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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Best Female Spy Movies & TV Shows to Watch After Black Widow

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Black Widow is out, bringing the women-led spy genre to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film follows Natasha Romanov in the time between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War as she works to bring down the Red Room, aka the Soviet-affiliated program that took her as a baby and brainwashed her into becoming an assassin. While the women-centric spy drama may be new for the MCU, it’s has been one of the most prolific and entertaining action sub-genres over the past few decades. If you’ve watched Black Widow and you’re looking for more taut and emotional spy thrillers to check out, we have some TV and film suggestions for you…

Hanna

Many have seen the 2011 action feature directed by Joe Wright and starring Saoirse Ronan as a girl assassin raised in the wilderness by her spy father Eric Bana, but the TV series based on the film is even better. Currently moving towards its third season, the Amazon Prime series has so much more room to delve into the nuances of the film’s premise, especially in its second season, which moves completely past the events of the movie. While the first season leans into the coming-of-age themes inherent in Hanna venturing out into the world for the very first time, the second season chooses to delve further into the spy drama of it all, expanding the series’ focus to center some of the other teen super soldiers born into the same program Hanna was rescued from as a baby. If you would have liked to learn more about the other Widows Natasha and Yelena are working to save in Black Widow, then Hanna is the show for you.

Atomic Blonde

Stylish and featuring some of the best fight scenes this side of John Wick (the film’s director David Leitch, also worked on John Wick), Atomic Blonde stars the incomparable Charlize Theron as a spy tasked with finding a lost of double agents that is being smuggled into the West on the eve of the Berlin Wall’s collapse. Like Black Widow, Atomic Blonde only has so much narrative time to delve into the complexities of this set up and setting and, maybe sensing it won’t be able to do them justice, instead leans into the aesthetic and action of this world. It works, thanks in no small part to performers like Theron, James McAvoy, and Sofia Boutella, who bring to life the stress, violence, and desperation of this intersection of place and time far better than its script.

Queen Sono

American and British spy dramas often have white westerners traveling to other, poorer nations for missions, depicting a real-life colonial power structure while rarely interrogating it. Queen Sono, billed as Netflix‘s first African original series (it is a South African series, specifically), is a spy drama that centers Black characters and community in fun and powerful ways, bringing the familiar tropes of the genre to what will probably be a new setting for most American viewers. Queen Sono follows South African spy Queen (Pearl Thusi) as she works to balance her dangerous and clandestine missions with her personal life. Funny, emotional, and action-packed, Queen Sono is a must-see for any spy drama lover looking for something new—and it’s a damn shame Netflix won’t be moving forward with a second season.

Alias

To me, Alias will always be the original. The female-led spy drama was on network television when I was a teenager, and its combination (especially in the first season and a half) of fierce fight sequences, tense spycraft, and character-driven drama made it my favorite show. Like Black Widow, Alias is grounded in family drama, most especially the father-daughter relationship between Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) and spy dad Jack Bristow (Victor Garber), but later bringing in other familial dynamics as well. The series starts as your classic double agent story, as Sydney decides to take down the agency she works for after they have her fiance killed, but, in classic J.J. Abrams style, the plot really spirals out from there—for better and worse. Airing for five season and more than 105 episodes, if you’re looking for more family-driven spy drama, Alias is the show for you.

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Deutschland 86

All three “seasons” of this excellent German-language Cold War spy series that follows an East German boy forced to become a spy in West Germany are worth watching, but the second installment, set in 1986, gives us viewers many more lady spy characters to be impressed by compared to the original Deutschland 83 story. Main character Jonas remains the protagonist of this tale, but his Aunt Lenora, probably the best spy in the entire show, takes an even bigger role in Deutschland 1986 and the subsequent Deutschland 89, as does her lover/partner Rose, a South African operative working for the African National Congress and played by the MCU’s Florence Kasumba. Throw in Jonas’ baby mama Annett, back in East Germany working as a junior intelligence agent, and the mysterious Brigitte, and you have a second season teeming with complex and cutthroat women spies.

Nikita

This highly underrated spy series ran for four action-packed seasons on The CW before totally sticking its landing in 2013. Technically an adaptation of the 1997 La Femme Nikita TV series, which was in turn an adaptation of Luc Besson’s 1990 action film of the same name, Nikita quickly surpassed both originals to become one of the best female-led spy stories of all time. Starring Maggie Q as the titular Nikita, the series began after the former spy has vowed to take down the secret agency that trained her, known as the Division. Our story begins when Nikita plants her protege, Alex, within Division, with a plan to work together to take the agency down. Of course, going undercover comes with its own emotional and ethical complications, and Alex may not know all that there is to know about her mentor Nikita, and Nikita’s role in Alex’s tragic past. With a stellar supporting cast that includes Melinda Clarke and Xander Berkeley, Nikita was far better than it needed to be and, if your a fan of the action spy genre, is definitely worth watching.

Killing Eve

Maybe it was the Russian accent, but Yelena has mad Villanelle vibes in Black Widow, and I mean that in the least psychopathic way possible. Unless you live under a rock, you’re probably aware of this BBC America series starring Sandra Oh as a bored MI-5 agent and Jodie Comer as the spy-assassin she becomes obsessed with catching, but if you haven’t yet checked it out and are looking for another female-driven spy story with plenty of banter, then Killing Eve is the show for you. The second season gets a little rocky, but with a riveting season three and the announcement that season four will be the show’s last, now is the time to jump on the Killing Eve bandwagon.

Little Drummer Girl

In terms of tone or style, Little Drummer Girl shares little with Black Widow—it’s much more geopolitical thriller than superhero action—but I’m including the British spy series on the list because it does share a star with Black Widow. Yelena’s Florence Pugh plays an aspiring actress named Charlie who is recruited by Mossad to infiltrate a Palestinian group planning an attack in Europe. Based on a novel of the same name by acclaimed spy author John le Carré, the six-episode series is directed by Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook and co-stars Michael Shannon and Alexander Skarsgård, and the talent is not wasted. The miniseries delves much more into the ethics of spycraft than Black Widow is able or comfortable doing, asking difficult questions about how violence and manipulation are used and justified across national lines. If you’re looking for a spy drama that isn’t afraid to ask the tough questions, then Little Drummer Girl is for you.

Gunpowder Milkshake

OK, this one is more of an assassin drama than a spy drama, but the cast is too good not to include it on the list. Starring Doctor Who‘s Karen Gillan and Game of Thrones‘ Lena Headey as a pair of daughter/mother assassins, Gunpowder Milkshake is another action thriller that is all in with the familial dynamics. Past the two stars, Gunpowder Milkshake also features the iconic Michelle Yeoh, Angela Bassett, and Carla Gugino, rounding out the cast of action women. The film doesn’t drop on Netflix (in the U.S.) and theaters (elsewhere) until Friday, but you’ll be ready.

The post Best Female Spy Movies & TV Shows to Watch After Black Widow appeared first on Den of Geek.

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freewalkerstudio · 4 years

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Tony Ray-Jones: The Magic Hours of a Young Life

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Tony Ray-Jones, born in Wells, United Kingdom in 1941, was a British post-war photojournalist most well known for his portrayal of the leisure life of Brits during the late 1960’s. He was noted for having a number of cinematic influences, ranging from Buster Keaton to Charlie Chaplin to Federico Fellini. He particularly liked black and white films mixing humor and surreal imagery. This is how Ray-Jones was able to get his start on his own visual style of blending the melancholy of English countryside, the dry wit of the English and the sometimes dreamlike moments of everyday life. After studying the old movie masters during school for printing and graphic design at London College of Printing, he applied for and won a two year scholarship to attend a design program at Yale University. This would prove to be a major turning point in Ray-Jones’s life.

HIGH NOON

While at Yale, he befriended Alexey Brodovitch who would subsequently become his mentor and confidant for the rest of his life. Brodovitch ran the Design Laboratory at Richard Avedon’s studio in Manhattan, where Ray-Jones studied reportage, photography, design, magazine layout, styling, etc. There was a crowd of (later famous) photographers studying at the same time and he would go on to hone his photography craft on the streets of New York and in the countryside of the USA. His closest compatriots were Garry Winogrand and Joel Meyerowitz, who together formed their own clique to push and challenge each other to make better work. After Yale and the Design Lab, Ray-Jones free-lanced for two years in America and created the loose body of work now known as American Color.

DUSK

In 1965, he moved back to England to put all of his lessons to the test, building the work that would collectively become known as A Day Off: An English Journal. Studying with Brodovitch and having a background in design and print layout led Ray-Jones to become a master of composition. He loved complex compositions and rhyming shapes, in particular triangles. He was fascinated by the way his countrymen lived and the seeming absurdity of how they spent their leisure time. This body of work would become influential to younger British photojournalists hoping to cut their teeth in the industry by documenting the English way of life.

TWILIGHT

Sadly, just as Ray-Jones was beginning to see real success and was ready to foray into film, he was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. He was 31 years old. At the time, he had just accepted a professorship at the San Francisco Art Institute. He decided to return to Britain for medical treatment and tragically died only three days after arrival to his home country. His legacy lives on today, with his photographs housed in British museums and having influenced notable British contemporary photographers such as Martin Parr who has gone on to champion Ray-Jones work as fundamental to the history of British photojournalism.

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insanityclause · 5 years

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What most struck me about this production of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, is how much it reminded me of another star-powered Pinter production that grazed Broadway in 2015–Old Times. The staging and direction of both productions were frigid, spare, with Lazy Susan-style rotating floor pieces on which the actors stood or sat or lounged, tensely, always poised and statuesque, often to great visual effect—three attractive actors each, as well-dressed and brooding as if they were models on an editorial fashion shoot.

