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bruce-wayne-simp · 1 year

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Like Minds

Hey hi hello im about to watch Like Minds (aka Murderous Intent) and apparently the only way i can watch movies now is by liveblogging them so 🤷‍♀️

(Maybe expect the LotR trilogy next idk)

Like with Remainder i have a vague idea what this movie is about. Well, maybe a bit more of an idea what this is about. All i know is there are 2 teenage murderers and a TON of homoeroticism (not canon i think but youre crazy if you dont see it)

Also this liveblog/my watching of Like Minds was heavily sped up by @catlovingwitch who sent me a lovely ask which fuckign FUELED me to do this so thank you v v much ❤️❤️❤️

Once again, i am a T Sturridge stan so this will probably be very heavy on him. Unless over the course of this i become an Eddie Redmayne stan

Spoilers be ahead

Idk why im like. Anxious? Whatever.

Its starting aaaaaa

Eddie R screaming on a train (hes thrilled)

Ooh theyre stealing stuff?? T Sturridge isnt here yet

(The way its set up is Alex (Eddie) is captured by the police and is basically giving them The Backstory™️ which is where Nigel (Tom) comes in)

Oh shit he killed Nigel

Ok so psychiatry lady is here and her name is Sally

God Alex looks so young

Ooh this is interesting and actually really good

Flashback starting

THERES NIGEL god hes pretty

Lmaooo Nigel is the new kid and hes Alex's roommate and Alex is kinda pissed lol

Thats what you get when you snoop. Alex was looking in Nigels trunk and found a taxidermied cat(??)

Lmao Nigels in the doorway like 'Do you mind?'

Oh hes so concerned about his taxidermy

'Hes weird' they say as they explode a cockroach for fun

Lmao Nigel reads books about anatomy/autopsies?? yikes

Oof Alex is pulling the misogyny card. Hes telling the psychiatrist lady shes running out of time to have kids 💀 sir youre not helping your case

"Nigel got what he wanted." "And what was that?" "Eternity."

Sally is Over It. She doesnt think Alex is guilty

Shes listening to the tape she recorded from her talk with Alex and is like 'hmmmm'

Back to flashbackss

Oh god Nigels dissecting a bird IN THE DORM ROOM

Lmaooooo i love Nigel

Alex is PISSED and is like 'the least you can do is show me some common courtesy' and Nigels like '??? K.'

Well that interview just went to shit

So Alex was kinda taunting Sally but mostly the detective dude. So detective guy comes in and is like 'Gunshot residue says you were holding the gun when it went off'

Alex asks to see his father, the detectuve is like 'he cant help you', Alex panics a little, grabs Sallys wrist snd is like 'Nigel was holding the gun when it went off, i didnt do this' and the detective dude loses it and punches him and Alex is dragged off to lockup kicking and screaming

Apparently Nigel ALSO had GSR on his hands so anybody couldve pulled the trigger

Yall need to watch this fucking movie

Ok so basically a guard runs back in and is like 'He wants to talk'. Well actually hes holding 2 guards hostage w a police baton and is pleading to be let out of the cell. He fights the guards, loses and Sally shows up as hes on the ground being cuffed again. They sit him on the bed, Alex insists he didnt kill Nigel and then starts talking about someone being 'here' and 'listening' and Sallys like '???'

Ooh ok so Alex thinks someone is talking to him im his head?? Does he think Nigel is?? We are at a flashback btw

Wait did they already steal stuff off the train??

Alex youre a bit of a brat lmao

Wait was he stealing stuff for his dad????

Ok Alex and his friends are kind of dicks

Ooh Alex is challenging the pastor dude who is teaching religious history i assume

Nigel is looking at him like hes kinda in love

HOOOO CHECK AND MATE. GET REKT PASTOR DUDE

Lmaooo Nigel keeps dead things in jars. He has a big thing of formaldehyde hanging up lmaoooo

You know what i actually kind of agree with Alex. I mean thats p reasonable

(The Headmaster (who seems to be fond of Alex) sees Nigels collection of dead animals and is trying to justify why Nigel is there and allowed to stay. Alex is the first quote)

"He's a part of your club and nobody else wanted him so youre doing the 'brotherly' thing. Yeah well does my future depend on that?"

"Thats enough-"

"No, you dont give a fuck about me or this guy the only thing that you care about-"

"Thats enough!"

"-is the amount of kudos his father's-

"I said enough!"

"No, which is fine, but just dont give me the 'brotherhood' bullshit."

Then the headmaster slaps him and is like 'This boy will be made welcome' and walks out lol

Oooh theres Nigel

Lmao he walks in, slides in behind Alex, grabs his notebook off the desk and walks out, visibly amused.

Jfc Nigel is making psychological notes on Alex and his friends

"This little shit needs to be taught a lesson"

Alex's friend, Josh, is a pos. He just made a literal Nazi joke. To Alex's credit he tells him to knock it off

At least one of his friends has 2 braincells.

Are they straight up chloroforming Nigel??? Wtf

They dragged him onto the train unconscious

Oh shit Alex is like holding him outside of the door while the steel beams to the side are rushing past them. Nigel seems out of it tbh cause hes not freaking out

Josh is lighting firecrackers and tossing them out of the train and he dropped one and freaked so Alex and Nigel got back in. Nigel went to walk away and Alex pushed him up against the wall like 'Where do you think youre going??'. Nigel just spit in Alex's face and Alex punched Nigel

Oooooohhhh shit Alex leaned Nigel out of the door again and Josh started freaking out and told him to let Nigel go and the handle Josh was holding onto the train with BROKE

Oh shit Nigel just let him fall

Like he straight up waved his hand over Josh's hand to taunt him i guess and he got sucked out of the train wtf

I feel like the thing to keep in mind here is all of this is being told by Alex and hes Not a reliable narrator

WAIT THE HEADMASTER IS ALEX'S FATHER???

Oh yeah Alex is an unreliable narrator for SURE. Besides some fondness there was 0 mention of him being Alex's father. Or maybe im just dumb which is entirely possible. Likely, in fact.

Lmao Nigel staring at Alex like a freak at Josh's funeral until his dad nudges him like 'Knock it off'

Alex's dad eyeing Nigel as he walks away

Alex and Nigel arent roommates anymore

Nigel reading basically smut in front of class (in front of Alex 😏😏) classy smut im sure but still

Alex is watching rehearsals of the play and Nigel comes up super close like 'sorry about ur friend' and is kinda. Creepy and morbid about it. Which tracks

I think its interesting that TS's facial expressions and delivery here is SO reminiscent of his role as Dream. Ive seen him make these EXACT expressions in The Sandman while talking. Its odd seeing them on a younger face tho (not in a bad way)

Oh my god Alex just got a human hand in a package. 3 guesses as to who its from? (I assume. I dont actually know. Im not gonna do my boy Nigel dirty like that)

Alex vomited and hes telling Sally that when he got back it was gone

Nigel comes into Alex's room, gives him some papers to help with his essay while Alex is yellimg at him to get out and leaves lmaoooo

My boy Nigel doesnt deserve the slander 😤😤

"How did he know i was struggling with my essay?" Youre a dumbass and hes smart

"How did he know my topic?" Idk maybe if you made an effort to know him youd find out. Im sure Nigel can be charming when he wants to be but hes not gonna be on guard 24/7 so you got to see the spooky shit hes into when you were roommates

"I mean he had answers to questions i hadnt even thought of yet." Omg could Nigel be... Smart?? Impossible. Only idiots study anatomy and dissect things. 🙄 CMON ALEX

Jfc Alex you are dramatic as hell. Hes comparing using Nigels notes to 'selling his soul'. Just get the easy A my guy

Me every time Nigel comes on screen: 🥰🥰🥰

Nigel and the dog im DECEASED

The dog doesn't like ALEX oooooo

Dogs know who you really are 🧐🧐🧐

"I've never brought anybody here before. You're the first. Okay? First."

Nigel just wants to be friends 😭😭 he brought Alex to his hideout and the first thing he asks is 'Do you like it?' 😭😭😭😭😭

Oh jfc Nigel is as crazy as Alex

God that LOOK he gives when Alex is flipping through the book. You cannot convince me Nigel isn't in love with Alex

"An implement for killing. That's what I am." N I G E L

Jesus. Alex thinks Nigel is in his head.

Alex just asked a girl (Susan) out on a date and Nigel came up afterward all friendly and tried to give him a book and Alex completely cut him off

Poor Nigel :(

Ok also poor Alex but i don't feel as bad for him cos hes an ass

Holy shit did Nigel kill someone?? Alex woke up and someone threw a knife on his desk stuck to a Jack playing card with blood

Oh my god its Susan (that girl Alex was gonna go on that date with)

Nigel this doesnt look good for you buddy

Nobody's accusing him but she was kinda.... dissected. Its pretty graphic if you watch this movie just be aware

Oh shit she was in the school greenhouse

I think Alex did it. Hear me out. Hes the one telling this story. If he did it, hes gonna tell the story in a way that makes Nigel look bad. Nigel, conveniently enough, cannot say anything otherwise. Cause he's dead. I think at the very least he did kill Nigel but telling the story this way makes him the hero for killing the big bad serial killer.

Ok back to the movie the knife and the card are gone from his desk and Alex is looking for Nigel.

Now the detective is getting statements from all the students who saw Susan before she was killed

Oooooh Alex got caught in a lie

'Ooh I sense some hostility' just kiss him already JESUS

OH SHIT. Nigel is remorseful about what happened and Alex was like 'You did it. Didn't you?' And Nigel says 'No, Jack. You did.'

(Jack is a nickname. It's explained in the movie i just don't feel like rehashing it sorry)

Alex punched him

"Well im sorry Jack but you were the one who got inside my head." OHHHHH FOLIE A DEUX

Nigel: You can fix him? I can make him worse <3

And we love him for it

Something something criticism of upper class structures (see: quote above about 'brotherhood'), parents being not involved in their kids lives and not seeing obvious signs of mental illness due to that (Nigel's... everything and Alex's authority issues, sense of grandeur and family issues)

This scene is where Alex's dad tries to get the detective to drop the charges and tries to use his connections to the detectives father to do so but he refuses to drop it.

Oh shit apparently theres no evidence Nigel did anything to Susan

Also apparently the detectives cant find Nigels parents so 🤨

Hmmm

Sally is gonna look at Nigels hideout

Damn Nigel had a TON of notebooks

Oh SHIT Nigel had photos of a sleeping girl

Nigel its really hard to defend this i hope you know that

Oh fuck theres a dead body under Nigels house

Apparently 2??

ALEX DID IT. FINAL ANSWER.

