#Canadian Film Day 2021

[menderash]

did you guys know that the mother fucking UN's humanitarian and legal experts have been saying israel's occupation of palestine territories is and has always been illegal, as it violates the FUCKING GENEVA CONVENTION? did you know it was britain that 'gave' the land that wasn't theirs to give to found the state of israel as a tactic to get more jews to join the british army in their already-active war against the ottoman empire? did you know that just between 2008 and 2022 the idf killed almost SEVEN THOUSAND palestinians, as opposed to the 308 israelis by palestinians in the same time period? did you know that israel itself admits to 'forcefully evacuating' palestinians from their homes over the course of their annexation of the country? did you know the british army helped them? did you know that any palestinian who didn't want to have their house taken from them and given to american immigrants being shipped in to populate britain's pet project was killed on their spot? did you know that back in 2018 palestinians did nothing but MARCH in protest of their occupation and in response, the idf is CONFIRMED to have killed almost 400 of them, including FIFTY FIVE CHILDREN? did you know palestinians are not allowed to build anything on the land they have left? did you know they aren't ALLOWED TO LEAVE?? did you know over HALF of christian evangelicals support israel solely because the bible says israel has to exist in order to bring about the second coming? did you know that in 2021, over 88% of us congress were evangelical christians? did you know israel is confirmed to have knowingly bombed palestinian hospitals and the idf had been caught targeting journalists? did you know israel is committing another war crime at this very moment by dropping white phosphorus on gaza civilians? did you know the israeli press was just confirmed to have completely fabricated an account of palestinian war crime right after their own got caught on film? did you know the defense minister of israel openly called all palestinians 'animals' to justify the deaths of their civilians? did you know holocaust survivors are presently speaking out against the israeli state's ethnic cleansing of arabs?

why, in the united states, is criticizing a settler colony's active attempts at extermination labeled antisemitic because of the religion the settlers happen to practice, but rooting for the complete eradication of a muslim country that was already there and is barely still there not islamophobia?? why is religion being used as a shield to justify genocide?

when a sudden act of politically charged violence occurs, like the hamas attack a few days ago, i ask WHY? i ask WHY until i get as far back as i can. i read accounts written by all sides. i try to find out why this is happening in the first place. half of these facts have come from the israeli government itself. all of them are easily found and easily confirmed by reputable sources. a lot of them are caught on film. all of these facts lead me to know that the state of israel was created by britain in order to gain an advantage in an unrelated war. i know the state of israel has caused unimaginable harm to the country it's slowly eating, and has suffered just a fraction in return. i know religion justifies none of it.

palestinians deserve to live in their own country. palestinians deserve to not be forced to give their homes to americans. palestinians deserve to live, to leave, to stay, to wave their own fucking flag. they do not deserve to have another country plopped on top of them and then have their settlers ask 'don't WE have a right to exist?' as their own right to exist is being extinguished.

fuck the idf, fuck israel, fuck manifest destiny, fuck all settlers who think they deserve someone else's home enough to kick them out of it. literally, in israel's case. indigenous americans, indigenous canadians, chicanos, pacific islanders, filipinos, mestizos, we should all be standing with palestine, because we KNOW how colonial violence goes and what it looks like. solidarity between all colonised peoples. free palestine.

#ive been sick to my fucking stomach #free palestine

[godbirdart]

content warning: residential schools //

as Orange Shirt Day / The National Day of Truth and Reconciliation nears [September 30] I want to give a bit of context to those internationally who might not know that this day is.

Orange Shirt Day was started by Phyllis Webstad and others in 2013. This is a day to reflect and promote reconciliation, as well as uplift and support the victims and communities impacted by the Canadian residential school system. This is also the origin of the Every Child Matters movement.

The National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, as it's known by the Canadian government, was only formed as an official national day in 2021 after 200 unmarked graves were discovered on the property of the former Kamloops indian residential school that same year. Currently there are estimated thousands of graves on residential school properties; many of which have not been properly addressed.

Kivalliq Hall was the last residential school in Canada and closed in 1997. This is not some far-off distant history thing, many people alive today were sent to residential schools as children.

If you want to give support, consider donating to the Indian Residential Schools Survivor Society, or Orange Shirt Day. The IRSSS does fantastic work, offering counselling and numerous support lines - including one for 24/7 crisis support. I'd also like to mention Reconciliation Canada, as they also do good work.

This is a small personal anecdote here, but I'd like to recommend checking out Indian Horse; a novel by the late Richard Wagamese that follows the life of a boy going through the residential school system. There is also a film adaptation by the same name. This book [and its film] offers valuable education on the dark history that is residential schools.

I'm always happy to have additional links and educational material added to my posts, so please do not hesitate to add onto this. thank you.

#residential schools #orange shirt day #national day of truth and reconciliation #long post

[idiishowl]

( layout ib : @/s3aborn3 )

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⋆ ࣪ 𖠗 Ꮺ ָ࣪ ۰ ִ     . . .   LOOK AT ME GOOD, YEAH, I AM THE LIT ! 

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⋆ ࣪ 𖠗 Ꮺ ָ࣪ ۰ ִ     . . .   BASICS ! 

BIRTH NAME  — Luo Kaixin 

ENGLISH NAME  —  Joshua Luo 

BIRTHDAY  —  March 28th, 1997

BIRTHPLACE  —  Jianyang, Sichuan, China 

HOMETOWN  —  Toronto, Canada

ETHNICITY  —  Chinese 

NATIONALITY  —  Chinese-Canadian 

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⋆ ࣪ 𖠗 Ꮺ ָ࣪ ۰ ִ     . . .   FAMILY ! 

FATHER  —  Steven Luo 

MOTHER  —  Marlene Wang 

SIBLING(S)  —  N/A 

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⋆ ࣪ 𖠗 Ꮺ ָ࣪ ۰ ִ     . . .   PHYSICAL ! 

GENDER  —  Male 

PRONOUNS  —  He / him 

TATTOO(S)  —  3

PIERCING(S)  —  2

FACE CLAIM  —  Dylan Wang (actor) 

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⋆ ࣪ 𖠗 Ꮺ ָ࣪ ۰ ִ     . . .   CAREER ! 

STAGE NAME  —  HOWL

PROFESSION  —  Idol, actor, model 

LABEL  —  STARBORN CREATIVE, Glasshouse Inc., formerly under Cre.ker Entertainment 

TRAINING PERIOD  —  3 years 

YEARS ACTIVE  —  2017 – Present 

FORMER GROUP  —  The Boyz 

FORMER POSITION  —  Lead Vocalist, Rapper, Visual 

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⋆ ࣪ 𖠗 Ꮺ ָ࣪ ۰ ִ     . . .   BACKGROUND ! 

Luo Kaixin was born as an only child to an actor father and an opera singer mother, who had him only a few months before moving to Canada. From his childhood, he was always put into the spotlight, even after his mother retired from the spotlight and his father took on a smaller career as an author and film director before disappearing from their lives. Kaixin easily took up acting and singing, gaining his own following for appearing in commercials and landing small roles in movie that were directed by his father's friends. He also started busking for fun, eventually being scouted by Cre.ker Entertainment in 2015 when he was in South Korea one day to film for one of his father's friend's movies. 

In 2016, Kaixin auditioned for Cre.ker Entertainment and got in, training for one year before debuting in the boy group The Boyz as the lead vocalist and visual KJ. However, in 2019, he left both the group and company for unknown reasons, though it is speculated that Kaixin may have been mistreated during his time in Cre.ker. He disappeared from the public eye for a few months before suddenly resurfacing as a new artist under both STARBORN CREATIVE and Glasshouse Inc. He debuted as a soloist in 2021 under the stage name HOWL. 

#⠀⋆ ࣪ 𖠗 Ꮺ ָ࣪ ۰ ִ ⠀⠀𝑯𝑶𝑾𝑳 ⠀ : ⠀ profile ⠀ ─── ⠀ killing me softly #idol!au #idol!oc #idol!addition #oc!kpop #oc!group #oc!soloist #oc!idol #kpop oc #oc kpop #oc kpop idol #kpop oc idol #fictional idol community #idolverse #glasshouseinc

[justforbooks]

The actor Matthew Perry, who has been found dead at his home aged 54, brought a wry sense of humour to the role of Chandler Bing in Friends, the American sitcom featuring six twentysomethings in Manhattan facing the ups and down of everyday life.

“Chandler’s a guy who’s just not comfortable in his own skin – he’s got a great excuse to be funny,” said Perry of the sarcastic, neurotic character in the programme that ran from 1994 to 2004. “He’s an exaggerated form of me.”

The neurosis partly came from Chandler experiencing the divorce of his parents when he was nine and using humour as a defence mechanism. It echoed Perry’s own life, with his mother and father splitting up by his first birthday.

Through his work in “statistical analysis and data reconfiguration”, the character pulled in more money than the other friends – Rachel (Jennifer Aniston), Monica (Courteney Cox), Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow), Ross (David Schwimmer) and Joey (Matt LeBlanc) – although he hated his job.

Chandler had already met Monica Geller at college before they became neighbours in Greenwich Village, where he shared an apartment with Joey. By the end of the fourth series, the relationship had gone from being close friends to lovers and, three years later, they were husband and wife. Unable to have children of their own, they adopted twins, with their birth as a central storyline, alongside Ross and Rachel reuniting, in Friends’ final episode, which attracted more than 50 million viewers in the US.