What I remember most about the 2015 Pinter production is not the specifics of the content of the show itself (though I recall generally enjoying it), but this aesthetic, linked to the theme, of course—circuity and the particular trap of time—but so prominent that it overwrote the rest; my remembrance was so marked by the poses, the lights, the tone, and the distances between the actors onstage.

Similarly, when the lights come up on the current Betrayal, directed by Jamie Lloyd, the three characters of the play’s love triangle are stiffly posed together. One may think of chess pieces set on a board, and such a likeness is fitting—Pinter’s plays are ones of deception, manipulation, and calculated maneuvers. The set feels chilly, impersonal, bare. Slate-like panels frame the space, creating the sensation of things being hemmed in. The lighting, too, is aggressively icy, like the fluorescents in an office.

Jerry (Charlie Cox) and Emma (Zawe Ashton) sit side by side, talking in folding chairs as Robert (Tom Hiddleston) lurks in the background, removed, drink in hand. Emma and Jerry, it’s quickly revealed, have previously had an affair, though it’s over now, and Emma and Robert’s marriage has come to an end. They talk about their jobs, their families, and sprinkled in are a few references to things from their past that we’ll find out more about later: a trip to Italy, a playful moment with Emma’s daughter, lunchtime liaisons in a shared flat. It’s all on the table (atop a Venetian tablecloth, one could say, as such a fabric is referenced more than once) from the start, so the discovery lies not in the act itself but in the evolution of it, the resolve of it, the talk of and around it, which, more than the infidelity itself, encompasses the truest representation of betrayal.

In one exquisitely done scene, by far the best of the production, the back wall of the stage comes forward, clipping the open area from a yawn to a short breath of space, where Robert and Emma sit together while on vacation in Italy. The light has a yellow tint, and though there is no excess furniture (the same two chairs from the beginning appear again), and the tabula-rasa-style set is as unyieldingly clinical and anonymous as before, Robert and Emma move with an ease that implies familiarity, even when it’s invisible to our eyes, and the warmer lighting and smaller space draws us into the intimacy. Robert, having discovered that Jerry has sent Emma a letter, double-talks his way around asking her whether she’s sleeping with his best friend.

Hiddleston, temporarily hanging up his cape and horns from his role as the beloved mischief-maker of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to make his Broadway debut, is devastatingly matter of fact in his demeanor, his Robert steadily circling closer and closer to confirming the thing he already knows to be true as the conversation goes on. He nudges Emma, trying to gauge her reaction, but the exchange feels more masochistic on his part, a long, slow act of self-harm that Hiddleston allows Robert sink into with depressing resignation. Ashton, too, delivers her best in the scene, her face, elsewhere deceptively easy and bright, gradually crumbling and contorting as the conversation goes on. It’s like watching a home fall apart, in real time.

All the while, Jerry slumps against a wall in the dark, off to the side. Later, Robert sits directly next to Jerry as the latter meets with Emma for another indiscretion. Robert knows about the affair, and though the character is physically present onstage, he is silent, not actually present in the setting or the action of the scene. Still, he’s intrusive, like a spectre, a grim Dickensian Ghost of Marriage Present. It’s an artful choice on Lloyd’s part, which directs attention to the importance of proximities in the production, allowing each scene to maintain the tension of the trio and continue to hint at the consequences of a transgression that keeps happening.

The production in many ways literalizes the unpacking of the relationship that the text performs. In the haunting presence of the characters—whoever the third wheel happens to be in any given scene—is well done, but at other times the production just tips over the line into over kneading its themes. It eases us into the past, opens up so that we learn the characters personally, firsthand, as we witness them backwards in time. The problem is that whereas we’re meant to begin at the end with just a sketch of the situation and then gradually swallow the full context, missing in the early scenes is the sense that that same context—that history of the characters—is fully accessible to the production itself, even if it’s not yet accessible to us as we’re starting out on this backwards journey.

Part of the issue comes back to the audaciously stripped-down aesthetic and direction, which untether the play from time or setting (though both are clearly referenced—just not seen). This places the onus on the actors to recreate what we’re missing through the meat of their performances. Hiddleston’s Robert fits well into the cool distance that the play creates, occasionally showing his bite, and Cox’s Jerry (also known for his jaunts in the world of Marvel—albeit the grittier, Netflix-owned parts, in the criminal underground of Hell’s Kitchen in Daredevil) has an easy good-guy charm. Cox really digs his feet into the play’s comic moments, surprisingly, filling the space with jokes, and he works well opposite Hiddleston in their exchanges, but he sometimes goes a bit too big, hitting and holding the comic beats to a hammy fermata. But it’s Ashton who’s least served by the production’s combination of style and space; her Emma is remarkably aloof and remote, and the production only emphasizes her character’s emotional distance, so that her underlying feelings—a cocktail of wishfulness and sorrow and anger, one imagines—are so masked that they make the rendering feel undeveloped at times. Unfortunately, she and Cox also lack chemistry, and despite Lloyd’s attempts to spark electricity in the spaces between them—scenes where they touch, or, more often, don’t touch—it often feels like dead air.

But ultimately these are small qualms, minute, inconsistent injuries, in the grand sense of the thing—the thing being a production that succeeds in matching the thoughtfulness, in attention and execution, of Pinter’s text. In art there are incongruities that blunder or bore, but in this Betrayal, for example, the distinct takes on the characters, though they don’t always mesh, are nonetheless engaging, creating their own interesting kind of dissonance among them, even in times when one could imagine them as figures in each their own separate plays, of different tones and temperaments. More often than not, the production delivers what one would hope to receive on a night out to see a talented cast of actors in a well-known play by one of theater’s talented, oft-celebrated playwrights. Somehow, it manages to make betrayal stylish and simple and complex and familiar and detached and funny and tragic. It makes betrayal a pleasure to behold.

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myhahnestopinion · 5 years

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REVIEW: The Lego Movie 2 - The Second Part

The Lego Movie's great success was not only how it managed to build its toy advertisement origins around an affecting emotional core, but the surprising use of its intricately animated world as an additional metaphorical layer for its celebration of creativity with its reveal the characters are acting out the fantasy of a young child. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, as the fourth installment of the cinematic universe, can no longer hide behind such charades, making much of the movie feel like a waiting game for the real-world shoe to drop. But while its far less fresh, funny, and free-spirited than its predecessor, The Lego Movie 2 still delights because it realizes this, and switches its focus from building up these walls to emphatically breaking them down, in an arc that miraculously manages the same emotional resonance as the original. The film has a clear message and just enough clever jokes and catchy songs to keep the audience engaged in order for it to land: everything can be awesome as long as we open our hearts to one another, toxic masculinity is just as cruel to ourselves as it is to others, and you should go out and buy some Lego Movie Branded Legos and the complementary soundtrack album.

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, like the cheeky title implies, connects directly to the end of the first film, opening with the invasion of Bricksburg by Planet Duplo, a representation of a young boy’s playscape becoming suddenly shared with his younger sister. The film cuts to five years later, the same passage of time experienced by viewers, and the Lego universe has become a dark-and-gritty riff on the high-octane world of Mad Max, with its citizens in a constant state of panic of another invasion. This fear is soon proven right when ever-cheery Emmet (Chris Pratt) accidentally attracts the attention of the intergalactic General Mayhem, who kidnaps his friends and departs for the Systar System, raising the threat of a foretold “Our-Mom-Ageddon.”

Just as the young boy’s world is upended, the sequel immediately has a noticeably different rhythm to it, with directorial duties shifting hands from Phil Lord and Chris Miller to Trolls’ Mike Mitchell. Lord and Miller remain screenwriters, stacking their script with another round of manic energy and irreverent jokes, but the abundance of poppy musical numbers and a more absurd visual styling bear the trademark of its director.

The eclectic cast of characters returns, including Allison Brie’s Unikitty, Charlie Day’s Benny the Spaceman, and Will Arnett’s Batman, with several winks to the character’s amusing Lego Movie spin-off. His personal growth from that film is lightly retconned to make his story work here, just as most of the cast are just along for the ride this time, striped of larger complexity and roles to compensate for several prominent new additions. These new characters include Stephanie Beatriz as the aforementioned General Mayhem, and Watevra Wa-Nabi, a shapeshifting alien queen played by Tiffany Haddish, thriving in the madcap world of animation and shining in several songs

While the cast is packed, notably absent from any of those major behind-the-scenes roles is a woman, an odd choice for a film all about the conflicts of a brother and sister learning to build a creative vision together. The Lego Movie 2’s toy-ad origins bleed through in the film’s targeted approach to male viewers, and targeted approach overall. In contrast to his lore-traversing spin-off, Batman spends much of the film out of his classic comic book suit and in pieces likely available for purchase as soon as one leaves the theater. Similarly, Aquaman returns in a cameo role, but with a face-lift and voice-lift to promote corporate synergy with Warner Bros. Pictures shiny new billion-dollar-grosser. The film gorgeous animation continues to reflect true-to-life Lego pieces, but for all of its satire, there’s no comment of Lego’s practice of making distinct figurines for its girl-marketed sets that subtly widens the divide the movie wants its viewers to bridge, because certainly the parent company needs those toys sold as well. The first Lego Movie also had this imperative to contend with and managed its task far more gracefully, though The Second Part is additionally forced to deal with “Lego Movie” becoming a brand onto itself.

