle Rocks inflicted drug haze while Angelo Badalamenti’s score pumps through the neon haze...FUCKING KEEP IT

My motto as of late is for Veronica to just kill her parents. Morality is a construct on this show. I’m sure the judge will look the other way

How many plot relevant lines have they crammed into the Previously On segment

WHY ARE YOU HURTING ME WITH THIS REMINDER OF JOAQUIN’S DEATH

This weird confirmation that after Kevin got kidnapped into the woods, and his second boyfriend LEFT TOWN AGAIN, that none of his friends or his dad checked up on him just feeds my angsty little hole of a brain. But also can they put a new record on because I’m tired of this song

So Kevin’s not involved in the LGBTQIA group huh. Fun.

The sound people have also given up on this show

WEATHERBEE IS MY FAVORITE INCOMPETENT ADMINISTRATOR

AMERICAN. EXCESS. is the closest the show will ever get to criticizing capitalism

What’s so secret about the most popular night hangout in town

I need to see more of Toni in this outfit because it’s everything to the point that I have to laugh at Cheryl fishing for compliments

Maybe if one of you checked in on him he wouldn’t have felt the need to resort TO A FUCKING CULT.

Okay, well someone just drank the whole pitcher *sighs*. I’ve lowkey wondered if a variation of this conversations would ever happen post-cruising in S2, but this isn’t my ideal of this conversation. Also, Kevin’s unfortunate undercut is very strong in this scene

If Jughead was a Smash character, the finger pointing would be his special attack

Honestly, I drew shit like that in high school, and all my classmates thought I’d become a future serial bomber, but instead I ended up being an average citizen of society!

KEVIN, WHAT THE FUCK!/1//!?! SOMEONE YANK THESE KIDS OUT OF THIS FUCKING FARM. I’m crying

Lmao, I’ve been wondering who this sketch artist would be playing, and THIS is what he was for??

Veronica, you were fucking advocating this for-profit prison idea LAST FUCKING EPISODE. YOU ARE ALSO THE SHADY ONE

The last time Josie and Betty interacted was 2x02. It’s been a whole ass fucking seasonal gap

YES AT THIS RECOGNITION OF HIS EMOTIONAL VULNERABILITY. And I will take these fucking scraps of McKeller sibling stuff. WHEN DID SIERRA AND JOSIE MOVE INTO THE KELLER HOUSE!?!??! FUCK YOU, SHOW

BROTHER KEVIN REMINDS ME OF WHEN ONTD SAID CASEY LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE FROM MORMON BOYZ (FYI, if you look up “Mormon” in the gif search you WILL get a porn gif) (ANOTHER FYI, Andrew Rannells was the voice of Archie in Archie’s Weird Mysteries which is a better show than Riverdale)

Honestly walking on coals isn’t that wild. But then again, it’s usually not a teenager leading other teenagers to do it. And another honestly is that Kevin is looking good while doing it! Cult victim but make it fashion, tbh

Betty, you should record shit and then just post it on social media like the average teen does. This is what Worldstar is for.

You know, I always wondered what it’d be like if Kevin found out about Betty mopping up buckets of blood and hiding bodies like he talking about Joaquin doing. But not like this. Just give me the whole fucking monkey at this point

The Serpents are just not a gang anymore. This is the opposite of what a gang is. Now you’re all tools of the government!!!

JOAQUIN’S BB BRO!?!?! Awwww, this brings me back to stories about Joaquin having an OC older brother. I even think one was named Ricky

Well now I”m genuinely crying. This show doesn’t deserve my tears, and it never deserved Luke

Veronica kicking the adults out is probably the first scene of hers I’ve genuinely enjoyed in a long time outside of shipping scenes

Arsonist Betty isn’t as good as Arsonist Cheryl, but I’ll take it.

A literal firewalk was not what I had in mind, but I guess that’s all you can expect from these writers

#Riverdale #Riverdale liveblog #long post

5 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 3 years

Text

The Little Things is Better Than a Seven Copycat

https://ift.tt/3tiN3nM

This article contains spoilers for The Little Things and Seven.

Critics have not been kind to The Little Things, the new Warner Bros./HBO Max psychological thriller starring Denzel Washington and Rami Malek as two Los Angeles cops obsessed with catching a vicious serial killer. Although the film is apparently doing very decent business–especially on the streaming end–it sits at a mediocre 48 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, with many comparing it to the 1995 classic Seven. In that juxtaposition, The Little Things is coming up short.

On the surface, there are a number of similarities between writer-director John Lee Hancock’s new police melodrama and David Fincher’s masterpiece from 25 years ago (with the exception of The Little Things’ opening scene, which seems closer to Fincher’s later Zodiac). Yet despite parallels in the two films’ plot structure, character relationships, settings, and themes, there are key differences that set them apart upon a closer look. These distinctions may also provide The Little Things with a more level critical playing field.

Both films, at their simplest level, are about a pair of mismatched cops on the hunt for a depraved murderer terrorizing a vast city. One of the cops is an older veteran–Denzel Washington in The Little Things, Morgan Freeman in Seven–who has all but mentally and physically checked out of the job; the other copper–Rami Malek in The Little Things, Brad Pitt in Seven–is younger, more energetic, and more eager to prove his mettle, perhaps ascending in the ranks of the police force.

By the close of both films, a suspect is confronted and manages to get the upper hand (at least psychologically) on the protagonists. As both films wind down, the cocky, ambitious, younger cop has been destroyed emotionally by the ordeal while the older, wiser vet deals with the aftermath of the experience in his own, perhaps more restrained way. (It’s interesting to note that both veterans are played by Black men in the films, perhaps indicating that they are much more aware than their white partners that injustice in the world often goes unpunished.)

Yet here, aside from certain visual cues and period details, is where The Little Things and Seven begin to diverge along separate paths. Keep in mind that Hancock wrote his first draft of the former movie in 1993, a full two years before Seven hit movie screens. While not influenced by a specific real-life killer, Hancock almost certainly dialed into the climate of fear in California following the locally sourced rampages of monsters like Richard Ramirez (The Night Stalker), Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono Jr. (The Hillside Stranglers), and Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris (The Tool Box Killers).

Seven screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, meanwhile, said in contemporary interviews that his story was not inspired by a real-life reign of terror but by a period of time he spent living in New York City while trying to make it in the film business. He told Cinefantastique magazine, “I didn’t like my time in New York, but it’s true that if I hadn’t lived there I probably wouldn’t have written Seven.”

Let’s take a look at the other ways in which Seven and The Little Things are not the mirror images that they may seem to be at first glance.

Is It Really the Same 1990s Setting?

Thanks to the dark visual palette of both films (and to be fair, The Little Things does recreate some of Seven’s visual motifs, like flashlight beams lasering through a blackened out room), it’s easy to think that the two movies are set in an almost identical time and place. But the truth is a little more nuanced. Both movies were shot in and around Los Angeles, but only The Little Things is specifically set in LA; the city in Seven is never named. It’s also raining or overcast almost constantly in Seven, which would throw off anyone who thinks that the movie is supposed to take place in sunny Southern California.

Both films stage many of their sequences in grittier sections of the city, but while you know it’s LA in The Little Things, Seven creates an overall, more surreal impression that the film’s nameless metropolis itself is falling apart at the seams, and that evil and darkness seem to be feeding at its very core.

Also while Seven was written and filmed in the early-to-mid-1990s, the exact year in which it takes place is never specified. That only enhances the timeless, allegorical quality that we suspect Fincher was going for from the start. The Little Things is set in 1990, and makes it obvious that things like cell phones, advanced methods of DNA profiling and other technological tools are not around yet. Both approaches are valid, but Seven has a somewhat more nightmarish quality to it as a result.

Denzel Washington vs. Morgan Freeman

As we mentioned earlier, both The Little Things and Seven (not to mention scores of other films and TV shows that have come out in the past 30 years) are centered on a pair of cops, each driven by different forces, who pool their efforts to catch the killer. Both sets of cops bicker, question each other’s methods, and end up grudgingly respecting each other, even if they never quite become friends. But there the resemblance ends.

In Seven, Morgan Freeman’s William Somerset is the older, more experienced detective. When we first meet him, he’s weary, burned out and ready for his impending retirement; you get the impression that he’s seen way more than his fill. You also get the sense that he’s a very decent human being and police officer–Commissioner Jim Gordon probably wouldn’t mind recruiting him for the Gotham police department. His kind of noble civil servant is clearly a dying breed in his decaying town.

Meanwhile Joe “Deke” Deacon (Washington) in The Little Things is a far more compromised character. He left a post as a top detective in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for a low-key gig as a deputy sheriff about 120 miles north. And we learn that he exited several years earlier after suffering both a heart attack and a nervous breakdown while pursuing a similar killer.

Movies

Seven: The Brilliance of David Fincher’s Chase Scene

By Ryan Lambie

Movies

The Little Things Ending Explained

By David Crow

The case also cost him his marriage and estranged him from his daughters. And, as we find out late in the movie, it also cost him his conscience after he accidentally shot a survivor who he thought was a suspect in some bushes near a murder scene.

Neither Somerset nor Deacon want anything to do initially with the case at the heart of their respective movies, but both are inexorably drawn in. For Deacon, it is perhaps a chance at redemption; Somerset’s motivation is less clear, except that he perhaps wants to do one last thing to make life a little better in the city before he leaves forever. Deacon is ultimately compromised again (we’ll get to that a little later) while Somerset ends the movie by enigmatically hinting that he’s going to stick around a while longer and do his part to clean up a world “worth fighting for.”

Rami Malek vs. Brad Pitt

The characters played by Rami Malek and Brad Pitt are somewhat closer in temperament and motivation. Malek’s Jim Baxter is a young hotshot detective who’s eager to make his mark on the force, with ambition, energy, and intelligence to spare. Pitt’s David Mills is just transferred from what we gather is a far less inhospitable city, and at one point Somerset expresses surprise that Mills asked for the job. But both Mills and Baxter have a cocky self-confidence that makes the eventual destruction of each man the turning point of their respective movies.

That destruction of course comes at the hands of the movies’ villains/suspects and involves an insidious taunting that results in an unconscionable act of violence. In both movies, the detectives are led out to remote desert locations to allegedly reclaim the body/bodies of the killer’s last victim(s). Once there, the suspects get under the skin of the young detectives, resulting in both Baxter and Mills killing their antagonists–the former with a shovel, the latter with a gun. But there’s a major difference between the two.

While Mills’ killing of the suspect is arguably understandable when it’s revealed that the latter’s last victim was Mills’ wife–confirmed by the delivery of her head in a box–Mills still faces punishment for executing an unarmed suspect. Baxter, meanwhile, slaughters his suspect without definitively knowing that the man committed a single murder. In fact, his suspect, Albert Sparma (Jared Leto), denies killing anyone while Seven’s John Doe (Kevin Spacey) freely admits to everything.

Baxter is rescued by Deacon, who covers up his partner’s crime and puts them both in a morally and ethically compromised position; Somerset is in no position to do the same, although we don’t imagine he would. While Baxter doesn’t lose any members of his own family (he has a wife and two little daughters), he is still traumatized by his obsession and its outcome–he’s killed a possibly innocent man, he hasn’t found the last victim, and the killer could still be out there. We’re not sure if he’ll snap out of it, even when Deacon takes further action (faking evidence) to ease Baxter’s conscience. Mills, meanwhile, may never recover from the loss of his wife and unborn baby and his own associated guilt.

As for Somerset and Deacon…as we mentioned earlier, Somerset seems likely to stay on the force a little longer and keep doing his best, if only to honor his partner, while Deacon–who’s probably guilty of manslaughter in his earlier case and is now also an accessory to murder–retreats back to his grubby little mobile home up north.

The Right Man Or Not?

The Little Things and Seven present us with two uniquely different antagonists. In The Little Things, Leto’s creepy, snarky Sparma is an appliance repairman linked by circumstantial evidence to the most recently confirmed murder by LA’s new serial killer. But even though Sparma seems to relish being in the spotlight as the chief suspect–and deliberately dangles the possibility that he is the killer, only to withdraw it often within the same conversation–there is no indisputable evidence that attaches him to the murders.