By then, the programme’s impact on popular culture had spread well beyond its homeland. Joey’s “How ya doin’?” and Chandler’s “Could I be any more …” broke into the language of its young audience. The part earned Perry worldwide fame that continues with Netflix bringing the sitcom to a new generation.

Nevertheless, stardom did nothing to help the actor to overcome his own vulnerabilities. In 1997, Aniston said: “His feelings get hurt. He cares what people think. He even bruises easily.”

Perry’s battles with his personal demons first hit the headlines halfway through the sitcom’s run. In his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry recalled a journey to alcoholism that went from beer and wine at 14 to drinking vodka by the quart, as well as getting addicted to prescription drugs.

In 1997, he checked into a Minnesota rehab clinic for 28 days when he became hooked on a painkiller and appetite suppressant after a jet-ski accident and a 35lb weight loss. Three years later, he was hospitalised with pancreatitis. In 2001, he abruptly left the set of the film Serving Sara (released the following year) to go into rehab again.

Perry reflected that by 2018, at the age of 49, he had spent more than half his life in treatment centres. That year he suffered pneumonia and an exploded colon caused by opiod overuse, resulting in time on life support and two weeks in a coma.

He converted his Malibu home into a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre, Perry House, in 2013, but closed it two years later, citing expensive running costs.

He had been drug and alcohol-free for 18 months before the screening in 2021 of Friends: The Reunion, a one-off special bringing back together the programme’s six stars.

Born in Williamstown, Massachusetts, Matthew was the son of Suzanne (nee Langford, later Morrison), a Canadian journalist, and John Bennett Perry, an American actor. He grew up mainly in Ottawa when his mother returned to her home country and eventually became press secretary to the then prime minister, Pierre Trudeau. In 2017, Perry revealed that he and another pupil at Rockcliffe Park elementary school had beaten up Justin Trudeau, Pierre’s son and current Canadian premier. Trudeau responded on Twitter (now X): “I’ve been giving it some thought, and you know what, who hasn’t wanted to punch Chandler? How about a rematch @MatthewPerry?”

While studying at Ashbury college, Perry became a top-ranking junior tennis player. He practised up to 10 hours a day, but switched that determination to acting after travelling to Los Angeles when he was 15 and being reunited with his father. “I wanted to be famous so badly,” he told the New York Times in 2002. “You want the attention, you want the bucks, and you want the best seat in the restaurant.”

He made an impression with leading roles in sitcoms: Chazz Russell in Second Chance (1987), retitled Boys Will Be Boys for its second series in 1988, Billy Kells in Sydney (1990) and Matt Bailey in Home Free (1993) before Friends came along.

Perry’s big-screen debut came as River Phoenix’s best friend in A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon (1988), but he never became the film star he hoped to be despite appearances in Fools Rush In (1997), Three to Tango (1999), The Whole Nine Yards (2000) and its sequel, The Whole Ten Yards (2003), both alongside Bruce Willis.

He stuck with television. Switching to drama, he had a short run as Joe Quincy, a Republican lawyer, in The West Wing in 2003, and starred in another Aaron Sorkin series, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006-07). His own sitcom idea, Mr Sunshine, with him playing Ben Donovan, a San Diego arena operations manager, was dropped after a short run in 2011. The following year he starred as Ryan King, a sportscaster, in Go On and later played Oscar Madison in a revival of The Odd Couple (2015-17). He also wrote and starred in the play The End of Longing, which debuted in London’s West End in 2016.

He had relationships with many high-profile actors including Julia Roberts, Minnie Driver and Lizzy Caplan. From 2020 to 2021, he was engaged to Molly Hurwitz, a talent manager.

His parents survive him.

🔔 Matthew Langford Perry, actor, born 19 August 1969; died 28 October 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

#just for books #matthew perry #chandler bing #in memoriam

[peytons-depression-land]

With BlackBerry, Matt Johnson continues to show no other director has a better understanding of our modern, media-molded minds

For those unfamiliar, Matt Johnson is a 37-year-old Canadian indie filmmaker, whose new film BlackBerry, which he co-wrote, directed, and co-stars in, was released this past week. BlackBerry charts the rise and fall of the Canadian creators and company behind the once ubiquitous “BlackBerry” smart phone, a device that’s now a relic to the pre-iphone aughts. The film chronicles the triumphs and tribulations of the phone’s creators, underdog nerds Mike Lazaridis and Dough Fregin, and cutthroat businessman and Blackberry co-CEO Jim Balsillie, who both launched the phone to its successes and helped destroy all they created. Johnson’s previous features are The Dirties, a found footage dark comedy/drama about the lives of two film obsessed high schoolers leading up to a school shooting, and Operation Avalanche, a period thriller about low level CIA agents faking the moon landing – a film in which said agents con their way into NASA, which Johnson and his crew actually did in real life when making the low budget indie film. However, Johnson’s most iconic work, and most beloved by many, is his mockumentary comedy series, which started as a web series and was later adapted to TV, Nirvanna the Band the Show. The series details the misadventures and schemes of a fictionalized version of Johnson and his friend, musician Jay McCarrol, as they try to get their band – Nirvanna the Band – a show at the Toronto restaurant and music venue “The Rivoli.” You might know this series from the now famous "Update Day" clip in which the duo sing along to the Wii shop music. In 2021, Johnson and McCarrol even made a three-episode animated children’s spin off of Nirvanna the Band, titled Matt and Bird Break Loose. A unifying aspect of much of Johnson's work is his narrative documentary style of filmmaking, often employing real people in Sacha Baron Cohen-style moments.

Something about me: I'm kind of a Matt Johnson obsessive. Any time I meet someone from Canada under the age of 40, I ask them if they've heard of Matt Johnson or Nirvanna the Band the Show. I have multiple back-up hard drives with the complete web series and TV seasons of Nirvanna the Band because it's impossible to get/find now in the US. Anytime I'm in a large media store that sells 2nd hand movies (like Amoeba Records), I religiously spend time searching to see if, by some small chance, they have one of the physical copies of The Dirties (the ones with the variant covers that look like Criterion Collection covers) - it's kinda my physical media holy grail. My DVD of Operation Avalanche is one of my most prized possessions. Hell, I’ve even tried my hand at replicating Johnson’s style numerous times, a short film I made while at film school abroad in France being the main example. So, suffice to say: I was very excited for Blackberry.

With BlackBerry Johnson is making significant stylistic and scale leaps from his previous works, “making it to the big leagues” as someone more confident than me with sports metaphors might say. It’s a bigger movie than he’s made before, getting a limited national release here in the US, by a major indie distributor (IFC), starring two sizeable, well-known actors (It’s Always Sunny in Philidelphia’s Glenn Howerton and comedy mainstay Jay Baruchel). All this far from the rag-tag, small scale, underground nature of his previous works, where the cast was the filmmakers and the biggest names involved were Vice (and its since defunct TV network) and Kevin Smith whose company distributed The Dirties. Stylistically, BlackBerry makes the jump from Johnson’s previous found footage/mockumentary movie (both terms sounding far more derisive to the idiosyncratic style of Johnson’s films than I’d like) to a fully “traditional” narrative feature. With both The Dirties and Operation Avalanche, as well as NTBTS, the characters are involved in the actual act of filmmaking, for one reason or another, and aware of the camera filming them, the cameramen being acknowledged entities. The footage you’re watching is filmed, edited, and staring the characters on screen. But, with BlackBerry, besides a fun visual gag from Glenn Howerton at the beginning of the film, the cameras exist as they would in any normal movie – invisible watchers of the events.

What makes BlackBerry and Johnson’s filmmaking so great though is that he doesn’t just abandon all semblance of his style and aesthetic, becoming some bland gun for hire, like so many indie directors plucked from festival success to helm the next cinematic toy line for Marvel. Instead, he finds ways to work his style into this more traditional film in compelling ways. While the camera is no longer literally in the story, it still hovers around the characters, with longtime Johnson DP Jared Raab often shooting through the obstruction of windows, from far away, and with the back of heads in the foreground. The camera zooms and focuses in and out of different characters and things in the moment, cinema verité style, Johnson describing in a Q&A for the film having been influenced by documentaries like Pennebaker and Hegedus’ The War Room. The looming, documentary-like camera works perfectly for this constantly manic story of slap dash, neurotic tech wizzes and on edge CEO sociopaths, the camera matching the characters nature. For this story of greed, corporate malignancy, and the loss of ideals, the camera’s living style also feels like what you’re watching is covert, hacked CCTV footage. It makes the viewer feel like they’re seeing what actually happened: secret footage from inside the office, fly on the wall stuff, intimate to these people and these conflicts.

True to the overarching motif in Johnson’s work of media’s permanent place in our cultural language and experience, Blackberry is filled visual references to other movies: from a non-diegetic montage of famous sci-fi technology over the opening credits, to scenes of the lovable band of “Research in Motion” nerds enjoying movie nights of Raiders of the Lost Ark and They Live, to movie posters lining the walls of the RIM offices and featured on Doug’s t-shirts. Johnson perfectly described how necessary referencing other media was to his film when he explained “Pop culture that we think of as just nerdy ephemera, I believe sincerely, winds up dictating what technologists create that will become the future.” Well timed needle drops help ground the work in its specific world of a nerds 1996, 2003, and 2007, and frequent Johnson collaborator (and aforementioned co-star of Nirvanna the Band) Jay McCarrol brings a pumping synth score, not too dissimilar to Trent Reznor’s work in The Social Network, but with a uniquely quirkier, lo-fi essence that fits perfectly with the indie feel of both the film itself and its subject matter.