As the plot progresses, however, the movie’s laser-focused targeting slowly shifts from frustrating to powerful, with a message directly addressed to young boys being pressured to close themselves off emotionally to be perceived as grown-up and masculine. Marketing images such as these switch from being pushed to being lampooned, most prominently in Chris Pratt’s secondary role as Rex Dangervest, a parody of those tough action-heroes that dominate cinema and the actor’s recent career. Dangervest is contrasted with the affable Emmet, a holdover from Pratt’s comedic origins, in a bit of meta-commentary so brilliant it might even go over the actor’s head. The first Lego Movie was about creation, the second about destruction; specifically, the destruction of self and social bonds that results from the damaging desire to exorcise one’s self-expression and reject the effort needed to ensure that “everything being awesome” is all-inclusive. With no need to maintain that original duel-world façade, The Lego Movie 2 hits this message hard, but that message hits hard because of its importance. If The Lego Movie 2 wants to speak to young boys in order to sell more toys, it certainly found a noble method with which to do it.

Like Ralph Breaks the Internet, which combined the intrusiveness of internet advertisements and Disney cross-promotion with a surprising examination of toxic relationships and unhealthy insecurity, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part lies in a very peculiar realm of late-stage capitalism. It’s a confrontation of societal ills packaged inside a brightly-colored, melodious product, and is quite proudly, and effectively, both. The major musical number of the film is entitled “Catchy Song,” with lyrics proclaiming the inevitability of it getting stuck within your head, and, while far from the show’s best tune, its frustratingly correct. The film is clearly commercial, but never crass. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part replicates, to varying degrees of success, the zany humor, quirky characters, and gorgeous animation that made the first film such a hit, but also doesn’t forget to properly place its most important piece: the heart. And maybe there’s room for a shiny new box of Legos right beside it.

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, also starring Elizabeth Banks, Nick Offerman, and Maya Rudolph, is in theaters now.

#film #2019films #review #thelegomovie #thelegomovie2

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czld-and-wrxthful · 6 years

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Character Playlists!

10-15 songs per character, for each muse on this blog in order!

Sarah Manning - History

Buy You A Rose - AJR

Simple Song - Passenger

Girls/Girls/Boys - Panic! At The Disco

I Got You - Christopher Jackson

I Want To Write You A Song - One Direction

Dreamer - Aso

Song Of The Caged Bird - Lindsey Stirling

Nocturnal Waltz - Johannes Bornlöf

I Found Love - Owl City

Laugh Till I Cry - The Front Bottoms

James Cunnington - History

Brave Enough (Feat. Christina Perri) - Lindsey Stirling

Trust - Ásgeir

Devil Town - Cavetown

The Distance - Relient K

Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too - Say Anything

Gimme Coffee, Or Death - Mischief Brew

Lego House - Ed Sheeran

Tangled In The Great Escape - Pierce The Veil, Jason Butler

The Plan (Fuck Jobs) - The Front Bottoms

Misery - Maroon 5

William Manning, Jr - History

No Shade In The Shadow Of The Cross - Sufjan Stevens

Dear Maria, Count Me In - All Time Low

Making All Things New - Aaron Epse

The Carousel - Allysa Nelson

A Sky Full Of Flowers - Jeff Bright Jr

Two Birds - Regina Spektor

Survival AJJ - Ghost Mice

Warm Darkness - Mia Strass

10 Feet Tall - Cavetown

Ocean Eyes - Billie Eilish

Bruce Wayne - Gotham

Ocean Eyes - Billie Eilish

Bloom - The Paper Kites

I’m Gay - Bowling For Soup

King - Lauren Aquilina

Little Pistol - Mother Mother

The Crow - Dessa

Annabelle - Dessa

Yellow - Coldplay

Your Soul - Gothic Tropic

Meteor Shower - Cavetown

This Is Why We Fight - The Decemberists

Everyone But You - The Decemberists

We Don’t Have To Dance - Andy Black

The Moon Song - Scarlett Johansson, Joaquin Phoenix

Never Get To Know - Paul Baribeau

Veronica Sawyer - Heathers

Never Get To Know - Paul Baribeau

Marceline - Willow

Smile - Lily Allen

Lemon Boy - Cavetown

He’s Hurting Me - Maria Mena

Secret For The Mad - Dodie

Vacation Town - The Front Bottoms

Oh Ms Believer - Twenty One Pilots

One Love - Marianas Trench

Hell No - Ingrid Michaelson

Misanthropic Drunken Loner - Days N Daze

Under The Bridge - Red Hot Chili Peppers

This Is Home - Cavetown

Superman - Rachel Platten

Sloppy Seconds - Watsky

Jacqueline Callaghan - OC

I Don’t Know My Name - Grace VanderWaal

Sober Up - AJR

High School Never Ends - Bowling For Soup

One Foot - Walk The Moon

Skinny Love - Bon Iver

I Like Me Better - Lauv

King And Lionheart - Of Monsters And Men

Must Have Done Something Right - Relient K

3AM - AJR

Nothing Ever Happens - Rachel Platten

Congratulations - Dessa

I’m Not Dead - Boyinaband

Ring Of Fire - Home Free, Avi Kaplan

Heart Of Stone - American Authors

I Found Love - Owl City

Javier Delacroix - OC

I Found Love - Owl City

Ring Of Fire - Home Free, Avi Kaplan

People Ii: The Reckoning - AJJ

New Beginnings - Kupla

HIM - Sam Smith

I Know You Too Well To Like You Anymore - Reel Big Fish

Little Game - Benny

Boom Clap - Charli XCX

Don’t Stay In School - Boyinaband

Master Of Tides - Lindsey Stirling

Breathe - Lauv

Twin Size Mattress - The Front Bottoms

If My Heart Was A House - Owl City

How To Never Stop Being Sad - Dandelion Hands

Weak - AJR

Philip Hamilton - Hamilton The Musical, History

Rays Of Hope - Oneke

Nocturnal Waltz - Johannes Bornlöf

Waltz For Dreamers - Matt Stewart-Evans

Mirror Lake - Angus MacRae

Delicate Transitions - Gavin Luke

Warm Darkness - Mia Strass

Remove The Complexities - Peter Sandberg

Waves From A Distance - Martin Skoog

The Carousel - Allysa Nelson

A Sky Full Of Flowers - Jeff Bright Jr

Fight Night Champion - Cyberbully Mom Club

Adam’s Song - Blink-182

Bird Song - Florence + The Machine

Heart Of Stone - American Authors

Replaced - American Authors

Saoirse Crowley - OC

Replaced - American Authors

Turning Out - AJR

Blue Lips - Regina Spektor

Critical Hit - Ghost Mice

Sugar, We’re Goin Down - Fall Out Boy

Air Balloon - Lily Allen

Beautiful Trauma - P!nk

King - Lauren Aquilina

I Don’t Know Who You Are - Garfunkel And Oates

Hate That You Know Me - Bleachers

Looking Like This - Lyre Le Temps

Bloom - The Paper Kites

Art School Wannabe - Sorority Noise

Little Pistol - Mother Mother

Hidden In The Sand - Tally Hall

Asra - The Arcana

Hidden In The Sand - Tally Hall

Kids In America - Kim Wilde

You Make My Dreams - Daryl Hall & John Oates

I’m So Excited - The Pointer Sisters

Super Trouper - ABBA

Don’t Stop Believing - Journey

Walk Of Life - Dire Straits

Walking On Sunshine - Katrina & The Waves

Eye Of The Tiger - Survivor

Everybody Wants To Rule The World - Tears For Fears

Raspberry Beret - Prince

Africa - Toto

Footloose - Kenny Loggins

Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go - Wham!