Sparma does have a shady background and a couple of minor convictions on his record. He also admits to being a devotee of true crime, and even falsely claimed responsibility for a murder some years back. Yet he denies being the killer that Baxter and Deacon are looking for–even though his taunting about the crimes is eventually enough to cause Baxter to snap and kill him.

We may never know Sparma’s real motivation, but we know that of John Doe (Kevin Spacey), the nameless villain in Seven. His staging of macabre, agonizing deaths, each representing the seven deadly sins, is nothing less than a judgment upon humanity itself, a tapestry of depravity woven together to paint a picture of a lost, unsalvageable society. Unlike Sparma, Doe takes full responsibility for his actions and even works his own death at the hands of Mills into the plan. And while Sparma is a genuinely unsettling person, he is meant to be “real,” with a background, a job, and a semblance of a life. John Doe, in keeping with Seven’s more surreal aspects, has no past, no history, no identification, not even fingerprints. He’s a cipher and we’re meant to even wonder whether he’s a human being.

How It All Ends

By the end of both Seven and The Little Things, both trios of main characters are irrevocably changed. The suspects are dead, two cops’ lives are damaged or outright destroyed, and the other two lick their wounds in radically different ways. But both stories have different things they want to say at the end.

Seven is less a procedural and more an allegory–or perhaps a meditation–on the nature and pervasiveness of evil. It is an atmospheric, dread-inducing, and even frightening movie, yet its ultimate theme seems to be that as long as one person keeps fighting, hope can remain alive. That is made clear by Somerset’s vow to stay “around” at the film’s conclusion, despite his desperate yearning to retire and despite the psychological destruction of his partner.

The Little Things, meanwhile, has a message about how obsession and certainty can ruin a person’s life and force them to do things they never imagined. More specifically, it’s about how the nature of police work itself can enact that terrible toll on even the finest or smartest among us. We can probably assume that Deacon and Baxter started their careers with the best of intentions, but by the end of The Little Things both are revealed to be badly poisoned by their actions. Deacon retreats back into hiding and continues the cover-up, while we’re not sure what will happen to Baxter.

Perhaps the reason why Seven is a masterpiece and The Little Things is a solid yet flawed thriller is because of how they both make us feel. In The Little Things, we don’t fully empathize with Baxter or Deacon, whose choices are consistently the wrong ones. The movie has to work harder to get the two cops into the desert for the final confrontation with Sparma, and the personal stakes for Baxter are not high enough for him to initiate the fatal action he takes–his own family, who we barely get to know, are not in immediate danger.

In Seven, we ultimately empathize more with Mills and Somerset, giving the film the extra resonance and sense of tragedy that elevate it into a classic. We are genuinely heartbroken by the fate of Mills and his family: we’ve spent some time with his wife Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow), who has confessed to Somerset earlier in the film that she never even wanted to come to this dying city in the first place. We feel more anguish and horror over her gruesome death, yet against all instincts, we still don’t want Mills to shoot John Doe and seal his own doom. And even after that bleak climactic moment, there’s an ever so slight but palpable sense of relief that Somerset is going to stick around after all.

In the final analysis, and weirdly enough for a movie so dark, Seven has the more optimistic ending, and therefore the more satisfying one.The Little Things is out now in limited theaters and on HBO Max through the end of February.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The post The Little Things is Better Than a Seven Copycat appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3cDV3tR

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

0 notes

paisleysoundmedia · 3 years

Text

Blog Post #5 (Week 8)

Part one: The Expressive Power of Music, Voice, and Sound Effects in Cinema

In chapter 7 of Sound Design: The Expressive Power of Music, Voice, and Sound Effects in Cinema, David Sonnenschein details many of the ways that music and other sounds can help deliver a narrative storyline. He dives into several techniques that a filmmaker could use when incorporating sound into a film, and includes several experiments for the reader to try (all labeled with “Try This”).

Key points:

Anempathetic Music: Anempathetic music is music associated with a specific setting or mood, but used in contrast with that association. Calm music during a chaotic or violent scene, cheerful music during a tragic scene, sad music during an otherwise happy scene, etcetera. Anempathetic music can be used to create a dissonance between the characters emotions and the audience’s emotions, sometimes for comedic effect. An example of Anempathetic music in film would be the scene in Finding Dory in which a truck full of fish comes crashing down to the sea. The screaming driver is inaudible, his voice replaced by Louis Armstrong’s What A Wonderful World.

Diegetic VS non-diegetic audio: Diegetic audio in a fictional work is audio that canonically happens in the world of the characters. If a character attempts to remove the needle from a record player and accidentally drops it, that record scratch is diegetic. The character can hear it and it is physically happening in their world. However, if a character receives a piece of shocking new information and the audio design includes a record scratch to symbolize their brain processing new information, that is non-diegetic. It isn’t happening in the world of the characters, it is a metaphor for the audience.

Narrative cueing: Narrative cueing is the process of using non-diegetic sound to create a mood or help advance the narrative. Non-diegetic music is often used for this purpose.

Part Two: Designing a Movie For Sound

In Randy Thom’s essay “Designing A Movie for Sound”, Randy Thom bemoans the modern idea that “good sound” is merely loud sound. Thom argues that a dynamic piece of audio that fits well with the story is better than loud and all-encompassing noise just for its own sake. Randy Thom also criticizes the common treatment of sound design as an afterthought. He notes that in both Star Wars and Apocalypse Now sound was a continuous process alongside the filmmaking, sound was accounted for and thought about during all stages of the filmmaking process. As a result, both films have excellent sound design that contributes to their story. Thom makes the case that by relegating sound to a post-production role, filmmakers miss out on creative and innovative ways to use sound in their work. Thom also makes the argument that film is not a visual medium, at least not exclusively. Film is like a marriage between audio and visual, both play equal roles.

Key Terms:

ADR: Dialogue that gets created or recreated in post-production. Sometimes this dialogue is “walla” (ambiguous background talking that the audience does not need to understand) and sometimes it is the main dialogue (usually because the original take is unusable).

The 100% Theory: The idea that every department involved with a piece of media takes on their role as though the quality of the film is 100% dependent on their work specifically. This can be a problem because having an overwhelming amount of dialogue can mess with the sound design, an overwhelming amount of sound design can drown out dialogue, some directors make no consideration for the other departments at all, and this problem at its worst can destroy the cohesiveness of a film.

Starving The Eye: Starving the eye is intentionally subtle filmmaking that leaves room for ambiguity. Randy Thom argues in favour of starving the eye, claiming that the ability to answer questions in a film is one of the main things that compels an audience to watch that film in the first place.

Part 3: Sound Talents

For a film that uses music to “suggest a mood, evoke a feeling” I would point to the use of Carol of the Bells in Home Alone. In the film, 8-year-old Kevin is in a fight with two burglars after being left alone during the Christmas season. Carol of the Bells is a recurring motif during tense moments of the film. Carol of the Bells works well in this role, because it is a tense piece of music. The repetitive “Hark! How the bells, sweet silver bells” melody grows in intensity with every iteration and the feeling is harrowing. However, Carol of the Bells is also a Christmas carol, so it does a marvellous job at evoking the feeling of danger at Christmas.

For an example of a film using sound to “clarify the plot” I would use the Disney film Enchanted. In Enchanted, Gizelle and Edward sing the song I’ve Been Dreaming of a True Love’s Kiss when they meet and the motif follows Gizelle throughout the film. When Gizelle is poisoned and only true love’s kiss can save her, Edward kisses her and the motif swells. However, Gizelle does not wake up and the motif is played again in a minor key. This musical motif change tells the audience that Edward is not Gizelle’s true love,

As my example of a film that uses sound to “heighten realism or diminish it” I am going to discuss the 2013 film adaptation of The Great Gatsby. The film is set in the 1920s, but the music throughout the film is contemporary and the score was executive-produced by Jay-Z. This creates a disconnect between the lavish 1920s settings and the pop-and-hiphop-filled score. This diminishes the realism of the film for effect and draws a comparison between Jay Gatsby and modern-day celebrities.

My last example is of a film that uses sound to “exaggerate action or mediate it”. For this example I would like to look at the beginning of the Disney film Frozen. The film begins with the audience looking up from below the surface of a frozen lake. Soft footsteps can be heard as a man walks across the surface of the ice. The lull of the soft footsteps is broken by the sound of a saw piercing the ice, followed by several more saws. The saws follow a perfect rhythm that exaggerates the action of cutting the ice. This exaggeration is important because it sets up that ice is valuable. The people who cut the ice are not cutting it to fish, they are selling it. We later meet Kristoff, a man who sells ice for a living and this theme is reinforced. When Queen Elsa comes to accept her ice powers at the end of the film it is no surprise to the audience, because ice = valuable was ingrained from the first second of the movie.

Works Cited

Buck, Chris, and Jennifer Lee. Frozen. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2013.

Columbus, Chris. Home Alone. Twentieth Century Fox, 1990.

Lima, Kevin. Enchanted. Disney., 2007.

Luhrmann, Baz. The Great Gatsby. Warner Bros., 2013.

Sonnenschein, David. Sound Design: The Expressive Power of Music, Voice, and Sound Effects in Cinema. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions, 2001

Stanton, Andrew, and Angus MacLane. Finding Dory. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2016.

Thom, Randy. Designing a Movie for Sound. 1999.

0 notes

dweemeister · 6 years

Text

My alternative 90th Academy Awards

So here’s another annual tradition... my alternative Oscars ceremony. This is what this Sunday’s Oscars would look like if I – and I alone – stuffed the ballots and decided on all of the nominations and winners. Non-English language films are accompanied by their nation of origin (in FIFA three-letter code).

90th Academy Awards – March 4, 2018 Dolby Theatre – Hollywood, Los Angeles, California Host: Jimmy Kimmel Broadcaster: ABC

Best Picture: LADY BIRD

The Breadwinner, Anthony Leo, Tomm Moore, Andrew Rosen, and Paul Young (Cartoon Saloon/GKIDS)

Call Me by Your Name, Peter Spears, Luca Guadagnino, Emilie Georges, Rodrigo Teixeira, Marco Morabito, James Ivory, and Howard Rosenman (Sony Pictures Classics)

Coco, Darla K. Anderson (Pixar/Walt Disney)

Dunkirk, Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan (Warner Bros.)

Faces Places (FRA), Rosalie Varda (Le Pacte/Cohen Media Group)

The Florida Project, Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch, Kevin Chinoy, Andrew Duncan, Alex Saks, Francesca Silvestri, and Shih-Ching Tsou (A24)

Lady Bird, Scott Rudin, Eli Bush, and Evelyn O’Neil (A24)

Phantom Thread, Paul Thomas Anderson, Megan Ellison, JoAnne Sellar, and Daniel Lupi, (Focus/Universal)

The Post, Steven Spielberg, Kristie Macosko Krieger, and Amy Pascal (20th Century Fox)

The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro and J. Miles Dale (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Out of the running in real life are Darkest Hour, Three Billboards, and Get Out. And taking the maximum of ten spots, in their place enter The Breadwinner, Coco, Faces Places, The Florida Project. That’s two animated movies, a documentary, and a neglected critical darling... come at me? I was lukewarm over Darkest Hour, pissed off over Three Billboards, and I honestly don’t think Get Out is as effective a horror movie or a commentary on racial relations that it wants to be.

Lady Bird would be my winner, with Phantom Thread your runner-up and either Faces Places or The Shape of Water as your third spot. For Lady Bird, it would be harder to find a movie with as much empathy as it this calendar year. Maybe not the most technically gifted filmmaking of the nominees, but it accomplishes its conceit with an open ear and an open heart. Bravo.

I noticed that I don’t have time to write on all the Best Picture nominees anymore, like in years past. I only got to Dunkirk and The Post – both of which are on the outside looking in.

Best Director

Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water

Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird

Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk

Dee Rees, Mudbound

Agnès Varda and JR, Faces Places

CONTROVERSY. Dee Rees nominated in Director, but Mudbound��isn’t nominated for Picture! In all honesty, I couldn’t find the excuse to nudge Mudbound out for any of the nominees I placed above. But to focus on the positive, del Toro is going to make it three Mexican Best Director winners in the last four years... that is exhilarating. Nolan is my close second choice here, and falters a bit because I didn’t personally enjoy the structure of Dunkirk all that much.