Thankfully we’re not entirely deprived of Johnson’s charismatic, comedic screen presence in BlackBerry. While not the Orson Wells-style leading man both in front of and behind the camera he was in his previous works, he still features in Blackberry as the third of our main 3 characters, Doug Fregin, co-engineer/creator of the famous phone, who acts in a way as the film’s audience surrogate. Despite Doug being a “goof” as Balsillie describes him, he’s the heart of the main three characters, the moral center to which we compare Balsillie’s shrewd cunning, lies, and manipulations, and Lazaridis’s tragic moral downfall from tech idealist to bottom-line businessman. Doug is undoubtedly a character in the typical “Johnsonian mold” - a movie quoting, John Carpenter t-shirt and sweatband wearing, ninja turtle loving hyperactive who uses Star Wars references in business meetings. In fact, the character seems molded in the film more on Johnson than the real man, given that, as Johnson explained, he’s a “true cipher… has never done a taped interview,” leaving Johnson with room for interpretation.

However, while Johnson delivers a more lighthearted, comedy performance, as a director he pulls some impressive dramatic performances from Howerton and Baruchel. It’s true that the movie is, at its core, a dark comedy, so there’s some great comedy in the lead performances, Howerton delivering that trademark snark and unhinged rage his Always Sunny character has become known for and Baruchel with his awkward nerdiness. I have no doubt Howerton’s scene in which he, in a rage, screams “I’m from Waterloooooo! Where the vampires hang out!” - in a moment that must be seen to be believed - will become a quoted classic before long. But the characters aren’t just farce Social Network parodies, they have depth and drama to them, a credit to Johnson’s directing and Howerton and Baruchel’s acting. You feel Balsillie’s underlying insecurity and attraction to power that drives him. You hurt seeing Lazaridis slowly turning into what he once stood against and the tragedy of him reaching his ethical “point of no return” when he agrees to the BlackBerry touchscreen phone being manufactured overseas, in order to meet budget and deadline. We also get some delightful supporting performances from the likes of Saul Rubinek, Rich Sommer, Cary Elwes, and Michael Ironside as an imposing, rotund, bolo tie wearing, hard ass COO.

BlackBerry is a tragic tale of ambition and passion succumbing to ego and greed, and in so it’s not only a movie about the tech sector, but also about the struggle of making art. Lazaridis struggles, and ultimately fails, to maintain integrity while creating a technology he loves and believes in against a world run by people like Balsillie who only seek profit and status, quality be damned as long as it sells. Anyone who makes art, especially films, is up against the same problem. There will always be Mike Lazaridis and Matt Johnson’s, there will always be Jim Balsillie’s and David Zaslav’s, and there will always be a struggle between the two: art and commerce. The tragedy comes when the creator, like Lazaridis, loses their principles, and begins creating not for the love of it, but out of obligation and out of profit. The triumphs come when the creator finds a way to take what they love, what they’re good at, and what is meaningful to them, - their vision - and deliver it to the masses with the heart intact, as Johnson has done throughout his career, now with BlackBerry more than ever. It’s up to the creator to stand fast and endure to create their meaningful works, as oftentimes the sharks will get along either way, as we see in the end credits with Balsillie, who avoided any jail time for his stock fraud committed while co-CEO of BlackBerry.

While I don’t think they're for everybody, Matt Johnson's works capture the modern media deluged culture that we all exist in better than any other modern artist or filmmaker. His movies are always about movies, whether they narratively are or not, just as our lives have become subsumed by media consumption, regurgitation, and reinterpretation. We now live in a world where almost every movie and TV show is at our fingertips 24/7 - a religion, the upgrade to dreaming, the codex we classify our existence on - and his film-making style and characters reflect that. The characters, especially the characters Johnson portray, speak in a lingua franca of movies quotes. His camera is alive and involved in the action, often literally, just as our cameras and screens are every day. His editing blends the real world with the movie world, blurring the lines. His movies are not documentaries, but they’re certainly not just fiction, something in between, a dreamlike blend for our media-soaked minds. I’ve never been one good at the rigid definitions of “modernism” and “post modernism” in art, but I have to believe Johnson is the cutting edge of whatever “post-post-post…Modern” stage we’re at currently. The Dirties is about media’s role in the lives of a youth more connected but also alienated than ever before. Operation Avalanche takes the uniquely western art form of film and uses it to represent how governments often use media to manufacture their own fictions to control the public narrative. Nirvanna the Band the Show shows how media influences our everyday lives, friendships, personalities, and dreams. And now BlackBerry serves as a cautionary tale for the fate an artist can fall to if they let their work become a product instead of a passion and art. As we drift further into the oblivion of inevitable ecological, political, social collapse, media becoming the God of our reality, Matt Johnson is our guru, beaming our media-soaked psyche back on to the screen, creating innovative, funny, compelling stories of life through the lens of a movie-fed world.

#Matt Johnson #blackberry movie #nirvanna the band the show #glenn howerton #jay baruchel

[pynkhues]

Top 5 spooky media?

Oh man, too many to count, haha, so how about my top five spooky movies I've watched this year so far?

Black Christmas (1974). I can't believe I'd never seen this Canadian horror movie about a group of sorority girls getting terrorised by phone calls over the Christmas break. It's genuinely really good, full of some delightful red herrings and some genuine scares. I jumped! A few times! That doesn't often happen these days, haha.

Sissy (2022). This one was such a delightful surprise to me! I'd been keen to see it as a big fan of Aisha Dee and also just generally tending to enjoy lowbudget Australian horror, but it was so much more than that. It really skewers wellness culture and social media, using both to explore the way damaged women can use both to perpetuate violence. It's flawed, but also a bit magic? I loved it. Let more women be evil!

Helter Skelter (2012). One of my favourite films of all time is Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue, and in so many ways, Helter Skelter feels like its in conversation with it. A Japanese horror about a pop star losing control of her mind and body, but where Perfect Blue leans into questions of identity and fan entitlement, Helter Skelter feels much more about ambition, class and how you stay on top. Infinitely fucked up, but a lot of fun.

Carnival of Souls (1962). This was actually a re-watch, but given it's been a decade since I last saw it, it was pretty delightful to get to re-experience it. A forgotten classic that seems to be recently re-remembered, this movie about a woman who survives a car accident that kills all of her friends only to be chased by death is a perfect gothic ghost story. It's so visually innovative too, every shot sublime, I can never recommend it highly enough.

Lamb (2021). More gothic fairytale than horror, I really, really enjoyed this Icelandic film. The concept of a couple of farmers grieving the loss of their child only to find one of their sheep giving birth to a half-human, half-sheep child is strange, but also ends up really affecting and emotionally rich. It's a movie I've thought a lot about, especially as it really inspires a lot of thought about the treatment (and often kidnapping) of biracial children under imperialism . I am Team Mother Sheep.

Ask me for my Top Fives

#thank you! #film asks #top five ask game #black christmas #sissy 2022 #helter skelter #carnival of souls #lamb 2021 #welcome to my ama

[directedbywomen]

Celebrating Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers! “I consistently find myself doing work that is rooted in social justice.”

Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy (2021)

"...this is necessary viewing." Read more in Planet S's review.

The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019) directed with Kathleen Hepburn

'“The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open” stands out in a field of generic, cookie-cutter dramas, not simply in terms of representation — though the female-made, indigenous-focused thriller offers a field day for intersectionality theorists — but also in the unconventional way the story unfolds. Filmed in what looks like a single real-time tracking shot (not counting a 12-minute intro to establish the characters), this resourceful Canadian micro-indie establishes an immediate, urgent language all its own to confront the problem of domestic abuse, making the issue personal for both the characters and their audience.' Read more in Variety's review.

c'sna?m: The city before the city (2017) " c̓əsnaʔəm is a Musqueam village that dates back over 9000 years. c̓əsnaʔəm, the city before the city is a documentary about the fight that Musqueam put forward to regain control of their lands from a 108 unit condo development, in order to protect their lands and burial site." Learn more on CiTR 101.9 FM's review.

A Red Girl's Reasoning (2012)

"A RED GIRL’S REASONING is a no-holds-barred, neo-noir thriller featuring a formidable female vigilante who seeks revenge." On Demand on Cinema Politica. Explore Tailfeathers's work on her website.

#Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers #directed by women

[beautifulpersonpeach]

This is an opinion piece. Many will not agree with me, so I have laid out some facts. Scooter’s wife divorces him and his biggest clients leave him by the end of 2022. As if the pandemic wasn’t hard enough, hey Scooter? Karma?

2017

-On May 21, 2017, BTS won the Billboard award for Top Social Artist, beating out Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande, and Shawn Mendes. Beiber and Grande at that time were both signed to Scooter Braun’s agency. Everyone took notice.

Except Justin that is, lol.