Funky Town - Lipps Inc

Jughead Jones - Riverdale

We Won’t - Jaymes Young, Phoebe Ryan

Castle On A Hill - Ed Sheeran

Teenagers - My Chemical Romance

American Kids - Poppy

Burn The House Down - AJR

iD - Michael Patrick Kelly, Gentleman

Call My Dad - AJR

Do Better - Say Anything

Smoothie King - Bowling For Soup

Run - Vampire Weekend

I Hate Everything - Just Nick

I’m Born To Run - American Authors

Big Idea - AJR

Pitchfork Kids - AJR

I’ve Changed Too - Justin Kalk

Angelica Hamilton - Hamilton, History

You Look Like A Girl - Boyinaband

Green - Cavetown

Deathbed - Relient K

Back Home - Andy Grammer

Daylight - Maroon 5

Fuqboi - Hey Violet

The Last Of The Real Ones - Fall Out Boy

Feel Something - Jaymes Young

Lego House - Ed Sheeran

Lowlife - Poppy

Don’t Fill Up On Chips - The Front Bottoms

Daylily - Movements

Ghosting - Mother Mother

You Used To Say (Holy Fuck) - The Front Bottoms

Runs In The Family - Amanda Palmer

Harleen Quinzel - Batman, Comics

You Used To Say (Holy Fuck) - The Front Bottoms

Fuck Away The Pain - Divide The Day

Pride - American Authors

Set It All Free - Scarlett Johansson

Sweater Weather - The Neighbourhood

No Children - The Mountain Goats

Walkashame - Meghan Trainor

Bit By Bit - Mother Mother

Starring Role - Marina And The Diamonds

Ocean Eyes - Bilie Eilish

Honestly - Hot Chelle Rae

Like Lovers Do - Hey Violet

We Don’t Have To Dance - Andy Black

Champion - Fall Out Boy

Dear Maria, Count Me In - All Time Low

Mae Borowski - Night In The Woods

Skeleton - The Front Bottoms

Ghosting - Mother Mother

Little Talks - Of Monsters And Men

Love Love Love - Of Monsters And Men

Too Much Fun - Boyinaband

Hello Monsta - Boyinaband

No Children - The Mountain Goats

Body - Mother Mother

Spooky Ghosts - SNCKPCK

Devil Town - Cavetown

Putting The Dog To Sleep - The Antlers

Machine - MisterWives

The Last Of The Real Ones - Fall Out Boy

Runs In The Family - Amanda Palmer

Lowlife - Poppy

Lance McClain - Voltron

Runs In The Family - Amanda Palmer

Starring Role - Marina And The Diamonds

Early Morning Coffee Cups - Jaimi Faulkner

Laugh Till I Cry - The Front Bottoms

The Crow - Dessa

Stone - Jaymes Young

Break The Rules - Charli XCX

Song For Isabelle - Pierce The Veil

If I Tremble - Front Porch Step

Sick Of Losing Soulmates - Dodie

Tear In My Heart - Twenty One Pilots

Lemon Boy - Cavetown

Rose-Colored Boy - Paramore

I’m Good - The Mowgli’s

Stutter - Maroon 5

Mariana García - The Walking Dead: Season Three

I’m Good - The Mowgli’s

Stutter - Maroon 5

Three Thirty - AJR

Better When I’m Dancin’ - Meghan Trainor

Speechless - Rachel Platten

Congratulations - Rachel Platten

Two Birds - Regina Spektor

Brave - Sara Bareilles

Set It All Free - Scarlett Johansson

Something Wonderful - Seaway

Wolves - Selena Gomez, Marshmello

You Are Enough - Sleeping At Last

Infinity - AJR

Imagine - Pentatonix

Perfect - Ed Sheeran

Loki - Marvel Cinematic Universe

Fuck Away The Pain - Divide The Day

The Crow - Dessa

Lowlife - Poppy

Gasoline - Divide The Day

Train Wreck - Divide The Day

Fight Night Champion - Cyberbully Mom Club

The Last Of The Real Ones - Fall Out Boy

Bird Song - Florence + The Machine

Twin Size Mattress - The Front Bottoms

You Used To Say (Holy Fuck) - The Front Bottoms

The Boredom Is The Reason I Started Swimming. It’s Also The Reason I Started Sinking - The Front Bottoms

The Plan (Fuck Jobs) - The Front Bottoms

Laugh Till I Cry - The Front Bottoms

Friday Night - Lily Allen

Maps - Maroon 5

MJ / Michelle Jones - Marvel Cinematic Universe

Moves Like Jagger - Maroon 5

A Children’s Crusade On Acid - Margot & The Nuclear So And So’s

The Kids Don’t Stand A Chance - Vampire Weekend

Dairy Queen - PWR BTTM

Calamity Song - The Decemberists

All Of The Drugs - The Brobecks

Dead - Madison Beer

The Crow - Dessa

Brand New City - Mitski

Coast (It’s Gonna Get Better) - Patrick Stump

St. Patrick - Pvris

Down By The Water - The Decemberists

Repetition - Purity Ring

Unbelievers - Vampire Weekend

This Is Why We Fight - The Decemberists

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ibrgraphicsstudioworld · 4 years

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What are some of the best TV series to watch on Netflix?

Netflix is one of the most streaming platforms today. So it is natural you would want to know which series is the best to binge. Hello, I am from IBR Graphics . Here is my list of best series to binge on Netflix.

1. Bojack Horseman6 seasons,

77 episodes | IMDb: 8.6/10

This is one of the best series on Netflix. It is also one of the most underrated series. It is set in a world where anthropomorphic animals and humans live side by side.BoJack Horseman is about a horse named Bojack (Arnett), the washed-up star of the 1990s sitcom Horsin’ Around. After a decade boozing on his couch and sleeping around, Bojack tries to resurrect his celebrity relevance with decidedly mixed results. On the face of it, it’s a zany satire of Hollywood and celebrity culture. What’s unexpected, however, is that Bojack Horseman may be television’s most honest and thorough examination of depression. The writing is sharp, the jokes are layered, and the situations are hilarious, but there’s a melancholy undercurrent to the series. Despite being a horse, Bojack is also one of the most human characters on television. It takes two or three episodes to hook viewers into its world, but once it does, it’s an impossible series to stop watching.

2. Stranger Things

3 seasons, 25 episodes | IMDb: 8.8/10

A throwback and love letter to the early 1980s movies of Steven Spielberg and John Carpenter, the Duffer Brothers Stranger Things feels both familiar and new. The first season is about a boy named Will who is captured by a The Thing-like creature and trapped in a Poltergeist-like world. Will’s dorky, Goonies-like best friends take to their bikes to do some sleuthing of their own and eventually befriend an alien-like girl with telepathic powers. its great PG horror/sci-fi, like the blockbusters of the early ’80s.

3. Marvel’s Daredevil

3 seasons, 39 episodes | IMDb: 8.6/10

Brilliantly shot, excellently choreographed, and superbly written, Daredevil lives so far outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as to be completely distinct. It is darker, more brutal, and grittier than the film franchise, although there are enough light and humor in the show to make its characters sympathetic. The series nails the tone of the comic, the characters are complex, and it really understands the grey area between hero and villain, and the fine line between the two where violence is concerned. The fight scenes are brutal, and one couldn’t ask for a better Matt Murdock than the one depicted by Charlie Cox.

4.The End of the F***ing World

2 seasons, 16 episodes | IMDb: 8.2/10

The End of the F***ing World is a dark-black comedy based on the comic series by Charles S. Forsman about James (Alex Lawther), a withdrawn and disturbed 17-year-old who believes he is a psychopath, and his burgeoning Bonnie & Clyde-like relationship with Alyssa, a classmate damaged by a dysfunctional family. Boasting a stellar soundtrack, magnificent performances, and a binge-worthy runtime, The End of the F***ing World is a bleakly funny series, but it’s also deeply, soul-achingly romantic.

5. Marvel’s Jessica Jones

3 seasons, 39 episodes | IMDb: 8/10

As an episodic series, Jessica Jones occasionally falters. Jones is a private detective with certain special powers, but the series doesn’t put her P.I. talents to much use, instead of focusing on one storyline surrounding the big bad, Kilgrave for the entire 13 episodes. Tennant’s character, however, is the best reason to watch the series — he’s captivating yet repugnant, alluring yet vile — and the themes of rape and domestic abuse resonate loudly. it’s a captivating, thematically-rich series that covers ground no other superhero series would dare to explore, and while that doesn’t make it the most entertaining Marvel series, it is the bravest and most original.

6. Luke Cage

2 seasons, 26 episodes | IMDb: 7.5/10

The third entry in Marvel’s Defenders series, Luke Cage follows the title character to Harlem, where he works as a sweeper in a barbershop and as a dishwasher in a restaurant. Cage –who has superhero strength and unbreakable skin — gets dragged against his better instincts into crime-fighting in order to save Harlem from violence and corruption. Luke Cage is every bit as thematically complex as Jessica Jones before it. Cage only falters in pace and storytelling. It’s thematically bold, but the storylines are conservative and predictable, and it might benefit by cutting its episode count from 13 down to eight or ten.

7. 13 Reasons Why

3 seasons, 39 episodes | IMDb: 8.2/10

13 Reasons Why has an intriguing hook: A teenage girl named Hannah takes her own life and leaves behind a suicide note in the form of 13 tapes, each one directed at a particular individual at least partially responsible for the decision to kill herself. The tapes are then passed around to the 13 people, who have to deal with the guilt they feel for the role they played in her death, as well as keep their secrets hidden as the contents of the tape threaten to destroy relationships and cost the school millions in an ongoing lawsuit. The drama came under fire in its first season for its heavy subject material, and the reason it stirred so much controversy is that it is an honest and unflinching look at teen suicide. 13 Reason Why is a haunting and very personal series, and whether it succeeds — or backfires — in its aims will depend largely on the viewer.

8. Peaky Blinders

5 seasons, 30 episodes | IMDb: 8.8/10

A British import licensed in America exclusively by Netflix, Peaky Blinders is roughly the UK equivalent of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, taking place in the same time period and covering similar terrain. It’s got British gangsters, and while bootlegging and gambling are involved, so is the IRA, Peaky has one thing that Boardwalk does not, however, and that’s the piercing, intense Cillian Murphy, who plays something akin to Prohibition-era Boyd Crowder. The show also features Tom Hardy as a phenomenal recurring character in seasons two and three (along with Noah Taylor). It’s addictive, violent, and intense as hell.

9.Sex Education

2 seasons, 16 episodes | IMDb: 8.3/10

this British teem comedy is committed to exploring all of the cringe-worthy, taboo topics associated with sex, just not in animated form. The series follows a mother-son duo navigating their way through those uncomfortable “talks.” Of course, the mother here happens to be a sex therapist named Dr. Jean Milburn and her son Otis is the kid enduring her overbearing tendencies at home while doling out sex advice of his own in an underground sex therapy ring amongst his friends. Sex is a comedy goldmine, and although the show loves to play up ’80s high-school tropes, there’s real nuance and thought that goes into how these teens are portrayed and their interactions with sex. Plus, Anderson’s comedic timing is spot-on.

10. The Umbrella Academy

1 season, 10 episodes | IMDb: 8/10

Superhero team-ups are a dime a dozen but the TV adaptation of this award-winning comic series created by Gerard Way — yes, the lead singer of My Chemical Romance — feels wholly unique and thus, totally refreshing. The show follows the story of seven kids, all born on the same day to mothers who didn’t even know they were pregnant. They’re adopted by a mysterious billionaire and trained to use their supernatural abilities to fight evil in the world, but when they grow up, their dysfunctional upbringing catches up with them, and they’re left struggling to live normal lives. It’s all kinds of weird, which is exactly what the genre needs right now.