Best Actor

Timothée Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name

Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread

Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out

Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour

Andy Serkis, War for the Planet of the Apes

No CMBYN fans, there will not be any justice for you on my blog either. Because the best performance of the year by an actor of a leading role was done in motion capture... it was Andy Serkis as Caesar in War for the Planet of the Apes. It’s been high time to honor Serkis in what is his best work – aside from his performances as Gollum – to date.

Best Actress

Ahn Seo-hyun, Okja

Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water

Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird

Meryl Streep, The Post

The quieter performances aren’t going to win at this year’s Oscars. McDormand’s flashier performance in Three Billboards will overshadow Hawkins’ nuanced, silent performance in SoW. That’s wrong to me, as I think Hawkins does so much physically that is so taxing for any actor that would dare take a role like that. South Korean child actress Ahn Seo-hyun just sneaks in for Okja.

Best Supporting Actor

Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project

Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water

Bob Odenkirk, The Post

Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World

My least favorite acting category this year. So I’ll toss it to Dafoe for The Florida Project... who, on Sunday, is probably going to lose to a flashier performance in Sam Rockwell for Three Billboards (who shouldn’t have been nominated). Plummer and Odenkirk are in a close battle for second.

Best Supporting Actress

Mary J. Blige, Mudbound

Tiffany Haddish, Girls Trip

Allison Janney, I, Tonya

Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread

Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird

This is Manville v. Metcalf for me. And for playing the deeply layered, deeply conflicted, tough-love mother in Lady Bird, this has to be Metcalf for me. It is ta transcendent supporting actress performance. And yes, I snuck Tiffany Haddish in here... because why not?

Best Adapted Screenplay

James Ivory, Call Me by Your Name

Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, The Disaster Artist

Scott Frank, James Mangold, and Michael Green, Logan

Dee Rees and Virgil Williams, Mudbound

Aaron Sorkin, Molly’s Game

If I ran the Oscars, the 89-year-old James Ivory wouldn’t have won an Oscar by now either. I hate to type that, but timing is a funny thing! Fate and time are funny things, aren’t they? This category isn’t close. Dee Rees makes history as the first nominated black woman in this category!

Best Original Screenplay

Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread

Sean Baker and Chris Bergoch, The Florida Project

Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird

Liz Hannah and Josh Singer, The Post

Jordan Peele, Get Out

I’ve already commented how much I think Get Out is more flawed a movie than most believe. This comes down to Anderson and Gerwig for me... and my Best Picture winner, I think, is blessed with the screenplay of the year for capturing a time, a place, and its characters at a certain point in their lives so wonderfully.

Best Animated Feature

The Breadwinner (Cartoon Saloon/GKIDS)

Coco (Pixar/Walt Disney)

The Girl Without Hands, France (Shellac/GKIDS)

Loving Vincent (Next Film/Good Deed Entertainment)

Mary and the Witch’s Flower, Japan (Studio Ponoc/GKIDS)

SHOCKER. For me, I was considering a tie in this category (which has happened six times in Academy Awards history... so I guess I have to save it for once every fifteen ceremonies or something) between Breadwinner (write-up) and Coco (write-up). This would be Cartoon Saloon’s first win in my alternate universe... in that same alternative universe for 2009, The Secret of Kells would’ve lost to Up; for 2014, Song of the Sea would’ve lost to eventual Best Picture winner The Tale of the Princess Kaguya.

Coco fans, don’t despair though. Keep reading... because your movie isn’t going home empty-handed.

I totally disrespected Ferdinand and Boss Baby didn’t I?

Best Documentary Feature

Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (Kartemquin Films/Public Broadcasting Service)

Faces Places, France (Le Pacte/Cohen Media Group)

Jane (National Geographic)

LA92 (National Geographic)

Last Men in Aleppo (Aleppo Media Center/Larm Film/Grasshopper Film)

I don’t think this would be Agnès Varda’s first Oscar in my alternative universe? I’ll get to doing the 1960s someday. :P

Best Foreign Language Film

Faces Places, France

The Insult, Lebanon

Loveless, Russia

Mary and the Witch’s Flower, Japan

The Square, Sweden

Best Cinematography

Roger Deakins, Blade Runner 2049

Janusz Kaminski, The Post

Rachel Morrison, Mudbound

Jonathan Ricquebourg, The Death of Louis XIV (FRA)

Hoyte Van Hoytema, Dunkirk

Morrison makes history by being the first female nominee in this category and as its first winner. Sorry Roger Deakins! You probably would’ve won earlier in my alternative universe anyways.

Best Film Editing

Michael Kahn, The Post

Paul Machliss and Jonathan Amos, Baby Driver

Gregory Plotkin, Get Out

Lee Smith, Dunkirk

Sidney Wolinsky, The Shape of Water

Best Original Musical*

M.M. Keeravani, Baahubali 2: The Conclusion

Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Coco

Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, The Greatest Showman

*NOTE: Best Original Musical – known previously as several other names – exists in the Academy’s rulebooks, but requires activation from the music branch given that there are enough eligible films. To qualify, a film must have no fewer than five original songs. This category was last activated when Prince won for Purple Rain (1984).

You know, this might change some day if I sit down and watch Baahubali 2. I’ve listened to the soundtrack, but I haven’t seen the songs in context. Sorry Indian cinema fans! Coco fans must be getting mighty mad at me for now... but Coco’s musical score – outside of two original songs (“Remember Me” and “Proud Corazón”) and one non-original song (“La Llorana”) – isn’t the best out of context. The Greatest Showman – I think Pasek and Paul are far better lyricists than they are composers (and yes, that’s a problem) – has songs that do very well in and out of context, and takes the win in this category.

Best Original Score

Alexandre Desplat, The Shape of Water

Alexandre Desplat, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Michael Giacchino, War for the Planet of the Apes

John Williams, The Post

John Williams, Star Wars: The Last Jedi

It really comes down to Valerian, Apes, and Jedi. And in this titanic battle over science fiction and space opera, it is Desplat for the much-maligned Valerian taking the Oscar home. The score combines seamlessly enormous orchestral and electronic elements to a degree that I haven’t heard from Desplat yet. It barely edges Williams for The Last Jedi... which benefits from some of Williams’ best action scoring in years and a repackaging of older themes in ways showing off the dexterity of the maestro. Giacchino is third, with Desplat for SoW in fourth, and The Post in fifth. Jonny Greenwood for Phantom Thread is the first man out.

Best Original Song

“Mighty River”, music by Raphael Saadiq; lyrics by Mary J. Blige, Saadiq, and Taura Stinson, Mudbound

“A Million Dreams”, music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, The Greatest Showman

“Mystery of Love”, music and lyrics by Sufjan Stevens, Call Me by Your Name

“Remember Me (Recuérdame)”, music and lyrics by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, Coco

“This Is Me”, music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, The Greatest Showman

Also proudly the winner of the 2017 Movie Odyssey Award for Best Original Song (some of you know what that means), “Remember Me (Recuérdame)” has everything you want – interesting musicality (even though I still think that descending line, which begins with “For ever if I’m far away / I hold you in my heart” sounds far more like something Randy Newman would compose than something distinctly Mexican) meaningful lyrics, layers of meaning within the movie it comes from, and a life of its own when separated from that movie.

Showstopper “This Is Me” comes a distant second, with the others in a scrum for crumbs. I really like “A Million Dreams”, though. My sister will take me to task over how much I enjoyed The Greatest Showman’s soundtrack (which I enjoyed despite finding it musically uninteresting).

Best Costume Design

Jacqueline Durran, Beauty and the Beast

Jen Wasson, The Beguiled

Nina Avramovic, The Death of Louis XIV

Mark Bridges, Phantom Thread

Luis Sequeira, The Shape of Water

Best Makeup & Hairstyling

Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski, and Lucy Sibbick, Darkest Hour

John Blake and Camille Friend, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Neal Scanlan and Peter King, Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Thi Thanh Tu Nguyen and Félix Puget, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Arjen Tuiten, Wonder

Best Production Design

Dennis Gassner and Alessandra Querzola, Blade Runner 2049

Jim Clay and Rebecca Alleway, Murder on the Orient Express

Paul Denham Austerberry, Shane Vieau, and Jeff Melvin, The Shape of Water

Hugues Tissandier, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Aline Bonetto and Dominic Hyman, Wonder Woman

Best Sound Editing

Mark Mangini and Theo Green, Blade Runner 2049

Richard King and Alex Gibson, Dunkirk

Al Nelson and Steve Slanec, Kong: Skull Island

Matthew Wood and Ren Klyce, Star Wars: The Last Jedi

James Mather, Wonder Woman

Best Sound Mixing

Julian Slater, Tim Cavagin, and Mary H. Ellis, Baby Driver

Ron Bartlett, Doug Hemphill, and Mac Ruth, Blade Runner 2049

Mark Weingarten, Gregg Landaker, and Gary A. Rizzo, Dunkirk

Christian Cooke, Brad Zoern, and Glen Gauthier, The Shape of Water

David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce, and Stuart Wilson, Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Best Visual Effects

John Nelson, Gerd Nefzer, Paul Lambert, and Richard R. Hoover, Blade Runner 2049

Scott Fisher and Andrew Jackson, Dunkirk

Ben Morris, Mike Mulholland, Neal Scanlan, and Chris Corbould, Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Scott Stokdyk and Jérome Lionard, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Joe Letteri, Daniel Barrett, Dan Lemmon, and Joel Whist, War for the Planet of the Apes

Best Documentary Short

Edith+Eddie (Kartemquin Films)

Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405 (Frank Stiefel)

Heroine(e) (Requisite Media/Netflix)

Knife Skills (Thomas Lennon Films)

Traffic Stop (Q-Ball Productions/HBO Films)

My omnibus review of this year’s nominees can be read here.

Best Live Action Short

DeKalb Elementary (Reed Van Dyk)

The Eleven O’Clock (FINCH)

My Nephew Emmett (Kevin Wilson, Jr.)

The Silent Child (Slick Films)

Watu Wote: All of Us, Germany/Kenya (Ginger Ink Films/Hamburg Media School)

My omnibus review of this year’s nominees can be read here.

Best Animated Short

Dear Basketball (Glen Keane Productions)

In a Heartbeat (Ringling College of Art and Design)

Lou (Pixar/Walt Disney)

Revolting Rhymes (Magic Light Pictures/Triggerfish Animation Studios/BBC)

World of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts (Bitter Films)

My omnibus review of this year’s nominees can be read here. I took out Negative Space and Garden Party for my winner In a Heartbeat and World of Tomorrow Episode Two. If you haven’t seen In a Heartbeat yet... first, where the hell have you been? Under a rock? Here’s the link.

Academy Honorary Awards: Agnès Varda, Charles Burnett, Donald Sutherland, and Owen Roizman

Special Achievement Academy Award: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Flesh and Sand

MULTIPLE NOMINEES (22) Nine: The Shape of Water Seven: Dunkirk; The Post Six: Phantom Thread Five: Blade Runner 2049; Lady Bird; Mudbound; Star Wars: The Last Jedi Four: Call Me by Your Name; Coco; Faces Places; Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets Three: The Florida Project; Get Out; The Greatest Showman; War for the Planet of the Apes Two: Baby Driver; The Breadwinner; Darkest Hour; The Death of Louis XIV; Mary and the Witch’s Flower; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; Wonder Woman

WINNERS 4 wins: The Shape of Water 3 wins: Lady Bird 2 wins: Dunkirk; Faces Places; Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets; War for the Planet of the Apes 1 win: The Breadwinner; Call Me by Your Name; Coco; DeKalb Elementary; The Florida Project; The Greatest Showman; In a Heartbeat; Knife Skills; Mudbound; Phantom Thread

16 winners from 25 categories. 45 feature-length films and 15 short films were represented.

Questions? Comments? Personal attacks? Fire away!

#90th Academy Awards #Oscars #31 Days of Oscar

2 notes · View notes

weekendwarriorblog · 4 years

Text

The Weekend Warrior February 28, 2020 – THE INVISIBLE MAN, GREED

Welcome to Leap Weekend (if there is such a thing) as we get that one extra day of February for the first time in four years before we leap (get it?) headlong into March’s proverbial lion on Sunday.