Nigel showed Alex the hideout!! Alex was the FIRST and ONLY person (besides Nigel) who knew about it!!! The bodies were fresh!!!! Alex did it. Nigel my babe ill defend you to the death Alex is a psycho

Its ride or die for Nigel Colbie in this house

Aww Nigel introduced Alex to his parents

"Helen and John, this is my best friend Alex. Hes working on the play." Oh yah rich ppl are fucked up. Imagine introducing your parents to your friend by their FIRST NAMES 🤮

Ooh he just read Nigels bible

Nigel thinks hes directly descended from the Knights Templar

See, Alex seems to be reading this like it's his first time seeing all of it. But HE BROUGHT IT UP FIRST. In that class with the pastor earlier. Nigel was watching him. This was right before Nigel started pursuing him (and i don't think this was how it happened. Hold on i'll talk about it later. I think Alex went after Nigel. And I've seen other people think this as well)

Alex's mother died while giving birth to him and he told his father that her death was his fault since he got her pregnant 😬

Oh god

Ok so

Sally found a card that said 'My beloved Maraclea' and Alex is telling her who Maraclea is

Maraclea was the lover of a knights templar in the 13th century who died and the knights templar. Uh. Had sex with her dead body. And basically 9 months later he goes back and her skull is moved from her shoulders to on top of her thigh bones which are crossed. He has to protect the skull bcs itll give them grest fortune or whatever

While hes telling her this theres a flashback to Nigel and Alex meeting up at night and uh. Theyre in a morgue.

I dont like where this is going 😣

Oh fuck its Susan

Is. Is Alex gonna necrophile Susans body

Did he do it???

Hes saying Nigel took him there to basically recreate the whole Maraclea thing but its ambiguous as to if he actually did it

Holy shit thats fucked up

So Alex is watching through the window

Nigels father found those photos that Sally found and. Um. I think those are of Nigels mother actually.

Implied incest/CSA warning (im gonna italicize it. Skip the italicized part. Nothing graphic and not even really explicitly abuse but theres an accusation being made basically. CSA bcs Nigel is 17)

Nigel is in his bed and so is his mother. Shes in a slip and hes in pajamas and his father is holding a gun and yelling and basically accusing them of sleeping together (tho Nigel is 17 and also thats his mother so uh. Yeah.)

Tbf it only incidentally looks like that and she claims they were just talking. But also i have no reason to trust her so uh. Yeah.

Oh my god

Nigels father just shot his mother right next to him.

Holy fuck.

Alex came in and grabbed the gun and asked Nigel what hes done and Nigel said she was 'chosen'

Alex points the gun at Nigel and Nigels dad gets in between them and is shot by Alex

Oh my god wtf

'Ill have my Maraclea' What. In the actual. Fuck.

And he just. Casually dumps his fathers organs into the fire.

"Dont you think they're gonna be missed?"

"Well as long as they dont find her nine months it doesnt really matter, does it?"

🤮🤮🤮🤮

Nigel i cant defend this.

Oh god Alex did it too with Susan

Tom Sturridge angry with a shotgun is something i didnt know i needed but im glad i have it

Oh shit they both did it

Nigel used Alex to kill himself

Holy shit

Alex had the shotgun pointed at Nigel and Nigel is very obviously upset and doesnt understand why Alex thinks hes the crazy one.

He told Alex to pray for him, reached up and pulled the trigger while Alex was holding the gun

ALEX WALKED????

HOLY SHIT ALEX IS MAKING HIS OWN BIBLE

HE LEFT AN ENVELOPE ON SALLYS CAR AND IN IT THERES A JACK CARD THAT SAYS 'MY BELOVED SUSAN'

Holy fuck he broke into Susans tomb and took her skull

Holy shit hes doing the same thing Nigel did to him to someone else

Roll credits

Ok ok ok wow so um.

I dont think Nigel did it

Well ok. I think the truth is somwhere in the middle. Alex is putting a lot of blame on Nigel for someone who may or may not have killed 2 people to Nigel's 1

God its so hard to collect my thoughts about this film. Also its like 2 am so uh. That doesnt help.

I think Alex had a more dominant role than he let on. Also considering how quick he was to pick up the mantle, idk. I just know while watching this i was surprised by how much Alex killed even as Nigel called himself an instrument for killing. All Nigel did that we know for certain was let a kid fall out of a train. Alex straight up shot Nigels father.

Nigel is more quiet and reclusive and morbid and Alex is more intelligent and outgoing.

Of course Alex makes a point to emphasize how morbid Nigel is and ive already pointed out how i think Alex is an unreliable narrator. Alex is smart. He knew how he needed to tell the story and he succeeded. He got off scot free.

Unfortunately i dont think Nigel would have been able to do that. Nigel was smart but not as smart as Alex. He would have slipped up

So what happened to Susan? I keep going back and forth on this. I think it could go either way. But i hate to say it. I think Nigel did it. This whole thing kinda goes back to the Maraclea thing and Nigel knew about it already. So he kills Susan and guts her so Alex has his Maraclea and he goads his father into killing his mother so he 🤮 has... his...

Basically i think Nigel is more evil but Alex had a bigger part than he lets on

Its v v complicated. Or its just 2 am idk. (respectfully) Leave your thoughts if you feel so inclined

Oh my god he said Alex killed her because in Nigels mind he chose Susan as his Maraclea oh good lord

(But Nigel is pretty and fictional so we'll give him a pass)

Im definitely rewatching this at some point. Its actually really good

Ok thats all lol bye im gonna go see if theres Like Minds fanfic

#tom sturridge #like minds #eddie redmayne #murderous intent #tw necrophillia #like. its kinda In There so uh. yeah

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bespokeredmayne · 2 years

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Return to the dark side

The Good Nurse is certainly Eddie Redmayne’s grimmest portrayal in more than a decade, and there has been a flurry of false assumptions in the media that exploring the worst in human nature is new territory for the Oscar-winning actor.

The group of six fans who gathered by Zoom last week to talk to him knew better — were familiar not just with Marius Pontmercy, Stephen Hawking and Newt Scamander but Alex Forbes, Eddie Kreezer and Antony Baekeland.

And they couldn’t be more supportive of seeing Eddie — as he put it, “go to extremes” — and delve into the complexity and challenges of his most recent projects of Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club on stage and this true-crime thriller from director Tobias Lindholm, told with shades of Hitchcock suspense.

Armed with advance screener access courtesy of Netflix, the group — including two nurses from his fandom — were ready with their questions. They were rewarded with insights into how the film was shot, how Eddie’s stunning scenes in the latter part of the film were crafted — and of hearing firsthand Eddie’s exuberance and energy at tackling the role in partnership with Jessica Chastain and Tobias Lindholm, two artists he admires deeply.

The Interview

Eddie: Hello, hello, everybody from all corners of the earth!

Charlotte: …you do have your two nurses on — Marci and Cris from Italy. So we can have some expert analysis.

Eddie: Wow! It’s so nice to speak to you all, and thank you for jumping on.

Charlotte: Well, thank you, too. We just are thrilled. I think we’ve all kind of chatted, at least online, and this movie has exceeded all of our expectations. The sensitive approach to it, and of course your performance is just unbelievably authentic.

Eddie: Thank you! Thank you so much. I’ve really enjoyed the promoting of it because it was an amazing experience making the film. It’s rare that you get through a sort of film where everyone is as impassioned about it as each other, so I’m thrilled you guys enjoyed it.

Charlotte: Well, that’s coming across. It’s really lovely. We’ll go ahead & get started here, and as always, Ivonne can lead with her first question.

Ivonne: We’ve spoken to you before about the physical preparations for your previous roles – a lot of your previous roles have had physical intricacies, but I felt like The Good Nurse is a very character driven piece, and I felt like your performance has a lot of nuance and a lot of layers that kind of came to the spotlight but in a very restrained way. So I was just wondering, what was that process like?

Eddie: It was, one of the things that I loved when I read the script — and the script was my introduction the story – was the enigma of Charlie. The fact that this was Amy’s story, and who was Charlie? The film wasn’t going to allow you to find out the pat reasons for his behavior. I love that even though, of course, as an audience you’re looking for that — for the “why” of it, and Tobias said something actually beautiful: “We’re looking for the ‘why’ in order that we can explain away this person as a monster…’we would never do that’…’he did it because of this.” What was much more complex was actually more the nuance in this man, his own trauma. I loved how stunningly underwritten it was. Krysty Wilson-Cairns had done a piece that really had faith in the actors. So one of the appeals for me, once I started reading about Charlie’s childhood, was about hiding (it) really, and there was a particular naturalism to Tobias’s movies that I had adored. Often his take on things is not the obvious; it’s the oblique. And one of the things I was most excited about was to be in a Tobias Lindholm film. I didn’t feel as if I had worked with this sort of filmmaker. And so it was about doing all the prep — and hiding as much as I could. If that makes sense.

Charlotte: Playing off what Ivonne just asked — because you do put in all this preparation, and you’ve talked about how Charles Graeber’s book had so much rich material, and you talked to Amy Loughren: Not having Cullen’s motivation be obvious — did it free you up in any way, not having that to really explain with your character?

Eddie: As the actor, even if the piece isn’t really explaining the motivation, you have to find a confluence of or accumulate some possibilities. Now he also had mental illness — Amy describes him as having a dissociative personality. So that was the massive insight — that this was two different human beings. But where that was catalyzed felt a lot about his trauma, not only about being abused as a 7-year-old, but also the closeness of the relationship with his mother and how the hospital behaved when his mother died in a car crash and how they couldn’t find (her body) and when they did find it, it was all sort of disrespected. And after having done these insane things in the Navy for many years, when he then came back and trained to be a nurse, it was that very same hospital where his mother had been brought after the car crash. The fury at that particular place and that system felt fueled. And I’m not saying that that’s the reason at all, but that felt like a strong reason. And so certainly when Jessica or Amy talks about his mother in that final scene, and (he says) ‘They didn’t stop me,’ that idea of the system being the thing that he, in his narcissism, believed was the problem, that was definitely something I was playing with. In relation to the freedom, I did feel freer on this film than I had in a long time, and that had a lot to do with Tobias and Jody (Jody Lee Lipes, the cinematographer) and his lighting that was so dark that it felt at its most real. You didn’t have the sense of the camera crew. You didn’t even feel like you were being observed, and that intimacy with Jessica was wonderful.

Charlotte: Marci, do you want to ask your first question?

Marci: You have told us before about how you do a lot of research and homework in preparing for a roles, and then it sort of disappears into your portrayal. As a trained nurse, I wonder what you learned through your research and from Amy that became embedded in you that helped make your performance so authentic.

Eddie: Gosh, well through my experiences — I’ve had one particular one in the past couple of years of being by someone’s bedside and watching nurses — I’ve always had extraordinary admiration for nurses. But through the nursing school — a couple of weeks that Jessica and I did with a guy called Joe, a pediatric ICU nurse, we started with the history. I found that riveting, that fact that so many systems come from the late 19th century-early 20th century wars, and how the architecture of hospitals is built up. But also it was basically what it requires for nurses, and what you guys are. You have to be an extraordinary brain. You have to be brilliant at science and maths, and I really felt that because I was really struggling with some of the sort of biological-based stuff that we were doing. The thing that shocked me was the physical — the actual tireless, physical, like what it takes to move bodies, to move the beds around, how extraordinarily tiring CPR is. So the physical elements of it, followed by — and this was something that I’ve witnessed in a hospital — this emotional intelligence that you need, a humanity. You know, sometimes doctors in my experience don’t have that, and you have to be this go-between, between families, between patients at their most vulnerable. So it was those things — the fact that you have to be such a polymath — made my respect for nurses supersede where it already was. There were specific things — like apparently actors get the CPR wrong. You have to have your elbows locked. I’m not a very ‘prop’ actor, so things like attaching the IVs or putting in needles while doing other things — multitasking — were something that I had to come in every morning and practice on the dummies. And I did ping myself a couple of times. But after each take you would get that the director’s and Joe’s feedback. So hopefully we did OK.