#netflix #stranger things #series #sex education #13 reasons why #the umbrella academy #luke cage #jessica jones #peaky blinders #the end of the f***ing world #bojack horseman #netflix binge list #blog post

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nocaptainreuben · 7 years

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BREAKING: Fire&Lights feature in new book and it’s A-MAY-ZING!!!

When I finished Songs About a Girl last year, I couldn’t wait to see where Charlie’s story would go, so I was unbelievably happy to get my hands on Songs About Us and delve back into the world of Fire&Lights and Caversham High. It’s no secret that I’m a big Chris Russell fan and, having just finished his second novel, that fact is just getting more and more true. As I’ve said before, Chris has an uncanny understanding of teenage girls and writes so perfectly for YA that it’s hard to believe he’s still so new to the scene.

Songs About Us kicks off a few months after the events of the first book, with the blogosphere having moved on to new dramas and Charlie trying to keep her head down, get through her GCSEs, and be an “ordinary girl”. Predictably, that doesn’t last long and when she reunites with the boys she is pulled back into the glamour, drama, romance and tension of life with the band. People like to be scornful about the passions of teenage girls, particularly when it comes to boybands, and it would have been easy for this trilogy to be dismissed as “a bit of fluff”, but this book shows just how wrong that judgement is. There is so much going on in the story that it is never boring or predictable, but rather than it being the shallow, sensationalised, materialistic experience of reading about bands in gossip magazines, Russell goes beyond the surface of all that and uses real issues to bring depth and emotion, painting these teen music sensations as real, normal people who the reader feels on a level with.

One example of this, which I was so happy to see included in the book, was when he addressed the manufactured relationship between one of the Fire&Lights boys and a fellow female pop star. I’m going to be very vague about this so as not to spoil anything, but when Charlie asked said boy about the relationship, he shared with her how he was struggling with his identity in terms of romantic relationships. And not only was it brilliant to see some LGBTQ+ rep in there, but I absolutely loved how it was handled. I think the thing that impressed me most was the fact that neither the character in question, the character he was speaking to, or the author felt the need to put a label on him; no word was ever given to his sexuality, just an explanation of how he felt. This was so refreshing, and when Charlie responded with:

“You shouldn’t put so much pressure on yourself... You are who you are. Maybe that’ll change, maybe it won’t. As long as you’re happy, none of it matters.”

I felt the need to stop and praise it to everyone around me. It was portrayed as something that Charlie literally couldn’t give a tiny rat’s ass about, because it didn’t change her friend whatsoever and had no impact on Charlie’s life, so why should she care just because it’s different to her own experience? This, along with other passing comments from background characters about their own sexualities, really helps to normalise LGBTQ+ identities and is exactly what we need in mainstream media.

I mentioned in my review of Songs About a Girl how Russell created such brilliant characters, with such an effective, visual style of writing about them that Fire&Lights very much felt like a real boyband. In Songs About Us, this was still true, but as we’ve now spent a bit more time with the boys, their personalities have started to be further developed away from the confines of what relates to the band. Obviously, Gabriel was the main feature of the previous book, so it was really nice to see the focus shift away from him a little and allow the other band mates to shine. The friendship between Charlie and Melissa also remains a strong element, and I was happy to see that even with things getting more complex, new characters being introduced, and more page-time being given to characters who’d previously been more in the background, that relationship wasn’t lost. Melissa is such a great character, who provides a lot of the comic relief in the more intense parts of the books, but more than that, it’s so important to see healthy female friendships in YA, and the fact that Mel didn’t take a back seat to any of the Fire&Lights drama or Charlie’s romantic relationships was such a positive thing.

The pacing is excellent as well. Here is an author who understands perfectly when to pick up the excitement, when to drop, and how to do so with admirable subtlety so the story neither feels like an exhausting rollercoaster ride nor plateaus to a point where you feel like you could put the book down. Usually when I need to stop reading, I’ll do so at the end of a chapter because that’s a natural place to pause, but with Russell’s writing style it never feels like you can. His chapters often end so well on these enticing mini-cliffhangers, that you simply have to carry on reading, even when you have other things to do. Case in point: my friends and I had a Marvel Cinematic Universe marathon over the last couple of days, and after I picked up my book between films, I elected to keep reading even when Captain America: The Winter Soldier came on. Now, I know there’s a whole debate over the best Chris, and I’m not gonna say Russell is better than Evans, but… ;P

All in all, Songs About Us is an extremely strong follow up to Chris Russell’s debut, with plenty to satisfy the pickiest of teen readers; gripping plot twists to shock you, gorgeous boys to fall in love with, wonderfully nasty characters to be angry at, emotional moments to melt your heart, hilarious lines to make you pee your pants… Reading this book was honestly such an enjoyable experience, that left me with a huge smile for days, and I will be foisting it into the hands of everyone I can convince to listen to me.

#songs about a girl #songs about us #chris russell #boyband lit #ya lit #ukya #book review #book blog #booklr #bkmrk #fireandlights #ireadya

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superflixmovies · 7 years

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FIRST LOOK: CABLE and Clues we Explore from the First Official Photos

Deadpool 2 hits theaters in 2018. Mr. Pool is bringing an old friend to the party. That friend is none other than Cable, the time traveling half-cyborg soldier.

If you've read the comics, you know the whole story behind Cable and his mission. We'll save that for another day...I really hope they go to some of those stories in the movies. Cable could easily headline his own X-Force franchise if they do it right. But, they have to do Cable as well as they did Deadpool.

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We've only recently been gifted a sneak peak look at Josh Brolin's Cable. He is a complex character I loved as a kid collecting comics in the big muscle, big gun 90's. He is darker, more gritty, and complicated than a lot of the brightly colored X-men. He's a perfect opposition to Deadpool. He is dark like Mr. Pool but has a code of honor and a mission. This chemistry is why they've shared so many buddy adventures together.

We're going to take a scalpel to this first look at Cable and see if we can get some clues about what they will get right and wrong with the character. Let's dissect.

Mean Mug

Josh Brolin looks great as Cable. The actor is going to be an excellent fit. His strengths as an actor fit really well with Cable as a character. It is no co-incidence that he also plays Thanos in the MCU. They aren't completely different when it comes to their demeanor. He is potentially as perfect for Cable as Ryan Reynold's has been for Deadpool.

Right off, we can see they nailed it with his face. He is rugged, beaten, mysterious, shadowy, and bad ass. The iconic elements really seal our approval of his "mug shot."

The modern version of his iconic silver military cut looks comic-real.

The glow in his left eye accompanied by the star shaped scar on his right are comic accurate and movie real. This looks great. Like Cable, his mutant power is subtle and often the last line of defense or offense in battle. It hides behind his cybernetic body and his identity as a soldier out of time. Well done with the subtle eye effects!

These elements tell us that they are on the right track to get two of the core elements that define Cable.

First, the grit looks front and center. Cable is a time traveling soldier who is mission oriented to save the world by visiting our time to battle Apocalypse, prevent some event that will alter his future into chaos and war. This mission changes shape from time to time and his opponents change shape as well, but it's all about the mission. He is a battle hardened, no non-sense soldier. He will do WHATEVER it takes, and this look says it all. It looks like they got this spot-on!

Second, Cable is a powerful mental mutant. While his parentage is super important and interesting (check out the comics if you don't know), it's his mental powers that form half of what make him a formidable opponent in battle and a complex character. The bright shining left eye is often the symbol of the activity from this power - most often utilized as telekinesis. They have not found away to do the mental effects from other mutants like Professor X or Jean Gray in the movies, but perhaps Cable will use this visual que to powerful effect. This could be a really big leap forward for comic realism. There is no reason we can't see more of these amazing effects to visualize powers. It makes his look and they are on the right track!

Cable's Mug: Fan Approved!

Big Guy, Big Guns

Cable comes from the 90's in comics. He is the epitome of the era, a true tour de force. It isn't just his willingness to do whatever it takes to complete the mission. It's his imposing will that help define him. This is best visualized in his great size, strength, and massive future weapons.

Cable is a soldier. He is a tactical genius having fought hellish wars in his time. Those are written all over his face, form his iron will, and give his narrative movement. He most often relies on his physicality and firepower to control a battlefield. Coming from the future, he can do so against teams of contemporary mutants and super-villains with ease.

Big Guy

Brolin looks like he has put in the time to get into shape to play Cable. He did some really great work on his arms, kudos. Defined by the 90's style of comics with huge guns and gigantic biceps, Cable is a product of his comic generation in many ways.

Brolin gives it a good shot here, but it is after effects and camera trickery that are going to make or break the physicality of the character. It doesn't look entirely promising here.

Cable is most often depicted as big guy with broad shoulders though that has been tamed in recent iterations of the character from his hulking 90's days. Cable is still a massive physical presence closer to Arnold in his prime than the 5'10" 175lb actor. Getting these characters to inhibit varying sizes becomes especially important visually. Think of Hulk, Groot, Drax. Even Doomsday in BvS (though we hated his look) was represented size specific. The Guardians of Galaxy even showcased Ving Rhames as Charlie-27 as being gigantic in size. Size matters and effects like those used to size up Ving Rhames or even Gandalf and Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings are relatively easy and inexpensive. It's important. It doesn't feel right if they don't get close. He doesn't have to have shoulders spanning several normal sized people but he need to be a big guy. They did it with Colossus to great effect.

Brolin can't portray this size. It was our hope they would use after effects to put him somewhere in between Deadpool and Colossus. It doesn't look like that was important to the film. It's a shame. It's like the days when the Hulk was a body builder in green paint. We can live with it but there will always be a part of us that can't stomach seeing human sized Apocalypse, weight lifter Colossus (in X-2, DOFP), or now...Cable.