This past weekend, 20th Century’s Call of the Wild did far better than anyone had projected as it benefited greatly from being one of the most Disney-friendly movies produced by the former Fox-house, as well as the solid reviews. Even though I probably had one of the highest projections for the weekend at $17 million, it ended up blowing that away with $25 million, coming out just below Sonic the Hedgehog. This coming weekend it might surpass it. Brahms II fell short of my already-low prediction. (Also, Impractical Jokers: The Movie ended up making $2.6 million in 357 theaters last weekend, just missing the top 10. Makes me curious how many more theaters it will expand into this weekend... but we’ll get back to that in a bit.)

Thankfully, this weekend we only get one new wide release, and it’s a good one, as Saw and Insidious co-creator Leigh Whannell takes on HG Wells’ THE INVISIBLE MAN (Universal) with Elisabeth Moss playing the unseen killer’s primary victim, one who believes her toxic and abusive ex Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen from “The Haunting of Hill House”) is dead, but in fact, he’s just invisible! I know, it sounds cornier than it actually is. By the time you read this, I’ll have probably already written my full review so you already know that I kind of dug what Whannell did here.

This will be an interesting test to see if Moss can bring her popularity from shows like “The Handmaiden’s Tale” and “Mad Men” to the big screen since she really hasn’t been the lead in many big studio releases. Obviously, she had a fairly big role in Jordan Peele’s Uslast year, which was also produced by Jason Blum for Universal, and that did decently by opening with $71 million. (That movie got a huge boost by being Peele’s follow-up to the Oscar-winning Get Out with the amazing Lupita Nyong’o.) A few months later, Moss’ co-starring role in the WB graphic novel-based crime thriller The Kitchen tanked even with support from bigger stars like Melissa McCarthy and Tiffany Haddish. The Invisible Man will be a good test to see if Moss can carry a major wide release, already having a strong fanbase, especially among critics thanks to last year’s indie Her Smell.

There’s a pretty long history of Universal’s Classic Monsters being brought back to the screen with Dracula and Frankenstein getting the most iterations -- some more successful than others. Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 movie Bram Stoker’s Dracula was one of the bigger hits for the time, grossing $82 million after a $30 million opening, and this was 1992 money, mind you.

Just ten years ago, Universal’s The Wolf Man opened with $31.5 million over the Presidents Day weekend and ended up grossing $61.9 million, the name value of its title character helping quite a bit but only for that opening weekend. Even though it was universally (ha ha) panned, Tom Cruise’s The Mummy reboot also opened with $31.7 million (in the summer) although it failed to kick-start Universal’s planned “Dark Universe” shared universe of films. The lack of quality for those projects may hurt The Invisible Man with moviegoers who have felt like they’ve been burned too many times before, but we’ll have to see how the critics feel about it. (Reviews so far are mostly positive, at the time of this writing.)

Going back further, the Paul Verhoeven thriller Hollow Man, starring Kevin Bacon, opened with $26.4 million on its way to $73.2 million, so I can’t see any reason why 20 years later, The Invisible Man can’t find similar success.

Sure, there’s been a serious downturn on horror over the past two months with so many pretty mediocre horror movies getting released, few of them doing well. The name brand of The Invisible Man and the Blumhouse branding (not to mention Universal’s marketing, which has done a decent job with the trailers and commercials) should allow it to make $26 to 30 million (maybe more?) – it won’t have a problem being the #1 movie at the box office this weekend regardless.

My Review of The Invisible Man

My Interview with Leigh Whannell over at VitalThrills.com

The Invisible Man shouldn’t have a hard time taking #1 whether it ends up on the low point of projections or breaks out with something closer to $30 million or more. Even more interesting to watch is the bottom of the top 10 and whether last week’s Emma or Impractical Jokers: the Movie might break into the top 10 depending on their respective expansions. The latter might have a slight advantage since it might be targeting 700 to 800 theaters or more while Emma is only expanding into about 100 theaters before its nationwide release next week.

Also, apparently the popular manga series “My Hero Academia” is coming to the big screen starting tonight with the nationwide release of My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising, but since I know almost nothing about the series or how many theaters it might open in, there’s not much more I can add. Maybe it’ll do well enough to break into the top 10, but who really knows? The previous movie grossed $5.5 million domestically with an August ‘18 opening, and presumably, its sequel can do even better with the series being even more popular. I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt that it could end up with $3 million over the weekend if it opens in 500 or more theaters, but it’s really a stab in the dark here.

1. The Invisible Man (Universal) - $30.6 million N/A (up $2 million)*

2. Call of the Wild (20th Century) - $15.4 million -38%

3. Sonic the Hedgehog (Paramount) - $14 million -47%

4. Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey (Warner Bros) - $3.5 million -48%

5. Bad Boys for Life (Sony) - $3.5 million -40%

6. My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising (FUNimation) - $3.1 million N/A* (based on 550 theaters - note that this opens Weds i.e. today)

7. 1917 (Universal) - $2.6 million -38%

8. Brahms: The Boy II (STXfilms) - $2.5 million -57%

9. The Impractical Jokers Movie (TruTV) - $2.2 million -15%* (based on 750 theaters)

10. Jumanji: The Next Level (Sony) - $2.1 million -35%

11. Emma. (Focus Features) or Parasite (NEON) - $1.7 million (down .3 million)

*UPDATE: Giving Invisible Man a little boost since it’s opening in about 600 more theaters than my earlier projection plus the reviews have mostly been positive which will definitely help. Still no actual theater counts for My Hero Academia and The Impractical Jokers movie, so I guess we’ll have to see when numbers come in Saturday where they end up.

LIMITED RELEASES

This week’s FEATURED MOVIE is GREED (Sony Pictures Classics), the new collaboration between Michael Winterbottom and Steve Coogan, whose earlier films, 24 Hour Party People and “The Trip” movies (a fourth one coming out this summer!) are some of my favorite British comedies. In this one, Coogan plays Sir Richard McCreadie, the “King of High Street,” who has earned a reputation for his billion-dollar fashion store empire by negotiating wholesalers’ prices down, even when it means the already poorly-paid workers overseas are deprived further of anything close to a fair wage.

The film is told through a pseudo-doc format as McGreadie’s family and staff are preparing for his lavish 60th birthday soirée in Greece, complete with a facsimile version of Rome’s Colosseum so that “Greedy” McCreadie can fulfill his fantasies of being Russell Crowe in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator. What could possibly go wrong? The story is told through McGreadie’s biographer Nick (the amazing David Mitchell from Peep Show in a rare movie role!) who is going around the world talking to those who know McGreadie to get interviews for a video profile to be shown for the event.

Greed takes on a fairly standard mockumentary format with Winterbottom (who also cowrote this screenplay himself, another rarity for the filmmaker) putting together an impressive cast that includes Isla Fisher as McGreadie’s wife Samantha and Shirley Henderson as his mother (despite her being the same age as Coogan). Much of the humor comes from the comedy-of-errors surrounding this celebration with one thing going wrong after another but things getting progressively worse whenever McGreadie steps in to try to fix things.

The funny thing about watching Greed is that I spent most of the movie convinced it was a biopic about a real person ala 24 Hour Party People, vaguely remembering certain events as something I remember hearing about. Thanks to my old Beat editor Hannah Lodge for pointing out that the movie was in fact loosely based on the true story of billionaire Sir Philip Ross Green, someone I wasn’t even remotely familiar with but clearly was enough in the public consciousness to make me realize this film was loosely based on fact. (I’m sure that many will touch on the toxic masculinity clearly displayed by McGreadie which lines up with accusations about Green, who has repeatedly had his knighthood in danger of being repealed for his behavior and actions.)

I found Greed to be very funny but with a clear and poignant message about what the likes of “Greedy” are regularly getting away with at the expense of beleaguered workers in poverty-stricken countries. In that sense, it doesn’t hit the viewer too hard over the head with its message but still gets it across as well as any actual doc might. There’s also a great Knives Out style turn that will appeal to those who have gotten tired of the wealthy doing whatever they want and getting away with it.

There are other movies I’ll probably be watching this week and a few others that I won’t have a chance to watch.

Andrew Heckler’s BURDEN (101 Studios) premiered over two years ago at the Sundance Film Festival, but it’s finally being revived and released. It involves a Ku Klux Klan museum opening in a small racially-diverse town in South Carolina in 1996 and how it affects the people of the town. The story mainly revolves around Garrett Hedlund’s Mike Burden, a top soldier for the local KKK head Tom Griffin, played by Tom Wilkinson, who is odds with the local preacher, Reverend David Kennedy (played by Forrest Whitaker) about that museum. When Mike falls for a single mother (Andrea Riseborough), he has to start deciding whether he can leave the KKK despite his inbred hatred for blacks, including Kennedy, who helps him when Griffin turns the town against Mike. This is a decent drama that I wanted to like more because it deals with a really important message about allowing love to overcome hatred. It’s a strong story (based on true events) that features some amazing performances, but particularly from Riseborough (once again virtually unrecognizable!), but also Hedlund and Whitaker, both playing very difficult roles. I guess the problem is that Mike’s inevitable road to redemption is so bumpy with so many ups and downs, you love him, you hate him, he’s good, he’s bad… it really created quite an erratic tone whereas a tighter script could have made this a movie as good or better than Spike Lee’s BlackKklansman. It’s a shame, but I still it’s worth watching since it does deal with issues like racism and hatred that seem to constantly raise their ugly head even when we think there’s hope for a better world. It’ll open in select cities this Friday.s

Speaking of Sundance, Benh Zeitilin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild was all the rage at the festival all the way back in 2012, eventually getting four Oscar nominations, and he finally releases his follow-up WENDY (Fox Searchlight), a re-envisioning of the classic Peter Pan mythos. It once again features a group of no-name non-actors with Devin France in the title role and Yashua Mack playing Peter Pan.

Albert Shin’s moody thriller DISAPPEARANCE AT CLIFTON HILL (IFC Midnight) stars Tuppence Middleton (“Sense 8”) as Abby, a young woman who witnessed a kidnapping at Niagara Falls when she was a girl, who decides to return to home there to see if she can figure out who was responsible.

Apparently, John Turturro’s THE JESUS ROLLS, in which he reprises his bowling character from the Coens’ The Big Lebowski,is opening in select theaters this weekend. Turturro directed the movie that co-stars Bobby Cannavale, Audrey Tautou, Susan Sarandon and Sonia Braga, and for some reason, I thought it was opening on March 20 but apparently, it will be at the IFC Center starting this weekend!

Matthew Pope’s feature debut, the thriller Blood on her Name (Vertical), stars Bethany Ann Lind (from “Ozark”) as Leigh Tiller, a woman who discovers a body of a dead man with his blood draining out onto the floor, and she decides to cover it up while also feeling like she needs to return the body to the man’s family. It will get a special screening at the Nitehawk in Wiliamsburg on Thursday night with Pope, Lind and co-writer Don Thompson doing a QnA, and then will be On Demand (and other select cities) on Friday.

Next up is The Whistlers (Magnolia), the new film from Romanian filmmaker Cornelio Porumboiu (12:08 East of Bucharest, Police Adjective), and it’s a rare Romanian film that’s less than two hours long! It’s a policeman trying to free a crooked businessman from a Romanian prison, first travelling to Gomera, one of the Canary Islands, where he has to learn the local dialect that includes hissing and spissing. Bummed I missed this one. It will open at the Film Forum downtown and Film at Lincoln Center uptown, plus other cities.

Alex Thompson’s Saint Frances (Oscilloscope) is written by and stars Kelly O’Sullivan from “Sirens” as 34-year-old Bridge, who finally catches a break and gets a much-needed job taking care of a six-year-old (Ramona Edith-Williams) and also meets a nice guy but when she gets pregnant, it avoids to unexpected complications with her young liege.

Opening Thursday night at the IFC Center is James Sweeney’s rom-com Straight Up (Strand), starring Sweeney as Todd, an obsessive compulsive gay twenty-something who suddenly gets the existential feeling that maybe he isn’t gay after all. Meeting Karen Finlay’s Rory, a struggling actress, the two form a bond around their conversations. Sweeney and some of his cast will be doing QnAs at the IFC Center on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

Lastly, D.W. Young’s doc The Booksellers (Greenwich) looks behind the scenes at the world of rare books with appearances by Parker Posey, Fran Lebowitz and Gay Talese. It opens at the Quad in New York and other cities.

