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luke-patterson-owns-my-soul · 4 years

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Unsaid Emily

Title: Unsaid Emily - Charlie x Reader

Words: 4,698

Summary: Y/N is one of the songwriters working on Julie and the Phantoms and cowrote Unsaid Emily. When she has to work with Charlie, sparks fly.

Requested: Only by my idiot brain

TW: None

Author’s notes: I mean no offence to the writers of Unsaid Emily, but I needed it to be this way. Also, I know Charlie just got his car, but it fit my timeline. I hope you like it.

Credit: @nikascott

Receiving the call from Netflix to write a song for a kids’ TV show about a ghost band, you were hesitant, but your friend Dan talked you into it. You had written as a duo before – you wrote lyrics while he conjured up what you personally considered the most beautiful melodies – but this job was just for you.

The brief you’d been given by the show runners didn’t give much away. A song for a runaway son to perform for his estranged mother after his death. The only other information given was that his mother’s name is Emily. Usually, you like vague briefs such as this, but without knowing more, you struggle.

After speaking to one of the showrunners, you’re invited to meet the writers for more information, so you drive down to where the legendary Kenny Ortega is putting the cast through their paces at a band bootcamp. You’ve worked with Kenny before, so when you arrive, he welcomes you with a smile and a hug before the two of you disappear to discuss the song you’re struggling with.

“Why don’t I introduce you to Charlie who’s playing Luke. He’s had intensive discussions with the writers and myself about his character and may have some insight on what kind of things Luke would want to say to his mom.” Kenny suggests rather than only speaking to the writers.

“That would be great, but only if you can spare him for a few minutes.”

“It’s not a problem. Hey, come and grab some lunch with me, I’ll introduce you, and then you can get the information you need.” You loved Kenny and wanted to write the best possible song for his show you could. Standing, you grab your bag before following him out and over to catering.

As soon as Kenny enters the large room, he’s called out to and waved at. With a wide smile, he responds to everyone as the two of you grab some food and sit at an empty table. While you eat, you discuss the show, and Kenny’s hopes for it.

“It may be aimed at a younger demographic, but I want it to appeal to all ages.” He stated as you’re joined by a group of kids so good looking, they can only be the cast. “Hey guys, this is Y/N. She’s one of the songwriters we’ve commissioned. Charlie, once you’ve finished up with lunch, could you spare her ten minutes to chat with her about Luke?” The cast members all say hi before returning to their food. It’s clear to you they’re all creating friendships as they laugh together. But Charlie isn’t getting involved as he looks at you. You can’t help but stare at the actor as his hazel eyes lock onto yours, a small smile on his face as he nods.

“Sure, no problem.” He smiles wider and you almost choke on your food. Kenny looks over at you, a strange smile on his face.

:: ::

“Hi, you needed to talk to me?” Charlie moves along the table once everyone has left to get back to work. You look over at him, noticing how young he looks. From what Kenny’s told you about the cast, you’re not much older than him, but with his short hair and boyish smile, he looks a lot younger than he is.

“Hey, yeah. I just want some insight into the character of Luke.”

“Which song are you writing?” He asks, genuinely interested. He leans his chin on his hand waiting for you to answer.

“The one he writes for his mom after he runs away.”

“Oh, wow. Tough break.” You can’t help but laugh.

“Yeah, I guess.”

You pull a notebook out of you bag and open it to a page where you’d scribbled some questions about the character.

For half an hour, the two of you sit, chatting about the show, about Charlie’s character, and by the time you finish up, you’re pretty satisfied that you can head home and make the song work. After thanking Charlie for his time, you pack your notebook away, ready to go out to your car and drive home.

“Do you fancy coming and watching a rehearsal before you leave?” He asks, rubbing at the back of his neck with his hand. You really shouldn’t, you need to get back home to start working, but you’re intrigued by him. Throughout your talk, you were impressed with the passion he has for both music and acting, but more than anything, the character he’s going to be portraying.

“Sure, but I can’t stay long. I have a song to write for you.” You grin as you follow him out of catering and into the rehearsal space. Immediately, Kenny calls you over where he’s sat with the young girl playing the lead role. She’s listening to a piece of music you don’t recognize.

“All good?” He asks when you join him.

“Great. I should be able to get a rough cut over to you by the end of the week. Is that okay?”

“Fabulous, I look forward to hearing what you come up with. Ready to see these amazing kids rock out before you go?”

“Am I ever.”

“Guys, let’s run through Now or Never.” Kenny calls out. Charlie and his bandmates grab their instruments while the young girl you now know as Madison turns the music off and leaves the stage area.

As the three guys rock out, you can’t help but watch Charlie. He’s a natural lead singer who commands the stage, even in rehearsal, and you know his fanbase is going to explode once the show airs. You take note of his singing range, mentally adding it to the notes you made earlier.

“Kenny, you’re onto a winner with this show,” you tell the director as the song ends. “I’m gonna head out and get started. I’ll let you know once we have something for you.”

Kenny hugs you before turning his attention back to the actors and starts directing them to lead into another track as you exit the room. As you reach your car, you hear footsteps behind you.

“Y/N, are you leaving?” You turn to see Charlie standing behind you.

“I have a song to write, the final one y’all need if I might add.” You smile at him, pulling your keys out of your bag.

“I can’t wait to hear it.”

“Well, I better make it a great track then, huh?” Your words made Charlie grin widely again and you couldn’t help but think how beautiful it was.

“You’re the only one to ask about the characters, so I have no doubt it’ll be amazing.”

His words didn’t surprise you. You were a bit of a method songwriter, needing to get into the correct headspace when writing emotional songs.

“Let’s hope I don’t disappoint.” You bit at your lip as the ever-familiar seed of doubt began to grow in your mind. It happened every time, but you always managed to ignore it.

“I’m sure you won’t. Hey, I was wondering if you’d let me hear it before you send it to Kenny.” That did surprise you. You’d been hired by Netflix, yet the lead actor was asking you to share something with him first.

“Er… I’m not sure if I’m allowed. I mean, what if they don’t like it and don’t use it?”

“Oh, right. Okay. Anyway, it was nice to meet you.” He held out his hand for you to shake. When your hand was in his, he lifted it and placed a soft kiss against your knuckles. A flicker of heat shot up your arm and your eyes shot to lock onto his. Judging by how wide they were, he’d felt it too. Eventually, you withdrew your hand from his, even though you didn’t particularly want to.

“You too. Good luck with the show.” Unlocking your car, you climbed in, and started the engine. With one last look at Charlie as you pulled the door closed, you forced yourself to pull out of the parking lot and drive away.

:: ::

|@charles_gillespie started following you

You stared at the notification on your Instagram account. It had been two days since your trip to meet up with Kenny and the cast – well, Charlie in particular – and you’d been working hard on the song. Intrigued, you clicked onto his profile and scrolled through his photos. He clearly loved the outdoors and spent a lot of time hiking or camping. You can’t help but smile when you see photos of him with his family and friends.

You follow him back and put your phone down to pick your guitar back up to continue working.

|@charles_Gillespie sent you a message

Hey

The app indicated Charlie was typing, then he wasn’t, then typing again, but no message came through. Shrugging, you put your phone back down and continued working. You had a title, a melody, and had almost finished the lyrics. It was full of emotion and if asked, you’d totally admit you had cried more than once while writing it.

How’s the song coming? Another message from Charlie. It made you smile, but you needed to finish working. You turned your phone off and focused.

Finally, the song was finished. All you needed to do was to record a rough cut to send over to Kenny and the writer so they could see if it needed any amendments before sending over the final version along with the chords and lyrics. You head into the tiny studio you have set up in your apartment and record the song. It takes three takes for you to get through it without crying, but once you do, you send it straight over and stop working for the night.

Turning your phone back on, it buzzes insanely with a slew of notifications. Friends checking up on you, your parents inviting you to dinner, an email from Kenny telling you they love the rough cut and asking you to send a cleaner copy tomorrow, and a couple of messages from Charlie on Instagram. Now you’re able to respond properly, you open the app.

Sorry if I’m disturbing you.

I hope the song’s going well.

Hey, sorry. I turned my phone off while I was finishing up. Kenny has the rough cut, so I’m about to chill out and watch a movie. Hope all is well at bootcamp.

You worry the message you reply with is overly formal, but it’s too late as it’s showing as being seen. You busy yourself making some food and picking out a movie to watch. Settling on your couch to watch the first To All the Boys movie, your phone begins to buzz.

Charlie 👅🍀

Instagram video

With a slightly trembling finger, you accept the call and soon Charlie’s face fills half of your screen.

“Hey, Y/N.” he smiles brightly at you.

“Hey.” You’re a little confused about why he’s calling you, but you decide to go with it.

“Kenny played me the rough cut of Unsaid Emily. I just wanted to tell you it’s beautiful and I can’t wait to sing it.”

“Thanks, I’m glad everyone seems to like it.”

“Y/N, we didn’t just like it, we all loved it. So many people were crying when they heard it.”

“I would apologize, but my mom taught me not to tell lies.” His laugh burst out of the speaker on your phone.

“Don’t, it’s great. It’s gonna be a great addition to the show.”

You grab the remote for the TV to turn the volume down as the film you’d picked to watch was starting.

“Hey, what movie are you watching?” he asks when you apologize for the interruption.

“Oh, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.” You can’t help but notice he scrunches up his face, and you also can’t help but notice how adorable it looks. “What was that face for?”

“I didn’t think you’d be a chick flick kinda girl…”

“Oh, I don’t watch it for the story.” You can’t help but laugh as he tries to work out what you mean.

“What’s the point of watching it then?”

“Because Noah Centineo’s pretty to look at.” You don’t add the fact he’s not as pretty as Charlie. It’s not exactly something you can admit on a first Instagram video call – not that you’re expecting there to be more.

“I’m not going to disagree, but is he prettier than me?” You laugh and roll your eyes at him.

“I’m not going to answer that question on the grounds that I barely know you.”

“I can see you blushing, Y/N. I think you think I’m prettier, but don’t want to admit it to my face.” He’s full on laughing now and you can’t help but join in.

“Carry on teasing me, I’ll end this call.” You threaten, making his eyes widen slightly.

“I’m sorry. So, tell me about yourself?” You see him getting comfortable on what looks like a bed. He’s soon lying sideways on the screen in front of you. You decide to mimic him, propping your phone against a glass candle holder on the table next to you. You lie on your side facing both your phone and the TV.

“What do you want to know?”

“Well, for starters, how old are you?”

“I’m twenty-five. You?”

“Twenty-one.”

For two hours, the two of you throw questions back and forth as the movie comes to an end without you noticing.

“Do you think you’ll come to set?” He asks you, surprising you.

“I think it’s doubtful. Once I record a cleaner version of Unsaid Emily, my job’s done. I’m not needed anymore.”

“Oh…” Did you detect a hint of disappointment in his voice? No, you didn’t.

“Well, this has been fun, Charles Jeffrey Gillespie, but I have an appointment in the morning, and I really need to get some sleep.” You sit up, take hold of your phone, and walk out of the lounge to your bedroom.

“Taking me to bed, already? Haven’t even had to buy you dinner.” Charlie jokes, making you roll your eyes at him. “Okay. Maybe we can do this again? Bootcamp lasts for a while longer yet, then we’re going to film in Vancouver.”

“That would be great. And thanks again for being nice about the song.” You both say your goodbyes and once the call has ended, you collapse back on to your bed, unsure exactly what has happened.

:: ::

It’s been three months since you had Unsaid Emily accepted by the show, and in that time you and Charlie have video called on Instagram a few times, but you’re both crazy busy. You’re working on a score for a videogame while he’s finished up with bootcamp and has relocated to Vancouver to start filming. The entire time, neither of you suggested meeting up even though you both lived in L.A.

You’re just leaving your parent’s home when your phone rings in your bag. Not recognizing the number on screen, you debate not answering it, but brush your thumb across the screen anyway.

“Hello?”

“Y/N? It’s Kenny. Are you okay to talk?”

“Hi Kenny, I’ve always got time for you.” You hear him laugh down the phone. “What can I do for you Mr. Ortega?”

“I was wondering, because you did such a great job with Unsaid Emily, if you’d like to come on set to watch it being filmed? See how we’ve adapted it?” Well, that wasn’t what you expected to hear.

“I’d love to. When do you film?”

“The day after tomorrow. I’m sorry it’s all so last minute, but I’ve been busy.”

“I can just about manage it. I’ll book a flight when I get back home, then I’ll message you for directions to the studio.”

“Sounds great. See you soon, and I really think you’ll love what we’ve done with the song.” You reassure him you will and end the call and get into your car to drive home.

After juggling a few things around, you’re able to book a flight to Vancouver for the next afternoon. When You message Kenny, he reassures you there’ll be a car waiting for you. You decide to book a hotel for two nights and a flight back the next day. You’ve never been to a TV set, and don’t know how long these things take. As you pack an overnight bag, you realize you’re excited, not only about seeing your work come to life, but seeing Charlie again, in the flesh.

:: ::

Arriving in Vancouver, you walked through the airport and out into the arrivals lounge, looking for the driver Kenny had sent to pick you up. You were able to bypass having to wait for your luggage thanks to only having a small carry-on bag so made it through the crowds pretty quickly. When you emerged, you saw a row of drivers holding signs, but none had your name on. Deciding to find somewhere to sit and call Kenny, you move past the drivers in black suits. Directly in front of you is Charlie wearing a wide grin.

“Hey you. Moonlighting as a chauffeur to make ends meet?” You tease as you approach him. He surprises you by pulling you into a hug.

“It’s weird not seeing your face on a small screen.” He jokes as he leads you outside, taking your bag from you. You can’t help but notice he’s been working out and his biceps are looking impressive. Well, you knew he had anyway thanks to his constant posting on Instagram, and from your video calls, but seeing it up close makes your mouth go dry.

“I’ve had to put make-up on. No filters in real life, Gillespie.” He rolled his eyes at you as he unlocked his car, an orange Nissan Juke.

“Some car there…” You struggle to hold in a laugh and his mock hurt look.

“Look, it may not be pretty, but it’s great for camping and heading out of town to go hiking.” He was almost pouting when he finished speaking.

“Okay, okay. I give in.” you climb into the car. “Why aren’t you on set?”

“I wasn’t needed for a couple of hours, so I offered to come and meet you. I have to be back once you’re checked in at your hotel. Sorry it’s a bit of a rush.”

“Don’t worry about it. I can go out sightseeing while you’re working hard.” You grin at him. “I’ve never been to Vancouver, or Canada, before.”

“You’ve clearly lived a very sheltered life.” He’s teasing so you just stick your tongue out at him before turning your attention out of the window as Charlie maneuvered the car out of the parking lot. “Have you even left California?” Again with the teasing.

“Not only have I left the state, but I’ve also even left the country.”

“That’s cool, where did you go?”

“I studied in London for a year, then I backpacked around Europe for another, before coming home and becoming a functioning member of society.”

“That’s actually pretty awesome. I’d love to do that, just travel around for a year and get to see so many amazing places.” There’s a look in his eyes you recognize. Wanderlust.

Before long, Charlie’s pulling up outside your hotel and helping you out of the car.

“I would make sure you get checked in okay, but I need to jet. I’m sorry, shall we meet up later, I can introduce you to the rest of the cast.”

“That would be great. Message me so I know when to be ready and where to meet y’all.” He agrees, places a soft kiss against your cheek and gets back into the car. You watch him drive away before going to check in.

:: ::

When you took the job of writing a song for a TV show, you never expected to find yourself out to dinner with the cast of said show, watching them do karaoke. All of them have included you, which made you feel as if you’re part of their circle, despite their many in jokes and stories from set. Madison greeted you like an old friend, telling you she’d head a lot about you from Charlie. That surprised you because you hardly knew him beyond the few video calls you’d had.

“He talks about you all the time, and Owen says he can hear his side of the conversations. He teases him about it all the time.” You stare at her, confused.

“That’s crazy. We hardly know each other.”

“Doesn’t stop feelings from happening.” She laughs at you, before dragging you up to perform with her.

The entire evening is a blast, but you all have to call it a night early thanks to their early call to set. You plan to call an uber back to your hotel, but Charlie insists on making sure you get back safe. As you say goodbye to the others, Madison give you a look you don’t even attempt to try and decipher.

“Thanks for tonight, I had a great time. You’re lucky you guys are so close.” You tell Charlie as your uber moves through the dark streets.

“Yeah, they’re great and we’re like a family. I know it sounds corny and cliché, but it’s the truth. I think that’s why Kenny set up bootcamp. It makes going to work so much easier.”

Silence falls over you, but it’s a comfortable one, and all too soon, you’re pulling up outside your hotel.

“Thanks for making sure I got back safe.” You say as you get ready to climb out of the car. Charlie surprises you by following you. “Oh, you don’t need to see me inside, I’m a big girl.”

“I know, but my mom would kill me if I didn’t. I was taught to make sure pretty girls got home safe.” You laugh but are filled with warmth at him calling you pretty.

“I bet you use that line on all the girls.” You give him a nudge with your shoulder which makes him laugh.

“Not really.” He holds out his elbow for you to tuck your hand through as he walks into the building.

Once you’re outside your room, you turn to face him and thank him for inviting you out again.