The last wrinkle to Cable's size is the omission of his iconic shoulder pads. Cable is often pictured with large, leathery shoulder pads further adding to his size and military gear. Our most favorite of these looks has him with one angular shoulder pad that shoots out from the top of his shoulder. This could have been used to create the illusion of more size, but as most things in Fox's X-men world, they seem to have not been able to reconcile the looks as real and authentic. We still will hold out hope that perhaps Cable will don the iconic pads in future movies like X-Force when they will hopefully continue to increase their comfort with the source material.

Big Guns

The next staple of Cable the character is his big guns. The 90's gave him some gigantic and ridiculous future firepower. We didn't expect to see that level of weaponry, and didn't want it on screen if we're being honest. Yet, it looks more like Cable has some suped-up contemporary firearms. That is a bit of a disappointment.

It seems to indicate that they are not playing up the whole future soldier elements of Cable. This means no body-slides, no computer AI, no Graymalkin, no connection to Apocalypse, and no future weaponry. This might also limit his technopathy and the technovirus elements that gave him his cybernetic half. It's unclear which elements will make their way into Deadpool 2, probably not many of these if any. If Cable and Deadpool 2 do well paving the way for X-Force and others, we hope to see some of these elements make their way into the cinematic universe. So, we'll save total judgement here and give Cable time to mature on-screen.

Big guy, Big Guns: Meh

Techno-Organic Cyborg

One of the most iconic elements to Cable is his cybernetic body parts. Most notably, he has a cybernetic left arm and chest. While it is unlikely for Deadpool 2 to get into the techno-organic virus seeding his look, we do get a nice look at the iconic cybernetic left arm.

Cable's cybernetic look has changed from comic artist and era to era. This look is more akin to his more realistic and functional modern look than his previous thick steel appendage - the look they went for with Colossus in Deadpool. We think it looks great and may clue us in to some fun elements to his character.

While it doesn't look very techno-organic, it does look like Cable is futuristic, though not as far advanced as he is in the comics. The arm looks like a more advanced version of the Reavers we saw in Logan earlier this year. Could there be some sort of connection? Mr. Sinister has loomed behind several storylines and teasers recently so could this connection be a clue that Cable may have some interaction with the mad geneticist? Only time will tell.

Techno-Organic Cyborg: Looks good!

We're super excited to see Deadpool 2 and can't wait for one of our favorite characters, Cable, to make his debut.

Tell us what you think of the first look at Cable on one of our social channels.

#Deadpool 2 #Deadpool #Cable #Marvel #Comics #Superheroes #X-Force #X-men

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trapangeles · 5 years

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The Truth About Thor And Loki's Missing Brother In The MCU

When it comes to finding a great conflict to tell a compelling story, you don't get much more classic than sibling rivalry - which is why Thor and Loki almost had a brother in the MCU.

So it's no surprise that every movie in the Thor franchise which depicts Norse gods smashing monsters and each other with fists, hammers, and anything else within arm's reach uses sibling rivalry as a launching point in all three installments. The first two feature the conflict and subsequent reconciliation between brothers Thor and Loki as the most important features of their plots. Meanwhile, Thor: Ragnarok takes things a step further by introducing a third member of Odin's brood, Hela, who takes over Asgard and motivates her feuding younger brothers to work together to defeat her.

But as Marvel Cinematic Universe fans have since discovered, plans were underway behind the scenes to give Thor and Loki yet another, different sibling a brother who might be more familiar to comic book readers and lovers of Norse mythology. That's right, Balder the Brave was almost introduced to the MCU to further complicate Thor's family tree.

Former Marvel Studios head of visual development Charlie Wen sent MCU fans into a frenzy back in August 2018 with a single Instagram post. Wen posted concept art for Thor: The Dark World that revealed his take on adapting longtime Thor comics character Balder to the big screen. While the character's inclusion in the film was eventually scuttled, it's exciting to imagine how the MCU might've been different had Balder survived pre-production.

So what's the big deal about Balder? Well, for starters, he's got more right to the throne than either Thor or Loki at least if Marvel Comics and Norse mythology have anything to say about it. The films depict Frigga, played by Rene Russo, as Thor's mother. But outside of the films, it's Gaea, the Earth goddess, who is Thor's real mom, while Frigga is actually his step-mother.

Wen explained the character's importance during our exclusive interview:

However, the filmmakers behind the MCU know when to stay faithful to the comics, and when to streamline and simplify in order to keep the average moviegoer interested. It's one of the reasons the MCU works as well as it does and introducing Balder to the mix in The Dark World would've made a mess of an already pretty complicated story one featuring spacefaring Dark Elves, a reality-warping Infinity Stone, and Kat Dennings.

But while Wen and the rest of the production team tried to bring Balder into the fold, ultimately the biggest hurdle was just that there was no easy way to introduce the character into the MCU's increasingly complex continuity. At least, there weren't any that also gave him the importance the comics says he should have.

Wen left Marvel Studios to pursue his own creative endeavors in 2014, so he's not involved in the future of the MCU at least not directly. But as it turns out, much of the design work he did at the company still pops up in Marvel movies so many years later. So, despite the fact that we've yet to see Balder appear in the MCU to this point doesn't mean Wen's designs won't make it onto the big screen sometime in the future.

#Thor #Loki #Brothers #Marvel #Avengers Endgame #Avengers #Endgame

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Florence Pugh’s Best Roles: What to Watch After Black Widow

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Black Widow, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s prequel centering on Natasha Romanoff as she works to take down the Red Room in the period following Captain America: Civil War, premieres in theaters and on Disney+ Premier Access this Friday (and is playing in the UK now!). In the film, British actress Florence Pugh steals the show as Natasha’s little sister who was also brainwashed into becoming a Soviet assassin at a young age.

If you’re looking to check out other work from Pugh, you’re in luck. The 25-year-old thespian has made quite a name for herself over her relatively short career, regularly elevating good material to great with her performances, and already earning an Oscar nomination. Here are some of our favorite roles…

Midsommar

Prior to Black Widow, Pugh was perhaps best known to certain audiences as the flower crown-wearing protagonist Dani in 2019’s Midsommar. Ari Aster’s brightly-lit folk horror has a lot going for it, but it wouldn’t work if not for Pugh grueling work as audience surrogate, as we are all made to witness the slowly-dawning terror of a Scandinavian pagan cult’s savage midsummer festival in which she’s ominously crowned the May Queen. Watch at your own risk.

The Falling

In Pugh’s first feature film role, the actress stars alongside Game of Thrones‘ Maisie Williams as best friends at an all-girls school in the 1960s where a mysterious fainting epidemic breaks out amongst the teen girl population. (Pugh’s real-life older brother, Toby Sebastian, featured as Trystane Martell alongside Williams in Game of Thrones.) As a feminist psychological horror, The Falling is worth a watch in its own right, but it’s also amazing to see just how good Pugh is from the very beginning of her career.

Side note: In The Falling, Pugh also demonstrates her musical ability. Before getting into acting, Pugh posted song covers on YouTube.

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Little Women

Pugh played Amy, the youngest of the March sisters, in Greta Gerwig’s 2020 adaptation of the beloved Louisa May Alcott novel, Little Women. This cast is an embarrassment of riches, but, for many, Pugh is the standout, bringing nuance and likability to a complicated role. Her Oscar-nominated performance spans years, requiring Pugh to play ages 12 to 18—and she somehow mostly pulls it off?

Fighting With My Family

In 2019, Pugh played real-life wrestler Paige Knight in this biopic based on the 2012 documentary about the English pro wrestler’s journey from wrestling with her family in the UK’s World Association of Wrestling to trying out and making it big as part of the WWE. Like pretty much all of Pugh’s projects, there is a lot to like about Fighting With my Family. Past the strength of the true story, Pugh’s co-stars include Lena Headey, Nick Frost, and Dwayne Johnson (in a meaty cameo role).

Lady Macbeth

Arguably Pugh’s breakout role, 2016’s Lady Macbeth sees the actress taking center stage in this adaptation of 19th century Russian novella Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Pugh stars as Katherine, a young woman married to an old and rigid man in rural Northumberland circa 1865. Like other films on this list, the Victorian tragedy is not for the faint of heart, but it’s worth it for Pugh’s mesmerizing performance.

Little Drummer Girl

For the most part, Pugh has stuck to cinematic roles, which makes 2018 TV miniseries Little Drummer Girl a bit of an outlier. But let’s be real: the BBC adaptation of the John le Carré novel isn’t your typical TV project. All six episodes are directed by Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook (The Handmaiden) and include actors like Michael Shannon and Alexander Skarsgård—this miniseries may have been broadcast on TV, but it has more in common with feature film projects than much of the TV landscape.

Pugh stars as Charlie, an aspiring actress in 1979’s UK who is recruited by Mossad agents to infiltrate a Palestinian group plotting terrorism in Europe. The character acts as both an audience surrogate and a source of mystery for the viewer, as Charlie becomes further embroiled in the ethically complex scenario. This is one of the best le Carré adaptations out there, and includes some of Pugh’s best work.

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Don’t Worry Darling

Okay, this one isn’t actually out yet, but Olivia Wilde’s follow-up to directorial debut Booksmart is already making waves on the internet for obvious reasons. Co-starring Harry Styles, Chris Pine, Gemma Chan, and Wilde herself, Don’t Worry Darling is being billed as a psychological thriller. It stars Pugh as a 1950s housewife living in a utopian experimental community in the California desert with her loving husband (Styles), who discovers a disturbing truth. Yep, I’m in.