Also screening at the IFC Center Weds night is Stuart Sweezey’s excellent music doc Desolation Center, which looks at the efforts by an L.A. concert promoter to hold indie rock/punk shows in the Sahara Desert in the early ‘80s featuring the likes of Sonic Youth, Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Red Kross, Swans, Einstürzende Neubauten and more! The special screening will include a QnA with Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley, and having seen it at Rooftop Films last summer, I highly recommend it to fans of any of those bands.

LOCAL FESTIVALS

The big regional film for the New York area, and it’s one that I have yet to be able to attend, mainly since it takes place so far uptown, is the 10thannual Athena Film Festival, which is quite an amazing achievement for my friend Melissa Silverstein and her Women and Hollywood for putting this on for ten years.

This year’s fest runs from February 27 (this Thursday) through March 1 (Sunday), kicking off with Unjoo Moon’s I Am Woman, a biopic about Helen Reddy, who famously wrote that song in the ‘70s. It closes on the 1stwith Suffragette director Sarah Gavron’s Rocks, starring newcomer Bukky Bakray as a teen girl trying to take care of her younger brother and herself. The centerpiece films are Liz Garbus’ Lost Girls, starring Amy Ryan; Haiffa Al-Monsour’s The Perfect Candidate and the Oscar-nominated documentary For Sama. The festival includes a mix of new and already-released films including Harriet, Toni Morrison: the Pieces I Am and lots more. Click on the link above for the full schedule and program of films.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

Metrograph wraps up its month-long “To Hong Kong with Love” this weekend with the fictional anthology Ten Years (2015), James Leong’s 2018 film Umbrella Diaries: The First Umbrella (chronicling the recent revolution in Hong Kong) as well as a work in progress screening of Leong’s If We Burn. “Climate Crisis Parables” continues with Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011) shown again, as well as Bong Joon Ho’s Snowpiercer from 2013, Antonioni’s cRed Desert (1964) and Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979). Also this weekend, Welcome To Metrograph: Redux will screen the ‘80s classic Beverly Hills Cop (1984), starring Eddie Murphy, as well as Abel Ferrara’s equally classic Bad Lieutenant (1992), starring Harvey Keitel. Also screening Saturday evening is Jeff Kanew’s Black Rodeo (1972) as well as Vincent Gallo’s Buffalo ’88 (1998) and then Claude Chabrol’s 1960 film Les Bonnes Femmes on Monday night. This weekend’s Late Nites at Metrograph is Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1966) while Playtime: Family Matinees is David Lynch’s The Straight Story (1999) a good introduction of Lynch for the kiddies?

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE BROOKLYN (NYC)

Tonight’s “Weird Wednesday” is 1985’s softcore gladiator film The Perils of Gwendolyn (hosted by my pal, the wonderful Heather Buckley!). Showing earlier this evening (but sadly sold out) is the Tom Cruise/Brad Pitt classic Interview with the Vampire (1994). Thursday begins the Alamo’s “VHStival” with a screening of the 1987 flick Video Violence, and then next Monday’s “VHS Vortex” movie is Evil Spawn, also from 1987. Next Tuesday’s “Terror Tuesday” is the 2005 movie House of Wax and then next week’s “Weird Wednesday” is the classic Robocop 2 (1990) plus there’ll be a screening of William Friedkin’s Sorcerer from 1977 earlier next Weds, which more than likely will also sell out.

Over on the West Coast, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Downtown Los Angeles (which would earn you 4,256 points in Scrabble if you could even fit it on the board) is playing Voyage of the Rock Aliens (1984) as its “Weird Wednesday” tonight (it’s sold out) and then Thursday night is the J-Horror Bloodbath double feature of Demon Within and Biotherapy that New York got earlier in the month. (Also, sold out! Sorry!) Also on Saturday, the appropriate Amy Addams comedy Leap Year will screen in the afternoon. Sunday is a double feature of Destin Daniel Cretton’s movie Short Term 12, starring Brie Larson, is paired with Brett Haley’s new film All the Bright Places with Haley and writer Liz Hannah on hand to answer questions. You can either choose between that or Pawel Pawlikowski’s 2005 film Summer of Love, starring a very young Emily Blunt. Monday’s already sold-out “Out of Tune” hosted by my buddy Jeremy Wein (who keeps forgetting to tell me about these before they sell out!) is the Electric Light Orchestra and Olivia Newton-John collaboration Xanadu from 1980. Next week’s “Terror Tuesday” is Brian Yuzna’s Society from 1989 with the director in attendance.

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Wednesday’s Afternoon Classic is Vincente Minelli’s An American in Paris (1951), starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron, while the Weds/Thursday double features are Freebie and the Bean and Busting, both from 1974. 1992’s Candyman will screen as this week’s “Freaky Friday” and then Friday’s midnight movie is True Romance (again) and the Saturday midnight movie is Arthur Hiller’s The Hospital (1971) starring George C. Scott. This weekend’s Kiddee Matinee is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix from 2004 and the Monday’s matinee is Wesley Snipes in Passenger 57 (1992).

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Friday is the rescheduled Retroformat 2020 screening of 1913’s Traffic in Souls while Saturday begins a series of “Weinmar Variations” (free with RSVP!), German films made between 1919 and 1933 with musical accompaniment. Pandora’s Box from 1929 will screen on Saturday night and then Sunday’s “Sunday Print Edition” is Vincent Minelli’s The Clock (1945). Lav Daz will appear in person on Sundayfor a screening of a restoration of his 2001 film Batang West Side with a series on the Philipino filmmaker shared with Aero.

AERO (LA):

Thursday’s “Antiwar Cinema” matinee is The Mouse That Roared (1959), starring Peter Sellers and then Thursday night is a double feature “Salute to Kelly Reichardt” with Old Joy and River of Grass with Reichardt in person. Saturday is a series called “The End of History: The Cinema of Lav Diaz,” screening 2013’s Norte: the End of History with Diaz in person. Sunday evening’s double feature continues the Kelly Reichardt series with two of her picks: 1953’s Ugetsuand 1970’s Little by Little.

MOMA (NYC):

Modern Matinees: Jack Lemmonwraps up this week with 1954’s It Should Happen to You on Weds, Blake Edwards’ 1962 Days of Wine and Roses on Thursday and 1968’s The Odd Couple on Friday. (The next series will focus on the great Cicely Tyson!) The “Theater of Operations” film series also continues with Werner Herzog’s Lessons of Darkness (1992) on Sunday. The “It’s All in me: Black Heroines” series will screen David D. Williams’ 1993 film Lillian and All by Myself: The Eartha Kitt Story (1982) on Wednesday and more running through the weekend. “Television Movies: Big Pictures on the Small Screen” also continues through Friday.

NITEHAWK CINEMA (NYC):

Out in Brooklyn the Nitehawk in Williamsburgwill show the 1998 horror sequel Bride of Chucky on Friday night at midnight and Allison Anders’ 1993 film Mi Vida Loca as part of its “California Love” series on Saturday morning. (Not rep but another option for Saturday morning is seeing Rashaad Ernesto Green’s Premature which will screen at the Nitehawk on Saturday with the amazing Zora Howard and cinematographer Laura Valladao doing a QnA. (Also on Monday, the Nitehawk will screen the incredible 2018 doc Varda by Agnès, which I highly recommend. Meanwhile, Prospect Park will screen Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain from 2005 on Saturday morning and then IT will screen Premature on Monday, again with Howard and Valladao doing a QnA in case you have to miss the event on Saturday.

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

Starting Friday, BAM is doing a special series “Kelly Reichardt Selects: First Cow in Context” which will offer screenings of movies that inspired the indie filmmaker’s upcoming film, First Cow, which opens March 6. This weekend’s offerings include Agnès Varda’s The Gleaners and I, the 1953 Japanese film Ugetsu, Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali (1955), the 1978 Italian film The Tree of Wooden Clogsand more, as this runs through Weds with Melville’s Le Cercle Rougefrom 1970.

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

This weekend’s “See It Big! Outer Space” offerings including Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi classic Alien and John Carpenter’s 1974 film Dark Star, which was said to be an inspiration for Scott’s film. As usual, Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey will screen on Saturday afternoon as part of the exhibition.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Elem Klimov’s Come and See will continue through the weekend, as will Visconti’s L’Innocente, while the weekend’s “Film Forum Jr.” is Barbra Streisand’s Yentl from 1983 and then keep an eye out next week a new series called “The Women Behind Hitchcock,” which should be fairly exciting.

ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES (NYC):

Dušan Makavejev’s 1971 film WR: Mysteries of the Organism screens tonight and Sunday, as part of “Dušan Makavejev, Cinema Unbound” (that should really pull people in) while “Dream Dance: The Films of Ed Emshwiller” runs through Friday. To be perfectly honest, I know nothing about either of these filmmakers and if their films interest you, you’d be better off clicking on the links and doing some reading. Sorry.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

This week’s Weekend Classics: Luis Buñuelis Diary of a Chambermaid from 1964, while the Waverly Midnights: Hindsight is 2020s is Tim Burton’s 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes, starring Mark Wahlberg, and Late Night Favorites: Winter 2020, it takes the weekend off.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman will run through the weekend to next week but with only one or two screenings a day, but then on Friday, the Quad will pick up the new 4k restoration of Horace B. Jenkins’ Cane River (1982) that has been playing at BAM the past couple weekends with the filmmaker’s son Sacha Friday evening and Saturday afternoon.

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

Thursday’s Nicolas Cage movie is Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans from 2009.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

Friday night’s midnight movie is WilliamFriedkin’s Cruising (1980), starring Al Pacino.

STREAMING AND CABLE

This week on Netflix, we get Brett (The Hero, Hearts Beat Loud) Haley’s romantic drama All the Bright Places, starring Elle Fanning and Justice Smith, on Friday, as well as the first season of I’m Not Okay with This, a new series from the Stranger Things team, starring Sophia Lillis from It, and the South African spy thriller series Queen Sono, as well as the second season of Altered Carbon with Anthony Mackie.

Next week, it’s March, and the latest Disney-Pixar movie Onward takes on Ben Affleck in Warner Bros’ sports drama The Way Back. I’m not sure if I’ll be given a chance to see either.

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or send me a note on Twitter. I love hearing from readers!

#Greed TheInvisibleMan ElisabethMoss Movies Reviews Streaming Festivals Repertory TheWeekendWarrior

0 notes

geek-gem · 7 years

Text

Spider-Man Homecoming Review

Well so I’m done with the shower. I mean I really wanna talk about this. Also gonna get Google up so I can look at the Wikipedia page for the movie. Mainly so I can spell the actors names right.

Alright got that just so I’m not gonna reveal any spoilers but I wanna mention parts yet…I’ll talk about them just in a way. Including this is my first viewing. I wanna try to see the movie a 2nd time cause I see a Spider-Man movie 2 times. The only one I haven’t seen in theaters was Spider-Man 2 I was young and some shit man. Including I can get a bit more of a understanding.

Yet the first time just seeing the film and studying it.

The last post and this is my intro for this. This is maybe my favorite Spider-Man film. This is just a personal opinion yet okay it depends its been a long time since seeing the first and second Sam Rami film.

Yet also just as a film I liked this a shit ton, this is also maybe my favorite MCU film I think yet…this is my first time I just seem so hyped up or excited just happy even if I’m not smiling also wearing my just kill it shirt like my last review no it doesn’t suck oh head.

Sorry I need to mention. I’m a Spider-Man fanboy. Whether that’s good or bad. I wanna talk about my experience with the whole thing of Spider-Man being in the MCU now also some short thoughts on the MCU.

Random thing gonna say saw the Black Panther trailer and Justice League trailer those were awesome seeing those on screen and that trailer fully of that Jumgji however you spell it a movie Sony is remaking or some shit I don’t know.

Yet really the whole what I call the I dub the Month Of Spider-Man cause of the Sony hack in December 2014. I was one of the many people who wanted Spider-Man to be in the MCU and when the announcement was up also the weeks leading up to it the Spidey Summit I’m amazed and some what stupid I thought it was gonna be something like the Marvel Phase 3 announcement even Armin from Comicbookcast2 joked about people thinking that. The announcement was unbelievable I couldn’t believe it. Along with seeing Peter Parker and also Spider-Man appearing in a MCU film was one of just…the best theater moments of my life man. Because I was so happy I was smiling and my Nana even saw me smiling. Including remembering my excitement from last year. To me this is as big as Batman and Superman being on the big screen together for the first time. Or the idea of a Sonic film in theaters.