2018

-Here he is in August 26, 2018 answering fans questions about Jungkook and BTS. He had listened to one song - FIRE.

https://youtu.be/aDHRFWrM08g?si=_0ql84of_Z6R1lVw

2020

-Jan 14, 2020 Justin announces he has been diagnosed with Lyme Disease

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/justin-bieber-lyme-disease

-July 23, 2020 Justin announces tour dates - previously delayed because of Covid pandemic

https://www.cp24.com/entertainment-news/justin-bieber-announces-2021-dates-for-rescheduled-tour-1.5036378b

2021

-April 13, 2021 The Redemption of Justin Bieber. Justin has struggled. With addiction, depression, anxiety and the law. He has been isolated from his peers and elevated to celebrity superstar status before reaching adulthood. In the western world that’s a recipe for disaster. Whether you like his music or not, there’s no denying Justin Bieber has talent. The numbers speak for themselves.

https://www.gq.com/story/justin-bieber-cover-profile-may-2021

-May 6, 2021 covid pandemic causes Justin to cancel tours until 2022

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2021/05/06/justin-bieber-postpones-canadian-summer-tour-dates-until-2022/

-April 2, 2021 Scooter sells Ithaca Holdings to Hybe.

https://www.reuters.com/article/hybe-ma-ithaca-idUSL4N2LV13C

(Interesting that 11 days later that month the redemption of Justin Bieber article in GQ is published)

-And a month later, June 25, 2021, Scooter flies to South Korea to meet his new company, the vast potential of new, polite, trainees, various established groups under the Hybe umbrella and world superstars, the BTS members. I have to sigh here, the author of this article can’t even be bothered to include each member’s name. Just a general Scooter says “they’re great”. Because he couldn’t care less? He had his wonder boy Justin, and potentially a whole new generation of talented people to work with should the need arise in the future. I believe the members of BTS individually or as a group weren’t his priority at the time. I remember that period when fans were asking if a collaboration with Justin Bieber would be possible in the future. BTS handled these questions very delicately.

https://www.koreaboo.com/news/scooter-braun-experience-meeting-bts/

And during the epidemic, all is quiet except for the BTS members who work continuously through this period, appearing virtually on several shows aimed at the western audience.

2022

-March 13, 2022 Hybe’s gross profit from of PTD concert one night show in theaters is a Blockbuster Hit! $32.6 million in revenue earned from 3711 cinemas.

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/bts-permission-to-dance-on-stage-seoul-llive-viewing-gross-1235203444/

-June 8, 2022 Justin postpones North American tour dates (Look at the scheduled list of dates)

https://www.sportskeeda.com/pop-culture/why-justin-bieber-postponing-north-american-tour-dates-singer-says-sickness-getting-worse

-September 4, 2022 BTS’s PTD tour reportedly earns $ 230.7 million in concert revenue

-September 15, 2022 Scooter to pay $20 million in divorce settlement but gets to keep private jet

https://people.com/music/scooter-braun-ordered-pay-ex-wife-20-million-divorce-settlement-keeps-private-jet/

2023

-January 24, 2023 Justin sells his music catelog

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/24/media/justin-bieber-music-catalog-sale/index.html

-January 25, 2023 Scooter becomes sole CEO of Hybe America

https://variety.com/2023/music/news/scooter-braun-hybe-ceo-bts-1235500913/

- February 9, 2023 Scooter buys Quality control music

https://www.thefader.com/2023/02/09/scooter-braun-quality-control-music-hybe-deal

-February 10, 2023 Hybe buys 14.8% stock in SM entertainment

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/09/media/south-korea-hybe-sm-entertainment-deal-intl-hnk/index.html

-Feb 23, 2023 Justin cancels remaining tour dates

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2023/02/28/justin-bieber-cancels-justice-world-tour/11368719002/

-March 5, 2023 Hybe to raise up to $769 million to purchase shares in SM Entertainment

https://www.kedglobal.com/mergers-acquisitions/newsView/ked202303050002

-March 24, 2023 Hybe sells shares in SM Entertainment

https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/hybe-sm-entertainment-k-pop-1235563480/

-March 26, 2023 Records are broken worldwide with Jimin’s album release FACE on March 24, 2023

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbenjamin/2023/03/26/bts-jimin-sells-over-1-million-copies-of-face-solo-album-worldwide-for-record-breaking-24-hours-in-korea/

-August 23, 2023 ABANDON SHIP!! Is everyone leaving Scooter?

https://www.koco.com/article/scooter-brauns-artist-roster-what-we-know/44894780

Everything I have ever read about Scooter, I don’t respect him enough to write his proper name, is that he puts himself first. Previous clients do not speak highly of his management. Taylor Swift for example.

Interesting fact, Taylor Swift, Halsey (Boy with Luv collaboration with BTS) and Camilla Cabello (Shawn Mendes is her ex) gave a great performance of “Shake it off” at the American Music Awards in Nov 2019.

Perhaps when Justin’s health issues became too grave to hide from the public or Justin himself refused to be held to his contract, (and perhaps Justin sold his catalog to cover his costs/penalties of canceling his tour) Scooter had an empty sandbox with no one to play with.

And, having lost his main source of income and having a keen head for business, (vulture capitalist) he had already set his sights on a new revenue stream. Of the seven BTS members, one in particular had released songs by Justin Bieber, proving he had what it took to be successful in the western market.

Jungkook has been a Bieber fan since he debuted with BTS. He ticks all the boxes needed for the western market, doesn’t he? Masculine build, tattoos, piercings, outstanding vocal ability and dance skills/technique and is a member of the greatest musical group in history?

No wonder Scooter went to the White House with BTS. Had to be sure to be there at the Grammys too. Front and center as though he was responsible for their success.

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/hybe-is-raising-380m-to-fund-more-music-acquisitions-in-the-us-report/

Confusing isn’t it?

1) Hybe buys Ithaca holdings April 2021

-$ 1 billion + reportedly

2) Justin Bieber Tour is canceled several times, and he pulls out of remaining tour dates February 2023

- $ unknown

3) Scooter buys Quality Control music one month after being named CEO of Hybe America February 2023

-$ 300 million

4) Hybe buys 14.8 % stock in SM entertainment February 2023

-$ 334.5 million

5) Hybe sells stock in SM entertainment for

+ $ 191.8 million March 2023

Well thank goodness for BTS. In 2022, their PTD tour earned:

+ $ 230.7 million concert revenue for PTD Tour

+ $ 32.6 million from PTD theater showing, limited engagement, in 3711 cinemas

Someone had to keep the lights on in that new building and families of the employees fed.

Which brings us back to Jeon Jungkook, Bieber admirer, a man who most definitely fits the “western audience appeal”, possessing talent beyond what we in the west have seen in many years.

And then there’s his equally talented, gifted dancer “Bro” Jimin who broke all the records right before him but does not bow down to those who whisper behind his back, lol.

And by coincidence, their music videos, promotional materials for their solo albums and many of their conversations seem to hinting at something 😉

Oh Scooter, it isn’t fun when someone beats you at your own game, is it?

When in doubt as to what is going on in an organization, follow the $$$.

I firmly believe the budget allowed for BTS’s chapter 2 “solo period” was capped due HYBE’s financial acquisitions at the same time.

In my opinion.

***

Now, @westcoastgal1,

I commend the effort you've put into this ask and I can tell you're trying to build a case for your theory(-ies), but I'm not sure what exactly that theory is.

Is it that "I firmly believe the budget allowed for BTS’s chapter 2 “solo period” was capped due HYBE’s financial acquisitions at the same time." ?

Is it that Scooter is broke and HYBE shifted financial resources from BTS to support him and their SM acquisition? Didn't HYBE tap capital markets precisely to raise proceeds for that purpose though? Or is it that Scooter is looking for a windfall in BTS now that his old roster of artists have abandoned ship?

But then, what is the implication here?

"And then there’s his equally talented, gifted dancer “Bro” Jimin who broke all the records right before him but does not bow down to those who whisper behind his back, lol.

And by coincidence, their music videos, promotional materials for their solo albums and many of their conversations seem to hinting at something 😉"

Is it that Jimin wasn't willing to play Scooter's balls like JK did apparently? But he had no issues accepting the Fast & Furious gig? And if so, what's the takeaway here? How does this tie in to the similarities in their concept pics styling, etc, so far?

You've already put quite some effort into building out this timeline so I hate to ask you to do more work, but I'm afraid the dots aren't quite connecting for me just yet. If you'd like to send me a follow up ask succinctly explaining what you mean, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, all I can say is this looks like a variation of the same fan theories I've seen people come up with to explain Jimin's solo rollout relative to Jungkook's. The fact there's so much discourse around it indicates something else to me, but I'll let the dead horse be.

#bpp misc posts

[new-sandrafilter]

Technikart Magazine interview translation with Timothee Chalamet and Taylor Russell for 'Bones and All' (x)

At 26, Timothée Chalamet is on top of the world. He is shooting in the most exciting films of the moment, he is making the social networks go wild and redefining the codes of masculinity. In the midst of promoting the poisonous and sublime Bones and All, which won two awards in Venice, we met him in London, along with the revelation of the film, Taylor Russell.

Warner's publicist and agents had warned us, Timothée Chalamet is incredibly cool, an ultra-talented, simple and modest young man. A star! While the shooting of the sequel to Dune is taking place between Budapest, Abu Dhabi, Jordan and Italy, Timothée is in London for a promo day for Bones and all, where it is about crazy love and... cannibals, a black diamond signed by Luca Guadagnino, that Timothée produced.

In Luca Guadagnino's new film, Timothée Chalamet plays an "Eater", a cannibal who devours his victims completely, "bones and all"... For his role, he has created a rebel redneck look, with an improbable mullet haircut, dyed hair and ripped jeans. With the revelation Taylor Russell, he crosses the desert landscapes of the heart of rural America, in search of prey and especially love.

In London, the interview takes place in the company of the Canadian Taylor Russell, discovered in the series Falling Skies, then in the nanar Escape Game. When he sees me with my Marvin Gaye T-shirt, Timothy lets out a thunderous "Oh man, what a cool T-shirt!" and starts singing at the top of his lungs "What's going ooooon...". Here we go!