Marci: I would say so. It was very authentic.

Chrissie: I did see the film, and I thought it was fantastic. The nuance of your characterisation of Charles Cullen is so spot on, according to Amy (Loughran) at the BFI screening. How did you manage the task without having met him? Was there ever a consideration to try to have you meet him? Is that something you would have wanted, and why or why not?

Eddie: Chrissie, what a cool question. I knew that it wasn’t going to be possible from the outset, particularly because we were going to be started filming at end of COVID so there were all sorts of restrictions. But the more footage I watched of Charlie now, and you can see the 60 Minutes, it did not marry with the man that Amy was describing as this kind, gentle, self-deprecating man. And so I felt it’s been so many years, and it’s almost like he’s lived with his reputation that I felt OK with not meeting him. I did not think necessarily the version I would get from him was…I didn’t want to be manipulated, honestly. That being said, it wasn’t an option. What I did have was all of this footage and voicemails and things from that period, so I worked pretty hard on the specifics of that, and Alex Reynolds (note: his movement coach) and I did a day, and Alex’s genius is managing to articulate something that I can observe and that I can take emotionally into my body. So that was probably the most. The other person was Charles Graeber, who wrote the book, and he spent a lot of time with Charlie Cullen. And he (had) such brilliant insight into the specifics of him. But the overwhelming thing was the real Amy talking about the side of the friend that she loved. That was the biggest score into him.

Chrissie: Playing such a complex character how did you ensure you looked after yourself whilst filming? It must have been quite draining.

Eddie: My family were here in New York. Jessica’s family were wonderful. The kids were hanging out, and I’m not an actor that brings it home. That being said, 70-80 percent of the movie Charlie was being kind. It was much more intense for Jessica. The heart element — Jessica was sort of pacing around, running around the wards, it was incredibly physically intense on her. But then my family left for the last few weeks, and that was the last moments of the film. That was intense. But still I’m not an actor, I don’t think — I don’t know, you’ll have to ask Hannah — who takes it home with me. Hannah was quite thrilled to lose the voice. Occasionally there could be some practicing, and she found Charlie’s voice pretty creepy.

Chrissie: It was very creepy. Lovely to chat with you.

Eddie: Lovely to talk to you, too.

Charlotte: Cris, if you could ask your first question.

Cris: Attending a nursing school, I would like to know what you liked most about this job.

Eddie: Gosh, I don’t have the emotional capability to be a nurse. I don’t know how you guys do it. And the feeling I had not just in nursing school but when I heard some of the stories, but particularly when I was in this ICU with a friend a year or two ago, was the emotional connection that you as a a family member feel to the nurse, who you engage with, who you get on with, who is the person who translates things for you that you don’t understand at this moment in which the person you’re with is at their most vulnerable. It feels like your everything. And that feeling when that person goes home and has a couple of days off — and of course they need a couple of days off — but you get a new nurse you have to develop a new relationship with. And it’s so complex. The thing that I learned is that nurses probably have to be extraordinary actors to be able to show that empathy and that compassion to people but also to have a relatively normal life at home. I know there are so many jobs in the services, whether it’s police or psychologist, that I would not be able to do. But I think that idea of how you’re able to cut off is astonishing to me.

Charlotte: And now we’ll go to Erina in New Zealand, who always tells us what time it is in New Zealand.

Eddie: Yes! What time is it over there?

Erina: It’s actually quite respectable. It’s 6:48 a.m.

Eddie: What’s that? It’s like an early wake up.

Erina: Yes. (Laughs) But it’s Friday; it’s in the future. My question is: You really see the transformation of Charlie from the caring friend to the frightening killer in those last few scenes. What was the shooting schedule, and could you actually build to those last transformative scenes? Or did you shoot out of sequence, were you back and forth?

Eddie: Well, the amazing thing was we shot all the exterior scenes out of sequence. But everything that took place in the hospital, they had built this hospital. They had wanted to shoot in a real hospital, but because of COVID obviously that was impossible. So in a business park they built this ward, and…all the background artists were real medical professionals. What it allowed was for us to shoot that main part chronologically. And it was really wonderful because on the page, the friendship and how the friendship unfolds is stunningly underwritten by Krysty. It was about finding the truth of friendship through extreme scenarios, but it was also a workplace thing. It was how to find that organically. And there were moments of improvisation, there were things the actual circumstances brought up, like with the pizza. And Jess and I had known each other for years, but it really was wonderful, it was actually really a lovely period shooting that. And then everything shifted after that, and when we got to the interrogation scenes, I hadn’t actually seen Jess for a couple of days. I’d done the scenes with Noah and Nnamdi, and they had been kept away from me during the process so sort of the first time I’d properly met them was in that scene. Tobias had kept them apart. That was pretty intense, the days shooting the interrogation scene. So when Jess came in the following day, we just gently kept our distances for that last day, and so when she came into the room, it was like an old friend coming back. None of this is ‘Method’ or anything, but it was just a way of trying to find the grace notes, given that we were able to shoot chronologically because it’s so rare that you have.

Erina: That’s like a luxury, so it’s so awesome to hear that they did that. So how great is that?

Eddie. Really great.

Erina: Thank you, Eddie. I might not get my second question, so…

Eddie: Lovely to speak.

Charlotte: We’re starting on our second round…

Eddie: I’ll give short answers… (laughter)

Charlotte: Well, Ivonne had wanted to ask you about your experience with the K-Pop stars but that question was knocked out, so she’s going to have to ask a serious question now.

Ivonne: Serious question, yeah. When you think of your career as a whole — because there are so many audio-visual media — what would you like your legacy to be?

Eddie: My legacy — oh God, I have no idea. It’s not something I think of. I don’t like to think back in the past, but it was interesting recently at Zurich, they showed me lots of films I’d done in my career, or moments of them, and it was so interesting because for me what it does is take me back to where I was in my own life. It takes me back, like seeing Les Mis takes me back to when Hannah and I had just got together or like, each film comes woven into a life memory. My thing is if I just never underestimate how lucky I am to get to do something I love. It comes with odd, weird things that I have sort of negotiate. But if I just keep to doing it, that’s what I care about. And it’s lovely…I’m going to stop answering (laughs).

Charlotte: This kind of plays off that, my next question does, talking about your past movies. Because we all know that you’ve done these very dark roles in the past, but a lot of people are just kind of discovering you now, and in the last decade or so you’ve definitely played roles that run along the lines of being romantic or heroic — or being a nice guy — certainly not anything this dark. What about The Good Nurse appealed to you, particularly at this time in your career?

Eddie: The interesting thing is that it was six years ago that I was cast in it. This often happens with me, whether it was The Danish Girl — films are such weird things, really. They can take years to happen. This film I was cast in six years, it then moved studios, the financing fell through, then all of our schedules were all over the place, but ultimately I’d say it was two things, three things. It was an extraordinary story that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard of given he was perhaps the most prolific serial killer in history. Secondly it was working with Jessica, who I think is one of the greats. Thirdly, I had seen Tobias’ movies, and I adored his films…he felt like a unique filmmaker and whenever you watch his films, you know that you are watching a Tobias Lindholm movie. And I wanted to be in a Tobias Lindholm movie.

Charlotte: That’s lovely, very simple, too. Marci?

Marci: You and Jessica Chastain were both amazing in this film, and you seem to have great chemistry. What was your favorite part of working with her?

Eddie: My favorite part of working with Jessica was she is a sensational actor. She also has innate confidence, but also loves what she does. She’s an absolute optimist. And she always looking for the best. I am someone who…whenever I read a script, I hear the worst version of it. And she was really good at just having none of it, just pushing me into an optimistic place, which was really wonderful and galvanizing me.

Charlotte: Cris in Italy, your second question?

Cris: What inspired you for the interrogation scene for the last part of the movie ?

Eddie: We hadn’t prepared the interrogation scene. We had worked a lot on the scaffolding of the character up until that point, but that piece — a lot of it was verbatim from the transcript of the trial. But also he had gotten furious in that interrogation, but also there was also a moment a year later when he was in court, when the judge was reading out a pronouncement and Charlie Cullen started screaming this mantra about the judge’s failings, and repeated it again and again and again furiously in court to the extent that he had to be bound and gagged. And I wanted to bring that element into that scene also.

Charlotte: OK, Erina. Ye of little faith, you get to ask your second question (group laughter).

Eddie: I got there, Erina!

Erina: I’ve got to deliver something good now. No pressure! You've played real-life characters in the past - what have you learnt from these other roles that helped you bring the Charlie to life?

Eddie: I still feel every time I get cast in a film, it sort of feels like the first time. I don’t have a specific process, but what I’ve learned — and the real shift in that was Theory of Everything, when I started working whether with vocal coaches or Alex on movement — but realizing it was so odd to prepare a character in a vacuum. I have lots of actor friends who have acting coaches, and I’ve never worked with an acting coach. But that process of having sounding boards, other artists you can play with ideas when you arrive with your director and other actors felt really important to me. All of that technical stuff may just be sort of reassuring to know that you’ve done some prep. Sometimes I don’t even know how useful some of it is. But it’s also it’s part of what I love doing. It’s like with Cabaret, when I went to Paris for this theatre school, LeCoq, the workshops there. I don’t know how useful any of it was, but what it did, it took me to a place of being willing to make a fool of myself in front of strangers. And that’s what I knew I needed to do in rehearsal for Cabaret. And that I knew I couldn’t be safe; I needed to go to extremes. And I don’t know whether any of that makes sense, but…

Erina: It all makes sense.

Charlotte: Eddie, thank you so much! Usually we know what you’re doing next so we can say we look forward to talking to you again, but we certainly look forward to whatever you’re going to do and to speaking again sometime. Thank you!

Eddie: Guys, thank you so much, as always, for your support. It helps me a great deal. I love that we get to chat in this kind of international fashion, across time zones.

Ivonne Jofre, who is originally from Catalonia, is now a budding filmmaker who divides her time among London, Spain and New York — where she has been accepted for a master’s program in cinema studies at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts & hopes to clear the hurdles to attend in 2023-24. She founded the first (and most popular) online fan website, Eddie Redmayne Net, in 2008 when she first met Eddie after seeing him on stage, and her @eddieronline account is the largest on Twitter, with more than 68,000 followers}.

Charlotte Aguilar, from the U.S., is an award-winning writer-editor-producer who has managed BespokeRedmayne accounts on Tumblr, Twitter + Instagram for nine years, with more than 30,000 followers — assisted by teen granddaughter Maria Suarez. They have met Eddie in New York and London and coordinate an annual fan fundraiser for his birthday to support Eddie’s patronage of the MND Association of the UK.]

Marcella “Marci” Wright is a blogger from Oklahoma, who previously worked as a nurse for years. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2020, she subsequently had to leave her nursing job due to mobility issues, & now works remotely as a data analyst. She is also a proud mom to Jake — who was the reason she started blogging about Eddie, after seeing his portrayals in The Yellow Handkerchief and Fantastic Beasts (upon seeing the original 'Fantastic Beasts' movie, Jake, then 15, happily announced, "Mom, Newt is autistic like me!")