Now about the MCU listen I know on Tumblr and other places, it doesn’t always have fans. The MCU isn’t perfect I agree. Yet to me personally I am amazed and grateful for just how this cinematic universe is working and Marvel Studios taking risks with trying to make movies of characters that aren’t known much. Including of how they started this universe. Listen I know Kevin Fiege isn’t the only guy. Yet I respect what this guy has done in fact it gave ideas and inspired other studios to do the same. The DCEU by Warner Bros, Legendary’s Monsterverse, and even Universal’s Dark Universe even if that had a rough start.

Listen I understand what problems people have. Even just what Jeremy Jahns said in his review of Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 not all of them can be gold he said that some what. Yet I’m gonna say some bullshit yet I hope you agree.

Be grateful we aren’t getting pieces of shit like that God damn Fan4stic however people go with it, a film I really don’t wanna see. Or even those God damn Bayformers films by Michael Bay and I’m glad that film is not making much money now I haven’t seen the 5th and don’t want to. Why the fuck isn’t Tumblr attacking those God damn Transformers films no offense or…..fuck those films man. Even Zack Snyder and Warner Bros DCEU is better then that crap even if the Bumblebee movie sounds interesting. I’m saying that cause I like the DCEU despite some problems.

Sorry wanted to get that out of the way.

I should talk about this movie also it’s a review man. Just put the title just saying I became a fan of the MCU cause of Guardians Of The Galaxy and I was like what the fuck almost put tags ha. Yet also that film and I was in some sort of depression shit cause Transformers 4 broke me. I haven’t seen The Avengers or Thor The Dark World but yeah seen most of them man ha…also Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 haven’t seen it yet cause late night man ha…

Spider-Man Homecoming.

So got done with the intro…I’ll talk about that Spider-Man Dawn Of Avengers shit later man.

I’m gonna say this, one of I think my favorite version of Spider-Man is the Spectacular Spider-Man TV show. It’s such a great TV show and how it handles Spider-Man. I still love it after all these years. Just the way they handle Spider-Man and the characters as a compliment to me that series is like the Batman The Animated Series of Spider-Man cartoons. I’m talking about the 90’s Batman cartoon that people say mainly Nostalgia Critic Doug Walker says is the greatest cartoon of all time and people say their favorite version of Batman is that version.

My favorite version of Spider-Man is the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon seriously man.

What I saw in this movie. It was maybe I feel…this is another one of my favorites

Tom Holland as Peter Parker and Spider-Man I freakin adore him. I might feel a bit weird saying yeah this is basically the live action version of Josh Keaton as Spider-Man who voiced Spider-Man in that cartoon. Or just he’s as great as Josh Keaton with the work he was given.

It’s kind of like the same case people adore Kevin Conroy as Batman and Ben Affleck as one.

Also what’s good this is Spider-Man’s own film it’s not a small part. Which makes it better and I’m talking about his part in Captain America Civil War which they introduced him very well and just it’s great man.

What I like about Tom Holland just he’s great as Josh and some others even Toby Maguire from the Sam Rami films. Also Andrew Garfield was good. Yet over time I’ve thought to myself about The Amazing Spider-Man films the 2012 and 2014 films. Honestly I don’t mind Andrew honestly. Yet some problems I had like he looked too old to be in high school but mainly Sony messing those films up. Listen Sony wanted to keep the rights. While the first film was okay over time it feels kind of lifeless as times I’m sorry to say. Then with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 what Sony did even if I saw that film twice. That is my least favorite Spider-Man film. Their was cool stuff in it. But it’s one of the first their might be others before it but…it’s now one of the first ever since The Avengers was released Studios wanting to make cinematic universes. That film was so much of set up and other shit. Including controlling Marc Webb and Andrew it makes me sad. Along with Andrew was even upset. In a way Sony kind of destroyed Andrew’s of really being Spider-Man and including Andrew is really passionate about the character such as Tom Holland is. It’s honestly a sad case and…the Fan4stic case is worse when you think about it if you wanna look up stuff. Mainly Midnight’s Edge yes random advertising lol man stop oh head.

Yet back to the movie. Tom Holland is great. He’s both great as Peter Parker and Spider-Man he nails both parts. Including just can I say even before this I’m gonna say it theirs these Civil War videos released where Peter is recording events that’s there also just Tom Holland I’ve thought this and I think even said it. He’s adorable seriously he is…he’s one year older then me. He nails those comedic parts and even serious parts.

But okay it’s still about Tom Holland. I wanna talk about the themes or mainly the story. Listen I understand mainly on Tumblr and YouTube people are worried of Iron Man being in this film. I’m gonna confirm this he’s not in there much. Unless he needs to be. Including they use him well and I know Tony Stark can be a douchebag but what the film does.

What the story is basically and I know some or a lot of people are tired of Peter being in high school. Yet the way the story goes is like Jeremy Jahns says its like an coming of age story or something. I don’t wanna spoil much yet the story is basically Peter really wanting to show he can handle stuff on his own. He seriously wants to show others like Happy and Tony that he’s ready. Yet as the film goes he realizes some stuff. Including when facing the main villain and other events. I think the best way to say him learning how to mature more and that he doesn’t need to be at the top yet okay I don’t wanna spoil cause I feel you guys need to see this movie.

Because this movie is basically in a way Peter becoming more of a man. Just it’s told in a way I’m gonna reveal this it’s mostly a comedy seriously. Yet when the serious moments show up I adore them. Because it takes it time just…I love it man.

It seriously has very serious moments. I’m gonna say at some times even one I wanted to cry seriously I want to cry at certain moments cause of great character development. Including I’m such a huge fan of the character. The way they approch Spider-Man in this movie. Theirs even some sweet moments and even one scene not gonna spoil but Peter is by himself it’s I think during the movie yet…okay some what of a spoiler.

He’s talking to his suit. Also his new suit is by Tony Stark and when you see it you’ll know what I mean man.

Including I understand people just want a adult Peter now. Yet the way just…and the whole, “Harry Potter” thing where we see him grow up and people even mention To Story not Tony ha with Andy…Tony Story ha man…not Anthony.

It makes the film more rewarding and the idea that Spider-Man is gonna be Avengers Infinity War, Avengers 4, and a Spider-Man Homecoming sequel. In the next two years. It’s beautiful man that’s kick ass cause we have more Spider-Man to me I’m sorry this is a dream come true. So what I heard from Collidervideos the Homecoming sequel being two months after Avengers 4 holy shit dude ha. So 2018 and 2019 lol…..I wanted to well did make a post about this but was embarrassed it was from last week. When I was gonna get picked up by my friend. This video by Emergency Awesome man ha. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FAdBym7-IPQ

Okay checked the comments in case it was the same video and got back to Wikipedia.

Now let’s talks about Michael Keaton aka the God damn 89 Batman also From Batman Returns ha. So he was another one of my favorite parts.

Yet also he’s maybe one of my favorite Spider-Man villains we have seen in a Spider-Man movie. Along with the Green Goblin from the 2002 film and also Doc Ock from the 2004 film almost left Doc Ock’s actors. Also I don’t care what people say about Green Goblin’s look in the 2002 film he was one of my favorites how that role was handled.

But the way Michael Keaton is handled also even if before this he was rumored to be Norman Osborne but now he’s the Vulture. I’m gonna be honest again he’s one of my favorite parts.

He was menacing when he needed to be. Including you understand what he was doing.

I don’t wanna spoil it yet it’s also part of the story think it yeah relates to Peter’s story as well. The idea of how people have to deal with what happened after the Avengers. How they have to clean up their messes and I haven’t seen the Netflix shows. Yet I heard this from Comicbookcast2 that the Netflix characters hate the Avengers is that right. Or is that just, basically just how he hates how the Avengers don’t have time for them, and they have to deal with the shit they leave behind despite them saving them.

Including I know a lot of Spider-Man’s aren’t that personal to him except ones like Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Venom, Lizard, and maybe Hobgoblin. I’m not the biggest fan of the Vulture yet the way he’s portrayed is just very well done. He’s a damn good villain. Also he’s a person.

In fact some of my favorite scenes just it surprised me this scene I don’t wanna spoil it but this film has a lot of surprises. Yet theirs a scene with Spider-Man and Vulture…it’s just great or good whatever. I feel like it’s something I would come up with. Because it’s honestly clever actually I’m being serious. You’ll see it, just with not spoiling it, a scene with Tom Holland and Michael Keaton said that. It’s like a what the fuck moment and even as it went I’m thinking oh my God is it gonna get to that moment ha man.

Sorry yet I should talk about the other characters.

Let me say I love this cast almost left casting seriously this whole cast I love it a shit ton man. The character of Ned played by let me check his name, Jacob Batalon checked twice. This is maybe one of my favorite additions to this film. That also he’s Peter’s best friend and it’s not Harry Osborne ha seriously they are taking new routes to make themselves different. Also lots of diversity if you love that and I love that too a shit ton man ha seriously not kidding oh head.

But Ned just how him and Peter interact he’s like a comic relief yet he’s just very cool. Honestly how he and Peter interact I don’t know why. He’s just very likable and honestly funny. I’m gonna be professional but just he felt like a very nice addition.

Then we have let me check. Tony Revolori checked three times or some shit he plays Flash the bully who becomes Agent Venom when he’s adult great story shit kick ass dude. I was surprised by the rumored casting long ago. Yet the way they portray him. To be honest I thought this I don’t know who’s more of a douche Flash from The Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon or this Flash. But what makes him unquie he’s not a typical bully he’s like and well found out from Amazing Spider-Man’s channel a bully who is mainly verbal by saying certain stuff. He plays a excellent douche ha I said that man meh it’s normal to smile. Seriously I mean I some what have nothing against him hey maybe have him as Venom…as much as I like Eddie Brock as Venom…also the I don’t trust Sony yet this bullshit of the Venom film being in the what Amy Pascal said in the same, “reality” what the fuck man, and Tom Hardy as Venom…

I don’t trust Sony after what happened with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 even if I was okay with Venom in Spider-Man 3…that could be better…I still like the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon version of Venom…it really says something about a cartoon from 2008 through 2009 where it still leaves an impact on your mind and how those versions stay with you cause they were so well done…had to put I behind s in versions ha man…kick ass…ha…

Okay sorry yeah normal to smile, now Liz Allen yeah she’s in the film. Just gonna say no Zendaya is not that character checked that name twice ha sorry or…yeah twice man.

She’s played by Laura Harrier checked again so two times. What I noticed in this short for the new Spider-Man cartoon so spoiler Liz Allen is in the short. I was seriously thinking are they gonna use Liz Allen as a new love interest. I’m not against that as all almost left well ha man…

Yet the only well mostly one version of her I know her so much is from Spectacular Spider-Man the cartoon again mentioning that. Where she was Latino wanna mention to people who like diversity and she was very good in that.

So I’m not against having Liz being more important in some Spider-Man movies. In a way she is like Peter’s love interest yet well she is important yet not a whole bunch. Including that’s not the focus of the movie. But she was great and very likable. So even before the movie found out on Wikipedia she’s a Senior I’ll warn you. Well maybe when Peter gets older I don’t mind if they wanna have well Peter and Liz. Okay she’s not as big as Mary Jane or Gwen Stacy that’s what from I know. It’s very nice and I don’t mind it.

Now we have Zendaya as well…Michelle I’m not spoiling it she was nice. Also likable…not a huge part and just saying I’ve seen comments spoil like who she is even before the movie I wanted to be surprised I didn’t know what to believe seen a thumbnail of one scene towards the end and mentions of the end credits scene.

Yet she was cool I liked her.

Marsai Tomai checked three times she’s Aunt May, she’s good too, not in it a whole bunch. Yet she’s very good and just likable all the cast is God damn likable. Well…except Vulture’s helpers…or…well their supposed to be criminals but they do a damn good job too man.

Jon Favreau checked four times or some shit Harold Happy Hogan yes the director of Iron Man 1 and 2. He did a good job too important a bit…well he’s seen a bit more.

Also Donald Glover almost left Glober twice ha stop it. I’m not spoiling who he is yet even from well thumbnails from Comicbookcast2 and Hybrid Network he did good too. Important a bit.