"I MADE MY CHARACTER WEAKER, VULNERABLE, LESS CONFIDENT, MUCH LESS ALPHA MALE." - TIMOTHÉE

More than a cannibal movie, can we think of Bones and all as a crazy love story?

Timothée : It seems obvious to me that the two main characters live from day to day, they break the law, they are wildly in love, they have no money: so yes, it looks like crazy love. It's even beyond crazy, passionate love; they are safe with each other, they trust each other completely, they support each other, they are real, it's pure love, very mature.

How does your generation look at crazy love, love without judgment? And do you think there is a demand among young viewers for this kind of stories?

Taylor: This generation is really smart and they want sincere, authentic, original work.

Is it hard to play the crazy love?

Taylor: Timmy knows Luca well from Call Me By Your Name, as well as the producers. They are like family, and I was the newcomer. Timmy made me feel comfortable right away, like I was part of this great family. It's very important on a shoot to feel accepted, loved. Timmy was a rock for me. He is a generous actor, but he is also and above all a generous person, with a very big heart. Qualities that you don't find all the time, I think...

The film takes place in the 1980s, in a world without Internet, but it speaks of today's youth, isolated, abused, abandoned or mistreated by adults, of youth in search of care, kindness and love.

Timothée: I hadn't thought of that, but it's interesting. I'll speak for myself. The Covid epidemic has hit our generation hard, it has isolated it socially. But there's also global warming, global conflicts, inflation, nutrition problems... I feel like young people are watching this old world die. They are isolated. As you said, Bones and all captures the essence of all of this, even though it is strangely a cannibal film. I really agree with you, there is something absolutely contemporary in this quest of the two characters in the 1980s, in this urgency to live despite everything.

How was the shooting?

Taylor: We shot in Ohio, Kentucky, Nebraska... We shot for 48 days, in April 2021.

Do you like horror movies?

Timothée: To be perfectly honest, ....

The interview can be read here (it's in French)

#timmy #timothee chalamet #taylor russell #bones and all

[fans4wga]

"Are Influencers On Strike Too?" from the New York Times

By Madison Malone Kircher

"Hollywood’s actors are on strike. Many social media influencers have joined them. So what happens now?

SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, has allowed select content creators to join since 2021 under its influencer program. And many influencers work directly with movie studios and other Hollywood entities, who pay them to promote shows and movies, whether it’s on TikTok, YouTube or the red carpet.

Well, not anymore.

This week, SAG-AFTRA announced specific guidelines for influencers during the strike. The rules are broad. Influencers are advised to “not accept any new work for promotion of struck companies or their content.” That means no TikToks about Barbenheimer or red carpet walks for “Meg 2: The Trench.”

And SAG doesn’t care if influencers are being paid for those posts or not. Any posts about struck work are considered to be crossing the picket line. An influencer who films a “Get Ready With Me” video by putting on a pink dress and heading out to the theater to see “Barbie” could be in violation — and anyone deemed to have crossed the picket line will be barred from joining SAG in the future.

A number of creators I talked to this week see joining the union as a goal, one they don’t want to jeopardize.

Creators are divided. Some have gone full Norma Rae, vocally turning down lucrative deals and encouraging their viewers to support the strike. Others have no interest in joining SAG and will probably be continuing business as usual, or they are dubious that the consequences will ever arrive.

“I just think that’s an empty threat,” Jessy Grossman, founder of the networking group Women in Influencer Marketing, told me. “Enforcement of that is going to be impossible.”

Erin Orsi, a self-described “tiny content creator,” went a little bit viral on TikTok after announcing she had turned down a potential $5,000 sponsored partnership from a company working with a major superhero franchise. For Orsi, who has just under 20,000 followers, that’s a lot more money than she usually gets paid to post. Still, she took a pass.

“I’m trying to push this to be my full-time thing,” Orsi said. “I don’t know what the future holds. I would not want to close the door on an opportunity like joining the guild.”

Darcy Michael, one half of the comedy duo Darcy and Jer, told me a network offered him a $25,000 sponsored deal in the days leading up to the strike. He was initially interested, particularly given that the rate was higher than usual for such work, but he ultimately declined to pursue it further after realizing the impending strike was probably what was driving up the rate. (Michael lives in Vancouver and is in ACTRA, the Canadian equivalent of SAG-AFTRA.)

“I told my team, I was like, ‘in no uncertain terms until the strike is over. We’re not crossing picket lines,’” Michael said.

“I also just feel like this strike in particular is monumental for all industries,” he added. “I think we’re leading the pack in making sure that workers are protected, especially from A.I. intervention. If it means that we’re going to pinch our pennies for a few months, we’re going to pinch our pennies.”

Influencers who indicated in videos that they planned to ignore the guidelines have found the online reaction to be swift and sharp. At least two entertainment creators, including @collinnurrmom and @straw_hat_goofy, have already deleted such videos. The latter now has a “SAG-AFTRA Strong” image as his TikTok profile picture.

“I spoke way too soon on my page and upset a lot of people,” Collin Everett, a.k.a. @collinnurrmom, wrote in an email when I asked about the now-deleted videos. “I do not believe that I am scabbing,” he added.

Some small creators are just plain confused. Rosa Romero runs a TikTok page of memes about TV shows including “The Bear” and “Succession.” “It’s really hard for me to categorize myself as an influencer in this sphere,” Romero said. “It’s really just my personal page that accidentally ended up having 11,000 followers.”

Romero sent SAG-AFTRA an email asking whether it was still OK to post about movies produced before the strike went into effect (specifically, “Barbie”). Still, Romero worries that doing so might generate backlash online. “Any questions or clarification is treated like someone’s trying to cross the picket line,” Romero said. “It’s just unfortunate.”

John Monterubio, a senior counsel at Loeb & Loeb LLP who advises influencers and advertisers, said the firm had fielded questions from influencers and brands about how the strike would affect them.

People who are not in the union and don’t have their hearts set on joining have a decision to make, Monterubio said. “They’re not legally bound one way or another,” he said, “but they have to think about how their decision will impact them in the future.”

Influencers are not the only ones confused, he added: "The different agreements are quite complicated, even for attorneys to figure out.'"

#sag-aftra strike #sag strike #influencers #union solidarity #wga strike #writers strike

[dweemeister]

Best Animated Short Film Nominees for the 96th Academy Awards (2024, listed in order of appearance in the shorts package)

This blog, since 2013, has been the site of my write-ups to the Oscar-nominated short film packages – a personal tradition for myself and for this blog. This omnibus write-up goes with my thanks to the Regency South Coast Village in Santa Ana, California for providing all three Oscar-nominated short film packages.

If you are an American or Canadian resident interested in supporting the short film filmmakers in theaters (and you should, as very few of those who work in short films are as affluent as your big-name directors and actors), check your local participating theaters here.

Without further ado, here are the nominees for the Best Animated Short Film at this year’s Academy Awards. The write-ups for the Documentary Short and Live Action Short nominees are complete. Films predominantly in a language other than English are listed with their nation(s) of origin.

Yet again, this completes this year’s omnibus write-ups for the Oscar-nominated short films for the upcoming Academy Awards:

Our Uniform (2023, Iran)

Director Yegane Moghaddam used to be a primary school teacher in Iran and often “observed the students… struggling with their uniforms and headscarves all day.” These observations informed her film and narration in Our Uniform, which won Best First Film at Annecy (the largest animation-only film festival, in the French Alpine resort town of the same name) in 2023. Only the fourth ever non-Western/European and non-Japanese nominee in this 92-year-old category – following 2014’s Bear Story (Chile; that year's winner), 2020’s Opera (South Korea) and 2021’s Bestia (Chile) – Our Uniform adopts a unique style never before seen in this category. Instead of traditional cel animation with ink and paper or computers, Moghaddam nearly single-handedly painted images directly on clothing fabrics (pants, jackets, shirts, scarves – all from her personal wardrobe) to illustrate the memories her narration shares. These memories, of attending public school in Iran, invariably intersect with Iran’s theocratic politics. There are references, never pedantic, about government propaganda as part of the school curriculum, and the segregation between boys’ and girls’ education. Most vividly, Moghaddam remarks on the restricting school uniform and compulsory hijabs for girls at school, issues which enflamed protests against such laws beginning in 2017 (and spiking after the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022).

Moghaddam, who cites graphic novelist/director Marjane Satrapi (2007’s Persepolis, 2011’s Chicken with Plums; the former I consider among the finest animated films of this young century) as her primary artistic inspiration, curiously does not contain as much messaging in her film as one might expect. As an Iranian citizen who currently has no plans to officially distribute the film within her home nation due to fear of retribution, how could she? But the film’s slightness cannot distract from its painstaking, loving artistry. Without relying on inventive camerawork, Moghaddam uses the natural pockets and folds of her clothes to suggest dimension and personality. To Moghaddam, all clothing has a personality and personal history to the wearer, even compulsory clothing, all of which she uses to wonderful effect. What originally began as a fun side project that Moghaddam had no expectations for gifts audiences a truly original viewing experience.