“It was a pleasure. I just hope you had a good time.”

“I really did. I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

“Yeah, see you.”

:: ::

The following morning, you’re up at what feels like the crack of dawn. You’re regretting the shots you had the night before as you climb into an uber to head over to the studio. The closer you get, the more excited you become. You’ve seen your songs brought to life on screen before, but you’ve never been there for the filming.

As you climb out of your car, you hear someone call out your name. You turn to see Madison and her dad walking toward you.

“Hey Y/N. How are you feeling after last night?” She asks, giggling slightly. You’re more than a little jealous of the fact she’s a minor and is unable to drink any alcohol.

“A bit delicate, but nothing a strong coffee won’t cure.” You smile as she introduces you to her dad as the three of you walk inside. They stay with you as you’re signed in and given a visitor’s pass.

“What do you know about this scene you’re watching today?” Madison asks you as you follow her through the hallways.

“Not a lot if I’m honest. I know a little background to the song and Luke as a character, but nothing else.”

“Woah, you’re in for a treat. I hope you didn’t wear any eye make-up.” Mr. Reyes laughs at his daughter’s words as you reach the catering tent. The aroma of coffee is calling you. “Well, I’ll see you soon, I’m first in hair and make-up.” The young girl gives you a tight hug and leaves you to fuel your need for caffeine.

By the time you’ve finished your drink, and a bagel, the tent is filling up around you. You spot Kenny entering and he makes a beeline for you.

“Y/N, it’s so good to see you again.”

“Thanks for having me. I’m honored to be invited. I know this is a bit unusual.”

“Honey, you don’t need to thank me. It was this guy’s idea.” He stepped aside to reveal Charlie, in full Luke costume.

“Oh…”

:: ::

Standing next to Kenny, you’re silent as the opening bars to your song start to play. A lump has already gathered in your throat as you watch Charlie as Luke singing to his mother who can’t see him. You knew it was an emotional song, but hearing it sung live and in context of the show, you can’t quite believe it’s yours.

You know they have some scenes to film that will be cut into the scene, but you can’t help being mesmerized by the tone of Charlie’s voice as he sings a song of regret.

You feel tears pricking at your eyes as rounds a corner of the set, belting out the final pre chorus, the rasp to his voice, and tears flowing down his face. Kenny takes a look at you and grabs hold of your hand, giving it a squeeze.

“You did good.” He compliments you. Wiping at your eyes, hoping your mascara isn’t running, you shake your head.

“No, that was all him.” Once filming’s over, you make an excuse to Kenny and head outside for some fresh air. You’re feeling overwhelmed and in awe of what they’ve done with your song.

“Are you okay?” Charlie’s voice is soft as he walks up to stand next to you.

“I’m fine, just a bit overwhelmed. I never expected it to… to be that good.” You realize you could have offended him and begin to stumble over your words. “Not that I mean… you’ve got an amazing voice, and you injected so much hurt and pain into the song. It sounded better than I ever imagined it to.”

You feel like a bumbling idiot and turn away from Charlie so he can’t see the embarrassment on your face. He moves to stand directly in front of you, using his hand to gently lift your chin so you have nowhere else to look but directly into his eyes.

“If the song wasn’t right, I wouldn’t have been able to do what I just did, so it’s all on you too.” It feels as if his hazel eyes are looking deep into your soul.

“Thank you.” You finally accept a compliment, making him smile. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Why did you ask for me to be here today?”

“Because the moment I heard the rough cut of Unsaid Emily I felt it was only right you be here. There something in your lyrics and melody that will truly have an affect on the audience, and I felt you needed to see that for yourself.” He suddenly let go of you and looked away.

“Why do I feel like there’s an ‘and’ coming?”

“And… the moment I heard that rough cut, I needed to know more about you. That’s why I followed you on Insta and started the video calls. I needed to know you.”

You don’t know what to say, not that there’s time for you to. Charlie looks back at you, places his hands on your waits, and bends his head to capture your lips in a soft kiss. It’s quick, but gets your pulse racing. He pulls away, slowly.

“Is Noah Centineo still prettier than me?”

You laugh before crushing your lips against is again, this time not so softly.

‘

Tags: @dream-a-little-bigger-x @xplrreylo

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#charlie gillespie #fic #imagine #charlie x reader #real person fic #Mich writes fic

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thewraith8 · 3 years

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Shadow and Bone Netflix Show - Brief Analysis

In this post I am going to break down the things I liked, the things I did not like, and just a general overview of my thoughts on the Shadow and Bone Netflix show. This is coming from someone who has read the Shadow and Bone trilogy about three years ago, the Six of Crows duology about a year ago, and has just recently watched the show when it premiered. I am a big fan of the duology and I did find the trilogy decently enjoyable at the time that I read it.

I would like to preface this by saying that, as this is an overview, I will not be going into a lot of detail with regards to every scene. I may do something like that in future posts where I discuss each scene or character separately but this is more of a general overview. I would also like to clarify that I will not be addressing anything super in depth about the racism in the show as I am not very educated on the topic. I know that a lot of people have many different views on it and as someone who is Asian, my personal view is that it was fine. Some pieces of dialogue would occasionally feel a little forced but I personally do not believe it was a bad idea to make Alina a mixed race character. I know sometimes it can really feel like the producers and writers are trying to be diverse by adding POC to the cast and having the character face some form of discrimination every other scene but this show did not feel like it was pushing it super hard. There was so much else going on in the show that I did not mind those few scenes where they did address racism.

So this is going to be divided into three parts. The first is production quality. The second is casting, acting, and character portrayals. And third is the writing and storytelling. So now let’s get into it.

Production quality:

This was one of the biggest things I feared would be terrible about the show and would greatly impact my opinion of it because in a visual medium it is very difficult to get past bad visual effects, sets, etc. I knew it would be the first thing I would notice upon starting the show and I was very pleasantly surprised to see that money was clearly spent in the production with the incredible effects, costumes, props, set designs, and cinematography. I will say I am not educated on the subject of filmmaking and cinematography but from the little I do understand I think it was done very well.

There were also certain aspects I noticed when comparing the filming of scenes between the two storylines. Mal and Alina’s scenes such as when they are writing letters to each other or when we get flashbacks of them at the orphanage, are more slow and soothing almost like gentle waves swaying back and forth on a beach. Their voices and dialogue are also soft and warm and this really gives a good sense of their relationship and dynamic. In contrast, when you look at scenes involving the crows, the filming is a lot quicker and snappier and things are generally more fast paced. Their dialogue, which involves a lot of banter or back and forths, is also great in showing their dynamic as well as their own individual character.

Moving on to set designs and costumes, I think these were done really well. The throne room of the Little Palace was almost exactly as I had imagined it to look and the palace in general with the rooms and hallways did appear to be high quality. The Fold was also very well done though something I found a little strange was the occasional bursts of lightning in the sky. I think that sort of defeats the purpose of it being this completely dark place. Other than that it was exactly as I would imagine it to look. Ketterdam was also exactly as I imagined it to be with the dark alleys and dingy streets. With regards to the costumes, I think they were beautiful. Alina’s costumes in particular were really well done. I loved the way they did her hair and make up in certain scenes like when they go through the Fold that last time. The Keftas that the Grisha wore were incredible and accurate to the books with the different colours of each for the different kinds of Grisha. The crows’ costumes were also exactly what I imagined each of them to look like and felt really connected to their characters. Overall I think the set designs and costumes were fantastic.

All in all I would give production a 9.5/10.

2. Casting, acting, and character portrayals:

Casting was also one of my fears for this show since the characters for me are the most important part of any story and if the cast is not good then the characters will not come across in the best way possible. I was once again so pleasantly surprised with the actors and actresses chosen for each role. I was worried about cringy acting as well and I am so glad there was no point at which I was cringing at any of the acting. The actors all appeared to have great chemistry and it came across wonderfully on screen. I’m going to briefly go through each of the main characters and the actor or actress that plays them and my thoughts on the acting and character portrayals alone. Later in the thrid section of this long post I will talk about each character with regards to how they were written.

Alina: I personally believe Jessie Mei Li played a perfect Alina Starkov. She really gave off the vibe of being this important figure, a Sun Summoner, without it feeling annoying or as though she knows she is the main character of the story. I think her acting and expressions were generally well done.

Mal: Though Archie Renaux was not how I imagined Mal to look, I think he did a great job of portraying the character. His interactions with Jessie Mei Li also felt very natural and they definitely had good chemistry.

Darkling: Again, I think Ben Barnes was the perfect casting for the Darkling and his portrayal of the character was very well done. There were times where he would get teary eyed when talking to Alina and I understand that it was part of his character in being manipulative but it looked just a bit weird because crying is just something that almost humanizes him which I think does not fit with the idea and aesthetic of his character. You can still have him be manipulative and appear a victim to Alina without him crying or getting teary eyed. I think he would be able to get that across better with a tragic expression and tone of voice. But overall I think he made a great Darkling.

Kaz: Once again perfect casting with Freddy Carter. And really for this one, props to the directors and others who cast him for this role because this was a diffcult character to get the perfect casting for. Kaz’s character is probably the one that I have the biggest problem with but that has more to do with the writing aspect of his character. With regards to the casting and acting, I think Freddy Carter was amazing. First of all, he looks exactly as I would imagine Kaz to look. Second, his expressions and mannerisms were on point. And third, he had really good chemistry with Amita Suman (Inej) and Kit Young (Jesper).

Inej: I feel like I keep repeating myself but once again I think this casting was perfect. Amita Suman as Inej just felt very right. Her portrayal of the character was amazing, she looked just as I imagined Inej would, and her chemistry with the other actors was incredible.

Jesper: Once again great casting with Kit Young as Jesper. He got across that charisma and humour that Jesper is known for extremely well through his expressions and body language. He also appeared to have great chemistry with the rest of the cast.

Nina: Another great choice to cast Danielle Galligan as Nina. I think she captured Nina’s energy or “vibe” perfectly with her voice and body language.

Matthias: Calahan Skogman is exactly as I pictured Matthias to look so I think he was a great choice as well.

Overall I think the casting, acting, and character portrayals in this show were spectacular so I would give it a 10/10.

3. Writing and storytelling/ How it was as an adaptation:

This is, in my opinion, the section with the most issues even though they were very few.

Overall I think the writing was great. There were a few cliche pieces of a dialogue but those were very few. The dialogue for each of the characters felt natural and never felt out of character. As I mentioned previously, Mal and Alina’s dialogue had a warmth to it and their dynamic of childhood best friends came across really well through their dialogue. It did not feel as though they were trying really hard to have that dynamic. I also think it was a great decision to have the letters they wrote to each other be narration for many of the scenes that we saw them in. This was a great method of really getting across what they were feeling while they were apart and allowing the viewer to empathize with them. On the other hand a similar sort of technique was used with the crows. Whenever they were carrying out some sort of heist or mission, Kaz would be narrating the plan while we were watching it physically play out on screen. The dialogue between the crows was generally good and mostly in character. Their dynamic came across really well in a lot of their banter.

With regards to the storytelling and as an adaptation, I also think the show did a pretty great job. Alina’s storyline was coherent and had a logical progression from beginning to end, following the major plot beats of the book. The main issue I have with it is that it felt rushed. I think adding an episode or two may really have helped with the pacing. It felt as though Alina learns about her powers and is taken to the Little Palace where she’s conflicted for maybe an episode and then suddenly she feels at home and like she belongs. We barely get to see her training at the Little Palace with Baghra or Botkin or see the development of her friendships with Marie and Nadia as well as with Genya. That part of her arc, which was a major part of it, felt rushed. Other than that I think the show did a good job of getting her from point A to B in a cohesive way.

The crows storyline, I thought, was incredible because, since I am a big fan of the duology, I loved getting to see the crows and how they were before the events of Six of Crows. I think it was fun seeing their lives in Ketterdam and the way they worked before Nina, Matthias, or Wylan joined them. I was worried about how they would be incorporated in the story and that it would not feel natural but I think the decision to make their goal be to get Alina was a great way to tie them into the main storyline. It made sense with their characters that they would do something like that to get money and it made Alina’s storyline even more interesting. Getting to see interactions between the characters of both the trilogy and duology was one of the best parts of the show for me. Think about it. These were interactions we could only have hoped to see in the books and the show brought that to life and gave us those interactions. The crows’ storyline did feel a little less cohesive than Alina’s but this also made sense with their characters and the mission they had to carry out. There were many parts of the plan that needed to be completed, different heists and side missions, in order for them to reach their end goal which was kidnapping Alina from the Little Palace so it made sense that their storyline was a little less straightforward. Overall I think they had a very interesting and captivating story.

As an adaptation I think the show did quite well. Further down in this post I am going to discuss the major issues I had with the show as part of this section where I am discussing writing, storytelling, and the show as an adaptation. But in general I think the show did well in adapting the characters as well as Alina’s storyline. The crows’ storyline was obviously something that was not taken from the books but something that I could definitely see them doing. I think the show also did a great job of adapting the world and all of its intricacies as well as giving off that atmosphere that you get a sense of when reading the books. I also liked that there were many pieces of dialogue taken straight from the books which really made the characters of the show feel exactly like those of the book.

Okay, now breaking down the few issues I had:

Kaz’s character: I think if we look at Kaz in the books, we can break his character down into two parts, the two defining parts:

His intelligence, wit, and strategic mind.

His cruel and brutal nature.

I think the show got both of these wrong on different levels. One of these can be explained while the other cannot. In the show, Kaz is not nearly as intelligent or strategic as he is shown to be in the books. We see on a number of occasions in the show that he has been taken advantage of or that he is not in the upperhand of a situation. I think that is a major change from his character in the book where one of the things you remembered about Kaz was how he was always ten steps ahead of his opponent. But this is an issue that can be explained and given depth by considering that the crows’ storyline in the show takes place prior to the events of Six of Crows and that at this point in time, Kaz hasn’t become that quick-witted, mastermind, strategist we know him to be in the books. We can see the beginnings of that character in the way he is portrayed in the show and can understand that his natural progression would be to the character from the books in the aspect of his intelligence. On the other hand however, there is still the second major part of his character and that part is a little bit of a bigger problem. That has to do with his completely cruel and brutal nature from the books. This was one of his major defining features and was very strongly rooted in his backstory. It was his past with Pekka Rollins and the death of his brother Jordie that brought about this ruthlessness in him. And what made his character so interesting and dynamic was how he was very slowly becoming a more caring person. It was a very slow progression but it was there nonetheless. You could see it in the way he cared for Inej and the rest of the crew. By the end he was still no where near being a gentleman, but there was still a change in him from the beginning to end. This is where I think the show messed up a little and it is an issue that I don’t really think can be resolved. The show made Kaz more soft and kind in nature. He definitely wasn’t entirely nice but you could tell he was a lot nicer compared to his book counterpart. Certain scenes in which he is talking to Inej felt a little too soft in particular the scene in which it almost seems as though he is about to confess something to her when she rushes out of the room and he calls after her. I don’t imagine book Kaz would ever do that. Or when he tells her that no one is like her. These are all moments where he appears to be much softer compared to the Kaz in the books that was cold and cruel. This is also an issue that cannot really be fixed in future seasons because the natural progression for the show then would be that he gets softer then he already is which means we will not get to see the Kaz from the books at all or with any accuracy. If future seasons do make him exactly as he is in the duology then there will be the issue of it not feeling consistent with the character he was made to be in the shows. However I will end off by saying that even despite his character not being entirely accurate to that of the books, I still very much enjoyed watching every scene he was in and this issue did not ruin the overall experience of the show for me. I think what they did with his character still worked really well with the story, so overall it was not a major issue for me in changing my opinion of the show.

Nina telling Matthias why she got him imprisoned as a slaver: This I find to be a greater problem that could have so easily been fixed by taking out just a few pieces of dialogue. I think a big part of what made Nina and Matthias’ story so heartbreaking was this pivotal moment when Nina turns him in as a slaver to save his life. And he doesn’t learn the truth until they reunite in the present day of Six of Crows. He spends that time in Hellgate believing that she betrayed him and that she really was the deceitful and dishonest witch he believed her and all other Grisha to be. Then when he finally does learn the truth, it is this big moment and then he has a slow progression to eventually believing it. The show eliminated the entire part of what made their story so tragic by having Nina tell him the truth of what happened immediately after she has him captured. So there is no possibility of this slow journey that Matthias has of accepting that truth. In the show he almost seems mean now for not believing or at least trying to believe what Nina tells him. Overall this is probably one of my biggest gripes with the whole show.

The Darkling creating the Fold: Another issue that could quite easily have been fixed is how the Darkling created the fold. The show made it to be that he came across a small slip of paper, he read what was on it, and then he gained the ability to create the Fold. That is too simple of an explanation for how something as grand as the Shadow Fold was created. I think this could have rather easily have been fixed so that even if it was still easy it wouldn’t be as easy as just happening upon a slip of paper. They could have done it by showing a montage of him looking through all the books in the archive and figuring out that there is some sort of code that he needed to put together and when he does piece it together and perform some sort of ritual, then he gains this ability to create the Fold. That would have made it more believable and the scene would only have been slightly longer than what it was in the show.