Christine “Chrissie” Sallans is the OG of Redmayniacs, following his career since his early days on stage in London, and an integral member of the “Troop” of fans who camp out and brave London weather to support Eddie at premieres, performances and special events. Just this year, she’s visited with him at Cabaret, the Olivier Awards, the Secrets of Dumbledore red carpet, and the London Film Festival UK premiere of The Good Nurse. A social worker and educator by training, she is currently a university lecturer.

Maria Cristina “Cris” Della Valle lives and works as a nurse in Turin, in northern Italy near France. Lately she has worked in intensive care after many years in the cardiac surgery and general surgery departments. She is one of Eddie’s earliest fans and part of his “Troop.” She has traveled throughout Europe to see him on stage (this year in Cabaret), attend festivals, personal appearances and premieres for his films (most recently for The Good Nurse in Zurich).

Erina Ellis lives in Wellington, New Zealand. She works in television and is currently involved with broadcasting the Women’s Rugby World Cup, being held in New Zealand. She manages the @amazingeddieredmayne account on Instagram, the largest of its kind with more than 100,000 followers.

#eddie redmayne #the good nurse #fan interview #netflix #jessica chastain #tobias lindholm

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eddieredmayneargentinablog · 1 year

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Christmas memories!

Remembering Eddie Redmayne for a very special CBeebies Bedtime Story on Christmas Day 2017, on the BBC 🦕 🎄

(Excerpt) bbc.co.uk

On Christmas Day’s CBeebies Bedtime Story, Eddie Redmayne read "If I Had a Dinosaur", by Gabby Dawnay and illustrated by Alex Barrow, about a little girl who dreams of having a pet of her very own. But what kind of pet would make the best companion?

Eddie said: “I had the most wonderful time reading the CBeebies Bedtime Stories. Books before bed were always such an essential part of my growing up and it’s so lovely to be able to continue the tradition. I hope you enjoy the stories and Happy Christmas.” -Eddie Redmayne -

📸 CBeebies on Instagram

🎥 Christmas Day Eddie Redmayne's Bedtime Story, Video promo source CBeebies onFacebook

#Eddie Redmayne #eddieredmayne #redmayne #merry christmas #cbeebies #december 2017 #bedtime story for kids #christmas memories

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lauren-no-why · 9 months

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Oh look this is my first ask what a big moment buuuuut I saw you reblogged the THING so I have to say our boy Johnnie Redmayne, Rosinante who is still a delight to me, and I'm counting the other Redmayne brothers and Mr. Avery in this ok. And Ben himself, does he count as his own character bc I think he should

Hahaha I can't exactly claim to be a Ben expert, I'll let him be an expert on himself there, but will gladly scoop all the fictional ones into my arms and then shower them down upon the internet (goddamn when did I get so invested in Alex it's not right he's hardly even a character)

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eddie-redmayne-italian-blog · 3 years

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Eddie Redmayne on ‘Red,’ the Tonys, and Color Blindness

By BlackBook Published: June 3, 2010

At 28, Eddie Redmayne has perfected a look of fresh-faced innocence masking inner commotion. He’s invoked the expression for various roles, as the chilling young murderer Alex Forbes in Like Minds and as a downward-spiraling, matricide-committing homosexual opposite Julianne Moore in Savage Grace. On stage, he’s played the emotionally charged boy whose architect father falls in love with a goat in Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? Redmayne keeps a copy of the play with him in his current dressing room at the Golden Theater, where he’s starring in the Tony Award-nominated play Red alongside Alfred Molina. Redmayne, who nabbed one of those noms himself (for Best Performance by a Featured Actor), plays another permutation of the plotting innocent—not a murderer, but no less intense as the fictional assistant to abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko (Molina). We caught up with the actor to discuss the fate of Rothko’s famous murals, his own color blindness, and what he’s wearing to the Tonys.

I saw the play last night and am still recovering. It was intense! How do you do it night after night? Well, last night I had some friends in so I ended up going for some drinks after and I woke up this morning with a slightly filthy hangover. So I punished myself by doing tax receipts.

What drew you to the play? I assume it had something to do with your background studying art in college. Well, the theater in [London’s] Donmar Warehouse where the play started is one of the great gems of theaters in the world, and Michael Grandage, who runs it, is a wonderful man. I’ve seen a lot of his work for many years, and I’ve worked at the Donmar before, but never under him. So when the idea of a two-handed play specifically about art—the idea that the arts matters—came up, it was one of those rare moments where everything that I was interested in and engaged in kind of collided, a wonderful little moment of fate.

The play focuses on the murals Rothko painted for the Seagram building before he changed his mind about giving them up. A few ended up in the Tate Modern. Isn’t the museum naturally lit, which would seem to go against Rothko’s wishes? The story is that once he withdrew the commissions he had—I think it was 35 canvases— all the museums in the world wanted to get their hands them. So obviously, Rothko was very tentative about who he would give them to. And one of the guys was Sir Norman Reed, who was the curator of the Tate, and for ten years Norman Reed would swear to Rothko that they would build or create special rooms specifically for them at the Tate Britain—this was before the Tate Modern existed. The wall color would be as prescribed by Rothko, the lighting would be exactly as he wanted, and eventually Rothko agreed to that. So ten years after the end of the play, the same day that the Seagram murals arrived off the boat in London, Sir Norman Reed got a call that Rothko had been found by his assistant with his wrists slit. So the answer is that some of these murals, which were originally in the Tate Britain, are now in the Tate Modern in a room that is lit properly.

Alfred Molina had source material to draw on as Rothko, but your character Ken is fictitious. Where did you find your inspiration? What’s interesting is subsequent to doing the play in America, I got a letter from a woman called Virginia Foster, who is the widow of a guy called Dan Rice, and he was Rothko’s assistant during the Seagram murals. And whilst the character is not based on him, Virginia sent me this transcript of him talking about working for Rothko. And weirdly, even though I’ve done the play in London and done it here, reading the transcript reinforced some of the character. But I approached it the way I approach any character—I see what’s in the text and flesh it out with references from life. And certainly, I’ve had experiences with elder actors and bosses in the past who I’ve had complex and tricky relationships with.

There’s a scene where Ken is talking to someone on the phone, trying to decide whether to show Rothko his own paintings. Who was he talking to? That’s a very good question. I think it’s his girlfriend, and John Logan (the writer) thinks it’s his boyfriend. It remains a bone of contention between the two of us.

You did your college dissertation on Yves Klein, who was a big advocate of blue. [Laughs] So this is the sequel.

As an art lover, do you have a color preference? The color that Yves Klein does. Wet paint has a luminosity that dies when it dries and it loses the gloss. So Yves created this color scientifically that retains that luminosity. He was a big showman, so he got it copyrighted. The color is called IKB—International Klein Blue. And it sounds all bullshit-y and ridiculous, but when you stand in front of those canvases, the color is sublime and dumbfounding. So that specific color is my favorite color in the world. Are you going to follow this up with a colorblind question?

No, wasn’t planning on it, but if you want to discuss it. No, I talk passionately about that color and then people go “but you’re colorblind.” And I go, “I know. I don’t know what I see but I see it and I like it.”

You must have some confidence because you already have the Olivier award for this role. Are you nervous about the Tonys? Do you know what? It’s amazing how many award ceremonies there are in America. Am I nervous about the Tonys? Genuinely, the nomination was completely beyond anything I’ve ever thought about.

You’re being so diplomatic. I wanted to ask who you consider to be your biggest competition. Frustratingly, one problem with doing plays here is that you don’t get to see anything because your schedule doesn’t allow it. But I’ve met all the guys and I’ve heard extraordinary things about Stephen in Fences and Stephen Kunken in Enron is meant to be wonderful. Do you have your outfit picked out? I do. A couple of years ago I did some work with Christopher Bailey who runs Burberry. I’m a huge fan of his so I’m going to be cut out in British Burberry.

So what’s next? I see there’s something called The Pillars of the Earth? I’m actually really excited about it. It’s a huge epic medieval story that was a book by Ken Follett and it was one of Oprah’s favorite books and was subsequently a massive international bestseller. It’s being aired on the Starz network in July. It’s an 8-hour miniseries and I play this young boy who is mute and has grown up in the forest and who, over eight hours, becomes a master builder. So it’s about apprenticeship and craft and it’s also set in a historical time, with monarchs changing and war. What I’ve seen looks spectacular.

https://blackbookmag.com/archive/eddie-redmayne-on-red-the-tonys-and-color-blindness/

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msawesomegeek · 4 years

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The trial of the Chicago 7 Movie Review

A/N: So, I feel like I should disclose, the fact that I am not American. So, prior to watching this movie, the only thing I have heard about the Chicago 7 is the Dude in Big Lebowski saying he is one of them. I just want to be plain about that fact.

The trial of the Chicago seven, is a perfect balance between drama and comedy.

We follow the story of the trial of the seven leaders of protest groups during the Vietnam war prior to Nixons election. This is intercut like most movies like this, with “flash backs” to what happened.

This movie is really good at threading the needle between tension and comedy. Sascha Cohen is of course amazing and funny, but this movie truly knew how to balance that, with the tense and serious moments. The editing and camera movement really did tell a story a few times throughout, and it was used to great effect. The mixture of what I imagine is the real photos and video of the riots were a great addition to remind you, that this actually happened. This movie lure’s you in with some great acting and a little bit of good humor, while commenting on some political issues that seem more relevant in america today than ever. Yet like a great horror movie you can sense that there is more under the surface, and this easing into these heart wrenching details are what makes them even more powerful.

The characters are very well written and flushed out, you know who and why every character is the way that they are. The conflict between Eddie Redmayne’s character and Sasha Cohen’s character are great in contrasting and complimenting each other. No actor is bad in this movie, everyone was great. Michael Keaton amazing! Frank Langella, I want him to play the bad guy in every movie from now on. I have already highlighted Sasha Baren Cohen and Eddie Redmayne, but can these two guys play opposite each other more often? Because, amazing. Alex Sharp, Jeremy Strong, John Caroll Lynch, Yahya Abdul-Mateen, Mark Rylance, Gordon Joseph Levitt and all of the others, were amazing. Just no notes. Do more projects together please.

They really understood how to draw you in and make them sympathetic characters. They also understood how to subtly make the unlikeable characters, unlikable. Sometimes frustratingly so, but I imagine it was the point for the audience sometimes to feel the frustration of the characters.

The movie did not do anything revolutionary with it’s cinematography, I could see everything without turning up the light on my monitor, which makes the cinematography at least not noticeable. The music is not something you notice either but despite this, this movie is never boring. On the technical aspect the editing truly was the most noticeable both with brilliantly mixing real video with the movie’s, but also the uneasiness of the scene where the police removes their badges, along with the intercutting between Sasha Cohen’s character, the trial and the flashbacks, everything just flowed together so seemlessly, while building tension and clearly providing exposition in a smooth way. Just, a-plus to Alan Baumgarten.