Seriously I wanna talk about other stuff.

The action is very good. Including just how I mean the way they are handled along with the Spider-Man vs Vulture scenes. Just also all of Spider-Man’s scenes I loved them a shit ton. Including at times it felt tense seriously it did man. The scene in Washington DC and the part with the Ferri those are all great.

Even the score was good like…well I can’t remember much haha sorry yet…it did good.

Really I feel…theirs more to talk about. Yet I am just very impressed with this film. Also during the film well before the film switched seats with someone he for h 7 but well his family was there or some shit. Yet I decided to be in c 16. It was close to the screen and to the left yet I still had a good time ha man…

Just I did remember yeah had some post credits scene spoiled yet it wasn’t much and not like a thumbnail I saw.

Yet the end credits scene…I don’t wanna spoil it. But the way just it’s funny and they said well didn’t see the video Comicbookcast2 multiple post credits scene their spoiler only two man ha. Yet the end one…..is unbelievable yet funny that the audience laughed too a shit ton well they laughed cause the way it’s portrayed.

I don’t wanna spoil it but the best comparison is the Deadpool end credits scene if you’ve seen it. But…it’s normal to smile because I can’t believe that was the end credits scene is unbelievable man. Okay not kick ass but…I loved it man put that again.

Okay I talked about the film a shit ton…just I loved this film. This is maybe my favorite Spider-Man film gonna think a bit. Yet also my favorite MCU film along with Captain America Civil War, Guardians Of The Galaxy the original, and also maybe Captain America The Winter Soldier. Along with maybe Avengers Age Of Ultron. Hey I thought the film was kick ass I saw it twice.

Now next we have Thor Ragnarok, Black Panther, Avengers Infinity War, also Ant Man And The Wasp so kick ass dude ha man.

Also that first part about…really I find it kind of beautiful that Marvel had got the rights well their sharing it with Sony. Yet the way Marvel Studios, Kevin Fiege, Russo Bros, Jon Watts director of this film and other people how they introduced Spider-Man in this universe is almost beautiful.

Because I can’t imagine well maybe but I want to keep seeing Tom Holland as Spider-Man cause I feel he is Spider-Man.

That Spider-Man Dawn Of Avengers shit….. it’s weird funny idea imagine if the Marvel Cinematic Universe went kind of the DC route yet they have some films but what I said in my Batman V Superman Dawn Of Justice Ultimate Edition review almost put MCU normal to smile man kick ass…

Who the fuck is gonna be our Doomsday….. Ultimate Green Goblin is cool but can he take on Captain Marvel or can she take him out easily and kick his ass lol…just…I’m glad we get to see this Spider-Man grow. Seeing the film made me rethink some stuff man. Put a tag almost left rag instead of tag ha normal to smile or…need to eat my McDonald’s

b edit 5 stars

#spider-man: homecoming

1 note · View note

chicagoindiecritics · 4 years

Text

New from Kevin Wozniak on Kevflix: Best of the 2010s: Best Movie Moments/Scenes

Every year since Kevflix has been alive, I’ve made a list of my favorite scenes/movie moments of that year. This is always my favorite list to make as it allows me to highlight some truly great moments in filmmaking, acting, and story-telling. I couldn’t count down the best movies of the decade without making a best scenes/moments of the decade, so here we are.

When making my list for the best scenes or movie moments of the 2010s, I focused on one key thing for what would make the list: emotion. What scenes brought the most emotion out of me? What was the scene that had me the most excited or the moment that nearly brought tears to my eyes? Which moment defined what cinema was in 2010s and which one changed it forever? After much deliberation, I have come up with these ten scenes/moments. These are the moments that no matter when I watch them, they make me feel like I did the first time I saw them and always bring out some sort of emotion in me.. Here are my picks for the best movie moments/scenes of the 2010s.

SPOILER ALERT

You’ve been warned. But if you haven’t seen these movies by now, you’re missing out on some great cinema.

youtube

10. THE DEATH OF HAN SOLO – STAR WARS: EPISODE VII – THE FORCE AWAKENS

JJ Abrams’ The Force Awakens was a perfect reintroduction to the Star Wars franchise. It introduced new fans to a legendary franchise and brought old fans back to franchise they once loved. But when Han Solo (Harrison Ford) is killed by his son Ben (Adam Driver), a.k.a Kylo Ren, it was Abrams sending a message. This was the start of a change. This was Abrams showing us that the Star Wars we knew was gone and that this was the dawn of a new story and new characters. It was a daring, shocking, powerful scene that still crushes my heart every time I watch it.

youtube

9. “COOL GIRL” – GONE GIRL

“Nick loved a girl I was pretending to be. “Cool girl”. Men always use that, don’t they? As their defining compliment: “She’s a cool girl”.

Most movies will give you the twist at the ending. David Fincher and Gillian Flynn give you twists in the middle of the movie. In this dark mystery thriller about Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) who’s wife goes missing and he becomes the prime suspect and has a spotlight shined on him in a media circus, Fincher and Flynn throw us for a loop right when we think we know where this movie is going. Rather than find out what happened to the man’s wife at the end of the movie, we find out in the middle and what a twist it is. We see as Nick’s wife Amy (Oscar nominee Rosamund Pike) is cruising down the highway in a beaten up car. From there is a beautiful combination of stellar filmmaking and writing. Flynns’ writing is electric, as Amy gives us a play-by-play of her plan, how’s she’s feeling, and why she’s doing what she’s doing. Fincher’s direction is sensational and works perfectly with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score and Kirk Baxter’s editing. Gone Girl is one of Fincher’s finest films and this is one Fincher’s finest moments as a director.

youtube

8. “SINGLE-TAKE” BOXING FIGHT – CREED

I didn’t know what to expect going into Ryan Coogler’s Creed. Having loved Coogler’s debut film, Fruitvale Station, and being a big fan of the Rocky franchise, I thought I would enjoy the film. But it was this scene, in which Coogler does a “single-take” boxing fight showing us the first round and part of the second round until Adonis (Michael B. Jordan) wins by knockout, that I knew this movie was on a whole other level. The smooth movement of the camera, the physicality and swagger and Michael B. Jordan, and the building score make this one of the best boxing fights I’ve ever seen on film. Creed was my favorite movie of 2015 and it was Coogler’s directorial touch that elevated its greatness.

youtube

7. “LET IT GO” – FROZEN

I have a niece who is three-years-old who is obsessed with Frozen. Whenever I see her, chances are she will be watching Frozen and singing along to it, most passionately to “Let It Go”, in which she sings and mimics everything Elsa is doing in this scene. This is six years after Frozen came out and it just shows how powerful the movie and its key set-piece are. “Let It Go” is the princess anthem of the millennium. It’s an empowering, catchy song that every little child and their parent knows the words to coupled with some beautiful animation. This is a song and movie that will continue to be popular and loved for years to come.

youtube

6. H.A.L.O JUMP – MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT

If there is one thing we learned about Tom Cruise this decade it is that he is a madman. Though one of our greatest movie stars and a spectacular, awards-caliber actor, Cruise took the 2010’s to show just how insane of a man he is and how far he is willing to push himself, namely in the Mission: Impossible franchise. Cruise climbing The Burj Khalifa in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol almost snagged this spot, but Cruise’s H.A.L.O (High Altitude Low Open) jump in Fallout is an extraordinary stunt and feat of filmmaking. Jumping out of a plane at 30,000 feet and opening his parachute at under 3,000 feet is an insane stunt done by top military men and apparently Tom Cruise. How director Christopher McQuarrie shot the scene by having a cameraman follow Cruise as he falls through the air, giving us a front row view of how crazy this fall is, is nothing short of extraordinary, especially seeing it on IMAX. This was peak stunt work this decade and peak Cruise.

youtube

5. DARTH VADER FINALE – ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY

Rouge One was a first in the Star Wars franchise. This was the first side-story the franchise had ever done. It steered away from the Skywalker story and focused on a new set of characters, plots, and stories. Though Rogue One was about the group of soldiers who retrieved the plans to the Death Star, which would then be used by Rebels in A New Hope, we had no idea what to expect in this film, and while the film was very entertaining and unique from other Star Wars films, nothing could have prepared us for the Darth Vader finale. This is the greatest Darth Vader scene ever (yes, including “I am your father) as it showed Vader at the height of his powers, mowing down puny soldiers with his lightsaber and force powers. This ended Rouge One on a high note that nobody expected.

youtube

4. NO MAN’S LAND – WONDER WOMAN

Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman came at just the right time for the DCEU. After Batman v. Superman and Suicide Squad disappointed critics and audiences alike, nobody knew what Warner Bros. and the DCEU were going to do. But Wonder Woman came along and saved it. Up until this scene, we only saw glimpses of what Diana (Gal Gadot) could do. She was still learning this new world she was in and was trying to understand how and why the war was the way it was. This was the first time we saw Wonder Woman. Not Diana, Wonder Woman. The shield wielding, head-banded hero who only wants to do good and save the world. This scene got every emotion in me going. It is inspiring, exciting, beautifully crafted, and awe-inspiring. This is the greatest superhero intro scene ever and it’s not even close. This was the birth of a hero. This was the birth of an icon.

youtube

(Part 1)

youtube

(Part 2)

3. “CARAVAN” FINALE – WHIPLASH

Damien Chazelle’s sophomore film is a war film in the music room. A no-holds-barred look at being pushed to the limit for perfection. This all comes to a head in the film’s finale, where Andrew (Miles Teller) gets embarrassed by his former teacher Fletcher (Oscar winner JK Simmons) on stage at a performance. But rather than leave the concert, Andrew comes back on stage and changes the set and starts to perform “Caravan”. But it’s after the song where Andrew really shines, as he riffs for nearly five-minutes, giving the performance of his life full of blood, sweat, anger, and passion as Andrew shows Fletcher that he is the best. But this finale brings up the big question of how far is too far? Is Andrew giving Fletcher a giant middle finger or has he become the obsessive monster Fletcher was grooming him to be? Highlighted by expert editing and mad-house performances by Teller and Simmons, this is a heart-racing scene and one of the best finales of the decade.

youtube

2. “SHALLOW” – A STAR IS BORN

The performance of “Shallow” in Bradley Cooper’s A Star is Born was the most overwhelming movie experience I had in 2018 and one of the most overwhelming experiences I have ever had in a movie. A scene of pure power, love, and emotions that had my eyes almost in tears. The dizzying, almost dream-like first act of the film comes to a head in this scene, as Jackson (Bradley Cooper) invites Ally (Lady Gaga) up on stage to sing a song they briefly wrote together the night before. Ally owns it, and sings her heart, much like Jackson knew she would. Perfectly shot and edited, with Gaga belting her heart out and Cooper presenting a confidence and swagger while being in a state of bliss as he falls in love with Ally and watches her become a star. The song is Oscar-worthy, but its Cooper’s direction and Gaga’s stunning voice that make “Shallow” an iconic cinematic moment this decade.

youtube

1. “AVENGERS! ASSEMBLE!” – AVENGERS: ENDGAME

The 2010’s belonged to comic book movies and cinematic universes and nobody did it better than the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After twenty-three movies (twenty-one released in the 2010’s) the MCU came to an epic finale with Avengers: Endgame and what a finale it was. Everything that was the MCU was on the screen at the final battle of Endgame, a scene that is not only the definition of awesome, but is epic on every scale. When all hope seems lost for Captain America (Chris Evans), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), and the remaining Avengers and it looks like Thanos’ army will take over the planet, we hear the static of Falcon’s (Anthony Mackie) voice in Captain America’s ear, followed by the appearance of T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) coming from a Doctor Strange portal. It is then an onslaught of everyone from the MCU appearing on screen, both those who disappeared in the snap from the previous movie and those who survived, all culminating in an attack on Thanos and his army with Captain America commanding, “AVENGERS! ASSEMBLE!”. Alan Silvestri’s epic score takes over and we watch as eleven years and over twenty movies come together on the screen at the same time. You can’t help but get emotional watching this. We have grown with the MCU and The Avengers and all of these characters and seeing them all on screen at the same time fighting for their lives and the galaxy is something we had been waiting for for over a decade. This moment symbolizes so much of what cinema has become while also being the as big as anything that has ever been on the big screen, which is why it is the best movie moment of the decade.