Crows letting Alina escape: This was another issue I had that sort of adds to how they changed Kaz’s character because book Kaz would never have allowed Alina to escape so easily. Even the Kaz in the show would not have been outsmarted by Alina. This was one thing that felt a little out of character for the crows because, fine, I can understand that Alina blinded them for those few seconds with her light and Inej was not in on the plan of capturing her anymore, but how was Alina able to run out of sight so fast that neither Kaz nor Jesper saw where she went. Then on top of that, they aren’t discreet about finding her, as Kaz is always careful to be. Instead they go around the streets describing how she looks and asking people if they’ve seen her. I am not entirely sure what they could have done to solve this issue but I don’t believe the solution was very difficult. Maybe they could have explained through a short piece of dialogue that Alina used her power in a way that blinded them for more than thirty seconds which gave Alina enough time to get out of sight. Whatever the reason, I think this should not have been an issue because, despite seeming small, I think it says a lot about the crows’ characters. And I definitely don’t think this was a bad scene at all because I loved seeing this interaction and seeing Inej’s reaction to Alina. I just think the issue of Alina escaping so easily should have been addressed.

For now, after watching the show just once, those were the major issues in writing and storytelling that I had with the show. If I have more thoughts about this after watching it again, I will make another post about it. Now I want to talk about some things that the show added that were not in the books and what was changed or kept from the books, that I liked.

Mal’s character: The change that was made to Mal’s character in the show was probably the biggest and best change that could have been made. One of the major reasons I do not like the Shadow and Bone trilogy anywhere near as much as the Six of Crows duology is the characters. Sure, I found the world and plot interesting when I read the trilogy a few years back and even at times the characters were good, but a lot of the time I was either annoyed with Alina or with Mal. Most of the time it was Mal because he didn’t really feel like he was a great friend to Alina because of the way he treated her for being Grisha. I think a lot of my frustration with him also came from the story being entirely in Alina’s perspective so we never got to see any of what Mal was going through. The times that we did see him, he was either angry at or overly protective of Alina and there were only few occasions where he was being a good friend. The show really changed that with allowing us to see his perspective and all the difficulty and trauma he was going through to be with Alina. The show succeeded in making him an empathetic character and I think that is one of the most necessary things in creating a likeable character. Through his dialogue and actions, we were able to see how much he really cared for Alina. There were never any long stretches of time where he was angry with her or, on the other hand, where he was being overly protective of her. He was continuously being a good and supportive friend and that made the biggest difference in my liking his character. It is also what made me really enjoy Alina’s storyline as well because there was no point at which I found either Alina or Mal or any other character involved in their story, annoying to watch.

No mourners no funerals: I was overjoyed when this line came up in the show because it is such an iconic line from the duology that I absolutely love and it was great to see it said on screen. Similarly, I was so glad that we also got to see Kaz say the line, “The deal is the deal.” and say it to Alina.

Interactions between S&B and SoC characters: This was probably one of my favourite things about the show. It really felt like watching two worlds collide. I loved watching Kaz and Inej posing as guards and trying to escort Alina so they can take her. Watching Inej’s reactions to Alina was one of the best things. Then, Mal teaming up with the crows when they are in the Fold was one of the strangest but coolest interactions. Alina giving Inej the knife that she later names Sankta Alina was one of the best interactions I could have hoped for with the crossing of these two casts of characters. And to end it with Alina giving Kaz that valuable piece of jewelry, an interaction I never thought I would see, was incredible.

Conductor: The addition of this character I think was a great idea. He definitely added to the storyline of the crows and was an interesting character on his own. He was the cause of a lot of the funniest dialogue and moments in the show like when the crows are crossing the fold for the first time. Overall, I think it was a good decision to add him in.

Now last but not least, the thing that stole the show and beat everything else by far was:

(Drum roll)

Milo the goat!

And with nothing more to say about that, we’ve reached the conclusion of this very long post. My overall rating for this third and last section, which is regarding the writing and storytelling, would be an 8.5/10, a very good score.

If I were to rate the show over all, I would give it a 9.3/10 because I think it was spectacular in many aspects. The few gripes I did have were not anything too major, though if those aspects were fixed I think this would be a top-tier show and adaptation for me.

What do you think about everything that I said? Do you agree or disagree? I’d love to have a discussion so feel free to reach out and comment!

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vanessakirbyfans · 4 years

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There’s a singular vision that director Kornél Mundruczó had in constructing “Pieces of a Woman,” and he had the full trust of his actors, particularly Vanessa Kirby and Ellen Burstyn. The film had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival where Kirby won the Volpi Cup for best actress. Just ahead of its Venice bow, Oscar-winner Martin Scorsese joined the film as an executive producer.

The phrase “it’s difficult to watch” is often spoken in various cinephile circles when referring to dour, less-than-pleasant movie experiences. I can recall having those same conversations around films like “Requiem for a Dream” and “Son of Saul.” Similar words have been uttered about Mundruczó’s portrait of loss and grief.

The role of Martha, a woman whose home birth ends in an unfathomable tragedy, demanded a lot of the 32-year-old Kirby. She’s received rave reviews for her performance, planting herself near the forefront of this year’s best actress race.

Burstyn has been a staple of the cinematic industry for more than five decades. She’s managed six Oscar nominations over her career, winning best actress for Scorsese’s “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” from 1974. Her passion and vigor for her craft is as clear as any thespian working today. When discussing her character Elizabeth, and her daughter Martha, who is a third-generation Holocaust survivor, drawn from screenwriter Kata Wéber’s own family experience, she becomes visibly emotional.

“Pieces of a Woman” marks the English-language debut for Mundruczó, who gained a passionate following with his breakout film “White God.”

On Thursday evening, in collaboration with the American Film Institute, Netflix will be hosting a screening with industry professionals, critics, journalists and Academy members.

Variety sat down with both Kirby and Burstyn prior to the screening.

You have had an incredible career, and are still working consistently. Do you have a method to choosing roles at this point in your profession?

Ellen Burstyn: Whenever I’m asked a question like that, I have the impression that people feel I get a million offers and I pick my favorite and that’s not quite true. I don’t have to turn down many films. If I like the director, writers and the actors, I’m prone to take it because in fact, there aren’t many roles written for a woman of my age. So when I get one, I’m usually very happy to get it.

In this case, I saw “White God,” Kornel’s film, and I adored that film. And I have seen Vanessa [Kirby] play Princess Margaret [on “The Crown”] and I don’t watch television very much. When I saw Vanessa, I went “who’s that?” I could see right away she was a special, really accomplished, talented actress. Unusually talented. I was very impressed with her. So when I have a filmmaker I like, a script I like, and an actress like Vanessa where I get to play her mother. It’s a win-win-win situation. That doesn’t happen very often. The roles that are written for a woman my age aren’t plentiful.

This role demands a lot of you, not just as an actress, but as a human. Can you talk about your experience filming?

Vanessa Kirby: Well, firstly, Ellen is one of my heroes. I was so excited that she agreed to do it. She’s always had this trailblazing fire in all of her performances. I so looked up to that, like Gena Rowlands, the same kind of dynamism. I’m so happy to have her in my life now and she’s someone I love very deeply.

How demanding it was on paper, and the idea of knowing that I would need to understand, and go into the psychology of that level of grief, while trying to honor all of the women that I spoke to, and that went through similar things, it felt like a responsibility. I’m always looking for something that scares me and that is seemingly insurmountable, and that alone was the birth because I haven’t given birth myself. I knew I owed to women to try to portray as true-to-life as possible. I was very lucky to watch someone do it for real, which helped me incomparably and I wouldn’t have known how to do it without her giving me the gift of allowing me to be there with her.

The 23-minute one-shot sequence of you giving birth is incredible. How many takes did you do and can you talk about that experience?

Kirby: The actual filming of it was just exhilarating. It was the best film experience of my life. We did four takes the first day and two the second day. I think Kornel used the fourth one. It was like doing a play. Shia is also a real theater animal, so is Ellen, and we all understood what it would require. It was exciting setting up, preparing and then launching into it freefall. And then at the end, to slowly missing word? Out of it – taking a long time to come out of it – and then reset everything. We would blast music around the house and dance around the house just to clear what had happened. By the end of it, your psyche does know any different and you feel like you actually went through this.

Your character is deeply flawed but with a lot of love for her daughter. Did you draw on anything from your own life as screenwriter Kata Weber did?

Burstyn: I always draw from personal experiences. It’s just part of what we do. I don’t know how to not do that. She’s a funny type of character [Elizabeth]. The story Kata wrote about how she was born, with the Holocaust aspect of the film, is from Kata’s family. The idea of being held upside down by your feet and the doctor saying that if she picks up her head, she’ll survive. That’s such a…deeply moving concept how one comes into the world. With the will to live, despite the frail condition of the body. It’s so moving to me. It explains so much about her character and her drive forward. That wonderful introduction of the character that Kata wrote. It’s kind of a pathetic version of whatever it is, make it better, go for it, do it. Don’t be satisfied with blandness. I think she’s a very strong character despite her limitations. She’s not in tune with her daughter but sometimes mothers aren’t.

Talk about Kornel’s vision of the film and how it compares to other directors you have worked with in the past.

Kirby: I knew that the film would be special. I always feel like his movies have a lot of soul and I love movies that have lots of soul. I knew that this was a personal story for Kornel and Kata. He had such a clear vision, and it’s so relaxing when someone has it. He had such a burning vision of Martha and needing that story to be told. It’s not about the loss of a baby, it’s more of a character study of someone that this happens to. How someone reacts to trauma and how individual grief is and he allowed me to really shape that. I felt a lot of respect and trust because of that. It was really profound collaboration.

Burstyn: I just feel his sense of sensitivity and is such a dear human being. Kind and a visionary. I felt like he allowed me to give what I had to give. I never felt interfered with. Sometimes directors come up with an idea and they say “maybe she does xyz” and you say “what?” I deeply fond of him.

If nominated, Ellen Burstyn you will set a record as the oldest acting nominee ever at 88 years and 98 days old on nomination day. How does that feel?

Burstyn: That’s a wonderful thing. I actually have a strong desire to be the oldest person ever nominated. That’s an encouraging thing for me to say to the women of the world, keep on trucking, as long as you can. Don’t give up, don’t retire, don’t sit back and say “well I guess it’s over,” it’s not over, until you declare it’s over. I pray that I get to be that example.

Ann Roth, the costume designer for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” also a Netflix feature, who if she’s nominated, she will be oldest nominee, of any category, at 90.

Burstyn: I’m jealous.

How do you feel about the reviews you are receiving and the possibility of being in the awards conversation?

Kirby: The film felt so much bigger than any of us. This is a subject about neonatal death. The women I spoke that had stillbirths and multiple miscarriages and it’s still a subject that’s really hard to talk about. The fact that you’re saying this conversation is happening around this [film], that means so much to me. If that means that a few more people watch it or more conversations start happening, and that was everyone’s intention with it. The best moments of my working life was doing that birth. It’s hard to articulate. I’m unbelievably grateful and touched that it’s for this film. It’s my first lead role too and I knew I that was ready. I waited a long time. I watched other people do it and I absorbed everything and felt really ready.

Burstyn: Honey, you’re a glowing example of what a fine actress is. You studied well and you came up the right way on the stage, which as far as I’m concerned, everybody who ever wants to be an actress should learn what is on the stage. You’re an absolute glory as an actress, and as a person I might add.

I wish you were my mother.

Burstyn: I can’t tell you how many people say that to me. After “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” I became some type of archetypal mother that people never had and wish they did.

“Pieces of a Woman” will stream on Netflix on Jan. 7.

#Vanessa Kirby #Pieces of a Woman #Ellen Burstyn #Interview #Articles

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ryanmeft · 4 years

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Movie Review: The Report

Shortly after 9-11, the CIA and FBI implemented a program of torture for suspected terrorists. Years later, it was determined that these methods had not resulted in a single piece of actionable intelligence that the U.S. did not already possess. In the time between, dozens of people were subjected to such treatment as being doused naked in freezing water, kept awake for days, bound in contorted positions, and being sexually humiliated. Most knew nothing, and some were innocent of any crime. Those who were guilty offered nothing usable. These are facts, impervious to any political leanings. It is this attitude of dry, clinical truth, mixed with just the right amount of emotion from star Adam Driver, that makes The Report an engaging film.

If your definition of “engaging” equates with “exciting”, you’ll want to scroll on by. Driver plays Daniel Jones, who, at the behest of Senator Dianne Feinstein (Annette Bening), led the investigation into the black sites where torture was performed after the CIA destroyed their tapes, which is not generally something people with nothing to hide do. He is a detail-oriented man: he reads through every page of every document available, insists on investigating even the smallest possible leads, and has a very difficult time giving up on a point when he knows he’s right. In other words, he’s exactly the kind of person you want if you’re going to go poking at an organization that is notorious for being secretive and defensive. He is not, as some will say, anti-American, having changed his classes to National Defense the day after the attacks. Driver’s removed style of acting, in which any display of emotion always comes as a surprise, fits the character well.

We know very little of his personal life, beyond the fact that he once had a relationship, which he no longer does due to spending his time at work. He’s eventually helped in his work by a disgusted and unwilling participant in the program (Tim Blake Nelson) and Ali Soufan (Fajer Al-Kaisi), a counter-terrorism expert whose years of experience and conviction that only relationship building yields good info are dismissed by the people calling the shots. Opposing him: a bevy of rotating CIA officials, all of whom seem aware of the flaws in the program but only care about protecting their tribe. These include a number of notable actors: Maura Tierney as a stand-in for Gina Haspel, Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Morrison, and Ted Levine. The latter, as real-life CIA director John Brennan, actively tries to smear Jones’ name in an effort to discredit his work, framing him for hacking into CIA servers.

The things that took place at the black sites are shown in incredible detail, to the point where the squeamish may have a difficult struggle with the film. The “enhanced interrogation techniques”, the government’s euphemism for torture, do not consist of the stuff you see in movies---there are no beatings, no fingernails are ripped out. Prisoners such as Abu Zubaydah (Zoudi Boueri) are bound naked, placed in spaces too small for humans, screamed at constantly, kept awake with heavy metal music, drenched with freezing water. The two people behind most of the torture are psychologists who swear their methods work, even though none of their training is in interrogation. James Mitchell (Douglas Hodge) and Bruce Jessen (T. Ryder Smith) at first seem like they might really believe abuse works in getting information. This impression crumbles as the movie continues and they take evident pleasure in heaping pain on detainees, insisting the torture continue long after it has been proved useless. When confronted by investigators and asked point-blank why they are continuing if it hasn’t worked, Mitchell all but confesses it is more about revenge than effectiveness. Later, the two toast their success, and it is clear they aren’t talking about all the information they haven’t gotten. I find in digging into the true story that they made tens of millions of dollars as contractors doing this. Imagine having people like these for your psychologist.

Writer-director Scott Z. Burns and his team of producers, which include Steven Soderbergh, have gone to incredible lengths to accurately portray both the torture and the investigations. Some liberties have been taken---19 senate staffers have been reduced to Jones and a few composite characters, and of course some lines are there for dramatic effect---but digging into the real details shows a surprising level of accuracy. One gets the sense they are going against the cultural grain. The irony is they’ve made a movie accurately depicting the uselessness of torture, and it is usually movies and their dramatic exaggerations that make us think torture works. The movie flies in the face of a political ideology that equates violence with strength, and does so by sticking to the facts. Is it entertaining? It’s my job to answer that question. I would say it is effective. Those who need to see it probably won’t, and may not believe it if they do.

Verdict: Recommended

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

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#adam driver #Annette Bening #the report #movies #jennifer morrison #ted devine #tim blake nelson

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christianslaterreview · 4 years

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Mobsters (1991) dir. Michael Karbelnikoff

Synopsis:

Charlie 'Lucky' Luciano, portrayed by Christian Slater, is a young, working class Italian whose family is being terrorized by the Mafia as his father owes money to one of two main bosses, Don Faranzano (Michael Gambon). Luciano teams up with three of his boyhood friends to overthrow Don Faranzano and the other boss, Don Masseira. The film follows the boys as they quickly rise to top and become embroiled in Mafia politics, love stories, and personal conflicts that threaten to ruin lifelong friendships.

Review:

This is going to be a hard review for me to write because I really don't care about this movie. Like, at all (I mean look at my shitty synopsis lmao). Usually I'm so ardent about my reviews because I so desperately want the film in question to be good. Typically, Christian Slater's films have just enough about them that's good that elements of them are not only salvagable, but sincerely enjoyable. They're also usually just bad enough to remain interesting. Bad enough to make me care.

Mobsters, however, was so formulaic and devoid of any actual substance that the end product feels like a parody. It was so clearly hitching it's wagon to the popularity of other films in the same genre such as Bugsy and Good Fellas, but in their hurry to piece together some semblence of a film before the trend fizzled, they forgot that a movie needs elements beyond snappy one liners, empty banter, period costumes, and pretty faces with famous names. The audience is rushed through most of the narrative with focus only given to a handful of major plot points - but this is of course only when we're torn away from the laughably long and gregarious sex scenes which are peppered throughout the entire film to really help move things along - so all the opportunities to truly get to know the characters, their drives, their vulnerabilities, etc. in compelling B-plots or excellent pacing of the A-plot are nowhere to be found. The result is a film that feels like it was developed purely for flashy, promotional material with the story being tossed inside this hollow, pandering concept as an afterthought.