What really drives this movie is the story. The characters are great as well and we do care about them too, but combine that with a great story that is told in not a unique way but a very effective way, that balances tones brilliantly and have some amazing editing. The final result is well, dare I say, Aaron Sorkin has another masterpiece on his hands? I certainly dare.

Definitely worth watching, not sure how well it plays upon revisiting but my first viewing of this movie, had me laughing, crying and certainly raising my arm in solidarity with these guys. Honestly, it is just a good movie.

10 out of 10 contempts in court.

A/N: Please do tell me if you agree or disagree, or if there is anything else you think I should watch! Otherwise, I’ll see you next time I feel like reviewing a movie.

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danidoesathing · 1 year

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💎 for vide noir

💎 are there any fun facts or trivia that you would like to share?

YES THANK YOU

-Vide Noir was originally intended to release in 2020 but was delayed due to the pandemic. There is, however, multiple clips in the album teaser back in 2018 from the movie so at least some portion of it was likely filmed around that time.

-you can also hear multiple songs from Long Lost during the movie, even though the album came out in 2021, so it also would have acted as their album teaser (something they do for all of their albums) for Long Lost.

-everyone saw the Cobb Avery cameo BUT there was also a Tubbs Tarbell cameo (on the TV during the motel scene) and a Big Jim (during the beginning credits) cameo

-Despite the "Dead Man's Hand" story being part of the Strange Trails album and not the Vide Noir album, it's portrayed in the film and actually makes Johnnie's part (as well the World Enders) integral to Buck's storyline despite this not being clear in the original album. not that im complaining I'll take another iteration of dead man's hand if it means seeing Johnnie again

-Vide Noir basically overhauled Buck's entire character in the lore from "sad lovesick country singer" to "absolute mess of a man who constantly lies for no reason and cannot be left alone for five minutes because he WILL cause problems for everyone” and for one am here for it. it also introduces the fact that he can see ghosts which?? was never brought up before???

-Secret of Life and Balancer's Eye despite being on the album don't play a role in the movie. Moonbeam doesn't have an explanation either. it's a weird case tho because while we do have a character named Moonbeam, the song is a love song and she and Buck have such little romantic chemistry even the wiki points it out.

-The movie kinda fucks with the lore A LOT but one point that bothers me the most is the existence of Alex. Like for the longest time we were told Dale was the leader of TWE and Johnnie's older brother, but when we get to Johnnie's part where he's talking about his brother as the leader he says its Alex, someone we've never heard of until now, and makes no mention of Dale at all. The Phantom Riders have a cameo but they aren't credited by name so like?? where is Dale?? what happened to him?? was he the leader at some point but not anymore?? who the fuck is Alex??? there's a third Redmayne brother?? ben whats going on here

-The song listed as Lee's Song that appears throughout the film is actually "I Lied". do with this information what you will :)

-The movie is direct by Ariel Vida, who also directed The World Ender music video and acted as a producer on the Fool for Love music video. everyone say thank you

#im soooo normal about LH lore im so causal about it haha #ok but seriously why can buck see ghosts. why can he just do this. why doesnt he react like a normal fucking person #in all fairness expecting buck to ever be a normal person about anything ever is a tall ask #but I would like an explanation at some point. ben. please #I also think its so funny from the album you think moonbeam is gonna be his love interest #and then Buck has intense romantic chemistry with the fucking ghosts but not her #you're just kinda sitting there like 'buck please stop checking out the undead biker you have a fiancé. buck moonbeam is RIGHT THERE'#but again. absolute freak of a man so #ask #asks #dani speaks

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laurelwen · 8 months

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#alex you are a lying liar who liessssss #fuck it friday #time for this old classic #like minds #nigel colbie #alex forbes #nigel colbie x alex forbes #tom sturridge #eddie redmayne #murderous intent #like minds 2006 #murder boyfriends

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the-cookie-of-doom · 3 years

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Good morning! Whats your favorite show/movie? Who are your favorite characters? Why do you like them so much? Also!! Did you have a good sleep?

Okay so I was a film major for a while, and I have opinions.

Penny Dreadful

I love this show. Like, so much. I adore it. I can not get enough of that show. Just all of the imagery, and the fantastic writing and acting. The episode intro alone is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Eva Green is a goddess and I love everything she’s been in. The take on classic horror stories is So Good, and it actually became the inspiration for my Gay Frankenstein story! (Started as a stitch AU, and then went completely OC after I had Ideas) but the show itself is so intimate? I think it’s largely that the period they’re in, everything was so repressed and restricted. So when the characters break out of those moments, it’s more meaningful. And the love-hate relationship between Ms. Ives and Malcolm in season one? Exquisite. I could literally write essay’s about this show, but I’ll restrain myself and just say: it’s the best ensemble show I’ve ever seen. The characters come together, but they also each have their own distinct lives that sometimes intersect, but in s2 especially, are quite separate. They are constant with one another like ensemble shows usually portray. Also gothic horror and romance? My absolute favorite.

Anything by Guillermo del Toro

This man Owns My Entire Soul. I’m not even joking, everything he writes and directs is perfection. Crimson Peak is probably my favorite (I have a stitch AU for this too ;) ) because again, Gothic horror and romance. I’m a slut for that shit. Also Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain? Delightful casting. I think it’s obvious by now that I love tragic relationships, so their dynamic is *chef’s kiss* amazing. they’re so damaged. And this quote right here is one of the BEST things I’ve ever read:

“But the horror... The horror was for love. The things we do for love like this are ugly, mad, full of sweat and regret. This love burns you and maims you and twists you inside out. It is a monstrous love and it makes monsters of us all.”

Engrave that on my headstone, please?? I’ve got a sort-of Dorian Gray AU (it’s delightful) that’s basically built on this entire premise. Mitch makes the mistake of falling in love with Stiles, and does many terrible things because of it. Mostly to himself, at least.

I think my love of Crimson Peak is very closely tied with The Shape of Water. another beautiful movie, I could wax poetic about this forever. it was beautifully written, and such an artistic movie. I love the way it was filmed, and the set design, and all of the subtle imagery. Such as Elisa’s apartment being cast in cooler tones, it always felt very damp and had evidence of water damage, compared to Giles’, a mirror image of her own, in more warm tones. This is another one I could (and have) write essays about. There is so much packed into this movie, from the themes on toxic masculinity and entitlement, to the conversation on queerness and race and disability, and how all the various relationships are portrayed. Like. there is so much to pick apart in this movie.

Aside from that, ofc Hell Boy deserves an honorable mention because i grew up on those movies. I’m pretty sure the Golden Army especially is responsible for who I am today, given all the lore on the fae in that universe. Wow, that explains so much about me... Also one of my first WoW characters was an elf named Nuala xD I still have her, too, and it’s been like 12 years lol

Near-Future Sci-Fi

Sci-fi is one of my favorite genres, I am a huge nerd for theoretical and astrophysics. But my favorite kind of sci-fi is the stuff that still takes place on Earth, rather than epic battles in space. Ex Machina and Annihilation are at the top of that list. Alex Garland is another writer/director that I love. He has the same kind of approach as del Toro, where he puts a lot of fine details into his work. And I love that it’s very cerebral; there are so many layers to Ex Machina. My English 101 prof actually refused to analyze it in class when I suggested it to him, because he didn’t think my class could. Basically handle? Dissecting that movie? Because a lot of it comes across as very surface level, but in some cases when you look deeper, it’s actually suggesting the opposite of what you might think at first glance. (And he was right, my fellow students were awful. I miss that class though, it was one of my favorites T_T Mr. Ryder was an awesome dude and super chill.)

Morgan is another good example. As you can see, I fucking love androids lol. Which brings me to another of my all time favorite movies: Cloud Atlas. I could literally watch this movie endlessly, I love it so much. The acting, the writing, the filming, all of it is top notch. And one thing they did in the movie that didn’t come across in the book, was reusing the same actors through the different eras in the book. That was just so neat, because it really encapsulates how connected these souls are, as we follow the threads of their story throughout time. If you haven’t seen the movie, I can’t recommend it enough.

Another one I always think of alongside Cloud Atlas, even though they aren’t related at all, is Predestination. It’s a great movie that explores the idea of fate and free will in a really clever way, utilizes time travel in a very organized way that I think was neat (think Umbrella Academy. They even use briefcases! As you can see, I love sci-fi bureaucracy, it’s fun. In fact The Bureau is another movie I enjoyed) and the main character is actually, explicitly trans, which was cool. You basically get to see the entire story of their life, and I don’t want to spoil anything, but it’s just. So good. Mindfuckery galore.

Shoot, and I almost forgot! Arrival! That is one of the best movies, and another one I could watch nonstop. It focuses on mathematics and linguistics and I swear to god, I almost altered my entire college course because of this movie. Amy Addams is brilliant, Jeremy Renner is so soft and nerdy, and again, it has an amazing take on time travel. I am very particular about how time is handled in Sci-fi, and this portrayal was one of my favorite. (Most of my physics studies have been dedicated to the theory of time, so like. Strong Opinions.)

Fantasy

Stardust! It wasn’t until Good Omens can out that I realized Neil Gaiman is responsible for most of the stories I loved as a kid lol, and I had no idea he wrote stardust! But that is such a beautiful movie (I have a Stardust AU lol) and it’s definitely one of my comfort movies. Captain Shakespeare is one of the best characters ever, bless Robert de Niro. I would die for him. Fun fact, i had no idea Ipswitch was a real place until like. 2019. I 100% thought it was made up for the movie 😂

Alongside Stardust, I’ve always loved The Golden Compass. It’s fantasy, but also with that old-timey steampunk science feel, which is so fun and surprisingly difficult to find!

Mortal Engines also has the same kind of feel, and it was such an epic movie in every sense of the word. I’m a little sad that after all the work that went into it, it didn’t get a dedicated following or fan base, because I feel there’s so much potential in it. But at the same time, fandom tends to gather around media that has plenty of flaws for us to repair with gold, and there wasn’t much room for that in Mortal Engines.

I’m going to put Jupiter Ascending here even though it technically fits with the sci-fi, because that section is long as fuck and also this movie has such a fantastic feel. Mila Kunis? beautiful. The CGI? beautiful. Eddy Redmayne? One of the best villain portrayals i’ve ever seen. The whole oedipal vibe he had was immaculate, as was their portrayal of reincarnation, and just. The world building. GOD. I get so weak for through world building. Also the fkn intergalactic bureaucracy when they’re basically at the space DMV? One of my all time favorite scenes in movie history.

Horror

I have very little room in my life for horror. As I said, I have strong movie opinions, especially when it comes to horror movies. I don’t like how most of them rely on cheap jump scares and overused gore and gratuitous rape scenes, instead of, y'know, actual good writing.

Which is EXACTLY why I adore It: Chapter 1 & 2. It has none of those things, but still manages to be so terrifying. They are my favorite horror movies, and I’m saying this as someone who has genuine childhood trauma bc of the novel. Like. I couldn’t shower/take baths alone until I was almost 10 T_T When I was 6-7 and saw kids play by storm drains, I would run over screaming about how Pennywise was going to get them. Like, I had issues man. I was terrified to see the first one, and wouldn’t go until I could go with my best friend after she had already seen it, so she could warn me when something scary was about to happen 😂

And, one of my favorite aspects of the movie, and the thing that gave me Mad Respect for Any Muschietti? The way he filmed Bev and her father. They have a character who is literally being molested, but they never once have to show it. And yet their interactions are still so viscerally upsetting to watch. Sexploitation puts me off of most horror, and the fact that Muschietti doesn’t use it here, even when it would be actually somewhat justified? *chef’s kiss*. I love him.