Black Widow

Black Widow, the MCU prequel centering Natasha Romanoff in the period between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, has been a long time coming. The movie was meant to launch Phase 4 of of the MCU, but passed that role to WandaVision due to COVID-19 disruptions to the theatrical distribution model. Pugh plays Yelena, Natasha’s sister and fellow Black Widow program trainee. It’s unclear, at this point, what Yelena’s role in the MCU might be moving forward, but given Natasha’s fate in Endgame, we’re expecting to see a lot more Pugh in the MCU.

What is your favorite Florence Pugh role? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Florence Pugh’s Best Roles: What to Watch After Black Widow appeared first on Den of Geek.

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bigyack-com · 4 years

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With ‘Upload,’ Greg Daniels Takes a Leap Into the Great Unknown

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The new Amazon series “Upload” was in its final week of shooting last May, and Greg Daniels was chewing on everything he could get his hands on, including his hands. Time was waning, and the set — a convincing facsimile of a claustrophobic Queens apartment — was tricky to navigate. Daniels, the series’s creator, watched a monitor as the crew worked the tight spaces and the director shouted commands.He chewed his gum. Cut! — another take, please. He chewed his fingers. Cut! — let’s try again. He leapt from his chair, consulted the crew and came back chewing his thumb. Cut! — one more time for safety.“At least I get to sit back and let her direct,” Daniels said, nodding to the episode’s director, Daina Reid, which was maybe half-true. He had complete faith in his directors, he emphasized, but this was a passion project three decades in the making. There wasn’t much actual sitting back.“It’s hard not to micromanage,” he admitted.Perhaps more than “Parks and Recreation,” which Daniels cocreated, and more than the American version of “The Office,” which Daniels developed and oversaw, “Upload” is his baby, based on an idea he conceived as a writer for “Saturday Night Live” in the late 1980s.A sci-fi dramatic comedy set in 2033, in which the souls of the dying are uploaded to a virtual afterlife, “Upload” is also Daniels’s first major creation since “Parks” ended in 2015. And when it debuts, on May 1, it will do so in the wake of several other notable series focused on similar themes and issues. The pressure was palpable.“It’s been three and a half months of go, go, go,” Daniels sighed. “It’s been a little bit crazy.”As much as anyone in television, Daniels is responsible for a successful brand of TV comedy that feels as familiar now as it felt groundbreaking when “The Office” debuted 15 years ago. His half-hour, single-camera sitcoms, with their deep ensemble casts and tonal blend of cringey awkwardness and heart, offered viewers the easy reliability of the best multicamera comedies but without the one-liners and studio audiences.“Upload,” however, is new territory for Daniels. Gone is the hand-held, mockumentary aesthetic he is best known for. He took a more cinematic approach to “Upload,” which Amazon encouraged him to write as a single contained story. It is his first creation for a streaming service (his second, the astro-political satire “Space Force,” lands next month on Netflix). The plot — told over 10 mostly half-hour episodes that will drop all at once — is tight and binge-ready. The special effects are complex.It also has action. And a murder mystery. And cursing and nudity. And competition.“There are so many good shows,” Daniels said during a car ride between sets. Audience attention is strained, he said, so he packed as many of the things he likes into “Upload” as possible.“Part of the impulse here is to kind of do a genre mash-up — to have satire but also to have romance and the mystery,” he said. “There’s a lot to look at and a lot to think about.”

Heaven, for a price

People love the characters Daniels creates and writes — as in, actually love. The way viewers talk about Michael Scott and Leslie Knope, they might as well be real people. Pam and Jim could be a real couple. Put “Ron Swanson” on an election ballot, and he’d probably do OK.Along the way, the list of actors his series have turned into stars is impressive. Aziz Ansari, Mindy Kaling, John Krasinski, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Pratt: All were relative newcomers before appearing in Daniels’s sitcoms. Fans of “The Daily Show” knew Steve Carell as a correspondent, but it was his role on “The Office” that catapulted his career.“Upload” has a sharper edge than Daniels’s earlier shows (including the animated “King of the Hill,” which he created with Mike Judge), but the cast has familiar qualities: charismatic, diverse, good-looking but approachable, and led by actors who have the glow of indwelling stardom but aren’t widely known.“I think that’s really exciting from a casting standpoint, is to find somebody and see how you’re going to break them,” Daniels said. “And I think there’s a pleasure for the audience in going into a show and being like, ‘I don’t know any of these people.’”One of them is Andy Allo, who plays Nora, a customer service representative at Horizen, a company that manages the virtual afterlife and its digitized human souls, known as uploads. (The reps function as the angels of this digital heaven.)In the series, Nora’s father, a religious man, is dying, and he hopes to join Nora’s deceased mother in the celestial afterlife, not some digital one.“It does bring in so many questions of your existence after death,” Allo said between takes. “Heaven, on this spiritual level, is what my dad believes in, but I work for this company that has created heaven.”Like today’s wireless companies (note the name), Horizen offers different data plans based on what families can afford. If customers exceed their limits, things get glitchy.“How darkly funny it is that you end up almost in a similar way and place that you were in real life?” Allo said. “It’s like pay-by-month” on the bottom tier, she added — heaven when you can afford it. “You get two gigs a month, and once you run out, you freeze.”Although Nora has dozens of other clients, she grows close with Nathan (Robbie Amell), a handsome young upload who took his charmed life for granted before he was critically injured in a self-driving car crash. Ambiguity surrounds the circumstances of his eventual death, drawing Nora and Nathan deep into a dangerous mystery.Meanwhile, Nathan is even more beholden to his rich and controlling girlfriend (Allegra Edwards) than he was before he died, because her family is financing his digital existence.“Being uploaded and essentially being owned as a human being, or as intellectual property, by my girlfriend throws a huge wrench in my life,” Amell said. “So although I get to continue living, it’s definitely not on my own terms.”To create the show’s complex mesh of realities, Daniels relied on multiple directors with prestigious, wide-ranging résumés. (Reid got an Emmy nomination for “The Handmaid’s Tale”; Jeffrey Blitz directed the Oscar-nominated documentary “Spellbound.”)Daniels was among them, directing two episodes including the 45-minute pilot. It is a rare role for him — “I am probably the worst director of the bunch that I have hired,” he said laughing — and “Upload” presents its own technical challenges. Dogs talk. Heads explode. Characters and objects (and useful body parts) appear and disappear.On an outdoor set, an actor whacked a nonexistent golf ball toward a green screen, then traded barbs with a patch of grass. In the finished version, the empty space became a hologram of another actor playing Arnold Palmer, who died in 2016.“The game just keeps getting harder,” Daniels said. “I shot the pilot, and then ‘Ready Player One’ came out. Spielberg is master of special effects, and he had, like, a 20-minute opening shot with no cuts in it, zooming through this world, going in and out of VR and the real world.”Thirty years ago, Daniels likely wouldn’t have measured himself against Steven Spielberg. But in the era of streaming and prestige TV, the competition had evolved.“I was like, ‘Oh God,’” Daniels said. “‘His one shot is like 20 times the budget of my entire pilot.’”

A convincing future

TV has become highly interested in post-mortem journeys of self-discovery, in shows like Amazon’s “Forever,” TBS’s “Miracle Workers” and Netflix’s “Russian Doll.” Daniels is aware of the micro-trend but doesn’t consider “Upload” to be following an increasingly well-trod metaphysical path.Ask about “Black Mirror,” and he is quick to tell you he devised and sold the idea for “Upload” well before the debut of “San Junipero” — an episode that won two Emmys in 2017 for its story set in a digital hereafter.Ask about “The Good Place,” however, and he is thoughtful to the point of appearing vulnerable. “The Good Place” wasn’t TV’s only comedy about the afterlife, as he noted. But it was the only one put out by his “Parks and Recreation” co-creator, Michael Schur.“I couldn’t believe that Mike had the idea for ‘The Good Place’ while I was doing this,” Daniels said. “I don’t watch ‘The Good Place’ because of the similarities. I don’t want to watch it.”Given the creators’ shared history, comparisons between the shows will be inevitable. Each is a high-concept comedy set in an afterworld with design flaws and equally flawed but charming staff. But “Upload” has a detailed and believable universe all its own.Perhaps its greatest distinguishing feature is the focus on technology and class. The tone is sometimes dark, not just darkly funny, and even frightening.Daniels said he’d wanted realism, a version of the near-future that was convincing and recognizable. A Tinder-like app lets people rate their hookups. Unemployment might keep you out of heaven.“For the pitch, I was referencing Kafka and Charlie Chaplin in ‘Modern Times,’” he said. “That’s, to me, why to do it, because it feels like it says something about income inequality and capitalism.”Traditional notions of heaven are about “both living past your body’s death but also, supposedly, some sort of fairness or ultimate reward for the good and the meek,” he added. “In this version, that’s not happening — it’s just the rich and capitalistic getting it.”That pitch had traveled its own Kafkaesque journey, metamorphosing as it went. Daniels conceived an early version while brainstorming “S.N.L.” sketches but ultimately decided to table the idea, and then later tried to turn it into a short story. During the writers’ strike of 2007-8, he took a stab at making it a novel. He didn’t pitch it as a TV show until several years later, selling it to HBO in 2015.HBO spent some time developing the concept, but then the executive who bought it left. Daniels resold it in 2016 to Amazon.“There have been other shows that dealt with the afterlife, but I think the way that Greg has designed the show is truly and fully unique,” said Ryan Andolina, the head of comedy at Amazon Studios. Andolina also bought Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s “Fleabag,” a favorite of Daniels’s, and he viewed “Upload” as another kind of auteur comedy. “Greg is very meticulous and specific, and had a very clear idea of what the show was.”It would’ve been easy for Daniels to make another network mockumentary, but he seems determined to push himself. “Space Force” will reunite him with Carell, who pitched him the show in July 2018, not long after President Trump announced his desire to create a new military branch of the same name.The Netflix series is not quite science fiction, though there are spaceships, and the cast and cinematic production signal a significant budget. Another thing it isn’t: a network mockumentary.“Mockumentary is terrific — it’s a really fun style,” he said. “But after nine years of ‘The Office’ and seven years of ‘Parks and Recreation,’ I don’t know, I felt like I wanted to do something else.”He paused, then laughed. “After dealing with this many green screens, I could see going back to mockumentary.” Read the full article

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mrhotmaster · 4 years

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Special Ops Full Review: Neeraj Pandey Hotstar Series

Special Ops Full Review: Failure To Meet Even Low Expectations By Neeraj Pandey Hotstar Series

Yeah, Hotstar is reliable at least.