One of my main issues with most films is the pacing. I expect every film to have Tarentino level pacing where the story is slowly teased out in a seemingly chaotic but methodical progression. Tarentino is the fucking master of knowing just how long to let a certain plot point sit on the back burner before bringing it back full force right before you forget it ever happened. He knows just how long to keep the camera focused on one character's face, how long the back and forth dialogue needs to continue before bursting into action, how long to keep the audience waiting before a reveal (if the reveal ever happens). And before I get totally lost on this tangent and end up becoming a Tarentino stan blog, my point is that Mobsters fails in every single one of these devices.

Instead of feeling like 2hrs passed by so quickly because I was just that engaged, the run time of this film felt unbelievably long because literally nothing of real interest happened until about an hour into the movie. Right off the bat, we're thrown into the drama as Luciano's Mother and Father are assaulted and threatened by one of the main bosses, Faranzano. But rather than feeling like we're being poignantly acclimated to the brutal setting of this story, it just feels sudden and awkward, like a cheap, theatrical bid for emotion and drama. Granted, this might not be the screenplay's fault per se. None of the actors did a particularly solid job throughout this film, which did end up weakening whatever elements of Mobsters could have been salvagable.

After this point, the movie just rushes through introductions in a series of montages with a voiceover by Slater in his ... "accent". The movie barely has time to get on it's legs before we've already reached the next milestone in the boys' story as they're making a name for themselves as bootleggers. However, instead of actually demonstrating the struggle, the danger, the politcs of rising to the top, we just get another expositional montage with voiceovers. Have fun trying to remember what overlapping whispers are important plot points and which ones are just a little flavoring to show the glamorous gangster lifestyle the boys are entering into.

The stitled, awkward pacing of this film can actually be broken down to a pattern if you were paying close enough attention: major plot point, expositional montage mentioning specific Thing, the Thing happens in literally the next scene, 12 minute long sex scene, and repeat for 2 hours. It doesn't make for a very compelling narrative at all.

Additionally, the characters themselves were so one dimensional and poorly acted (sorry Christian :/ ) that not even they could save the movie. The accents were cheesy as hell, but even worse than those was the dialogue which consisted of banter and one liners that wanted so badly to be insidious and clever, but only ended up sounding like borderline nonsensical gangster jargon that was regurgitated by memory from someone who had seen Good Fellas once. And when the dialogue wasn't an unsuccesful mimicry of shrewd banter, it was equally meaningless, psuedo-artfilm dialogue. But instead of using dialogue as a device to allude to greater themes and deepen both the emotional and philosophical landscape of the film, everyone's dialogue was just a series of free floating, psuedo-intellectual lines that when strung together, didn't actually make a conversation or even develop the characters themselves.

Which is yet another problem with Mobsters. Although the characters are based upon real life historical figures, the characters themselves are barely developed on screen. Everyone's personalities are almost indistinguishable from one another because every character is so one dimensional. Despite the bounteous material the writers had to work with such as Lucky Luciano's righteous anger at the injustice his family and others have faced, Lansky's battle against the anti-semitism he faces, or the political landscape of the time controlled by the Mafia, all the characters are still underdeveloped caricatures.

The main focus of the film could have been the conflict that exists between Luciano's desire to see an end to the vicious reign of the Mafia while also seeking to be the Ringleader himself. It could have been a slow burn film focusing on the strategy and politics of attempting to dethrone the cities two biggest mob bosses. It could have been about how Luciano's and Lansky's friendship developed and devolved throughout their enterprise. It could have focused on literally any number of things to help anchor the story in a main conflict. But instead, the focus of the film flits from politics to personal drama to love scenes with only the cast of characters to connect the threads. None of those plot points were artful B-plots that helped flesh out the story and the characters; they were pitiful, unskilled attempts at creating a world to immerse the audience in without having any knowledge about how to effictively do that. As a writer, you can't give equal attention to all the different threads throughout a story otherwise the audience doesn't know what the main point is - that's why they're called B-plots.

Moreover, Mobsters used yelling really loudly and dramatically as a superficial plot device over and over again and each time it did nothing but made me want to hit mute for a moment or two. Syd Field's put it best when she said "All drama is conflict. Without conflict, there is no action. Without action, there is no character." However, what Karbelnikoff doesn't understand is that conflict is not just people displaying extreme emotion; there needs to be substance behind what is creating this conflict and that the audience needs a chance to become invested in the storylines and motivations the conflict is contigent upon. People aren't moved just by emotion itself; people are moved when they can empathize with a character's struggle. But we can't do that unless the director takes the time to walk us through the world they've created so the stakes actually seem real.

This film is chock full of scenes where characters that don't seem to have a reason to fight are fighting. I'm sure it's supposed to demonstrate what a rough business being a mobster is and how the pressure of ambition and the ever present threat it might overtake you, but instead it just makes the characters seem volatile and juvenile to the point that I don't even want to sympathize with any of them.

Lastly, this wasn't even a beautiful movie. Just like a Marvel movie, every shot was obvious, straightforward, and boring. In a movie that is all about the excess and glamour and violent opulence, you'd think the cinematography itself would reflect that. Instead, I wasn't surprised or moved by a single shot throughout the whole film. The overtop villains had such potential for unsettling, aggrandizing angles but every scene felt about as creative as watching talking heads.

And my very last bone to pick with this film is the ENDING. It felt like they decided to toss in a random moral to the story solely for the purpose of offering some kind of closure. I mean, to be fair, there's no other way they could have wrapped it up since the entire film is just a series of loose threads. But it was just the perfect way to punctuate the end of this wishy-washy movie (about MOBSTERS) with a vague cliche sentiment of "can't we all just get along?"

To me, Lucky Luciano is perhaps an anti-hero. I empathize with his desire to seek retribution and justice and instigate egalitarian politics, however, he doesn't seek to eradicate the institution of the Mafia, he just wants to run it *differently*. This could have made Luciano a supremely compelling character, but the movie never really frames him as a good guy or a bad guy. He is just kind of matter-of-factly presented to the audience with no real commentary. So by the end of the film, the fact that he's painted as this feel good hero within the last few minutes felt contrived and meaningless.

If Luciano's aim was to be the biggest mob boss around while also instituting a more egalitarian regime, why wasn't that the main focus of the film? It's definitely brought up, but it isn't given the focus it should have. We just knew that he wanted to overthrow the other bosses, but didn't delve into what his visions for the Mafia were or how much his desire for success was consuming him.

So the ending sentiment of the movie being "and then the bad guys were dead and a really Nice Guy became head of the Mafia and everyone was treated a lot nicer :)" felt juvenile and cheesy.

Mobsters gets a total of 1 Slaters out 10 Slaters. I'm not prepared to give it a zero, but I have no justification for that because, news flash, my rating system is wholly subjective and based on what I feel inside my heart. I will not be accepting criticism on this point. Thank you for understanding.

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blackinmotionpictures · 6 years

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The star of the upcoming film “Widows” needed to know what kind of wig or extensions she should wear to play Veronica Rawlins, the leader of an unlikely band of robbers scrambling to pull off a dangerous heist. Director Steve McQueen’s answer shocked the Emmy-, Tony- and Oscar-winning actress.

“I said, ‘Your own hair is beautiful — just wear it that way,’” recalls McQueen. “Veronica is a wash-and-go kind of girl.”

For Davis, the decision to appear on-screen in close-cropped, curly hair was liberating and represented an important social statement.

“You’re always taught as a person of color to not like your hair,” she says. “The kinkier it is, the so-called nappier it is, the uglier it is.”

McQueen stressed that he was interested in reflecting reality. More women looked like her, he told the actress, than like the artificial and idealized images of female beauty that Hollywood frequently projects.

“We’re into a zeitgeist where people are fighting for their space to be seen,” says Davis. “People have to know that there are different types of women of color. We’re not all Foxy Brown. We’re not all brown or light-skinned beauties with a big Afro. We have the girl next door. We have the older, dark-skinned, natural-haired woman.”

If “Widows” succeeds, it can help ensure funding for several Davis-led passion projects, ranging from a biopic about Texas congresswoman Barbara Jordan to a drama about an all-female military unit from the Kingdom of Dahomey. It will mean that an actress known for her volcanic intensity and commanding presence will finally get the roles she deserves. For too long, Tennon notes, his wife has had to make do with supporting turns, often playing maids or mothers, while ceding the limelight to white actresses. Davis may have scored raves and award nominations for “Doubt” and “Solaris,” but often she had only a few minutes of screen time to create a fully fleshed-out performance.

“She specialized in taking a piece of chicken and turning it into filet mignon,” says Tennon.

John Patrick Shanley, the writer and director of “Doubt,” the 2008 film that put Davis on the map after years of character work, knows firsthand about the paucity of roles available to African-Americans. He says every black actress of a certain age was up for Davis’ role because, though the part lasted only eight minutes, the aria of maternal love that the character was asked to deliver presented an important opportunity.

“This kind of role isn’t usually out there for a woman of color,” says Davis. “Widows” is a female-driven enterprise, offering up meaty roles for Michelle Rodriguez, Cynthia Erivo and Elizabeth Debicki, who play the other members of a gang of widows who must pull off a heist in order to pay their husbands’ debts to a drug dealer.

Women of color don’t get paid less than just male actors — their salaries pale in comparison with those of white women.

“There are no percentages to show the difference,” says Davis. “It’s vast. Hispanic women, Asian women, black women, we don’t get paid what Caucasian women get paid. We just don’t. … We have the talent. It’s the opportunity that we’re lacking.”

The movie business is outwardly liberal, but the mostly white men who run the major studios tend to cling to certain prejudices when greenlighting projects. In particular, there is a belief that films with people of color in the leads don’t do as well internationally.

That logic is being challenged. The blockbuster success of movies with women of color, such as “Crazy Rich Asians,” “Girls Trip” and “Breaking In,” may be softening old stigmas. Yet a recent survey by the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism shows that the number of speaking roles for women has been virtually unchanged over the past decade. It gets worse when it comes to women of color. In 2017, 43 of the top 100 films lacked any black female characters, 65 were absent Asian or Asian-American female characters and 64 did not depict a single Latina character.

Davis doesn’t think change is possible unless executive suites across Los Angeles become more inclusive. “We’re not even invited to the table,” she says. “I go to a lot of women’s events here in Hollywood, and they’re filled with female CEOs, producers and executives, but I’m one of maybe five or six people of color in the room.”

“Widows” is a heist film anchored in grief. Unlike in “Ocean’s 11” or “The Thomas Crown Affair,” where the criminality is portrayed as a lark, Davis and her accomplices break the law because they have no choice and because they have troubled home lives.

“I have issues with stories of people who just get out of bed and start robbing banks,” she says. “As an actor, I needed to know what would drive a seemingly together woman to do this, and it always starts with someone reaching bottom.”

The film is as interested in painting a sprawling portrait of urban corruption as it is in laying the groundwork for the final caper. It touches on police shootings, political back-scratching, domestic violence and economic despair.

Davis says that wrestling with demons on-screen can be “torturous,” and she’s built a career by being able to radiate a kind of operatic fury and anguish. In “Fences,” for instance, her character Rose doubles over into a snot-dripping, tear-streaming state of indignation and regret after learning that her husband has cheated on her. And while her character in “Widows” is more tightly controlled, she has moments where her eyes reveal the deadness of a crippling depression. Yet those who work with Davis say she’s able to access this well of emotion without relying on a kind of Method acting intensity.

For Davis, film provided an important escape hatch at a key moment as she was growing up. At the age of 11 or 12, she remembers sitting around her family’s dilapidated television, which rested on top of another broken set and had an antenna caked in aluminum foil to get a stronger signal. She was watching “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.” Witnessing Cicely Tyson, an acclaimed black actress playing a defining role, age from 23 to 110 had an electrifying effect on the young woman from Central Falls.

“This beautiful, magical transformation happened in the midst of all that poverty,” recalls Davis. “It elevated me out of my situation and stimulated my imagination. I knew I needed to make a life doing this.”

A very condensed version of Viola’s interview with Variety. Try to check the full one if can.

#actress: viola davis #director: steve mcqueen #article

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dcarevu · 5 years

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Pretty Poison

“No strychnine. But I added just a pinch of vanilla!”

SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT

I experienced poison ivy when I was a kid. The rash was all over my leg, and I gave it plenty of time to spread before finally seeing a doctor. It was absolutely miserable. But y’know… At least I can say that never during that time did I ever need to deal with a man-eating plant, a dying friend stuck in ICU, or the slow feeling of poison dragging me straight down into my cactus-filled grave.

Villain: Poison Ivy

Robin: No Writer: Tom Ruegger (teleplay), Paul Dini (story), Michael Reaves (story) Director: Boyd Kirkland Animator: Sunrise Airdate: September 14, 1992 Episode Grade: A

Now this is what I’m talking about!

Okay, so the show thus far has been good. I’ve been enjoying starting it from scratch and watching it in its proper order. And Char who is completely new to the show has liked it a lot as well. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by her reactions. And of course, there was always the thought that maybe it just wouldn’t end up being her type of thing (not that it would be the worst thing in the world by any means). But if you’ve noticed, I haven’t given any episodes a rating above a B yet. But I knew this episode was coming. I knew it was a great one. And it didn’t let either of us down. Eventually we will get to the safe zone of the series, where the show becomes much more consistent, and consistently great at that. Everything evens out, and the identity is solidified. I don’t think we are quite at that point yet, but I do consider this episode to be a sign post that says, “Just a little bit further!” I want to reiterate that the past 4 episodes have not been bad! B is a good grade, and even C is passing. But, yeah, look at who wrote this episode. When Paul Dini is involved, that’s usually a very good sign right there. In my opinion, he was one of the best (if not the best) things to happen to the DC Animated Universe. Tom Ruegger is another creator whom I have much appreciation for (Animaniacs and Freakazoid, yes please), and as far as Michael Reaves, I’m not too familiar with what he’s done, but we’ll learn as we advance through the series I suppose!

This episode felt so adult compared to the past bunch! We get Bruce out with his friend Harvey Dent, doing realistic adult things. We have relationship talk. We have talk about the building and funding of a penitentiary. We have some really grim looks at inside the hospital as Harvey Dent is being carted away. We have our most complex villain so far (Joker would become more complex as the show went on, however, rivaling Ivy). In fact, let’s talk about our villain this episode.

Poison Ivy is adorably evil. Like, seriously. She’s so cute. It’s really tragic, because, surprise, she’s another Batman villain who isn’t quite all there. I mean, she waits five years, hunts down a pretty high-profile person in a fairly large city, attracts him to the point of him wanting to marry her after a week of knowing her (despite what we find out later about our pal Harvey), then severely poisons him with virtually no hope of cure. Jeez, lady! Now that’s the type of woman you want. In Char’s words, “Um, you’re kinda being evil, honey.” Interestingly, we had a conversation about serial killers before watching this episode because, well, I don’t know, that’s something that emo-aesthetic college-aged young adults talk about…and a book that she is reading called Great Lakes Serial Killers by Wayne Louis Kadar mentions that female serial killers poison 80% of the time when it comes to method. Also, it’s generally common knowledge that female serial killers can often be in it for things like money, revenge, or similar things. I’m not sure if the writing team did their research, of if it was a complete coincidence, but Poison Ivy aligns heavily with this, and it brings in a real-world aspect. Even if we also get a man-eating plant out of it.

Poison Ivy is also a case of someone being an extremist when it comes to what she believes is right. She cares for plants as much as many of us care for our own pets. This is a little strange, but all well and good until we get to the stage of murder being the right answer to someone digging up a few endangered roses. And the thing is, watching her heart shatter as, say, she murders her own plant with a small arrow, or as her greenhouse bursts into flames…you almost feel for her. This isn’t an act, and she truly does not consider herself an evil person. In her opinion, Harvey Dent (and even Bruce Wayne) completely deserve the gravestone. They murdered an innocent plant. But her reality does not match society’s, and this is some severely antisocial, dangerous behavior. She needs serious help, and watching her being locked up in Stonegate as opposed to Arkham is sad (not to mention ironic, considering it’s the very thing that lead her to commit this particular crime). She could be a good person if she were cured. She’s super smart. Graduated as a scientist. Has potential to be a really caring person. But one too many screws are loose here. You want Batman to stop her. But you’re also glad he saves her and her flowers. I like that she got to keep them in her cell. Although knowing the damage this plant can do to someone, I’m not sure if it was really the best idea. Hell, if she wanted to, she could probably eat some of the leaves to kill herself, assuming that she has yet to build up a strong immunity.

We also see in this episode that Bruce Wayne is indeed capable of having a social life, and it’s so sincere that you almost forget that much of it is likely very contrived. They play with this a little bit as Harvey describes Bruce to Ivy, mentioning the things that he knows about him while cutting back to Batman demonstrating that Harvey is indeed correct, but in the most ironic ways possible. I do think that Bruce does channel real parts of him to portray the character which he portrays. But I also think that he leaves a lot of himself in the cowl, and when he walks around in his suit and tie, a lot of him is an empty shell of a man. I’m not saying he’s not human. Bruce can have fun. He can laugh. He can be a genuinely warm guy. He also has a lot to hide, though. He takes small parts of a normal business personality and runs with them as far as he can, stretching them out quite thin.