My rating: 7.5/10

Letter to a Pig (2022, Israel/France)

Qualifying for the Academy Awards after winning the Grand Prize for Best International Short Film at Anima, the Brussels Animation Film Festival, in early 2023, Nal Kantor’s Letter to a Pig sees a Holocaust survivor retelling a story of survival to a group of largely disinterested and scornful teenagers. As the elderly man recounts how he wrote a letter to a pig that inadvertently saved his life, a handful of students start insensitively snorting. Quietly, Letter to a Pig adopts the standpoint of one of the girls in class, half-listening at first. Here, Kantor seamlessly switches between the man’s memories and the reality of the classroom, through heavy rotoscoping to outline her figures, mixing it with live-action footage for the limbs or eyes, but only using a few ink scribbles to outline facial features and hair. Generally, the more movement either the schoolgirl or Holocaust survivor show, the more scribbles and live-action footage that appear. For all other figures, they remain mostly abstract.

As a young man, the Holocaust survivor recalls how filled with rage he was, long after his near-death encounter. Now, physically unable to exact retribution on those who harmed him, he tells the students “you are my revenge” – passing along his trauma to those not realizing what they have just received. The schoolgirl’s vision in the surrealistic final minutes is her absorption of the Holocaust survivor’s story. This masterfully drawn finale is the emotional apex of Letter to a Pig, fully justifying its black-and-white palette (with one exception: pink for the pigs, considered an impure animal in Judaism) in service for its profound sense of dread. Symbolizing memory, the pig appears throughout the film as a savior, a monster, or something worthy of mockery, depending on who is on screen. It is in these final moments Letter to a Pig leaves the audience with pressing questions. Can one impart painful memories without the trauma that gives such memories form? Most urgently, can we choose not to act on the trauma we inherit? May it be possible not only in dreams.

My rating: 8.5/10

Pachyderme (2022, France)

Stéphanie Clement’s Pachyderme, like Letter to a Pig, is an unsettling short film that delves deeply into the mind of a troubled character. In this film, a young woman named Louise (Christa Théret) recalls her days visiting her grandparents in Provence (southeastern France) during her childhood. The sun-bathed rural landscape is picturesque, the grandparents’ house gorgeously stylized. Beyond this, some of Louise’s recollections feel incomplete, with no apparent structure or chronology. That might read as a criticism, but Clement and screenwriter Marc Rius fully intend for Pachyderme to seem fragmented. The film strongly implies – and some viewers will pick this up earlier or later than others – that the grandfather sexually abused Louise. In reaction, Louise, while recounting her memories for the audience, has repressed her memories and is showing signs, in her narration and in her visual recollections, of disassociation. I do not recall ever seeing disassociation, a common symptom of those who have been sexually abused, portrayed as cinematically as seen in Pachyderme. It is best exemplified, metaphorically, in the scene where our protagonist disappears into the wallpaper (this scene was originally the first bit of test footage made for the film).

But perhaps there is no better visualization of all Pachyderme has to say than the moment where Louise’s grandfather notices her index finger bleeding. He grasps her hand, and his hands dwarf hers. The simultaneity of Pachyderme’s picture book visuals and its horrifying implications show the viewer a woman who has not fully processed what has happened to her. It is not helped by the defensiveness of Louise’s grandmother following the grandfather’s death. Family denial, too, is playing a role in how Louise is choosing, consciously and subconsciously, to remember the past. In its eleven minutes, Pachyderme passes in a dreamlike haze, its illusory moments enabling the viewer to more closely connect to Louise’s (both the young adult narrating the film and the child on-screen) feelings. Unlike many nominees in Best Live Action Short Film down the years that addressed childhood trauma (it's a long-running trend for that category), Pachyderme prioritizes healing in as cinematic a way as possible.

My rating: 8.5/10

Ninety-Five Senses (2023)

If the names Jared and Jerusha Hess are familiar, that is because this husband-and-wife directorial team also made Napoleon Dynamite (2004) and Nacho Libre (2006). Some of those same comedic sensibilities carry over to Ninety-Five Senses, which qualified for the Academy Awards by winning Best Animated Short at the Florida Film Festival in 2023. The film features an old man named Coy (Tim Blake Nelson, a Coen Brothers regular whose voice fits the narrative here) reflecting back on life – a reverie that jumps, hops, and skips across time and place. At first, Ninety-Five Senses, with its wildly shifting style changes, does not seem to have much of a point or purpose. But the film gradually reveals itself: first through the subtle shading of what appear to be prison bars and, later, the mountain of discarded food cartons sitting on the table in front of Coy. We soon realize that Coy is in the final hours or minutes of being on death row, and he is describing to the audience his internal peace before he meets his fate.

Ninety-Five Senses is not here to make a point about capital punishment, incarceration, or the terrible actions that landed Coy in prison. Foremost, this is a film that attempts to capture the last gasp of humanity of an individual before their execution. In contrast with the drab grays whenever Coy is seen in his cell, his flashbacks are intense – a fount of color, with both crude and elegant character designs, hand-drawn and computer-generated (sometimes appearing side-by-side). Not every vignette – of which there are five, one for each human sense – showcases as much aesthetic excellence as the others, such as an early instance where Coy recounts his childhood. That vignette does not evoke the respective human sense it covers as well as it thinks it does; the art style of that vignette also recalls hand-drawn television animation, but flows too smoothly to exactly replicate it. In any case, this is a promising first foray into animated film for the Hesses.

My rating: 8/10

War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko (2022)

War Is Over! (you cannot make me write or say the full title ever again) has the basics of a promising animated short film. Yet its simplistic take on humanity and warfare and close association with John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” condemns the film as pure hogwash. On second thought, I retract “hogwash”. That is an insult to Letter to a Pig and to porcine animals. This is self-congratulatory treacle from director Dave Mullins and co-writer Sean Ono Lennon (the son of John and Yoko). In a supposedly alternate World War I reality, a pigeon delivers messages between an Allied and a Central Power soldier on opposite sides of No Man’s Land. The messages contain chess notation, as they, somehow, began a game of chess with each other without ever meeting. One day, at presumably Christmas, the two armies inexplicably charge toward each other and, amid gunfire and a mass mêlée that should leave many more soldiers dead than shown, our two soldiers encounter each other on the battlefield in combat shorn of its gruesomeness.

Despite the film using the Unreal Engine for its animation, I admire the film’s lighting effects, character movements, pigeon animation, sound effects, and art direction for the otherwise sanitized trenches. That may be all the positives I can offer.

The contrived scenario sinks even further when our two chess-playing soldiers discover a critical message from their pigeon messenger. Cue the second-most embarrassing needle drop among this year’s fifteen short film nominees (somehow, the closing moments of The After are worse than this). Unlike The After, War Is Over! feels as if constructed around its respective song. Is this now a glorified music video? In an instant, the film reduces the tragedy of the Great War to something akin to a soft drink commercial or that “Imagine” video (could we stop disrespecting John Lennon and his fellow Beatles?). The sanitized depiction of war and farfetched resolving actions undercut the film’s message, embarrassing itself as it lurches through its excruciating final minutes. That the first credit in the end credits read “music and message by John and Yoko” rather than director Dave Mullins leaves an even more sour taste. At the heart of War Is Over!, Mullins and Sean Ono Lennon want us to know that war is bad. I never could have guessed!

My rating: 4/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog. Half-points are always rounded down.

From previous years:  85th Academy Awards (2013) 87th (2015) 88th (2016) 89th (2017) 90th (2018) 91st (2019) 92nd (2020) 93rd (2021) 94th (2022) 95th (2023)

Two other films played in this package as honorable mentions: Wild Summon (2023, dir. Karni Arieli and Saul Freed; 6/10) and I'm Hip (2023, dir. John Musker; 6/10).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

#Our Uniform #Letter to a Pig #מכתב לחזיר #Pachyderme #Ninety Five Senses #Ninety-Five Senses #War Is Over! #War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko #Yegane Moghaddam #Tal Kantor #Stéphanie Clément #Jared Hess #Jerusha Hess #Dave Mullins #Sean Ono Lennon #Tim Blake Nelson #96th Academy Awards #Oscars #31 Days of Oscar #My Movie Odyssey

[kevinsreviewcatalogue]

Review Double Feature: Dune (2021) and Dune: Part Two (2024)

 Dune (2021) and Dune: Part Two (2024)

Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, some disturbing images and suggestive material (Part One)

Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, some suggestive material and brief strong language (Part Two)

<Originally posted at https://kevinsreviewcatalogue.blogspot.com/2024/03/review-double-feature-dune-2021-and.html>

Score: 4 out of 5

Yep, we're doing the Kill Bill thing again and grading two movies together as one singular whole. And that's because, much like Kill Bill, this is no ordinary pair of movies. Rather, they're a two-part adaptation of the absolute monster of a novel that is Frank Herbert's Dune. A landmark of science fiction, it is no pulpy airport paperback, clocking in at 896 pages and covering everything from the ecology of a desert world to the use of religion as a tool of control to the fall of empires to the nature of power to a deconstruction of "chosen one" mythologies and everything in between. It's a novel that typically comes up on shortlists of the greatest science fiction novels of all time, one that's been compared to J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy in fantasy in the canon of modern speculative fiction. (Ironically, Tolkien disliked Dune, though he didn't really say why in the interest of remaining diplomatic.)

It's not a book you take lightly, is what I'm saying.