I love horror as a concept, I’m just really picky about it because I expect the writing to be good. I don’t like short cuts. But in a lot of cases, even if I don’t enjoy the movie itself, I love to watch analysis videos on youtube! I love to see the philosophy and symbolism in different horror movies, even if i don’t like to watch the movies themselves. It’s a fun hobby.

Misc.

Then in general, some other stuff I love in no particular order:

The Internship (Bless Dylan, Stuart is such a bitch and I love him)

American Assassin (ofc. The writing itself is eh, but Mitch is my man)

Dylan’s episode of Weird City. (I actually have a lot of feelings about this one. Jordan Peele is another amazing writer/director, I really need to catch up on his works.)

Dorian Gray (*chef’s kiss*)

Rogue One (Makes me cry every time)

WARCRAFT (Obviously this is a fav. It made me so happy, words cannot express.)

Coraline and most other stop motion animation. I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for that.

Literally anything associated with Tim Burton. Fun fact, when I was 12 and in middle school, I planned to decorate my future house inspired by tim burton. Like, i had Plans.

Most adaptations of Alice in Wonderland!

So! this got long as fuck! But you said you like that kind of thing lol 😂 I had kinda Eh sleep since I was up so late lmao, and I kept waking up (as usual, rip). And I’m so mad I go up for nothing! The dude I was supposed to show my listing to never showed, and is refusing to answer my calls >_> It’s been 2 hours now, and I still haven’t heard from him. But whatever, I already have a full price cash offer on the house so who cares. And that means I can play WoW all day, now!

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judieasley57 · 4 years

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All Scot and Bothered The Devil You Know #2 Kerrigan Byrne St. Martin’s Press, Sep 29, 2020 416 pages Historical Romance Author’s Rep via NetGalley ⭐⭐⭐⭐🌙 4.5 Stars

The cover is eye-catching at least, in fact, it almost hurts the eyes with that color combination of bright blue and orange-red. The couple looks as if they might go up in flames at any minute. Which I’m sure is the intention. Oh well, they get their point across blatantly if not tastefully.

The story is all about passion, good and bad. There are hate groups in it, well, one group. They are willing to kill without provocation to get their way or to clear their way to get what they want, to sacrifice children or adults to have what they want, what they feel they are entitled to. They feel they must answer to no one.

On the other side of things is the Lord Chief Justice of the High Court, Cassius Gerard Ramsey. He’s a Scotsman by birth and looked down on by many for that reason alone. He’s also almost larger than life being very tall, muscular and having a very stern visage with cold blue eyes. He’s passionately determined to stop the disappearance of children in London and he’s convinced that it’s the Scarlet Lady who’s responsible for it.

Into the center of all of this comes the highly educated but innocent Cecelia Teague, secret benefactor of her aunt’s fortune and properties, which include a school for women and the gaming hell to support the school. Cecelia has never met her aunt, nor has she ever heard of the Scarlet Lady, but she and her aunt shared letters once a year and they both have a passion for codes and puzzles. The first thing she is given is a diary full of codes and has to discover what the secrets are of all of London. And both sides want it!

Cecelia has never been so wanted in her entire life. Not by anyone but her two best friends from school, Frank and Alex AKA Francesca Cavendish Countess of Mont Claire and Lady Alexandra Duchess of Redmayne. Never before by a man. Cecelia is tall and plump with lots of curves, copper ringlets, and big blue eyes. As a child, she was considered fat, and growing up young men were probably intimidated by her. She didn’t fit the stylish form. But the Lord Chief Justice is a very large man and is not taken by the stylish form. He is totally tempted by Cecelia’s form, though. In fact, he can’t stop getting an erection in her presence! And it’s making him angry!

Through drawing rooms and back alleys, Ramsey and Cecelia battle it out to arrive at their HEA after both have had their horrible backgrounds revealed and their hearts laid bare. Recommended.

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weekendwarriorblog · 4 years

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The Weekend Warrior 10/16/20: SYNCHRONIC, FRENCH EXIT, TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7, LOVE AND MONSTERS, HONEST THIEF, THE KID DETECTIVE and More!

After the last couple weeks, I really need a break, which is why I’m writing most of this in transit to Columbus, Ohio to see my mother, sister and all (or some) of the friends that I made during my sabbatical to the city seven years ago for cancer treatment.

On, and look... Variety wrote about the movie theater chains and NATO lobbying Governor Cuomo to reopen movie theaters, showing that there’s been no proof of any cases leading back to movie theaters. (And more from The Hollywood Reporter…) New York leads and the world follows? More like ED leads and the world follows. Been saying this shit for months now and putting up with all sorts of needless abuse for it.

This week’s “Featured Flick” is actually a movie coming to theaters on October 23, but since I’m not sure I’m writing a column next week, I’m gonna review it this week! Cool? The movie is SYNCHRONIC (Well Go USA), and it’s the follow-up to Aaron Moorehead and Justin Benson’s amazing sci-fi film The Endless from a few years back. This ome stars Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan as parademics in New Orleans who have been coming across a series of bodies that have died in gruesome ways, all connected by a designer drug they were all taking.

I’ll just say right from the start that I loved almost everything about this movie from the amazing performances by Mackie and Dornan to the entire look and tone of the movie, which shows the duo taking huge steps forward as filmmakers, particularly Benson as a screenwriter. Unfortunately, I’m not sure what I can say about the movie and its plot without spoiling other’s enjoyment. I will say that it involves a designer drug and time travel and Mackie’s character has something odd about his brain that makes him better suited to figure out what is happening to the victims than others might be. Also, Dornan’s character Dennis has family issues, particularly with his daughter Brianna (Ally Ioannides), who disappears mysteriously, but it’s so nice seeing Katie Aselton as Dennis’ wife, as well as in another movie out this week.

I’ll also say that people who watch this movie will inevitably make comparisons to the work of Alex Garland and maybe even the more-versed ones might see a little of David Cronenberg’s Videodrome in the film’s trippy nature. The thing is that the movie is super-smart, and it’s obvious that Moorehead and Benson must have done a lot of research to make every aspect of it feel authentic. It’s just amazing what this duo can do with a small fraction of the money that Christopher Nolan had to make Tenet, and yet, they can create a complex and unique premise that’s actually easy to understand. Things like the camerawork, the music and sound design all add to the amazing tone and the mood that the duo have created.

I also think it’s Mackie’s best role and performance in many years, maybe even going back to The Hurt Locker, so as a long-time fan, I’m glad he connected with Moorehead/Benson to show that he’s more than capable of leading a movie like this.

Again, Synchronic will be in movie theaters and drive-ins NEXT Friday, October 23, but I want to give you an advance heads up, because Synchronic is likely to be the most original sci-fi or genre film you see this year. If you can’t get to the drive-in and don’t feel comfortable going to a movie theater, then I’m sure it will be on digital soon enough, but you definitely shouldn’t miss it!

Next up is Aaron Sorkin’s THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO SEVEN, streaming on Netflix starting Friday and the movie I was most looking forward to seeing this week. I was such a huge fan of Brett Morgen’s Chicago 10 documentary, which opened Sundance in 2007, especially with how he recreated the court trials using animation and a talented roster of voice actors including Hank Azaria, Mark Ruffalo and Geoffrey Wright. Sorkin has just as an impressive list of actors for his version, including Mark Rylance, Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Frank Langella, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and many more.

If you don’t know about the protests outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago – you see, back in those days, the Democrats were the bad guys… how times have changed!! Those protests led to a number of arrests but a few years later, the federal government charged a number of individuals with inciting the riot. The accused include Black Panther leader Bobby Seale, played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II from Aquaman and Watchmen, Abbie Hoffman (Cohen), FBI agent Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne), Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong), David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch) and two more. The six white guys are defended by Mark Rylance’s William Kunstler, who faces the tough Judge Hoffman (Langella) who is not putting up with any guff from these young revolutionaries.

All of the characters are quickly introduced with a quick-cut opening montage with actual newsreel footage, but then we’re quickly moved to a meeting to the Attorney General (Keaton) with the trial’s prosecutor (Gordon-Levitt). From there, we’re right into the trial about 16 minutes into the movie, although Sorkin frequently cuts back to the actual day of the Chicago protest to recreate what happened as testimony is given. Probably the part that will have the most impact and resonance is the way Seale was mistreated compared to the others, getting so riled up at the judge that the judge orders him chained and gagged. The trial would end up taking place for almost 7 months even though the results were eventually overturned.

This really is perfect material for Sorkin, and maybe if I hadn’t seen Chicago 10 first, I would have been a lot more fascinated by the trial sequences, though Morgen did an equally great job working from the transcripts. Basically, what happened happened. Where Sorkin’s screenplay and film excels is showing what’s going on outside the courtroom, whether it’s the recreations or just conversations taking place between the plaintiffs. As might be expected from Sorkin, the screenplay is great with lots of fast talking, making for a movie that moves at a kinetic pace for its two hours.

If I had to pick a few of the best performances, I’d probably focus on Cohen’s Abbie Hoffman, which is more than just an accent, he and Strong’s Rubin bantering back and forth like a seasoned Vaudeville act; Rylance’s Kunstler is spot-on, and Langella is just great as the crusty judge, the film’s only true antagonist. I also appreciated John Carroll Lynch and in fact, all the performances, although I felt that with so many characters, Sorkin wasn’t able to give Bobby Seale the time his story truly needed. Still, I would be shocked if this isn’t considered a SAG Ensemble frontrunner.

Ultimately, The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a fine recreation of a certain moment in history that still feels relevant and timely fifty years later, even if it’s so heavy at times you either need to focus or, like me, watch it on Netflix in two sittings. I still liked Steve McQueen’s movie Mangrove that takes place in a similar era and also culminates in a trial just a little bit better.

Before we get to the rest of this week’s new movies, I have one last review from the New York Film Festival, and it’s the closing night film, FRENCH EXIT, from director Azazel Jacobs and writer Patrick Dewitt, who has adapted his own book. The film stars Michelle Pfeiffer as Frances Price, a Manhattan widow from wealth who discovers she has no more money, just as her son Malcolm (Lucas Hedges with longer hair than usual) has decided to marry his girlfriend Susan (Imogen Poots) though he hasn’t told his mother that yet. With no other options, Francis takes her son on a ship to live in Paris for a while at the home of one Mme. Renard (Valarie Mahaffey), an elderly woman who is a genuine fan of Francis and welcomes them as her guests.

This is one of those ensemble character dramedies that I wouldn’t even be able to begin to tell you why you should see it unless you miss seeing Pfeiffer in a semi-decent performance, but one that doesn’t do much as the film itself is so boring and insufferably pretentious most of the time I’m not sure I can even recommend it for that.