Despite this episode being a massive step up in maturity, it’s not without its fun. Bullock running back for doughnuts is a predictable gag, but I’m not going to pretend that it didn’t get a laugh out of me. What an arrogant slob this dude is. And yet as we watch him interrogating the kitchen staff of the restaurant Harvey collapsed at, we’re glad he’s in the show, and once again reminded that we love to be annoyed by him. He’s someone I would still worry about if he were in danger. He’s someone I want to ultimately be happy and find success. But I also want him to improve as a human being. All while wanting him to remain exactly the way he is so I can continue to want these things and root for him for the rest of the show. We root for him in different ways than he roots for himself.

Some other classic Batman TAS things happen too. Bruce steals the blood sample from the hospital, knowing damn well that taking matters into his own hands is the only viable option. We get Alfred being a genuinely great butler, father-figure, and sidekick all at once (look out, Robin, you’ve got some competition). And we even got a stylish sepia-toned flashback, which ties in great to the plot of the episode. That moment when the gears turn in our minds and we realize Poison Ivy’s motive is great. We’re taking off, guys. I was excited about finally starting this show again. I was having fun with the last 4 episodes (and pilot). And now with this one, I’m feeling just like I was when I first watched the entirety of Batman however many years ago.

By the way, while Poison Ivy is hot, this show in general has been even hotter. There have been a lot of fires! There was an explosion in On Leather Wings that leads to a fire. We had a fire in Nothing To Fear. In The Last Laugh, Batman is suspended above a fire at a dumpster. And now we have another one in this episode. Jesus, Batman oughta exchange his mask for a fire helmet. Because of this, I propose we keep a fire tally. Not just for Batman either. Let’s keep it going for the entire DCAU just for a bit of fun. I’m sure there will be some more counts that pop up as I notice more tropes, but keep in mind, this is purely for my own entertainment. It’s not to knock one of my favorite shows!

Fire count: 4 Char’s grade: A Major firsts: Poison Ivy, Renee Montoya

Next time: The Underdwellers

For blog entires on every episode of the DC Animated Universe, follow DCArevU! I update as frequently as I can, watching and writing between school, work, and general life stresses. Feel free to watch along with me! Check out the episode list, which can easily be found via the side bar of the blog!

#dcau #dc animated universe #batman tas #pretty poison #batman the animated series #poison ivy

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fibreyam62-blog · 2 years

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oscopelabs · 6 years

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War Starts At Midnight: The Three Wartime Visions of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger by Josh Spiegel

Few filmmakers have made films as thematically rich as those from writers/directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in the 1940s. From 1943 to 1949, Powell and Pressburger, better known as the Archers, made seven superlative films that leapfrog genres with heedless abandon, from wartime epic to fantastical romance to psychosexual thriller to ballet drama. Thanks largely to cinephilic champions such as Martin Scorsese and his longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker (who married Powell in 1984), as well as home-media ventures like The Criterion Collection, the Archers’ films have received a vital and necessary second life.

While the Archers’ 1940s-era septet have recognizable throughlines as well as a reliable stable of performers, three of those films are cut from the same cloth, despite telling radically different stories with varying tones. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, A Canterbury Tale, and A Matter of Life and Death all take place, at least in part, during World War II, and all three films depict a nation at war, as much with other countries as with itself. When we think of British culture, we think of the stiff-upper-lip mentality depicted in popular culture for decades, typified by how Brits acted and reacted in World War II. But the Archers, in this wartime trio, debated the validity of fighting a war with that old-fashioned mentality, offering up films designed to be propagandistic enough to be approved for release but that also asked what it meant to be British in seemingly perpetual wartime.

* * *

“But war starts at midnight!” -- Clive Wynne-Candy

“Oh, yes, you say war starts at midnight. How do you know the enemy says so too?” -- Spud Wilson

The nuance of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp was likely always going to make it a sore spot for the British government. Colonel Blimp was not original to The Archers; he was a comic-strip character created by David Low in the 1930s, meant to skewer puffed-up elder statesmen of the British military. The stereotype of a fatheaded, pompous fool had pervaded the national consciousness so much that Winston Churchill feared the Archers’ adaptation would revive the public’s critical perception of the military when support was needed the most. But while the title invokes Colonel Blimp, the lead character is never referred to as Blimp, and is much less foolish than he may seem when initially seen attacking a young British soldier in a Turkish bath. Powell and Pressburger used the character and the staid, fusty old notions of British militarism as a jumping-off point for a detailed, poignant character study.

Set over four decades, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp begins near its finale, as Great Britain struggles to gain a foothold over the Nazis. We first see our Colonel Blimp, the portly, bald, and mustachioed Clive Wynne-Candy (Roger Livesey), beset upon by younger soldiers in the club where he now lives as part of a training exercise. Clive is infuriated because they’ve started hours earlier than planned; before the smug young soldier leading the charge can explain himself, the two get into a tussle that speaks to why Powell and Pressburger wanted to tell this story. In the production of their previous film, One of Our Aircraft is Missing, the directors removed a scene where an elderly character tells a younger one, “You don’t know what it’s like to be old.” (The idea that this could serve as the thematic backbone to an entire feature was provided by the Archers’ then-editor, David Lean.) Clive’s rage at being taken off-guard leads him to thrash young Spud Wilson and teach him a lesson: “You laugh at my big belly, but you don’t know how I got it! You laugh at my mustache, but you don’t know why I grew it!”

And so, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp flashes back 40 years, a rare instance where a movie indulging in the now-hoary in medias res technique pays dramatic dividends. The rest of the film focuses on three points in the life of the man known first as Clive Candy: his time in the Boer War, the devastating World War I, and his twilight years of service as World War II ramps up. For a war film, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp offers exceedingly little bloodshed. Powell and Pressburger’s film examines how such gruesome action informs men like Clive away from the battlefield, instead of depicting that action in full. Each section of Blimp shows how his noble efforts make him hardened and intractable over time, even against the tide of a truly tyrannical force. At first, Clive’s militaristic mantra is honorable: “Right is might.” But as the film reaches its third hour, he learns that his theory, one embodied by his nation, has been so cruelly disproven by the Nazi scourge that he and Britain must change their ways.

In the earliest section, Clive steps to the aid of Edith Hunter (a young Deborah Kerr), a British governess in Berlin who’s concerned about a German soldier spreading anti-British lies regarding their treatment of South African women and children in the Boer War. In so doing, and after insulting high-ranking German officers, Clive must duel with a German soldier chosen by lot, Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Anton Walbrook). Watching a Brit face off with a German soldier might’ve felt appropriate, at least to the watchful eye of the British government. But Powell and Pressburger shrewdly show us the build-up to the duel itself, not the actual fight; instead, we see the aftermath, as Clive and Theo both convalesce in the same hospital, become close friends, and fall in love with Edith. Only Theo is lucky enough to win her heart; though Edith has as much love in her heart for Clive as for Theo, Clive only grasps his feelings once she’s left his life.

Portraying Theo, the film’s major German character, as surprisingly decent is one significant way in which the Archers brought nuance to what might have been another propagandistic WWII-era film. His innate humanity becomes heartbreaking as the film progresses. In the second section, Theo is a prisoner of war who’s initially too proud to admit his previous connection to Clive, before they reunite briefly. In the final section, Theo is older and much wiser than his friend, yet no luckier. He’s seen in a British immigration office, attempting to leave Germany on his own: his two sons have become Nazis and Edith has passed away. (“None of my sons came to her funeral. Heil Hitler,” Theo says grimly.) Theo then explains what drew him back to the UK, in a measured yet passionate soliloquy. No matter how many faults Theo sees in the Brits—after he reconnects with Clive post-WWI, Theo tries to point out that regular citizens “can’t be adjusted from war to peace as easily as you”—it is still a far kinder place to live than Germany. That the film’s most impassioned speech, expressing fondness for the British way of life, comes from a German is one of its many welcome surprises.

The film’s most haunting twist revolves around the women in Clive’s life. When Edith joins Theo in Germany, Clive is so shaped by her memory that when he settles down and marries the charming Barbara Wynne, she just so happens to look like Edith’s twin. Barbara, like Edith, passes away before World War II begins, but though Clive has aged, he hasn’t changed; his driver, Angela “Johnny” Cannon, looks just like Barbara and Edith, to the point where he introduces Johnny to Theo, fully aware that both men spot the similarity. Kerr, thus, is playing three strong-willed women, all of whom feel like perfect fits with the men of the film.

Clive, like his country, stays firmly and proudly rooted in the past, much to his detriment. When Theo, as an older man, reasons with Clive about how his way of waging war is outdated, it falls on deaf ears despite being a darkly accurate portrait of how WWII could have been lost: “If you let yourself be defeated by them just because you are too fair to hit back the same way they hit at you, there won’t be any methods but Nazi methods.” Only after Spud Wilson’s gambit to throw oldsters like Clive off their game in the training exercise does Clive begrudgingly realize that time has passed him by. The old-fashioned sportsmanship of battle could no longer apply for the Clive Candys of the world; at least this one realized it.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp ends wistfully, as Clive surveys the literal waterlogged wreckage of his life, having lost his house in the Blitz. He, Theo, and Johnny stand by the debris, and he recalls Barbara’s long-ago declaration: “You’ll stay just as you are till the floods come.” As he looks at where his house once lay, he says to himself, “Now here is the lake and I still haven’t changed.” Livesey, one of the very best actors to work with the Archers, imbues that line with a fine blend of pride and heartache, as he does with the salute he gives to the passing, much younger army of his native land. This elder statesman isn’t quite Colonel Blimp, only grasping Theo’s warnings about the Nazis after it’s too late, but he can see complexities of his life where others might not.

It took The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, like the other films explored here, years to fully get its due in the U.S. While Churchill didn’t bar Blimp from release in the United Kingdom, he enforced an export ban on the feature because he saw it as a less-than-helpful presentation of the military at such a dire period. (Or, as some have wondered, he may well have seen the older Clive Candy as a critique of him. Of course, Churchill reportedly never saw this film, because that would have been too challenging.) A shortened version was released in U.S. theaters in 1945, cutting out the flashback structure. The truncated TV version, which runs just 90 minutes—the original is 163 minutes— was still able to excite a young Scorsese, who helped fund a restoration in 2013 for this classic.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp was, perhaps, doomed for failure; its treatment of people perceived as the enemy could gain resonance only with distance from WWII. The British War Office and Churchill stated their antipathy to the production even before it began filming, refusing the Archers’ request to release Laurence Olivier from service to star as Candy. (Livesey, to note, is wonderful in the film, so the Archers’ loss is our gain.) But Clive Candy was able to weather attacks, and so too was Blimp, the beginning of a seven-year period where the Archers upended expectations, strove to break cinematic ground, and stayed true to their artistic principles. Here is the lake, and still, this movie hasn’t changed. It only grows with age.

* * *

“It’s a great thing to sit back in an armchair and watch the world go by in front of you.” – Sgt. Bob Johnson

“The drawback is…that people may get used to looking at life from the sitting position.” – Thomas Colpeper

Fourteen months after The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Powell and Pressburger released another film set during World War II, which presented both the natural wonder and beauty of England while calmly displaying the ways in which the war had devastated some of its history. A Canterbury Tale wasn’t a hit with critics or audiences in the late summer of 1944; by the time it was released in the United States, the year was 1949, and a movie about three young strangers who journey towards Canterbury Cathedral in the waning months of World War II needed new, American-focused framing scenes to entice audiences.

Over 70 years after its initial release, what can we make of A Canterbury Tale? The allure of this low-key drama is, like its setting, ineffable and mysterious. The three leads, waylaid in the small English town of Chillingbourne while they wait for another train to Canterbury, ostensibly try to solve a mystery whose solution isn’t that mysterious. Some aspects of this film—whose three protagonists were all newcomers—feel less like drama and more like the Archers trying to make UK citizens turn away from the dark days of World War II and remind them of their land’s own beauty. From the vantage point of the 21st century, A Canterbury Tale is an utterly fascinating and serene look at how small towns tried to maintain a community-wide calm in the midst of terror.

Bob Johnson (Sgt. John Sweet) is an American soldier on his way to Canterbury Cathedral to meet a fellow Yank and do right by his mother back home in Three Sisters Falls, Oregon. Peter Gibbs (Dennis Price) is a British soldier who seems outwardly as arrogant as Blimp’s Spud Wilson, even though his true passion is playing the organ. While he plays it at cinemas back home, he’d rather play the kind of organ in the handsomely appointed Canterbury Cathedral. Alison Smith (Sheila Sim) has been conscripted into the Women’s Land Army; assigned to a farm in Chillingbourne, she has personal memories from her time near Canterbury that she can’t help but unearth. These strangers are brought together one dark Friday night by happenstance: Bob misheard the station stop and got off early, but he and Peter end up helping Alison after she’s beset upon by a mysterious figure who puts, of all things, glue in her hair. Strangest of all, this isn’t the first time a young woman was attacked by “the glue man” in Chillingbourne.

In a more predictable film, this inciting incident would lead our trio down some dark paths in Chillingbourne, a name that portends something terrifying. But while there’s an unquestionably disturbing subtext to a man placing “sticky stuff,” as Alison describes it, in young women’s hair, there’s little in the way of conventional twists in A Canterbury Tale. When our heroes meet Thomas Colpeper (Eric Portman), the magistrate of Chillingbourne who’s coincidentally the farmer to whom Alison has been assigned, it’s immediately obvious that he’s the glue man. Our heroes use the summer weekend, as they wait for the next train to Canterbury, to build up evidence, but as the weekend progresses, Bob and Alison (and eventually Peter) lose interest in solving the case as they fall in love with the British countryside.

Unlike Blimp, A Canterbury Tale has an ensemble of disparate characters who mostly have never seen serious battle. So many of them are average people conscripted into action, trying not to admit how terrified they feel. A Canterbury Tale features no bloodshed, but Powell and Pressburger stuck to the notion of making the film feel like a document of regular civilians by casting few recognizable actors. Portman worked with the Archers on the earlier film 49th Parallel and was, at the time, this film’s most well-known actor. Sweet, on the other end of the spectrum, was the least well-known; this was his first and only role in a film.

Recently, much was made about how Clint Eastwood’s The 15:17 to Paris, in which three young men who foiled a real-life attack, feature those three men playing themselves. When Powell and Pressburger cast their American character, they didn’t change his name to match the actor’s, but they might as well have: John Sweet was an Army Sergeant at the time, and his first-time performing style is always evident. Unlike the performances in The 15:17 to Paris, however, Sweet’s work is oddly charming. Watching him interact with the ensemble allows for the understandable awkwardness of his performance to take on a double meaning; Sweet is the outsider as much because he’s untrained as because he’s American. Bob Johnson is incurably curious and inquisitive, having so little awareness of British traditions, making his languorous journey through Chillingbourne all the more compelling.

By the close of A Canterbury Tale, all three of our heroes receive a blessing in the style of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. For Bob, it’s a revival of a romance he presumes is finished. His paramour, who he figured had moved on, has instead joined the Women’s Army Corps in Australia and has responded to the letters he thought had been ignored. Even before that, the people Bob meets in Chillingbourne, from the boys playing soldier to the local mechanics and a fellow military man from Seven Sisters in England, serve as a kind of blessing. When we first meet Bob, he’s all too happy to get his visit to Canterbury out of the way; before the movie ends, he’s taken to running down the sloping hills of Chillingbourne with his new friends, an overgrown boy at play. Stopping in Chillingbourne brings him joy even before his love life is given a new chance.

Alison, too, becomes closer to nature as she explores Chillingbourne. Of all people, she finds herself associating with Colpeper, even after she’s correct in presuming that he’s the culprit. Her blessing arises from memories she has of spending a summer outside Chillingbourne in a caravan with her fiancé, now presumed dead. But before she can receive the happy news that her fiancé is alive and well, she has to almost commune with the Earth to try and move on. By the second half, Alison is so in touch with nature that she hears the sounds of music and voices in the hills, akin to the centuries-old pilgrims Chaucer wrote about.

Alison’s connection is validated and shared by Colpeper, with whom she’s convening in those same hills Bob runs down. Even after Alison confirms Colpeper’s nighttime habits, she admits, “I was very mistaken about you.” Their connection is more emotional than anything else; Colpeper tells her that hearing voices as she does only works “when you believe strongly in something.” Colpeper’s strong belief in respecting Britain’s history is how he became the glue man. After his historical lectures were met with boredom and few attendees, he made it so British soldiers had little choice but to listen about their homeland’s history. By giving the soldiers a bad name (other townspeople, including the young women, presume one of them is the glue man), Colpeper assumed he could make a small encouragement to the British military to learn about the land it defended. As he explains to Peter on the train to Canterbury, “There’s no sin in being a savage, but a missionary who doesn’t try to do his duty is a bad missionary.”