What's more, the very things that have made it so tempting to adapt to the screen are the same things that have long given it a reputation as "unfilmable". Attempts to make a movie out of it have bedeviled nearly every filmmaker who's tried, including some of the greatest of the modern age. David Lean was offered the film, but turned it down. Alejandro Jodorowsky tried to adapt it in the '70s and failed. David Lynch actually managed to get his movie made back in 1984, producing a film that's widely remembered, not least of all by Lynch himself, as a psychedelic mess. The Sci Fi Channel produced a miniseries in 2000 that faithfully adapted the text of the book and, despite a very large budget for a TV show at the time and a huge marketing push, proved to be just as divisive among sci-fi fans. Its influence wound up coming less through its own adaptations and more from other authors and filmmakers inspired by it to make their own, less categorically weird stories, including a number of films that emerged directly from the ashes of Jodorowsky's abortive production. (You might've heard of a few of them, like Alien, The Fifth Element, Warhammer 40,000, and even Star Wars.)

So when Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve decided that he wanted to adapt Dune, many critics, film journalists, and fans predicted it would be his Waterloo. Sure, he's a modern wunderkind who's never made a bad movie, up there with Christopher Nolan as a darling of today's film buffs (and, in my opinion, one who has a better track record). Sure, he'd already done the impossible by making a sequel to Blade Runner, one of the greatest science fiction films of all time, that was just as good as the original. But if Jodorowsky and Lynch couldn't do it, then how in the world was Villeneuve, somebody whose background was chiefly in gritty, spectacle-light thrillers like Prisoners and Sicario, going to pull off adapting a novel as famously trippy as Dune?

What Villeneuve did was largely stick to the text of Herbert's novel as the miniseries did, cut a lot of the backstory and many of the psychedelic elements, and instead focus heavily on both the ecological themes of the story and the events of its present, especially its political subtext and its commentary on "chosen one" narratives. What emerges is a film duology that feels like a dark retelling of Star Wars (or at least A New Hope) in which the story of Luke Skywalker, instead of a tale of a straightforward hero saving the day, is instead a tale of the rise of the Antichrist -- and, incidentally, a far better take on the idea of "what if the chosen one turned out to be the bad guy?" than the Star Wars prequel trilogy. It's not a perfect adaptation, and honestly, I'm still not sure if a "perfect" adaptation of a novel like Dune is even possible outside of a miniseries. (Jodorowsky's version would've been ten to fourteen hours long.) But whether I was watching it at home on a big-screen TV (as I did with Part One to get caught up) or in a packed movie theater (as I did with Part Two), I got a gorgeous, compelling, slow-burn sci-fi epic filled with a rich cast of complicated characters that sets up even bigger things to come but still ends in just the right way, without a doubt the best adaptation of Herbert's novel so far and one that I expect to endure in the canon of science fiction classics just like the novel.

Our story starts over eight thousand years into the future, with humanity ruled by the Imperium, an empire in classic medieval fashion where power is divided between the Emperor and the various Great Houses of the nobility. Arrakis, a harsh desert planet that is strategically vital for its supply of spice, a drug that is necessary for faster-than-light travel to be possible, has just been transferred by the Emperor from the control of House Harkonnen, which ruled it for decades, to House Atreides. The Atreides patriarch Duke Leto knows that this is a power play by the Emperor to thwart the growing power of his family, as control of Arrakis paints a giant target on their backs for other families to go after, not least of all a bitter House Harkonnen, but he also knows that he can't openly defy the Emperor's wishes and turn down this white elephant of a gift. Sure enough, exactly what he feared comes to pass. However, when House Harkonnen took back the planet, they didn't count on one man: Paul Atreides, Leto's teenage son, who survives the initial attack with his mother Lady Jessica and runs off into the desert to live with the Fremen, the tribal native people of Arrakis who have always resented the power of outsiders over their world, and plots revenge. Unbeknownst to Paul, however, a secretive religious order called the Bene Gesserit, one that includes his mother, has plans for him, and has set in motion events that will lead to his rise as a mythical savior of humankind called the Kwisatz Haderach... but unbeknownst to the Bene Gesserit, Paul, who's been having visions of himself causing a galaxy-scale spree of death and destruction, has his own ideas as to what kind of man and leader he's going to be.

The first film opens with Chani giving a vivid description of the beauty of the desert ecosystem of Arrakis, and it's clear that the environmental themes of the story were where a lot of Villeneuve's attention lay. He keeps the exposition indirect in order to fit as much of the book into five-plus hours as he can, instead preferring to show us how the world functions: a mouse-like alien creature wiping the sweat off its ear and drinking it again, the fact that nearly all of Arrakis' human development is either underground or otherwise shielded from the brutal sun, the human population being consequently nocturnal, the status of mountains and large rocks as islands of safety amidst the sea of dunes and its terrifying sandworms, fresh water being a resource as precious as gold. This short of "show, don't tell" exposition extends throughout the story. We don't need to be told that the proliferation of personal protective force fields that only slow-moving objects can get through has made guns obsolete in industrial warfare and led to a revival of melee infantry weapons like swords, pikes, and daggers, nor do we need to be told that, against the Fremen who don't have those fancy shields, guns are still very useful. We can figure that much out just by watching how these devices function and figuring out the implications, and then doing the same with all the other neat stuff about the worldbuilding. In the book, Herbert explained the setting's retrofuturism and lack of computer technology with a lengthy backstory about a war between humans and AI called the Butlerian Jihad in which humanity's victory was followed by a thorough backlash against "thinking machines". None of that makes it into the movies, but it didn't really need to, not when the films do an expert job of crafting a society that thinks it's too good for computers, and not when it's resting on the visual shorthand of countless past space opera flicks like Star Wars. A rare case where the fact that the source material has inspired countless great movies actually works in the favor of its own adaptation, letting it spend less time on the parts of the worldbuilding that we've all seen before and instead focusing on the parts that stand out from the pack.

And the part here that stands out is a big one. Over a decade before George Lucas played a "chosen one" sci-fi story pretty much straight (and over three decades before he made the prequels as a deconstruction of such), Herbert wrote a story that portrayed prophecies, Great Man narratives, and organized religion as tools that could be easily exploited by a tyrant. Paul Atreides may have meant well, hoping to liberate the Fremen from tyranny, but by inserting himself into their struggle (with help from shadowy figures who had their own agenda in paving the way for his reign), he built something terrible, and the psychic visions he has throughout the story make it clear that his accomplishments will end in tragedy. Timothée Chalamet plays Paul initially as a rich kid struggling with the pressure placed on his shoulders, one who takes to Arrakis astoundingly well to the point that, when he's forced to leave his safe and secure life at the palace, he winds up comfortably integrating right into the Fremen's society. Throughout the films, we get hints of darkness within him, especially in Part Two once he starts delivering bombastic speeches to enraptured crowds that at some point start to sound uncomfortably like the speeches that the villains normally give in these sorts of movies. Even more than the psychic visions he has of the death and destruction to come, it was in these moments when I was both captivated by Paul's power and, more importantly, scared of the kind of leader he was growing into: a harsh, unforgiving warlord who's willing to resort to extreme measures to secure the independence of the Fremen. He's an easy guy to root for, but there's always a pit in your stomach as he slowly but surely pushes the boundaries right up to the breaking point. It's here where Chani, her role considerably expanded from the books, emerges as the film's voice of reason, serving as Paul's lover but also somebody who realizes that the Fremen are trading slavery at the hands of a colonial overlord for slavery at the hands of a cult leader, even without knowing the behind-the-scenes machinations that put Paul in his position.

That said, if it wanted to completely stick the landing here, there was one final shoe that needed to drop but didn't. Paul's psychic visions merely show him ominously as a leader with Hitler-esque undertones, as well as him in battle. The book went a lot further when it came to having Paul's visions showing him with far more than just undertones, sketching vivid displays of the misery that he is fated to cause: famine, genocide, the apocalypse on a galactic scale. What the films show us is designed to make us uneasy about Paul, while letting Chalamet's performance do the rest in making him look like a budding villain, but there's a point where "show, don't tell" can be taken too far, and that's when you're talking about prophecies of disasters to come that you can't linger on for too long in the film itself and can only tell us will happen. I was only a bit freaked out by Paul, when I should've been picturing myself in Germany in 1933. I was getting all the cool and badass parts of a great villain, but the things that actually make him a villain are still to come, and that, I think, undercut some of the menace and unease I was supposed to get from Paul. It wasn't a huge problem, but it was still a not-insignificant blotch on what's otherwise a great pair of films.

Fortunately, once you're past the plot, as a sci-fi epic this duology is gorgeous to behold. Villeneuve has always been a guy who, like Christopher Nolan, has an affection for gritty realism even when he's working with big blockbuster epics, and he made the most of the desert environments that give the story its name. He does a great job in particular imagining what big melee fantasy battles would look like augmented with futuristic technology, in which the pikemen and knights charging their enemies in the field are supported with artillery lasers. The cast is absolutely stacked and excellent all around, with Chalamet shining in the central role but everybody around him also doing great work, from Zendaya as the skeptic Chani to Rebecca Ferguson as Paul's mother with her own agenda to Austin Butler stealing the show in a surprisingly brief amount of screen time as the Emperor's depraved nephew who gets sent in in Part Two to stop Paul. It was perhaps a bit overstuffed; Florence Pugh wound up getting lost in the shuffle, not an easy feat with an actor of her caliber. I understand why Villeneuve decided to split this movie in half, because there is no real way this story could've been effectively told otherwise.

The Bottom Line

Villeneuve accomplished an impossible task here, crafting with two movies an adaptation of a legendarily dense novel that does it justice. This one has its faults, and there are things that the otherwise inferior Lynch version does better (especially with regards to its psychedelic elements), but even so, it is gonna go down in the ranks of all-time sci-fi classics. I give it a solid recommendation if  you have even the slightest interest in science fiction.