For as far back as week, Hotstar has been causing a ripple effect for the sudden unexpected appearance of its parent organization's new spilling administration — Disney+ — in India. That is currently waiting, yet it accompanies the guarantee of numerous new firsts from Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the midst of this however, you could be excused for overlooking that Hotstar has its own nearby firsts too — called "Hotstar Specials" — which neglected to make waves in light of the quality, or deficiency in that department, of the six arrangements discharged a year ago.

That pattern lamentably proceeds with Special Ops, an activity spine chiller arrangement about Indian operators pursuing a worldwide fear based oppressor, from an author executive who has made this his claim to fame: Neeraj Pandey. His past endeavors in the class incorporate A Wednesday! Baby and Aiyaary, with a nearby cousin in Special 26. Composed by Deepak Kingrani (Pagalpanti), newcomer Benazir Ali Fida, and Pandey, Special Ops is a wreck on both paper and screen. Things truly happen on the grounds that the scholars required them to occur, and the film misleads the crowd to serve its plot turns, organizing plot mechanics over its characters. None of its characters have any movement or circular segments, in a manner of speaking, and they are disposed of as and when the story needn't bother with them. Special Ops is both mixed up and rudderless as the finale approaches, and there are more last details than you check when it wraps up. Special Ops swings between two inverse character states: heartless ability and reckless ineptitude. A fear based oppressor plan who coolly walks around a high-security government complex is a similar person who doesn't have the foggiest idea how to establish out a mole in his association. Spies who have been implanted for a considerable length of time and are appeared to impart well flop in the two respects on various checks. So also, the Hotstar arrangement's tone is everywhere. It has no feeling of how altering functions, with its lopsided cutting and foundation score fixing the energy and feeling it desires. Special Ops needs specialized ability in all cases, particularly its horrendous utilization of moderate movement, as a method for time extending, that you would have trusted was a drama relic. On all that, Special Ops proceeds with Pandey's daily practice: a persistent spotlight on radical Islamic fear based oppression, with "great" Muslims associated with halting them. The Hotstar arrangement isn't out and out Islamophobic as, state, Netflix's Bard of Blood, where Muslims were depicted as primitive, yet there's something deceptive about its "terrible Muslims" talking uniquely in contrast to their contrary energies, which secretly sign to the crowd that they are not normal for "us". Special Ops additionally flag Pandey's craving to overturn the Islamophobic recognition, with odd outcomes. A very late wind apparently endeavors to cause us to think about our preferences, however it's such a dumb sleight of hand that it just serves to puzzle, while neglecting to address the genuine issues of its arrangement.

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We open at the 2001 assault on the Parliament of India, before bouncing eighteen years forward to an interior investigation into RAW specialist Himmat Singh (Kay Menon, from Shaurya). For almost two decades, Himmat's been after a psychological militant with the false name of Ikhlaq Khan — basically a MacGuffin for a large portion of the show's runtime — in whose interest he has spent immense assets in his group of five specialists spread across Asia. Himmat trusts Ikhlaq is the driving force behind the previously mentioned Parliament assault and a few more across India. In any case, here's the trick: nobody trusts Himmat. Furthermore, with nothing to appear for it after this time, the specialists power Himmat to relate what precisely he's been up to with the millions he's apparently squandered on pursuing an apparition. That goes about as the portal to present its supporting cast, and jump into Himmat's past. Among the previous, we've Delhi Police cop Abbas Sheik (Vinay Pathak, from Bheja Fry) who turns out to be near Himmat post-2001. And afterward there's the said group of five: the Dubai-based Farooq Ali (Karan Tacker, from Ek Hazaaron Mein Meri Behna Hai), the Tehran-based "housewife" Ruhani Syed Khan (Meher Vij, from Secret Superstar), the Baku-based expert sharpshooter Avinash (Muzzamil Ibrahim, from Dhokha), the Istanbul-based chef Balakrishna Reddy (Vipul Gupta, from K. Road Pali Hill), and the continually voyaging Juhi Kashyap (Saiyami Kher, from Mirzya). Farooq is the one in particular whose foundation is appropriately outlined out however, with the others not getting in excess of a line or two. Concerning the last mentioned, Special Ops is languid with its piece on occasion, clarifying what we've just observed or discussing what those in the room definitely know. In any case, the more serious issue for the Hotstar arrangement is its finished failure to produce the essential rushes. In the first place, in contrast to state with a Mission: Impossible, Himmat doesn't go far and wide pursuing Ikhlaq. Rather, he burns through the vast majority of the on-screen time between three indoor areas: his office, his home, and another office. Without a doubt, it may be sensible for somebody in his position, however it barely makes for good TV when the hero is never found in real life (short the opening scene). It likely could be unconvincing to put a work area racer in the field, similar to the case from the get-go in Jack Ryan, yet there's an explanation show do it. Also, dislike rationale is of high repute to Special Ops at any rate. It's tossed out the window in the quest for satire, with managers jeopardizing their operators in the line of obligation for a relatable everyman joke, or specialists getting sources to talk in manners that would be all the more fitting in a Charlie Chaplin droll. It's tossed out to cause the scallawag to appear to be threatening, even as it goes despite the operators' convention and preparing. It's tossed out to let the heroes get away and live one more day. It's tossed out to improve the plot. What's more, now and again, it's tossed out on the grounds that... it can? Furthermore, Special Ops has little thought for genuine guidelines, for example, extraordinary time zones, or even those limits it has set for itself, whose neglectful negligence breaks all idea of authenticity in the Hotstar arrangement. Special Ops is likewise not chivalrous of the cash available to its. (In the event that you hold up through the credits, you'll be welcomed by a Dolby Atmos logo, which is exceptionally interesting in light of the fact that Hotstar is as yet stuck in the sound system sound time.) Despite obviously having the greatest spending plan of any Hotstar unique to date — you can tell that from the areas it approaches — it looks uninteresting. That is down to the deadened heading from Pandey and Shivam Nair (Naam Shabana), in blend with walker cinematography and shading reviewing. In the opening grouping, there's a building up shot like clockwork. In different spots, it doesn't have the foggiest idea what to film or where to center. All that contributes into making a show that stalls minute by minute, scene by scene, and at last, scene by scene. It's fairly idyllic, that simply like its messed-up, insane rollout of Disney+, Hotstar is likewise fit for screwing up a direct activity spine chiller. Would it be able to do anything right? Every one of the eight scenes of Special Ops are presently gushing on Hotstar around the world.

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luisbunueldondeestas · 6 years

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Strand 2: Topics in Film and Screen Studies

1. Narrative and Early Cinema

This seminar will examine the social, political and aesthetics implications of cinema’s transition during the first three decades of the twentieth century from a novelty form to a narrative medium. In doing so, it will consider Tom Gunning’s account of early cinema as displaying an ‘aesthetic of attractions’. We will also examine how the cinema developed its forms of storytelling and representation and how it evolved into a complex industry with Hollywood rapidly acquiring a dominant role. Crucial to this is thinking about changing exhibition practices and the emergence of new acting styles, as well as questions concerning spectatorship, subjectivity, and the codifications of gender and race. D.W. Griffith's Broken Blossoms (1919) will provide an opportunity to examine the consolidation of the Hollywood film industry in the years immediately after the end of the First World War: its product as a narrative cinema founded upon melodrama and the classical continuity system.

Screening

All the Lumière films in Early Cinema: Primitives and Pioneers (BFI)

Broken Blossoms (1919, dir. D.W. Griffith)

Reading

From The Silent Cinema Reader, ed. Lee Grieveson and Peter Krämer (London: Routledge, 2004):

Charles Musser, 'At the Beginning' (pp. 15-30)

Tom Gunning, '"Now you See It, Now You Don't": The Temporality of the Cinema of Attractions' (pp. 41-50)

Charles Musser, 'Moving towards Fictional Narratives: Story Films Become the Dominant Product' (pp. 77-85)

Linda Williams, 'Race, Melodrama, and The Birth of a Nation (1915)' (pp. 242-253)

Tom Gunning, 'The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, its Spectator and the Avant-Garde', in Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative, ed. Thomas Elsaesser (London: BFI Publishing, 1990), pp. 56-65.

Tom Gunning, 'Primitive Cinema: A Frame-Up? Or, the Trick's On Us,' in Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative, ed. Thomas Elsaesser (1990), pp. 95-103.

Colin Harding and Simon Popple, 'Early responses to cinema', in In the Kingdom of Shadows: a Companion to Early Cinema (London; Madison, NJ: Cygnus Arts; Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996), pp. 5-17.