Though Portman’s enigmatic performance turns Colpeper frosty even here, the magistrate receives a blessing from an unlikely source: Peter. Though Peter is the most gung-ho of the three young people to find the glue man, he chooses not to give Colpeper away to the authorities after he receives his blessing: the chance to play the Canterbury Cathedral organ. But Peter’s decision to let Colpeper walk is portended in one of the wonderful flourishes thrown in by the Archers in the film’s lush black-and-white cinematography. While on the train to Canterbury, Peter scoffs in response to the magistrate asking him if he is an instrument of judgment and says, “I’ll believe that when I get a halo over my head.” Cue the train light creating a halo effect over him.

There is no action-heavy setpiece in A Canterbury Tale, which instead features plenty of images of the main characters taking in the beauty of Chillingbourne. Through Colpeper, we see how hard it is for regular people to both support the military in wartime and forgive soldiers their vices. Through Peter, we see how soldiers didn’t quite grasp that their presence in small towns threw other people’s lives into upheaval. You could argue that very little happens to the characters in A Canterbury Tale; all that does happen is that Powell and Pressburger let the audience watch these people’s unremarkable yet compelling lives, and that they each secretly want to find some purpose when they arrive in Canterbury. The heroes appreciate what it meant to be British in decades gone by, and reflect on how that impacts their actions in the present. A Canterbury Tale was a love letter to England, made as gorgeous by its rolling hills as by its people. Though it didn’t hit big originally, and additional footage featuring Bob reconnecting with his girlfriend (Kim Hunter, about whom more very shortly) didn’t help it translate in America, A Canterbury Tale is a truly entrancing story of how badly people needed their unique burdens eased in such a horrific time of history.

* * *

“This is the universe. Big, isn’t it?” – Narrator

It’s hard to decide which is the best Archers film. Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes, perhaps their most broadly appreciated films in America, are remarkable leaps forward for Technicolor cinematography, while showcasing incredible performances, breathtaking set designs, and more. They are gorgeous films, featuring some of the most jaw-dropping images in the Archers’ filmography. But the film released the year before, suggesting the possibilities of what the Archers would do next, is just a touch greater. It is a film that was well-received initially, despite receiving a new title for its U.S. release; a film that’s only getting its first Region 1 Blu-ray release this summer although it offers some of the richest, most colorful images in Three-Strip Technicolor; a film that’s influenced everything from The Simpsons to Harry Potter. It is A Matter of Life and Death.

What if someone was supposed to die, but got misplaced? What if that person, with their extra time, fell in love before they were found by their bringer of death? This, in effect, is the concept of A Matter of Life and Death, in which Peter Carter (David Niven), a cheerful RAF pilot, is meant to die when he escapes his damaged plane without a parachute. Before Peter jumps, he contacts June, a winsome young American radio operator (Hunter), to share what he presumes are his last thoughts in the strangest Meet Cute ever. Peter jumps from quoting Walter Raleigh to brazenly declaring, “I love you, June. You’re life, and I’m leaving you.” But once Peter exits the plane, the damnedest thing happens: he wakes up on the beaches of England very much alive, after which he meets June in person, officially starting their relationship.

The whimsy of A Matter of Life and Death is clarified when we learn why Peter was apparently able to cheat death: his French conductor (Marius Goring, who co-stars in The Red Shoes) couldn’t locate Peter in the thick English fog. Peter is dismayed to learn that his permanent eternal presence is requested in the Other World, taking him away from June. She, of course, is concerned that her new boyfriend might be going mad; kindly local doctor Frank Reeves (Livesey again) believes Peter might be suffering from a brain injury. The perpetually unanswered question is just that: is Peter hallucinating the Other World because his mind is going, or is he really at death’s stairway?

Powell and Pressburger don’t answer the question, providing just enough medical details, down to the smell Peter notices when he speaks to his Conductor, that it might just be a mental malady. (I submit that Peter isn’t hallucinating the Other World because the film never answers one question: how the hell did he survive that fall from the plane?) The closing moments of the film suggest that either option is possible, when it’s revealed that the judge of the Other World’s court of appeals and the surgeon operating on Peter are played by the same actor.

But the mystery of Peter’s circumstances is not what makes A Matter of Life and Death so special. This is one of the most ambitious films the Archers ever made. It is a buoyant, bursting-with-emotion romance between two star-crossed lovers whose connection is straight out of a fairy tale. It is a film designed to help bridge divides between the British and the Americans in the immediate aftermath of World War II. (The story begins just six days before the European section of WWII concluded.) And it is, above all else by the finale, meant as a rousing and spirited defense of the British people. When the Other World allows Peter to appeal his case, he chooses the firm, well-spoken Reeves—who dies tragically in a motorcycle accident before Peter’s surgery—to plead Peter’s case, passionately arguing in favor of his client’s basic humanity.

In these spectral, spiritual moments, Reeves goes head-to-head with Abraham Farlan (Raymond Massey), the first American felled by a British bullet in the Revolutionary War, in arguing for Peter’s clemency. But it becomes clear that Reeves and Farlan are not arguing over Peter’s right to live longer than originally planned: they are debating what it means to be British and to be American. Farlan doesn’t think much of the romance between Peter and June, seeing it as another case of two people ruining relationships back home because they’re thrown into unexpected circumstances abroad: “Men and women thousands of miles away from the love they left behind. Minute sparks, instead of scorching flames.”

This is the Archers’ irreverent way of presenting the British and American states of mind post-WWII. It’s also a sign of their empathy as filmmakers: when Reeves argues that the current jury—all men from different countries around the world impacted by England’s imperialist rule at varying points of history—is unfairly biased, he asks for six American citizens. The reveal is powerful in 2018 as much as it may have been in 1946: the six American citizens are all immigrants, French to African to Irish. There is no one type of American citizen, as there is no one type of British citizen: this film is a dissertation on what it is to be human.

Visually, A Matter of Life and Death is unparalleled in the Archers’ work; the cinematography shifts from Technicolor (in the real world) to black-and-white (in the Other World), and the design of the Other World creates a series of gasp-inducing images. There is the impossibly wide shot of the attendees of Peter’s appeal, in a vast auditorium that reveals itself to be the size of an entire galaxy; there is the design of the literal stairway to heaven (hence its American title, Stairway to Heaven), which seems appropriately infinite without being terrifying; there is the moment when Peter’s fellow RAF pilot, waiting for him in the Other World, peers down to the vast center where files on all people from Earth are kept, and we see his silhouette from far above. The sense of scope and scale in moments like these should be teachable moments for anyone crafting some big-budget spectacle; this film’s moments of wonder were accomplished with a meager budget.

The grandness of A Matter of Life and Death—a movie that begins with the camera panning through the vast universe and closes with lovers reuniting happily—is coupled by its creators’ aims, to emphasize the humanity in people of different creeds and cultures. Peter Carter seems almost carefree in his opening scene, throwing slang left and right to the woman who he’ll fall for even as he expects to die. By the end, Peter and June are united by what Reeves deems the most powerful force on Earth: love. It’s a declaration that manages to be corny and life-affirming at the same time, much in the same way as Powell and Pressburger attempt to emphasize the universal qualities of mankind throughout the spiritual-court climax. In this film, as in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and A Canterbury Tale, to be British is to be human.

* * *

Unlike some of their British cohorts, such as David Lean and Alfred Hitchcock, most of the Archers’ films didn’t immediately hit big in America. Powell’s 1960 horror film Peeping Tom didn’t exactly end his career (he kept making films after that disturbing effort), but it garnered fiercely negative criticism. Over the last couple of decades, the Archers’ films have received well-deserved revivals. Last year, A Matter of Life and Death received a 4K restoration overseen by Scorsese and Schoonmaker, which is translating to the film soon receiving a Region 1 Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection. (It is painfully overdue.) Before that, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and the operatic The Tales of Hoffman both received restorations, hopefully introducing more people to the wonder of these filmmakers.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, A Canterbury Tale (which also deserves the Blu-ray treatment), and A Matter of Life and Death are the product of fertile creative minds who used the backdrop of World War II to explore vastly different worlds that all happen to exist in Great Britain. This trio runs the gamut of genres and emotions, all while showcasing the kind of soldiers who protected the United Kingdom throughout the first half of the 20th century. The raffish romantic lead of A Matter of Life and Death could easily have been the same kind of soldier to surprise the elderly Clive Candy in the opening of Blimp, or he could have just as easily stumbled across Chillingbourne’s glue man. He could have even been the young Clive Candy. These characters are distinct enough to exist within their own stories as they are to represent attitudes and personalities across all of the Archers’ films. These films encompass a vast universe, one that offers new wonders to cinephiles. Just as the pilgrims came to Canterbury for blessings, so too do true cinephiles receive blessings when they make the pilgrimage to watch Powell and Pressburger’s films.

#michael powell #emeric pres #the archers #the life and death of colonel blimp #a canterbury tale #a matter of life and death #british film #ww2 #world war two #cinema of world war two #1940s cinema #alfred hitchcock #david lean #oscilloscope #oscilloscope laboratories #musings #film writing

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phantomofthepairofdice · 3 years

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OPERATION VARSITY BLUES & The Evolution of Chris Smith’s Subjects

Released in March, Operation Varsity Blues fell prey to the content churn and overabundance of new material that hits Netflix. Though it received generally positive reviews, was on a subject that dominated headlines, and came from a documentarian coming off of what was undeniably his most popular film, I hadn’t heard a thing about it. I was really intrigued when I stumbled across a trailer for it by chance on YouTube - specifically because Chris Smith is the director of one of my all-time favorites, American Movie. This new documentary chronicles the recent college acceptance scandal involving phony athletic records, bribery, and Aunt Becky from “Full House.” Watching Operation Varsity Blues, I was immediately struck by it, and not just because Netflix had slapped on a clunky subtitle (had to wedge that that complaint in somehow). In a novel approach, Smith and crew have made a movie where the re-enactments about the architect of the scam, Rick Singer, is portrayed by famous character actor Matthew Modine. Beyond the initial appeal of trying to humanize and ground this absurd controversy by having Modine and the other actors deliver the dialogue, the choice is a clever way to emphasize the case’s connections with celebrity and false personae. As the film went on and more was revealed about Singer and his scheme, the connective tissue between Smith’s other documentaries became more apparent.

On first glance, Chris Smith’s three most well-known films may not seem like they have a lot in common. What’s most apparent is that they all focus on eccentric and magnetic men. In American Movie, Smith had full access to Mark Borchardt, the ragtag, self-starting indie horror filmmaker who could rally the people to help facilitate his movie. With Jim Carrey in Jim & Andy, Smith had indirect contact by way exhaustive on-set footage from Man on the Moon of people trying to make a movie around an uncontrollable but undeniably talented method actor. Fyre centers on Billy McFarland, a con man pretending to have the ability and social clout to sell a lifestyle of the rich and beautiful to everyday people, to whom Smith had no direct contact. I won’t even start to get into the phony bravado and junky business of the man at the center of the Smith-produced Tiger King.

Returning to Operation Varsity Blues, I was fascinated that Rick Singer shares traits with all three of his previously mentioned subjects. Like Borchardt, he was prickly but convincing in persuading those around him that he’s created a worthwhile enterprise. In a move that recalls the disastrous fallout of Carrey’s method acting on Man on the Moon, Singer was like a director using what seems like a cursed acting technique by way of making these kids appear as genius athletes. And like McFarland, he was selling these kids and their parents a status symbol and experience that’s directly tied to public life through social media.

Formally, Smith has found an approach that looks to tie his themes together. He compiles testimonies in the traditional talking head documentary approach, but he also, as previously mentioned, uses Modine and other actors in the re-enactments. It’s a technique that feels almost like a continuation of Jim Carrey replaying specific, private moments from Andy Kaufman’s life in Man on the Moon. Here, however, the script isn’t speculative: it uses direct quotes from FBI wire taps (with a transparent note upfront that some of it has been altered for clarity and brevity). The result is compelling if not totally playful or form-challenging.

The most impactful moments come from real social media posts of kids reacting to being accepted or rejected by their dream schools. With the camera rolling, we see the immense pressure that comes in the anticipation before the euphoria or utter heartbreak that befalls these young people upon acceptance, deferral, or rejection. The film is not shy about the Singer’s clients being ultra-rich and their children already having all of the advantages of getting into college even before cheating, but seeing these vlogs, you almost get why a parent would do whatever it takes to ensure their kids’ happiness. Almost. The imposition of value and importance on getting into schools that have been ranked around the ambiguous and dubiously defined aspect of prestige is heavy, but that doesn’t justify abhorrently sleazy behavior by that could only be entertained by those with the money to have such a brazen disregard for ethics. The vicarious boasting that can be had by the parents of Ivy League college students is the main motivation that Smith’s film presents, but he’s savvy enough to tie the social media clout angle into that. The most damning critique comes when the film focuses on Olivia Jade, the brand-oriented lifestyle blogger and daughter of Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli.

The movie ends with the media frenzy that surrounded the indictments of those involved with Rick Singer’s “side-door” scheme. It’s a testament to the vicious cycle that drives attention toward these figures as aspirational until disgraced. As eloquently expressed by a New Yorker writer within the film, “we love the wealthy, and we hate the wealthy.”

What feels a little underbaked, and could’ve elevated this to something great, is the tiniest gesture by the film to suggest the ironic connection between the FBI surveillance that ultimately built the case and people’s willingness to save the feds some trouble by putting their lives online. In a film that is so openly critical of a college system that is rigged to favor the rich, white applicants, it almost feels odd to practically let the FBI’s creeping surveillance state off the hook. There is no explanation for why the wire taps started or whether that’s as ethically murky as bribing college coaches with “donations” in programs that can’t stand to turn down cash inflow.

If you’re like me and missed the initial release of Operation Varsity Blues, I recommend you seek it out on Netflix. As for Smith, I’ll be fascinated to see what he chooses to focus on next. He’s seemingly becoming a more and more commercial documentarian with subjects that are progressively less lovable. The shaggy blind confidence of the boys in American Movie evolved to the artistically-minded but boorish Carrey to the bald-faced hucksters of McFarland and Singer. While it seems and less likely that Smith is going to make another picture like American Movie, I will always tune in to see what he makes and who he chooses to focus on - especially as the intersection of private and public life with social media and crafted identities have become more prevalent.

Thanks for reading.

#operation varsity blues #chris smith #american movie #fyre #jim and andy

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the-couch-review · 3 years

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Wonder (2017)- Review

The 21st century has been all about materialistic possessions and the aesthetic value of everything, including humans. On the face of it we may be going with the now accepted notion, but deep inside we feel a sense of shallowness in judging it all from just its exterior. This feeling occupies a tiny space in our heart, of wanting to go beyond what is displayed. Wonder simply reaches out to this deep kept feeling of ours that we have been ignoring.

Wonder is based on the 2012 novel of the same name by R. J. Palacio, which centres around 10-year old August “Auggie” Pullman (Jacob Tremblay) with Treacher Collins syndrome. He is nurtured and loved by his parents (Julia Roberts, Owen Wilson) and an elder sister (Izabela Vidovic), who have home-schooled him, but as he approaches 5th grade they feel he now needs to step out of the well protected bubble his parents have created from him. With a heavy heart and fear they enrol him in Beecher Prep, a private school. Auggie mindful of his peculiarities is himself scared and tries to fit in. Initially he is secluded but then makes a friend or two. The movie follows his attempts to blend in and the issues he and his family face along the bumpy journey which they expect it to be.

The story seems rudimentary but it is unquestionably portrayed in a distinctive way keeping in mind the vision and thought process of R. J. Palacio the writer of the novel it is based on, for which director Stephen Chbosky should receive thorough credit for. In our modern miscommunicated world full of assumptions and expectations, the movie follows a unique method of playing the story through the perspectives of the main characters.

Tremblay’s portrayal of Auggie is mere perfect, which is helped by the unbelievable job done by the make-up department. Unless otherwise the viewer informed about, Tremblay playing Auggie, no viewer in a million would guess it is Tremblay under the make-up, such is the job done by the make-up department, which is commended with a deserving Academy Award Nomination. The pairing of Wilson and Roberts as a couple may seem a poor choice, but with their effort in acting mellows all the questions a viewer could have had before viewing the film.

The story could have been stretched out, but the brevity of it works in favour of the film. The film rarely gives any for the viewer to be dissatisfied and keeps us wanting for more. The movie hits the right nerve and brings out the emotions in our heart making us weepy with a smile nonetheless. Wonder can be a great holiday watch for the whole family. If you are feeling down or remotely dejected pick this movie up and it surely going to make you feel better.

Acting- 9

Casting- 9

Cinematography- 8

Dialogue- 7.5

Directing- 9

Editing & Effects- 8

Sound & Music- 8

Story- 8.5

Storytelling- 9

Rating- 9

Available on: Netflix

Also Read On: Medium—Vocal—Substack

www.thecouchreview-tcr.com

#movie review #netflix

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owicpub · 5 years

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I AM not amused

I AM not amused is a modern and different take on Christian entertainment. This book takes us through my story of growing up during the radical shift in media entertainment, evaluating the message in entertainment from the mouths of the creators, and then dive into the Bible to see how we should respond.