#dune #dune part one #dune part two #2021 #2021 movies #2024 #2024 movies #science fiction #sci fi #denis villeneuve #timothée chalamet #zendaya #rebecca ferguson #oscar isaac #josh brolin #stellan skarsgard #dave bautista #jason momoa #javier bardem #austin butler #florence pugh #christopher walken #lea seydoux

[kanmom51]

Tagging game again.  

Took me some time to get to this but here I am. 😊

Tagged by: @whysojiminimnida

Name: my name is Mom....Kan Mom... 😋

Sign: Sagittarius

Height: Short ass gentleman is what I am, sob sob.

Time: When everyone is asleep (so either extremely late at night or super early in the morning).

Birthday: 20 Dec.

Fav band/artist: BTS, obviously.  But a whole lot of 80s and 90s shit too.

Last movie: Jurassic world Dominion if we are talking cinema, but lots of Netflix and Disney/Marvel films too.  I’m a bit of a TV addict. 

Last show: Shining girls on Apple+ really enjoyed it.  Before that season 3 of The boys.  If you are squeamish (sex and gore galore) my advice is that you keep clear of that one.

When I created this blog: Old person here...don’t judge...I think it was around Jan or Feb 2021.  But at first just did a lot of searching, reading and a little asking before I dared to actually open my blabbermouth and voice my opinions.

What I post: What I feel like posting, lol.  But I’ll give you a hint here...

Other blogs: Mine? Nope.  First timer here.

Do I get asks: I do.  Even more so when I decide to open my anons option (call me either brave or stupid to do that...). 

average hr. of sleep: That’s one in the gut, lol. Used to get plenty, now much less - 4-6 hr. usually now days.  Blame Riley, BTS and my bloody lady hormones (or is it a lack of them?  Idk).

instruments: Recorder, Alto recorder, Clarinet, Piano, but now days playing on someone’s nerves is my specialty.

What I’m wearing: My snug PJs sitting under a blanket, cause it’s bloody cold here.

dream job: I kind of had my dream job, which turned out to be more of a nightmare if I’m being honest (note to followers:  don’t trust legal tv shows, they are unrealistic, lol).  But seriously, I’m kind of over self fulfilment.  Been there done that.  At this point it’s about having fun, enjoying family and life as a whole.

dream trip: Japan and a shore to shore Canadian road trip.

favorite songs: The truth untold, House of cards, Black swan, Euphoria, Airplane pt. 2 + the other songs that consist of my more or less 15 hr. Spotify playlist.  

Oh, and honourable mention to Calem Scott’s If our love is wrong, I guess I’m in love by Clinton Cane and Only then by Roy Kim (JK’s cover).  What can I say?  I’m a sucker for a good tear jerker.

Tagging:  Not gonna put that pressure on anyone.  Just join in the party if you care to.

💜 💜 💜

#tagging game

[keanuquotes]

There's nothing like a little hometown love, especially from a mega-star and fellow Canadian like Keanu Reeves (aka Chuck Spadina.)

The Toronto-raised (he was born in Beirut) actor recently hosted an Ask Me Anything (AMA) on Reddit, where he intimately dished details to his dedicated fans, from behind-the-scenes of his most loved films to more personal questions about his life.

Ever wondered what the John Wick star's first pet was? It turns out it was a little guinea pig named Carrot, which Reeves remembers as a "cutie-pie."

Interested in what hobbies or interests the 58-year-old heartthrob explores in his spare time?

"I like me some motorcycles, typewriters, Japanese whisky, playing in the band, learning, reading, and some fine red wine," he says.

Back to the Toronto content…

When Reeves was asked what his favourite sports team is, he responded with "… any Canadian Olympic team." He finished in a separate answer, "but in the NHL, hometown-Toronto Maple Leafs."

He is a well-known Leafs' supporter and even played rep hockey for North Toronto in the Metro Toronto Hockey League, which is now the Greater Toronto Hockey League, back in the day.

At his Canada's Walk of Fame induction back in 2021, he mentioned some of his favourites — The Toronto Reference Library, Hazelton Avenue (the street he grew up on), Jesse Ketchum Public School (his elementary school) and Rosedale Park.

Here's hoping we'll catch the star rinkside at the Leafs' next game!

#Keanu Reeves #Keanu quotes #hockey

[atlanticcanada]

Lawsuit claims camera hidden in shower at Cape Breton Buddhist monastery

Two Nova Scotia-based Buddhist organizations are being sued after a high-ranking monk allegedly installed a video camera in a communal shower at a Cape Breton monastery.

In a lawsuit filed Thursday in Nova Scotia Supreme Court, Christopher Longoria of Texas alleges he was filmed while taking a shower in November 2021 at Gampo Abbey monastery, where he was living and working.

The lawsuit alleges the monastery and its umbrella organization -- Shambhala Canada Society -- were negligent in failing to protect residents' privacy and are liable for the privacy violations.

The claim alleges the video camera belonged to head monk Jack Hillie, who did not have "a valid lawful justification for this invasion of privacy."

Hillie was criminally charged with voyeurism on April 4, 2022, relating to alleged offences between December 2020 and November 2021, according to court records. He is scheduled to enter a plea in Port Hawkesbury provincial court on July 4.

The civil lawsuit says Longoria arrived at the remote monastery in November 2021, planning to stay until he was ordained as a monk. About a week later, he was showering when he saw a camera attached to the wall. The suit alleges he took the camera to Hillie, who said the camera belonged to him.

Longoria allegedly used the monastery's landline to call police, who told him to report it in the morning as "he was in no immediate danger." Longoria reported the incident to local police the following day, handing over the video camera, including a memory card that contained footage.

"Police later confirmed that the camera contained video footage filmed unknowingly of others in the monastery showers, and that there was further video footage of a similar nature stored at the monastery," the suit alleges.

Basia Sowinski, a lawyer representing Longoria, said other complainants may come forward.

"I'm hoping other residents become aware of the situation, and if they were there at the same time as our client, or perhaps prior, it's possible that they could have been filmed in the showers as well," she said in an interview.

None of the allegations have been proven in court. Attempts to reach Hillie and the Gampo Abbey monastery were not immediately successful. Deborah Luscomb, director of community and culture for the Halifax Shambhala Centre, said by email that she was "not interested or available to comment."

The civil suit seeks general damages for pain and suffering, describing the intrusion as "highly offensive due to the inherently private nature of showering." It says the incident caused Longoria "severe distress, humiliation and anguish."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 15, 2023.

For the latest Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page.

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/d1e6zop

#new brunswick #prince edward island #nova scotia #news #politics #canada #CTVAtlantic

[influencermagazineuk]

Rose Dorothy Dauriac, Know About The Daughter of Scarlett Johansson

Rose Dorothy Dauriac Rose Dorothy Dauriac, Scarlett Johansson’s daughter, is an adorable seven-year-old girl who has remained out of the public eye. Scarlett Johansson and her ex-husband, French journalist Romain Dauriac, had shielded their daughter carefully from the media and the general public, which is why they don't have any social media account. However, the actress often talks about her daughter Rose in interactive chat shows. Scarlett Johansson and Romain Dauriac got married in 2014, and they welcomed their first daughter, Rose Dorothy Dauriac, in 2014. In 2017, they decided to separate, and since then, they have been taking care of Rose as a single parent. The couple issued a joint statement informing the public that their utmost priority is to co-parent Rose, and they are on good terms.s Rose Dorothy Dauriac's childhood has been under the spotlight ever since her birth, and Johansson tries to avoid discussion about her private life, but she just cannot stop herself from discussing her daughter. During a chat show with Kelly Clarkson in July 2021, Johansson stated that her daughter Rose follows up all the time and never leaves her. Scarlett Johansson is a successful American actress who has made a name for herself in the film industry. She is cited as one of the world's most attractive women by many media outlets and has made it to the Forbes Celebrity 100 list several times. She is a recipient of many accolades, including the Tony Award, British Academy Film Award, and BAFTA awards. Scarlett Johansson is due for delivery and might stay away from work for some time as she is pregnant with American actor and writer Colin Jost. Johansson has proved herself not only in the field of acting but also in singing. After her divorce from Dauriac in 2017, the couple took joint custody of Rose Dorothy. Scarlett Johansson is very attached to her daughter and keeps talking about her likes and dislikes. She shared that she doesn’t want her divorce to affect her daughter in the future. Johansson's married life with Romain Dauriac started in the year 2014. Dauriac is a journalist and businessman from France who is now an advertising executive. Johansson dated Romain Dauriac after her divorce from Canadian actor and film producer Ryan Reynolds in 2011. According to some reports, Scarlet had given birth to Rose Dorothy Dauriac just a couple of months before she married Dauriac. In the first few years of their marriage, the couple managed their time well and took good care of their newborn daughter. However, as things did not materialize as planned, they decided to part ways and filed for divorce. The custody battle for Rose Dorothy Dauriac was an emotional one for Scarlett Johansson. The actress does not want her daughter to be affected by her divorce in any way. In an interview, she said, “As a devoted mother and private person, and with complete awareness that my daughter will one day be old enough to read the news about herself, I would only like to say that I will never, ever be commenting on the dissolution of my marriage. Out of respect for my desires as a parent and out of respect for all working moms, it is with kindness that I ask other parties involved and the media to do the same. Thank you.” Her statement was not well taken by Romain, who responded to her statement by saying, “It is indeed... Read the full article