Jacobs and Dewitt previous made the movie Teri maybe ten years ago, and I was never really a fan, so I’m not sure why I thought that Dewitt adapting his own book would bear better results. Once Frances and Malcolm get to Paris, there’s just an influx of odd characters who show up, some who have more impact than others. I liked seeing Danielle Macdonald as a psychic medium the duo meet on the ship across the Atlantic who Malcolm bonks. She’s brought back when Frances wants her to conduct a séance to communicate with her late husband who she thinks is now inhabiting an omni-present cat. Like everything else, the relationship between Malcolm and Susan and how that’s affected by her meeting a new guy just never goes anywhere.

For the most part, the whole thing is just dull and uninteresting, and so pretentious it never really leads to anything even remotely memorable. I have no idea why the New York Film Festival would decide to close with this one. (Although the 58th NYFF is over, some of the movies will hit its Virtual Cinema soon, so keep an eye out! For instance, this Friday, FilmLinc begins a Pietro Marcello retrospective as well as showing his latest film Martin Eden in FilmLInc’s Virtual Cinema.)

Liam Neeson stars in Mark Williams’ HONEST THIEF (Open Road), a crime-thriller in which he plays Tom Carter, the uncaught robber behind 12 bank robberies who decides to settle down with Kate (Grey’s Anatomy) Walsh’s Annie Wilkins, who he meets while renting a storage space to hide all the money he’s stolen. After a year of things getting serious with Annie, Tom decides to retire so he calls the FBI and says he’s ready to give back the 9 million, but two crooked FBI agents (one played by Jai Courtenay, the other by Anthony Ramos) decide they’re going to take the money instead. Their plan to steal the money Tom’s trying to return leads to a number of deaths, including putting Annie in the hospital. When that happens, Tom has had enough, and honestly, there’s no one better at getting revenge than Neeson. (Did we mention that Carter is ex-Marine? I mean, of course he is!)

Many will go into Honest Thief expecting the typical Neeson action revenge flick ala Taken or maybe one of his high-concept thrillers, but Honest Thief isn’t nearly that exciting. It starts out fairly slow and dry with no real crime or action elements, although Williams does throw them in from time to time. The whole thing is pretty dry, and it’s a good 54 minutes before we get to the revenge aspect of the story and that’s after a lot of bad decisions being made across the board. Anyone who is still wondering how Jai Courtney has a career won’t be changing that decision by his turn as the villain, and it’s a lot odd when the movie tries to make a sympathetic character out of his partner, played by Ramos.

Regardless, any elements that make Honest Thief unique from other Neeson action movies are quickly tossed aside for the same usual cliches, and the action scenes aren’t even that great. While Honest Thief may not be an awful or unwatchable movie, it’s probably not the action movie you might be expecting from Neeson – more like a bargain basement The Fugitive with one plot decision that almost kills the whole movie.

Delayed a number of times and now dumped to PVOD (with minimal theatrical) is Paramount’s LOVE AND MONSTERS, which is written by the prolific Bryan Duffield (The Babysitter, Spontaneous), directed by Michael Matthews and produced by Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps Entertainment. In the movie, Dylan O’Brien plays Joel Dawson, a young man surviving the apocalypse with a small community after the government’s plot to blast a couple asteroids heading to earth backfires. Instead, it creates giant, carnivorous monsters out of the earth’s animals who eliminate 95% of the earth’s human population. (We learn all of this through a Zombieland-like animated prequel getting us up to speed.) Before the earth fell into disarray, Joel was in love with Jessica Henwick’s Aimee, but they were separated by the fateful events. Seven years later, they’re reconnected via radio and Joel has sworn to travel the 85 miles across the creature-covered wasteland to reunite with her. Hence, the title “Love and Monsters.” Get it?

I actually didn’t hate this movie, although it’s not really a family film or one meant for young kids, because it’s PG-13 for a reason, including mild violence i.e. people being chomped by monsters, and some sexuality. Dylan O’Brien does a decent job carrying it, but it relies just as much on the other people he meets, particularly Michael Rooker’s Clyde and his young ward Minnow, played by Ariana Greenblatt, the latter who is such a scene-stealer that it’s disappointing they’re only in the movie for a small chunk. They’re probably the funniest part of the movie.

I like giant monsters and these ones are certainly … interesting. They seem to have been toned down a bit maybe to be more kid-friendly, more like the kid-friend Godzilla than the terror we’ve seen in recent incarnations. There are also a number of great action set-pieces, and some good post-Apocalyptic ideas we haven’t seen, especially when Duffield’s dark sense of humor is able to come out and keep things fun.

Still, Love and Monsters is not a kids’ movie, and there’s something about it that might make people wish the filmmaker just went full-on R, because going further towards PG would have made even the best parts quite painful to get through. As it is, Love and Monsters is a suitably fine boy and his dog adventure – oh, did I mention the dog? – that would make a perfectly fine streaming movie.

We’ll get back to some of the other theatrical releases in a bit, but I wanted to get to two movies that were pleasant surprises, maybe because I went into them with absolutely zero expectations.

I wasn’t really sure what to think about Cooper Raiff’s SH#!%HOUSE (IFC Films) at first, maybe because it’s title is a little off-putting and not really particularly representative of what the movie is. Raiff himself plays Alex Malmquist, a fairly new arrival at his college but already missing home and his mother (Amy Landecker) and not really adjusting to the crazy college lifestyle as exemplified by his roommate Sam (Logan Miller). After a party at a frat called “Shithouse” (hence the title), Alex meets and connects with his dorm’s R.A. Maggie (Dylan Gelula) and the two spend the night bonding and hanging out.

Obviously, someone at IFC Films loves these platonic indie two-handers about people meeting and hanging out over the course of a night, because Shithouse is the second such movie after Olympic Dreams earlier in the year. They also must know that I’m a sucker for these kinds of semi-rom-coms, because just like with that other movie, I totally ate up everything Raiff was trying to do and say with his movie. The chemistry between the two leads is undeniable, and maybe it won’t be a surprise that Gelula also appeared in Raiff’s previous movie.

As with any relationship, things do come to an end, and this one crashes and burns in a very sad way for Alex the very next day. Maggie starts to pretend she doesn’t even know him, and she ignores his incessant texts saying how much he enjoyed their night together. Boy, I have been there back in my reckless and romantic days of youth.

At first, I wasn’t that into Raiff as an actor – remember what I’ve said about filmmakers casting themselves? – but Alex definitely grew on me. Gelula is absolutely amazing, and frankly, I can see someone “discovering” her in ten years and becoming a new Parker Posey, Kate Lynn Sheil or other similar indie ingenue.

The combination of the two is what makes Shithouse such a special experience, since their situations are quite relatable and Raiff does a great job with the characterization in his writing to make this quite enjoyable to see how things will resolve themselves.

I also wasn’t quite prepared for how much I’d enjoy Steve Byrne’s THE OPENING ACT (RLJEfilms), maybe because I was unfamiliar with Byrne, and as usual, I didn’t read the description of the movie before sitting down to watch it. If I did, I would have known that Byrne is a stand-up comic and presumably this movie is somewhat based on situations that have happened to him. It stars Jimmy O. Yang from Crazy Rich Asians (a great comic in his own right) as Willy Chu, a young comic who has always dreamed of making it in stand-up but instead, has been stuck trying to get slots at an open mic night, while holding down a day job working at an insurance company. One day, his friend (Ken Jeong) sets him up for an MC gig in Pennsylvania at the Improv where his idol Billy G (Cedric the Entertainer) will be performing, so Willy quits his job to pursue his dream.

Much of Byrne’s movie deals with Billy’s “adventure” in Pennsylvania with the club’s womanizing featured act (played by SNL’s Alex Moffatt) and trying to face the struggles of stand-up in hopes of getting to the next level. There have been better movies about the subject, like Mike Birbiglia’s Sleepwalk with You, but Byrne’s film is a nice addition, particularly because Yang plays such a likeable, benevolent character you want to see him do well even after he crashes and bombs on a Saturday night and is at risk of losing the Improv gig.

It’s obvious that Byrne pulled in a lot of favors from friends to get such a great cast of comics – even getting Whitney Cumming to make a cameo – but the likes of Bill Burr actually take on key roles, like Willy’s boss in that case. Moffatt is particularly hilarious expanding on some of his outrageous SNL characters to play a stand-up who actually does help Willy, even as he puts him in pretty awful situations. Cedric also gives another fantastic performance as Willy’s idol who gives him the cold shoulder at first but eventually comes around and offers him the mentoring that Willy needs.

The Opening Act isn’t anything particularly revelatory, but it is thoroughly entertaining, and a nice little indie that I hope people will discover for themselves, especially those who like (or perform) stand-up.

Edward James Olmos directs THE DEVIL HAS A NAME (Momentum Releasing) starring the great Oscar-nominated David Strathairn as almond farmer Fred Stern, who has been running his orchard for three decades with trusty second Santiago, played by Olmos himself. Things are going well until they notice that some of the trees are rotting. It turns out they’re being poisoned by the water that’s been sullied by crude oil run-off from the nearby Shore Oil rigs. Around the same time, an opportunist named Alex Gardner, played by Haley Joel Osment, offers Fred a very low-ball offer to buy the farm, though Fred suspects something is up, and sure enough, Shore Oil is responsible.

Another movie I didn’t know what to expect other than a few cursory elements is this movie “based on a true story” movie about the little farmer taking on “The Man.” In this case, Shore Oil is represented by Kate Bosworth’s Gigi Cutler, a tough exec. at the corporation who thinks their lawyers (one of them played by Katie Aselton!) can crush this local troublemaker. When Stern’s lawyer (Martin Sheen) sues the oil company for 2 billion, they need to start taking things seriously, bringing in a tough “fixer” played by Pablo Schreiber.

I’m not sure where to begin with this movie that certainly has noble intentions in telling this story but suffers from quite a few issues, mostly coming from the script. I was a little concerned once I knew the premise, because I was not a huge fan of Todd Haynes’ Dark Water from last year, although I did enjoy the Krasinski-Damon-Van Sant ecological venture, Promised Land. This one falls somewhere in between, and probably its biggest issue is that it tries to create some humor out of the erratic behavior of the characters played by Bosworth and Schreiber; both performances are so off-the-rails at times it regularly takes you out of Fred’s story. (Osment is also pretty crazy but at least he fits better into his role.) Strathairn is great and well-cast, and Olmos is equally good, and I imagine that it’s partially because many of their scenes are together, allowing Olmos to direct with his acting. Aselton and Sheen are also decent, especially in the courtroom scenes.

Oh, and did I mention that Alfred Molina plays the Big Boss, who is interrogating Cutler as a needless framing device? Yeah, there’s a lot of characters, and when you hold this up against something like The Trial of Chicago 7, it’s just obvious that the film has too many elements for any filmmaker to be able to juggle at once.

Because of this, The Devil Has A Name is an erratic real-life dramedy that’s too all over the place in terms of tone, it ends up shooting itself in the foot by trying (and failing) to be funny despite the serious subject matter.

Next up is 2 HEARTS (Silver Lion Films/ Freestyle Releasing), another movie based on a true story from the Hool Brothers, who I really wasn’t very familiar with. I assumed this was going to be a faith-based movie, and maybe in some ways it is, but not really. It essentially tells two stories set in different time periods that you assume will somehow be connected. Ooh, boy.