[Links and Details]

Here is an excerpt from Chapter 2

Writing the Ballads

If a man were permitted to make all the ballads he need not care who should make the laws of a nation – Andrew Fletcher

As we venture through our examination of media entertainment, it is important to consider what the artists themselves say about their creations. It seems media’s proponents and opponents always cross words, both making specific claims about the entertainment they produce. Truly, what is the intended meaning behind a song, a movie, or a game? Do artists really just create entertainment for creation’s sake? We cannot rule out some art is constructed to teach or promote a concept or a lifestyle. Education was the intention behind the after school HBO presentation, The Truth about Alex, and another program by CBS titled What if I’m Gay? Both of these presentations were produced as after school specials to entertain but also to teach kids about homosexuality as merely another lifestyle choice. While our modern culture routinely discusses homosexuality, the 1980’s media landscape generally treated the topic as taboo. Like all social agendas, artists broke into media to influence the audience’s mind, which slowly becomes law. To that end, the next two chapters will examine how media affects us and what the modern artists intend to teach the consumers through their art, whether present or absent from the life of Christ. With the popular artist’s influence established, we will determine what they intend to teach us and what lifestyle has resulted from their beliefs.

Early World Entertainment

On the seventh day of creation, God rested, and the command to observe the Sabbath was included in the ten commandments to reflect the general principle of rest from a hard week’s work. The exact purpose of the Sabbath is not entirely clear. It could have been a day to set aside for the complete worship of God, or it could have been a day set aside to merely rest. Because the entire Israelite social system was theocratic and Paul declared Jesus the fulfillment of the Sabbath rest, its observance was no longer commanded according to a few separate verses from Pauline writings (Romans 14:5, Colossians 2:16). I will simply suggest our rest is a matter of the conscience and I will leave the discussion of the Sabbath intent to others. With that, however, we are free to engage in entertainment to the extent God is honored by what we do.

We know that the root of the Olympics was born from the sports-like competitions used to showcase the best warriors of the ancient Greece. Gladiatorial games were spawned by the cruel Emperor Nero who turned the games from simple competitions into a bloody fight to the death. Sin had taken hold and our bloodlust spilled over into violence. The gladiatorial games finally ended when a martyr named Telemachus died in the arena in protest to Christian Rome participating in the ungodly games[i]. His death ended the gladiatorial games once and for all under Emperor Honorius, but we know what comes next for our unrestrained entertainment: either more bloody violence, uncontrolled heathen sex, or maybe a spattering of other sin.

The lost city of Pompeii was discovered in the mid 1700’s and the archaeological excavation continues today. The archaeologists revealed a culture so vile the people experienced what had to be a replay of Sodom and Gomorrah. Curiously, another town, Herculaneum, was also destroyed by the same volcano, Mount Vesuvius, in AD 79. The still available artwork inscribed on the statues, pillars, and walls in these towns depict a city totally saturated in sex and perversion. I am not about to suggest all natural disasters in our world are God’s specific judgment, but perhaps artwork from the valley of salt would yield similar imagery before the sulfur fell from the skies, and perhaps God acted in this manner to destroy a city so vile a message would ring through to the young expanding church: beware of resting too comfortably, a lesson Israel failed to learn time and again through the historical period of the judges. About the great city of Pompeii, the artist Bastille wrote[ii]:

Oh where do we begin? The rubble or our sins?

This artist asks a reasonable question which we must ask ourselves. Though our world is mostly not in total rubble, the sin of the culture is leaving a rubble of wrecked lives, ruined marriages, fatherless children, and drug and alcohol abuse. Do we start with our rubble or our sin? That is the core of what we are trying to answer in this book.

Pleasure is entertainment’s destination, and research has shown the more affluent a culture becomes, the greater the people seek both pleasure and entertainment. Since all means of entertainment is from the hearts of the people that produce it, it is not any wonder that their heart comes out in the art they produce. C.S. Lewis wrote the great series The Chronicles of Narnia. Though people frequently say that he wrote it to portray the sacrifice and redemption of Christ, that is simply not true. C.S. Lewis spoke many times on the subject and made it very clear he was merely writing in-depth children’s stories during a time it was assumed people did not want to read fanciful tales (an aspect he made light of in Eustace’s family in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader). He says that the Christ-like imagery merely came out of his heart because defending Christianity was one of the ultimate callings in his writing. But some hearts are full of evil. During the creative process, the evil present in an artist’s heart will spill out into the books, games, and productions they create and the end result will be a work that is not wonderful or beautiful, but twisted and evil. Such was the case of the Golden Compass series. The author, Philip Pullman, is an outspoken atheist. His childrens’ story depicted an enemy who was none other than God Himself. Such was the outpouring of his heart. In light of this, one Christian commentator of the entertainment industry revealed that for the most part, the writers, directors, and producers in Hollywood are generally not church-going people, and do not typically regard God or His word. Let us not be mistaken, if these are the people that are writing the shows we watch, let us not presume their views on life will not impact our own worldview. My message is clear: be careful what you watch on your television, do on your computer, or listen to in your personal time while secluding yourself through headphones.

Considering some artists teach out of intention and others teach out of the overflow in their hearts, we are led to a discussion of ethics. Most college programs now require students to take ethics courses. I was a graduate student studying biological sciences and our ethics course was intended to teach about what is right and wrong in scientific studies. Of course, the typical university preaches there is no absolute truth, so how can we possibly define what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’ in a college ethics course? This is not a moot point because when the ground was broken for the USC film school, the attendants were Steven Spielberg, George Lucus, Irvin Kershner, and Randal Kleiser. In the article about the event, Lucas gave this ominous observation of the position of film in our modern age:

Film and visual entertainment are a pervasively important part of our culture, an extremely significant influence on the way our society operates. People in the film industry don’t want to accept the responsibility that they had a hand in the way the world is loused up. But, for better or worse, the influence of the church, which used to be all-powerful, has been usurped by film. Films and television tell us the way we connect our lives, what is right and wrong.[iii]

From one of the top directors of that time, and even still currently after three decades, Lucas reminds us that film and television do impact our lifestyle and thought. He even acknowledges movies and television impact us more than the church, for better or for worse. For this reason, Lucas goes on:

It’s important that the people who make films have ethics classes, philosophy classes, history classes. Otherwise we are witch doctors.[iv]

It is interesting Lucas wants to talk about ethics. According to Webster, ethics is the area of study dealing with moral right and wrong. From sciences to business, to human and animal studies, universities that proclaim there is no moral right and wrong want to teach their students about what is right and wrong! Chip Ingram deals with this problem in his message on Whatever happened to Right and Wrong?[v] He says that everyone agrees we need ethics, but no one can agree on whose ethics we adopt. I agree. My ethics, my moral rights and wrongs, are defined by God’s character as expressed in His Word. Other people say we should let our internal compass and feelings define what is right ‘for us’. This was the message in an interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono who helped to spread the mantra of existentialism, which is basically the ‘do your own thing’ philosophy. Ravi Zaccharius, however, observes that some cultures want to eat with their neighbors while other cultures want to eat their neighbors…do we have a preference? Yes, ethics are important, but unless those ethics are grounded in truth, they may be little more than lip service. We will continue a discussion of Christian ethics in chapter 4, for now, ethics aside, we want to see what the artists and producers want to teach us about the influence of art, and also what they want to teach us through their art.

The Method of Impact

The documentary Decadence: Decline of the Western World explores the steady decline of the Judeo-Christian culture that has dominated the western world for over 300 years. The description of the film on IMDB declares: The West consumes without consequence, loves without longevity and lives without meaning[vi]. The latter part of the film discusses media and religion. The narrator gives a prophetic summation about how our consumer lives are influenced by the media:

We watch helplessly as our sons and daughters, mesmerized by pop-idols and Hollywood’s cut-glass heroes, advertise for sex first and then maybe a relationship which soon enough reaches for the headache pill.

About two decades before Dunn wrote this prophetic statement, Alan Bloom wrote similar projections in the book, The Closing of the American Mind:

Picture a thirteen-year-old boy sitting in the living room of his family home doing his math assignment while wearing his Walkman headphones or watching MTV. He enjoys the liberties hard won over centuries by the alliance of philosophic genius and political heroism, consecrated by the blood of martyrs; he is provided with comfort and leisure by the most productive economy ever known to mankind; science has penetrated the secrets of nature in order to provide him with the marvelous, lifelike electronic sound and image reproduction he is enjoying. And in what does progress culminate? A pubescent child whose body throbs with orgasmic rhythms; whose feelings are made articulate in hymns to the joys of onanism or the killing of parents; whose ambition is to win fame and wealth in imitating the drag-queen who makes the music. In short, life is made into a nonstop, commercially prepackaged masturbational fantasy.[vii]

How did we arrive at such a place where our freedoms lead us only to perversion? To examine how our culture slipped to this extreme is not an easy task and entire books have been written on the topic. I only hope to summarize some of the debate with the sheer intention of whetting your appetite to search for better personal conclusions on the matter. Examine everything carefully.

Musicians, film producers, video game programmers all agree their respective art affects us. But as George Lucas notes in the above quote, they do not want to admit they have any role in how bad the world is, but most want to declare that art makes the world a better place. It is true, from the Christian pop-artists to the thrash-metal bands, from the shamanistic styling of the Grateful Dead to the unique brand that is Frank Zappa, musicians, neurologists, and everyone else who looks casually at the facts will honestly agree: music greatly affects our disposition. Research is starting to mount that other forms of media entertainment also take hold on us, teaching us, forming us. Rand Salzman said it best: “Viewers simply cannot help but be ‘rippled’ by the emotional gut-wrenching influence of huge moving color images backed by stereo sound.[viii]” The question remains is whether this emotional, gut-wrenching influence is a good influence or a bad influence on the consumers of such entertainment.

Some may argue the influence is negative. When school shootings and other violent acts are perpetrated by youth, some people are fast to point the finger at the violent songs, games, or movies often consumed by these kids. Such blaming is an oversimplification, however, on the other hand, many will suggest that their favorite music has no impact on their worldview; they merely ‘like the beat’. That, too, is an oversimplification. The delivery as media is actually neutral, like money. The point of agreement among those with a positive view and those with a negative view is that music can affect the way we live, it can give us something to relate to, something by which to blow off steam, or something by which to teach us about our world.

During the initial influx of film into the American culture, it was very clear that the entertainment industry was going to change the way people lived their lives. During the 1920’s, a series of morally questionable films, the murder of William Taylor, and a Hollywood rape prompted the proposal of several laws to place regulations on the film industry. Will Hays was appointed to produce a conduct guide for Hollywood film producers, a guide that became known as the Hays Code. The document begins by saying:

If motion pictures consistently held up high types of character, presented stories that would affect lives for the better, they could become the greatest natural force for the improvement of mankind.[ix]

The introduction to the document continues on to say entertainment and art are important influences in the life of a nation, thus the film entertainment is “directly responsible for spiritual or moral progress, for higher types of social life, and for much correct thinking.” The code guided and directed the moral content of the film industry for over forty years, but some people whom did not agree with the code or the morality it proposed pushed the boundaries so far as to force the document into the ancient and out-dated relics of the American entertainment industry. The code was later replaced with the current rating system which will be discussed in more detail in chapter 8 of this book.

During these early years of film production and with consideration of the Hays Code, the realization that film does impact the moral disposition of its viewers, Warner Brothers adopted the slogan, “Good Citizenship with Good Picture Making”. In the early years, the film company did focus on morally good films, but the steady decay began to erode the message and while to this day the company has an entire affiliated website dedicated to good citizenship, that may be exclusive lip service from the company that brought us such morally bankrupt films as Natural Born Killers. In all, despite the clear evidence film does morally direct the society, the film industry merely produces what we pay to see.

The power of film transcends beyond simple moral messages, and music can direct the listeners to the intended message the artist seeks to teach. With a full-on media campaign, anyone can convince even the most studious people to change their ways and adopt a belief system for which they generally do not believe. This was very clear by governments who started to use the power of film to change the minds and beliefs of its citizens into their own ideals. Although many people will point to the Russian (Alexander Nevsky) and German films (Triumph of the Will) that were used to turn the citizens of those countries into what amounted to war criminals in the reigns of Stalin and Hitler, the Italians and the United States were also among those using film for propaganda. Gerald Nye, a Republican senator from North Dakota, declared in a congressional meeting:

When you go to the movies, you go there to be entertained…and then the picture starts-goes to work on you, all done by trained actors, full of drama, cunningly devised…Before you know where you are, you have actually listened to a speech designed to make you believe that Hitler is going to get you.

Nye was attempting to make the point that Hollywood was being transformed into a propaganda machine for war-mongering to change the American people’s stance on World War II. Nye was against the Hollywood propaganda machine, but the President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, considered it necessary. In 1939 Nazi Germany was producing propaganda in a full-fledge media campaign to garner support for the Nazis under Joseph Goebbels. Roosevelt responded with using American film to sustain morale and according to Nancy Snow, Hollywood now acquired a prominent place in the battle for men’s minds[x]. 1940 saw the creation of the Motion Picture Committee Cooperating for National Defense, the industry-wide organization that would produce military training films and patriotic films for the American people in order to gain support for a war effort that many Americans were not sure merited participation. The government only unofficially supported this effort, though after the entrance into World War II, FDR created a specific division in the government to inform Hollywood producers on ways to portray any manner of political matters from war and foreign policy to domestic affairs. Though it is unclear whether this direct influence is still enacted, officially, in 1949 an appropriations act restricted the use of public funds for “publicity and propaganda.[xi]” Regardless of this act, film plays a large part in unifying the ideals in the people whom consume media.

Though we hear very little about it today, marketing itself is propaganda. Companies pay millions to place their products in movies, and in America today government-paid advertising on health care, political parties, food, defense, and social services can be observed daily on television and displayed as Internet advertising. Even the enemies of the United States use propaganda in order to garner support for their cause. Suicide bombers for Al Qaeda and likely also ISIS are recruited by viewing the successful explosions of other martyrs and hearing the praise for the perpetrator and seeing the community celebritizing the remaining family, showering them in riches. Such films and rallies gain support for the cause of suicide bombings and acquire willing people to carry out the acts[xii]. Whether we are seeing a commercial for the latest laundry detergent or seeing a new spin on a political agenda, we are better off acting on our mind’s sound logic rather than by the seductive, humorous, or emotionally appealing commercials.

Beyond propaganda, modern entertainment including movies, music, and video games desire to teach the consumers. The writers and producers want to convey a worldview or question the audience’s presuppositions. This is not just a modern trend that cropped up in the last decade. As early as the 1920s, research was commenced to determine the influence movies exert over youth. The results of the studies determined teenagers learned how to dress, how to behave socially, and how to think about the world though film. Some movies, such as The Crying Game sought to question erotic love between same gender adults and For a Lost Soldier examined homosexuality in adult-child relationships. Both films were released in 1992, though the latter was a foreign film. These productions were very intentional in how they made the viewer question their presuppositions. Most movies have just as great an impact in a passive way like the manner in which dirty uncle Eddy can influence the kids into uncouth manners.

Taken together, these observations indicate media entertainment, in any form, can certainly convey a message to those who consume the art. The message is not entirely bad or entirely good. The creators and producers of the art cannot choose to positively impact the consumer because they wish to deny the negative consequences of bad media, but neither can someone decide a certain song or movie contains all negative impact based solely on the beat or the reputation of the band. All these taken together, we will consider next some special considerations surrounding music and video games and their role in impacting the consumers.

Music and Sound

Music is all around us. While some want to dismiss music as a harmless pastime, most artists defend the positive impact of music in the world, though as Lucas admits, they do not want to admit the negative impacts. Even the MTV producers know about the impact that music can have on the listeners. One executive for the station said:

Music tends to be a predictor of behavior and social values. You tell me the music people like and I’ll tell you their views on abortion, whether we should increase our military arms, [and] what their sense of humor is like.[xiii]

Likewise, Michael Greene, the former president of the Grammy Music Awards, said in his 2000 speech:

Music is a magical gift which we must nourish and cultivate in our children, especially now as scientific evidence proves that an education which includes the arts makes a better math and science student, enhances special intelligence in newborns, and let’s not forget that the arts are a compelling solution to teen violence, they are certainly not the cause of it.[xiv]

Notice how Greene defends music as making students better at math and science, though those studies were conducted using classical music including Mozart and Beethoven, not the music the Grammy’s generally support or award. He talks about music’s impact in the newborn, and simply dismisses the clear impact it can have in rebellion of the listener. But his 2001 speech embraces the rebellion behind music:

People are mad! And people are talking and that is a good thing, because it is through dialog and debate that social discovery and progress can occur. Listen, music has always been the voice of rebellion, it’s a mirror of our culture, sometimes reflecting a dark and disturbing underbelly, obscured from the view of most people of privilege…We cannot edit out the art that is uncomfortable. Remember, that is what our parents tried to do to Elvis, the [Rolling] Stones, and the Beatles.[xv]

Greene discusses a very true point, and it is one point that I am attempting to make in this book:

Most of the adults who pass judgment have never listened to, or more to the point, have never even engaged their kids about the object of their contempt [the music]. This is not to say that there is not a lot of fear in this violence driven society of ours.[xvi]

I agree with Greene on this final point, but he does not go far enough. It is not a matter that we just need to look at the media our kids are consuming; we need to look at the media we are consuming because our kids model our own behavior before they will live out our instruction. We cannot blame music or movies entirely for the cultural decay Greene clearly admits, but we are foolish to think watching violent, sexual films or listening to violent, sexual music is just a meaningless distraction, since we already believe music alters our mental and emotional state. We must find a balance and consider that art does teach us and we will learn the messages they espouse whether we want to or not.