Follow Kevflix on Twitter and Instagram, @kevflix, and on Facebook by searching Kevflix.

The post Best of the 2010s: Best Movie Moments/Scenes appeared first on Kevflix.

from Kevflix https://ift.tt/2NlefPD via IFTTT

from WordPress https://ift.tt/2QSr0TP via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress #CIFCC #film critics #movies #film #Chicago

0 notes

weekendwarriorblog · 4 years

Text

The Weekend Warrior 12/13/19: JUMANJI: THE NEXT LEVEL, BLACK CHRISTMAS, RICHARD JEWELL, BOMBSHELL and more!

Woooooooo!!! We’re starting to get to the end of the year with only three more weekends of new movies before we’re into 2020, which on one hand, has to be better than 2019, but maybe not in terms of box office with no “Avengers” or “Star Wars” movie in sight.

Sony Pictures is releasing the second-to-last sequel of the weekend, JUMANJI: THE NEXT LEVEL, which brings back all of your faves, including Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, and introduces a new character played by Awkwafina. I reviewed the movie over at The Beat, and also discussed its box office prospects

I also will have a review of Sophia Takal’s horror remake BLACK CHRISTMAS (Universal) over at The Beat, but that’s mainly interesting since it’s the second remake of the ‘70s horror movie, this one produced by Blumhouse. I really liked Sophia Takal’s previous movie Always Shine, so I’m definitely interested to see what she does with a mainstream horror film.

You can read my reviews of both those movies over at The Beat, although the Black Christmas review is embargoed until Thursday night… make of that what you will. Plus you can read more about the three wide releases over at my weekly Box Office Preview.

One movie I haven’t reviewed over there is Clint Eastwood’s latest, RICHARD JEWELL (Warner Bros.), which stars Paul Walter Hauser as the famed Atlanta security guard who discovered a bomb in the city’s Centennial Park and was then accused of planting the bomb there to be seen as a hero. The movie also stars Sam Rockwell (as Richard’s lawyer), Kathy Bates (as Richard’s mother), Jon Hamm as the FBI guy who is after him and Olivia Wilde as the Atlanta reporter who first breaks the story about Jewell being a suspect. I’m going to try to write a mini-review for this one, but long and short of it, is that this is another really good movie from Eastwood, and if I get a chance, I will write more about it soon.

LIMITED RELEASES

There are a bunch of great movies coming out in limited release, some that will expand wider later in the month.

First and foremost is Jay Roach’s BOMBSHELL (Lionsgate), starring Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly and Nicole Kidman as Gretchen Carlson, and if you know those names, then you might already realize that this film written by Charles Randolph (The Big Short) is about the Fox News sexual abuse scandal. Margot Robbie also stars in this one, as does John Lithgow as Roger Aisles, plus there’s lots of other great character actors in roles as people you might know from the news (both on camera and behind the scenes). I was hoping to write a fuller review of this and maybe still will but didn’t have time before getting this column out. Regardless, this is a very intriguing and entertaining film (just like The Big Short) with fantastic performances by all. The movie will expand nationwide next Friday.

Josh and Ben Safdie are back with UNCUT GEMS (A24), starring Adam Sandler as a New York jewelry merchant who gets his hands on a rare South African gem, and then spends the entire movie trying to get it back after lending it out to star basketball player Kevin Garnett (playing himself). I wasn’t really a very big fan of the Safdies’ Good Time, which Millennial critics tend to cream all over, but Uncut Gems is definitely better even if it’s similarly manic. Sandler’s definitely good in the role, but awards-worthy? Not even close… I think this ia good movie being sold by people as a great movie, and I couldn’t disagree more. If you liked Good Time, you’ll probably like this, too. This will be nationwide on Christmas Day.

Terrence Malick is also back, continuing his amazingly prolific degree of filmmaking in his mid-70s with A HIDDEN LIFE (Fox SEarchlight), a three-hour drama about an Austrian farmer (August Diehl) who refuses to swear allegiance to Hitler as WWII begins, which first makes him a bit of a pariah in his rural community but eventually gets him thrown in prison for treason. Valerie Pachner is quite terrific as his wife, and the movie has some great smaller roles for Matthias Schoenaerts, the late Michael Nyqvist, Bruno Ganz and Jürgen Prochnow. If you’re a fan of Malick’s better films than

Kristen Stewart plays French New Wave actress Jean Seberg in Benedict Andrews’ SEBERG (Amazon), about how the actress got into a relationship with Hakim Jamal (played by Anthony Mackie), causing trouble for her career. The movie also stars Margaret Qualley (Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood), Jack O’Connell, Zazie Beetz and Stephen Root, and it will get a limited release this weekend.

Stephen and Robbie Amell star in Jeff Chan’s Code 8 (Elevation Pictures), Robbie playing Connor Reed, a guy with superpowers living in a world where those with powers are minimalized and living in poverty. In desperate need of money to help his ailing mother, Connor gets in with a powered thug named Garrett (played by his cousin, Stephen) to use his powers for elaborate heists. It’s a surprisingly good movie, mainly due to Jeff Chan’s ability to create a big movie on a seemingly limited budget.

You can check out the trailer and Chan’s original short film that inspired the feature below, and my interview with Robbie Amell will be on The Beat on Thursday sometime.

youtube

Steven Luke’s The Great War (Saban/Lionsgate), opening in select cities Fridays, takes place during the last days of WWI where a regiment of African-American “Buffalo Soldiers” are trapped behind enemy lines. When one escapes, he asked to join an all-white troop to find the survivors.s

An interesting doc, especially for lovers of dance, is Alla Kogvan’s documentary Cunningham (Magnolia), which uses 3D technology to explore the life and work of the late choreographer Merce Cunningham (who would be celebrating his centennial anniversary this year), combining archival footage with newly-created performances of Cunningham’s greatest work. This movie reminded me quite a bit of Wim Wenders’ doc Pina in that I enjoyed this, despite having zero to no interest in dance in general. It will open at the Film Forumin New York on Friday, as well as Film at Lincoln Centeruptown, the Royal in L.A, the Arclight in Sherman Oaks and Edwards Westpark 8 in Irvine.

Xavier Dolan’s latest film The Death and Life of John Donovan (Momentum), stars Kit Harington, Natalie Portman, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates, Thandie Newton, Jacob Tremblay and more. It’s about the relationship between a young actor and a TV star that takes place ten years after the latter’s death. It will open in select cities and On Demand.

Lastly, there’s Danny Abeckaser’s MAFIA drama Mob Town (Saban Films), starring David Arquette, Jennifer Esposito, Jamie-Lynn Sigler and PJ Byrne.

Also, next Monday, Trafalgar Releasing is releasing Gorillaz: Reject False Icons, a new concert doc about Damon Alban’s Blur spin-off group with comic artist Jamie Hewett.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Michael Bay’s action-comedy 6 UNDERGROUND (Netflix), starring Ryan Reynolds, will get a very limited release Weds. before debuting on the service on Friday. I really don’t know much about it other than it’s about six specialists come together to do stuff.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

This weekend, the Metrograph begins a fairly self-explanatory series called “Malick: The First Four Films” to coincide with the release of A Hidden Life (see above), although 2005’s The New World won’t screen until next weekend. Also, the theater also continues its annual “Holidays at Metrograph” series with Billy Wilder’s 1960 Oscar winner The Apartment screening Saturday and Sunday. Welcome To Metrograph: Redux continues with David Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945) on Wednesday and Otto Premingers’ Bunny Lake is Missing (1965) on Friday and Saturday. This week’s Late Nites at Metrograph is David Lynch’s Dune (1984) while Playtime: Family Matinees is the 1992 The Muppet Christmas Carol.

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE BROOKLYN (NYC)

Tonight’s “Weird Wednesday” is Blue Vengeance from 1989, while the weekend’s “Kids Camp” is last year’s animated The Grinch. On Monday evening is a 10thanniversary screening of Vernon Chatman’s Final Flesh. Tuesday’s “Terror Tuesday” is the original Black Christmas from 1974 (already sold out), and “Weird Wednesday” is the 1985 thriller Trancers, hosted by John Torrani.

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

The Weds. Afternoon Classics matinee is The Thin Man (1934), starring William Powell and Myrna Loy, while Friday’s “Freaky Fridays” offering is the original 1933 James Whale movie The Invisible Man. The Weds/Thurs double feature is Todd Haynes’ Carol (2015) and Far from Heaven (2002) with DP Ed Lachman appearing on Weds (sorry, sold out!). Saturday and Sunday offers the Kiddee Matinee of A Christmas Story, as well as a special “Holiday Edition” of the New Bev’s Cartoon Club. Friday’s midnight is Tarantino’s own Reservoir Dogs, while Saturday midnight is the holiday horror film Don’t Open Till Christmas (1984). Monday’s Matinee is Bad Santa, starring Billy Bob Thornton and Monday night’s screening is Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander (1982).

FILM FORUM (NYC):

“Scorsese Non-Fiction” will continue through December 17 with screenings this week of Rolling Thunder Revue and Shine a Light, as well as another screening of A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese through American MoviesFriday, and screenings of the classics The Last Waltz and No Direction Home: Bob Dylan on Sunday.The 70th anniversary 4k restoration of Alec Guinness’ Kind Hearts and Coronets will continue through December 19 with screenings at 12:30 and 6:10pm each day. This weekend’s Film Forum Jr. is the Disney animated film The Aristocrats (1970).

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

After an encore screening of Auntie Mame (1958) on Thursday, the Egyptian will screen a David O. Russell hosted screening of Tourneur’s 1919 film The Broken Butterfly with musical accompaniment on Friday. Saturday night is “Retroformat 10thAnniversary” sponsored by the George Lucas Family Foundation, showing two hours of movies from the early 20thCentury with musical accompaniment. Saturday night is a Spike Jonze double feature of Being John Malkovich and Three Kings, while Adam Driver will continue his awards campaign run by appearing for a double feature of Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Storywith Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson.

AERO (LA):

Terry Gilliam will be appearing in person on Friday night for a TRIPLE FEATURE (!!!) of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, Time Banditsand The Adventures of Baron Munchausen… which makes me really wish I lived in L.A. On Saturday, screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski will screen their new movie My Name is Dolemite along with Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (1994). Edward Norton and Primal Fear (1995) producer Hawk Koch will appear on Sunday afternoon for a double feature of the latter (in which Norton stars) along with Norton’s own new film, Motherless Brooklyn. Tuesday’s “Christmas Noir” Is Nicholas Ray’s debut TheyLive By Night (1949).

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

MOMI’s own Terrence Malick series ends this weekend with screenings of Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey on Friday and Sunday, The New World: Limited Releas Version on Saturday, as well as The Thin Red Line on Sunday evening. Monday, there is a free screening of Martin Scorsese’s Casino (1995) as part of “Martin Scorsese: Four Movies over Four Decades.” Saturday’s family matinee is Hiroyuki Morita’s 2002 film The Cat Returns, while John Cassavetes’ Gloria (1980) will screen on Sunday afternoon as part of the ongoing “Always on Sunday: Greek Film Series.”

MOMA (NYC):

This week’s new series is called “The Wonders” and it’s the first American retrospective of writer-director Alice Rohrwacher and the actress Alba Rohrwacher. I’m really not that familiar with either although Rohrwacher’s Happy as Lazzaro last year was fairly well-received.Modern Matinees: Iris Barry’s History of Filmal so continues this week with Hamlet (1920) today, Greed (1924) tomorrow and a program called “Great Actresses of the Past 1911 – 1916” on Friday.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Weekend Classics: May All Your Christmases be Noir will be screening Charles Laughton’s 1955 film The Night of the Hunter, starring Robert Mitchum; Waverly Midnights: Spy Games will screen Hitchcock’s North by Northwest; and Late Night Favorites: Autumn 2019 will show Aliens and Eraserhead.

FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

Not much to report except that there will be an encore screening of the 2001 Korean blockbuster My Sassy Girl on Thursday afternoon.

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

Continuing its Nicolas Cage vintage series with 1991’s Zandalee on Wednesday, Barbet Schroeder’s Kiss of Death (1995) on Thursday and Sunday.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

#JumanjiTheNextLevel Bombshell RichardJewell BlackChristmas Movies Reviews TheWeekendWarrior

0 notes