First, there’s Jacob Elordi of Euphoria and The Kissing Booth – neither of which I’ve seen, mind you – who plays Chris Gregory, a college kid who connects in a meet-cute way with Tiera Skovbye’s Sam. Before we get too far into their story, we cut back to what looks like Cuba in the ‘50s and 60s, and meet Jorge Bolivar (Adan Canto), the son of an alcohol magnate, a soccer player who suffers a serious lung issue that puts him in the hospital. Years later, Jorge is travelling to Miami when he meets Radha Mitchell’s Leslie working as a flight attendant.

Both guys are pretty suave smooth-talking pick-up artists, and the movie spends almost an hour cutting between two very corny and cheesy romance stories that really don’t offer much in terms of story. Instead, it keeps following Chris and Sam’s life as they have kids, taking forever to get to the connection between the stories. I was getting pretty bored of the movie, but I felt like I had to stick it out to see what happens.

When you call a movie “2 Hearts,” you kind of expect it to be about a heart transplant of some kind, right? But no, it’s actually about a dual lung transplant that Jorge receives. Want to take a wild guess who the donor is? I certainly don’t want to spoil what happens, but for a movie that spends a good hour setting up the relationships between the two men and their pretty blondes with ups and downs that makes it seem like a Nicholas Sparks movie, it really throws a spanner into the fairy tale with all the melodrama that’s to come. It’s such a whiplash in terms of tone it pretty much destroys any chance of one enjoying the movie for what it is. It also loses a lot without Elordi, since the actors who play his family aren’t very good at all.

I had to actually look up the story to see how much if it was true, only to learn that Jorge was based on Jorge Bacardi who actually received a double lung transplant from one Christopher Gregory, inspiring him to create the Gabriel House of Care. The problem is that the time periods get so messed up by setting one story decades in the past. Using the same actors to play the people over that time with pretty shabby make-up just makes things that much more confusing. The big problem is that it spends so much time avoiding the actual plot and point of making the movie that by the time it gets to it, you just don’t care about the characters anymore.

The whole thing is very by the books and predictable, but ultimately, it’s hard to believe any of it, despite it being based on a true story. If you go into this movie expecting love and romance and all that kind of mushy stuff from the title, you’re likely to be disappointed when the movie finally gets to its point. (In other words, it could have used some giant monsters.)

Here’s another movie that I didn’t really know what to expect going in and that probably should have helped me enjoy it more… if it was anything resembling a good movie. Picked up at the Toronto Film Festival where it premiered last month, Evan Morgan’s THE KID DETECTIVE (Sony) stars Adam Brody as Abe Appelbaum, the “kid detective” of the titles, who as a child was one of those super-smart kids who have the deductive powers to help the people in his community, but as a 32-year-old, he just isn’t taken as seriously any more. When a high school girl named Caroline (Sophie Nélisse) comes to Abe to find out who murdered her boyfriend, Abe finally realizes that he has his first grown-up case, though he’s still obsessed with the disappearance of the mayor’s daughter (and his kid receptionist) Gracie many years earlier.

I’m sure there’s gonna be people out there who watch and appreciate The Kid Detective for what it is, a wry and slightly clever noir pastiche pseudo-comedy, but anyone who has seen Rian Johnson’s first film Brick or the underrated Mystery Team (starring Donald Glover very early in his career) might feel that this doesn’t live up to either. Besides the fact that Brody really hasn’t developed much personality as an actor, the film rolls along with a fairly flat, deadpan tone that just never gets remotely exciting. The humor is subdued and yet it feels like everyone is constantly trying too hard, particularly Morgan, while at the same time not really taking any chances. This is a movie that could have been edgier but instead, it milks its flimsy high-concept premise as long as possible before giving up.

Like Love and Monsters, Sony is releasing The Kid Detective into theaters on Friday, and hopefully parents will check that rating before assuming it’s a kid flick. Although there isn’t so much bad language or anything that wouldn’t warrant a PG… other than the fact that it’s not particularly funny or even entertaining and kids will be super-bored.

I can’t believe there’s still more! Amazon’s “Welcome to the Blumhouse” anthology series continues this week with two more movies in the series of eight, which you can now watch on Prime Video:

Easily my favorite of the four movies I’ve seen is Zu Quirke’s NOCTURNE (Amazon), which follows a pair of twins, Julie (Sidney Sweeney) and Vivian (Madison Iseman), who are both competitive concert pianists at the Lindberg Academy, although Vivian is clearly the better, as she’s heading off to Julliard while Julian is taking a gap year.

Before we meet them, we see a young violist jumping off the balcony to her death for some reason, and we learn that she was the finalist to play a concerto, so now that slot is open and both Julie and her sister desperately want it.

Nocturne is certainly more like the horror movies we expect from Blumhouse, which is both good and bad. The good is that it is indeed quite scary as Quirke’s team uses really eerie lighting effects and other things to create suspense. But there’s also an artiness to what Quirke does that elevates Nocturne above the normal high-concept horror-thriller.

Quirke, who also wrote the film, delivers all the characterization you expect from a good horror film so that you really care about the characters, and she’s put together such a fine cast, particularly Sweeney who has to run a gamut of emotions as Julie. I also like Rodney To as Julie’s tough instructor Wilkins

Again, I won’t say too much more about the actual plot, although if you can imagine a Faustian bargain and how that plays out for those around Julie, you can probably understand why a super-fan of The Omen might dig what Quirke did in this environment.

The fourth movie in the “Welcome to the Blumouse” series is EVIL EYE (Amazon), from Indo-American filmmakers Elan and Rajeev Dassani, a relatively innocuous thriller based around the relationship between Pallavi (Sunita Mani from last week’s Save Yourselves! and GLOW) and her mother Usha, played by Sarita Choudhury. Pallavi is in her late 20s and single and her mother keeps wanting to get her set-up with a nice man, as a good Indian mother is wont to do. When Pallavi meets Sandeep (Omar Maskati), things are going well since he has money and her mother thinks her daughter has hit the jackpot, until she realizes that Sandeep has a dark secret.

Here’s another thriller where it’s really tough to talk about the plot, because obviously the filmmakers want the story to unfold in the specific way it was written. Apparently, this one was once an Audible story, and the first thing I noticed was how amazing Sunita Mani looks from her fairly glammed down roles in other things. I think she’s just wearing make-up and has her styled different but I’m not sure I would have known it was the same actor in Save Yourselves! Because I had to do a double take.

The problem with Evil Eye, and it’s been a problem with some of the other “Welcome to the Blumhouse” movies, is that it isn’t necessarily what I’d consider horror. It really plays a lot more like a romantic drama, other than the fact that Pallavi’s mother has visions and believes in astrology enough to send her daughter trinkets to protect her from the “evil eye.” In fact, the movie just gets weirder and weirder, as it starts introducing supernatural elements, and without giving the big plot twist away, it does expect one to believe in reincarnation.

I wish I could have liked this more, but it really seems like it would be better suited for a show like “The Outer Limits” or “The Twilight Zone,” since the premise is stretched so think for about 30 minutes longer than necessary. I think the filmmakers did perfectly fine with what they had to work with – the two main actresses are just fab – but I think I’d need to see some of their other work to see if the issues I had were just cause the story isn’t that interesting or by their limitations in making it.

(And I promise that I do have a feature on all the filmmakers from the first four “Welcome to the Blumhouse” series coming over at Below the Line, but it’s been a pretty tough piece to write.)

I reviewed Alex Gibney’s new doc Totally Under Control (Neon/Participant), co-directed with Ophelia Harutyunyan and Suzanne Hillinger, in last week’s column but it’s now available to watch On Demand and then it will be on Hulu starting next Tuesday, October 20. Obviously, everyone wanted to get this out there and make sure people see it before they get too in-deep with the election.

I also reviewed David Byrne’s American Utopia (HBO), directed by Spike Lee, a few weeks back, but it will be on HBO and presumably HBO Max on Sunday night. Not as big an event as Disney+’s Hamilton but still worth watching, especially if you’re a fan of Byrne or his band the Talking Heads, because it actually acts as a nice counterpoint bookend to the late Jonathan Demme’s fantastic Stop Making Sense, one of the best concert documentaries ever made, or at least top 5. I’m bummed I missed Byrne’s show on Broadway, and it doesn’t sound like Broadway will be coming back anytime soon so I guess this HBO documentation is the best any of us can wish for.

Of the movies I didn’t have time to watch this week, the two that I’m hoping to still get to are two docs: Inna Blockhina’s SHE IS THE OCEAN (Blue Fox Entertainment) and Rick Korn’s HARRY CHAPIN: WHEN IN DOUBT, DO SOMETHING (Greenwich). She Is the Ocean explores the lives of nine women who all have a passion for the ocean. The Harry Chapin doc may be more self-explanatory, and I wish I was a bigger fan of Chapin, the famed singer/songwriter/activist, because maybe I would have watched this movie earlier. (But seriously, look at how many movies came out this week, when I was hoping it would be “slower”!) Also, I’m a little bit interested in the K-Pop doc #BlackPinkLightUpTheSky that will air on Netflix, just because, I dunno, I like adorable, young Asian women, so sue me?

Premiering on Disney+ this Friday is Justin Baldoni’s CLOUDS, starring Fin Argus as musician Zach Sobiech, who has only months to live when his cancer starts spreading, but he follows his dream to make an album and becomes a viral music phenomenon. I’m not sure if this is a true story but it certainly sounds a lot like a faith-based film called I Still Believe that hit theaters just before they all shut down due to the pandemic. Coincidence? I think not.

Also this week, the 32nd ANNUAL NEWFEST LGBTQ FILM FESTIVAL begins on Friday, running through October 27 with opening night being the well-regarded Ammonite, starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan, but it will be done as a drive-in, so I’m out. Over in Los Angeles, the AFI FEST starts on Thursday and runs through October 22, and that’s also showing a lot of cool festival/awards films that I haven’t had a chance to watch yet like The Father, I’m Your Woman and more. I missed my chance to get press accreditation, so yeah, I guess I’ll be waiting on that.

And then we get to all the movies that I didn’t have time to see or didn’t receive a screener, so here we go. This week’s unfortunate dumping ground:

Lupin III: The First (GKIDS) (This anime film is being released as a Fathom event on Oct. 18 – dubbed, and Oct. 21 – subtitled)

Belly of the Beast (I’ve actually heard good things about Erika Cohn’s doc about illegal sterilizations being conducted in a woman’s prison.)

Don’t Look Back (Gravitas Ventures)

Rom Boys: 40 Years of Rad (101 Films)

The Antidote (Cinetic/Brand New Story)

Monochrome: The Chromism (Tempest)

J.R “Bob” Dobbs and the Church of the Subgenius (Uncork’d)

Monster Force Zero (WildEye Releasing)

Ghabe (GVN Releasing)

The Accidental President (Intervention)

In Case of Emergency (Kino Lorber)

I’m not sure how much of a column I’m gonna write next week since I won’t have nearly as much time to watch movies or write about them in the coming week, while I’m in Colmbus. There are a couple high profile movies I hope to get to, so we’ll see what happens.

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

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