Michael Greene is not the only professional in the industry to believe music can cause tremendous positive impact while denying it’s negative effect. To a degree, these people are correct. When the Columbine shooting occurred, Marilyn Manson was thrown under the bus as a major cause of the event, even though Klebold and Harris did not even like his music. Manson wrote an article in his own defense appearing in Rolling Stone magazine, and Manson does raise several great arguments. He writes:

Responsible journalists have reported with less publicity that Harris and Klebold were not Marilyn Manson fans -- that they even disliked my music. Even if they were fans, that gives them no excuse, nor does it mean that music is to blame. Did we look for James Huberty's inspiration when he gunned down people at McDonald's? What did Timothy McVeigh like to watch? What about David Koresh, Jim Jones? Do you think entertainment inspired Kip Kinkel, or should we blame the fact that his father bought him the guns he used in the Springfield, Oregon, murders?[xvii]

Manson is not alone in the camp of artists who do not like to hear their art being blamed for violence in the culture. Some people echo the sentiment of a young heavy metal fan who said, “It’s all fantasy, none of it is real, you can’t take this seriously, it’s just like a movie.[xviii]” Many artists over the years have been asked if they believe violence in music has any impact on the listeners, and their answer is generally a resounding ‘No’. But that does not stop people from trying to blame music anyway. In a commentary blog, the author identified “Six Most Idiotic Attempts to Blame Musicians for Violent Events.[xix]” The article was written on the heels of the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson. It appears the perpetrator was a big fan of the song, Bodies Hit the Floor which the artists, Deadpool, say the song is about the moshpits in heavy metal concerts (curious how we are in a relativistic world yet the violent interpretations are not accepted). Nevertheless, the connections have been made not only to this song, but others as well.

Some arguments suggesting that music plays a role in violence can seem valid, such as the teen suicide committed when a young man placed the Ozzy Osbourne song Suicide Solution on repeat while he hanged himself. The AC/DC song Night Prowler was blamed for the Richard Ramirez murders, and serendipitously, he accidentally left his AC/DC hat at one of the murder scenes! While researching about lessons learned from school shootings, the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine researchers compiled a book depicting the warning signs and character traits of several high-profile shootings from the 1990’s and it would appear violent music lyrics did have a role in the legal cases surrounding a copycat killing a month following Columbine[xx]. These are just a few of the notable examples where music has been blamed in part for violent crimes.

Though I do not in any way suggest music is the root cause of violence and rebellion in our culture, I do not deny it may be a rather large contributing factor. I personally have listened to my fair share of horrible music including heavy metal and gangsta rap, but I for one have not gone out killing people. I do find it telling, however, that very few mass killers are not big fans of Beethoven although heavy and violent music more often than not is readily consumed by the young killers in our society.

Taken together, it is more likely music and movies reflect our nature back to us. As they become more violent, violence starts seeping out into the culture at large. So music may not cause the violence, but it is a reflection of the violence we feel inside ourselves, more of a mirror and less of a causation.

1. [i]The Last Roman "Triumph", Foxes Book of Martyrs, John Foxe, Chapter 3

2. [ii]Pompii, All This Bad Blood, 2013, Bastille, Virgin Records

3. [iii]U.S.C Breaks Ground for a Film-TV School, New York Times, November 25, 1981

4. [iv]ibid

5. [v]What Ever Happened to Right and Wrong, Chip Ingram, Living on the Edge

6. [vi]Decadence: Decline of the Western World, Pria Viswalingam, 2011, Fork Films

7. [vii]The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom, 1987, Touchstone Publishing, Part 1; Music

8. [viii]The real effect of make-believe Don't let filmmakers tell you they can't shape public opinion, Atlanta Journal Constitution, May 19th, 1991 pg D1

9. [ix]Hayes Code, http://pre-code.com/the-motion-picture-production-code-of-1930/, Accessed November 11, 2018

10. [x]Confessions of a Hollywood Propagandist, Nancy Snow, https://learcenter.org/publication/warners-war-confessions-of-a-hollywood-propagandist-harry-warner-fdr-and-celluloid-persuasion/, Accessed November 11, 2018

11. [xi]Advertising by the Federal Government: An Overview, Kevin R. Kosar, Congressional Research Service

12. [xii]Cult of the Suicide Bomber, 2006, Disinformation Studios

13. [xiii]MTV is Rock Around the Clock, Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov 3, 1982

14. [xiv]2000 Michael Greene Grammy Music Awards speech, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Glq-ecgGjE, Accessed November 11, 2018

15. [xv]2001 Michael Greene Grammy Music Awards Speech, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP4vcVcydkM, Accessed November 11, 2018

16. [xvi]Ibid

17. [xvii]Columbine: Whose Fault Is It, Rolling Stone, May 28, 1999

18. [xviii]Heavy metal and violence: More than a myth?, CNN, May 12, 2008

19. [xix]Six Most Idiotic Attempts to Blame Musicians for Violent Events (or, the Tucson Tragedy was Caused by a Crazy Person, Not by Drowning Pool’s “Bodies Hit the Floor”, LA Weekly, Thursday, January 13, 2011

20. [xx]Deadly Lessons, Understanding Lethal School Violence, The National Academy Press, 2003

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dreamtimedesign · 7 years

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Giving life to a character

The game Hellblade: Senua’s sacrifice is about a female Nordic warrior that sets off to save her lover’s soul from the underworld. Senua has psychosis and was one of the biggest reason the games production began. Tameem Antoniades (Game director and writer of Ninja Theory) said “I started to learn about it, and we started to bring in healthcare professionals and people who had actually experienced this stuff, it really hits you like a ton of bricks just how personal it is."

Antoniades interviewed people that do experience the same thing to find out and have a better understanding in order to portray it as accurately as possible. He interviewed a teenage girl with psychosis and in one interview he said "We asked her if she could ever see the voice, and she said, yeah, sometimes I can see him. And we asked if he looked real, like, I was imagining it was some ghostly apparition. And she was like, yeah it's completely real, as real as anything. And we asked, if you're in a room with a bunch of people how do you know which one is real? And she said, because he's got no eyes. It was a much more literal experience than we imagined. We asked if she tried touching him, and she said she tried once and he screamed so she doesn't do that anymore."

youtube

How the actor became the actor and how she got ready for the role as Senua.

Just getting an inside look at the technology they use and the things they do all for the realism of the character, such as body building acting methods. I have gained an interest in motion capture and hope i can learn more about it soon.

youtube

This game has become a really big influence and is a great example of how games can be used to bring up and change how something can be perceived and give other people a better understanding of illnesses. I too want to use this medium to do something similar and bring up other issues and help people become aware of other issues and what it’s like to experience them.

I have a few ideas as to how I could do this but I haven't completely settled on what I want the player to learn or understand yet. I know I don’t have the resources or time to create something incredibly detailed all by myself but i hope to at least have a foundation and a prototype to show.

References:

http://www.pcgamer.com/the-sensitive-challenge-of-portraying-psychosis-in-hellblade/

http://www.sciencefocus.com/article/mind/hellblade-senua%E2%80%99s-sacrifice-psychosis-interview

#ctec608 #singularity

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lets-dimple-tibrewal-blog · 4 years

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Career in Acting: Career Path, Colleges, Relevant Skills for Acting Career

A successful career in acting requires equal parts talent and practice with a bit of luck thrown in. Actors at work can be seen and heard everywhere: TV, the big screen, the theater, on the Internet, in videos, and on podcasts. They portray characters from the past that have impacted history, and they portray characters that are destined to impact the pop culture in the future. Some dabble in a variety of entertainment mediums, while some stick to the stage, and use their voice to create new worlds or dedicate their lives to the silver screen. Some make up the cast of extras that round out a production, while some achieve levels of fame that makes them a household name. This guide serves as a starting point for anyone seriously interested in the world of professional acting. It includes a brief description of the real working life of actors and actresses, a rundown of the skills one must develop to succeed in this highly competitive field, and a list of steps to consider in pursuit of an acting career. To put it very simply, an actor works to portray a character in a movie, play, television show, theater production, or any other variety of performances.

Acting is a powerful profession; by pretending to be somebody else, actors are able to trick people into believing that the character they are playing is actually real. Actors influence emotions, trends, and critical discussion. Without them, the world would be a boring place. To be a successful actor, you will need a certain amount of talent. However, you can’t rely on your gift alone. To thrive in this cut-throat industry, you will need to rehearse, learn your lines, rehearse, and then rehearse some more! Actors rehearse their roles, take speech and acting classes, conduct independent research, and try their best to refine the character that they’re playing. Famous actors may also be required to promote the productions they’re working on by giving interviews to the press and making television appearances. Obviously, actors need to find acting jobs before they can perform. Consequently, actors will need to spend a lot of time during the early stages of their careers, searching for the right agent, attending auditions, and building up a network of industry contacts.

The path to acting careers can actually begin in high school plays and musicals. Drama classes can introduce students to performing, different methods and schools of thought in acting, writing their own material, and different approaches to characters, along with stage and costume design. High school drama classes and productions allow students to develop their skills and experience what it feels like to perform in front of a large audience. They are also very important in preparing students for the inevitable countless auditions that await them once they venture into the world of professional acting or head off to a college or university drama program.

So if you have decided to make a career in Acting the there are some bachelor’s courses you should take into consideration.

B.A. Acting – B.A. Acting is a 3-year postgraduate degree program, the minimum eligibility is 10+2 from a recognized college or its equivalent exam. B.A. Acting is an undergraduate Acting, Dance, and Drama program. Admission in the B.A. Acting is based upon the applicant’s performance in the relevant entrance examination and a counseling round.

The course is gainful to build up the abilities and credits expected to devise unique creative works in the zones of theatre. Candidates consistently can go-ahead to an effective career in the film, TV, and theatre. The program is intended to furnish you with the information and aptitudes to execute as an actor to proficient industry benchmarks whether in Film, TV, Theatre, or Radio. B.A. Acting course sets you up for the proficient life you’ll find out about operators and cast directors as well as the actors’ union. Some colleges offering this course are:

National School of Drama – https://nsd.gov.in/delhi/

Delhi University – http://www.admission.du.ac.in/

Bachelor of Fine Arts– BFA or Bachelor of Fine Arts is an undergraduate degree course which deals with the study of Visual or Performing Arts. The course is sometimes also referred to as a Bachelor in Visual Arts (BVA) in which the study of Visual Arts includes subjects such as painting, sculpture, photography, literature, animation, etc. On the other hand, the study of Performing Arts involves subjects such as dance, theatre, and music. A Bachelor of Fine Arts degree often requires an area of specialization to be chosen by the candidate as per his/her interest. Depending on the candidate’s chosen specialization, BFA is typically a three to four-year duration course that can be pursued as a full-time, part-time, online, or distance-learning program. A BFA course not only educates but reforms the skills of candidates to enable them to become artists in their chosen field. Career opportunities for fine arts graduates are ample wherein they can choose to be an art teacher, writer, fine artist, actor, art director, and a lot more. These days many students are opting for a career in Fine Arts not only to earn high remuneration but also to gain popularity and prestige. Aspirants can choose an area in which they can specialize in subjects which can not only enhance their skills and fine-tune the aspirant’s creativeness, it also allows candidates to explore varied options. The BFA assists the candidate to grow in the area of the subject chosen. From fine arts to visual arts to performing arts, here aspirants can check colleges according to location which can help candidates pursue BFA. Some colleges offering this course are:

Banaras Hindu University- www.bhu.ac.in

College of Arts, University of Delhi- http://www.admission.du.ac.in/

After completing the bachelor course the student can also opt for Acting schools such as:

BARRY JOHN ACTING STUDIO, MUMBAI (www.bjas.in) – Established in 1999 in Film City, Noida (Uttar Pradesh), Barry John Acting Studio (BJAS) operates under the Theatre in Education Trust, a non-profit association. In 2002, the course moved to a studio in Saidulajab, Saket in New Delhi. It offers courses like:

Diploma in film acting

Diploma courses in film arts

Certificate in acting

NATIONAL SCHOOL OF DRAMA (NSD), NEW DELHI (nsd.gov.in) –“It was set up by the SangeetNatakAkademi as one of its constituent units in 1959. In 1975, it became an independent entity and was registered as an autonomous organization under the Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860, fully financed by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India”, informs the official website. At the National School of Drama, as part of their training, students are required to produce plays that are then performed before the public. It offers a course like:

Classical Indian drama

Modern Indian drama

The qualities of a good actor are:

Good stage, screen, or vocal presence.

The ability to enter into another character and engage with an audience.

The ability to memorize lines.

Good understanding of dramatic techniques.

Having the confidence, energy, and dedication to perform.

Creative insight.

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In short the process of becoming a actor is:

Step 1: Take Classes

Although no formal training is strictly required to become an actor or actress, College degree programs allow students to expand their skills in various acting fields, including impromptu acting, sketch comedy, voiceover work, and musical theater, while building their portfolios. An undergraduate degree program in drama or theatre includes coursework such as voice and diction, stagecraft, acting theory, and stage management.

Step 2: Gain Professional Experience

Actors need whatever experience they can get in order to improve their skills and gain more recognition. Participating in college productions is an excellent way to bolster a resume and gain experience on stage or in front of a camera. It is important to keep copies of the recordings of these performances to show potential employers when auditioning for a role.

Many actors also start by participating in community theater productions. Others may choose to perform publicly at ‘open mic’ nights held by local venues. Performing in other public settings, such as nightclubs, dinner theaters, or theme parks, can also help beginners get real-world experience and help them become comfortable in front of an audience.

Step 3: Acquire Additional Skills

Because endless roles are available, the more an actor knows how to do, the wider the variety of auditions he or she is able to attend. For example, learning foreign accents or impressions may appeal to a certain market that was previously unattainable. Some roles may require that actors know how to dance, sing, or both. Taking classes and practicing different skills can help actors prepare to play a variety of different characters and more options on the job market.

Many actors choose to enlist the help of an acting coach, who is more experienced than they are. This coach helps them prepare for roles and find auditions while teaching them tricks of the trade.

Step 4: Find an Agent

While it is not mandatory, having an agent can make working as an actor easier. Agents complete most of the business-related tasks involved with acting, such as mailing out resumes, scheduling audition appointments, and negotiating contracts. Having an agent completing these administrative tasks provides actors with more time to practice their skills. The majority of agents also have connections with casting directors, which means they can more easily connect clients with regular acting roles.

A career in Acting is evergreen as entertainment is an important part of our lives, so this profession is never going to be out of trend as is expected to only grow in the coming years. So if you are thinking to make a career in acting, go ahead without a doubt.

We hope this is going to be helpful if you are planning to pursue a career in acting. For more guidance, feel free to connect with us and provide your feedback as well, so that we can also improve in the future.

For further information please visit: https://vikingscareerstrategists.com/

#career #actin #skills #guidance

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thatsnotcanonpodcasts · 5 years

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Robotics, Pokemon & Sonic the Hedgehog

Here they come, blowing up your phone, getting funniest looks from, everyone who hears;, hey hey it’s the Nerds. That’s right folks, look out, strap in and enjoy the ride of yet another fantastic fun filled episode of chaos and laughter. Also I know you started to sing along with us in that opening sentence, just go with it and enjoy. First up we look at a robot using origami to pick things up. It is truly spectacular! The boys get Nerdy and geek out over this and the applications it could be used for. When you look at what it can do you will understand.

Then as we wander through the show the DJ giggles constantly like he fit to burst, we aren’t sure what was in his milk that morning but hey, it worked. The next stop on our magical mystery tour is Pokemon and the Brain, that’s right folks Pokemon and the Brain, not Pinky. Although this has been more successful in taking over the world then Pinky; note, we need to copyright that idea before….too late. Anyway, we take a look at how watching pokemon is affecting people’s brains, and we don’t mean the crazy people running out in traffic to catch Jigglypuff.

The DJ continues to giggle as he tells us about Sonic the Hedgehog and the change that is happening to rectify the massive failure that was released to so much anger. This is serious folks, some idiot somewhere is trying to make something look even more ridiculous then Will Smith in body paint…and that is a really hard thing to do. Then as normal we have the shout outs, remembrances, birthdays and events of the week, which has some pretty funny moments for your enjoyment. We apologise if this is too informative for some listeners, also hello to the NSA, CIA and the rest of the alphabet soup, we know you are listening. Also we wish to acknowledge the Penguins as the Earths Alien overlords, they rule the galaxy. As always, take care of each other, stay safe and keep hydrated.

EPISODE NOTES:

Robotics and origami - https://www.sciencenews.org/article/origami-design-helps-robot-lift-delicate-and-heavy-cargo

Pokemon and brains

- https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/theres-a-brain-region-for-pokemon-characters-if-you-played-a-lot-as-a-kid/

-https://www.futurity.org/pokemon-players-brains-2054662/

Sonic the Hedgehog movie character changes - https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2471298/sonic-the-hedgehog-co-creator-thanks-fans-for-pushing-to-change-movie

Games Currently playing

Buck

– Assassin’s Creed unity - https://store.steampowered.com/app/289650/Assassins_Creed_Unity/

Professor

– Minecraft - https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/

– Apex Legends - https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends