#Its so insane its so beautiful and cinematic and thrilling

[littlemuppetmonsters]

Also i finally listened to cloudbusting the other day and its been on repeat in my car and in my brain ever since !!

#The only song #I love kate bush #I love how she reads a biographical memoir and fucking. Writes a song about it #And not about like some legendary historical figure #No some random dude who thought he could control the weather #Its so insane its so beautiful and cinematic and thrilling #When i walk i hear the beat in my head

[wouldntyou-liketoknow]

Day 11: Split

(Disclaimer: the characters here do not belong to me. Both Wilford Warfstache and William J. Barnum/The Colonel belong to the Markiplier Cinematic Universe.)

(Please note that the concept this story revolves around isn’t something I originally came up with. That honor goes to @ghiertor-the-gigapeen, who posted this amazing piece of art last October! Please check out their blog and show them some love!!!)

(Trigger Warnings: descriptions of body horror, blood/gore, fear/panic, trauma/flashbacks, pain and suffering, strong language. Please let me know if I missed anything.)

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Day 10 Day 12 Day 13

“Say, have you ever tried your hand at writing?” Wilford casually inquires, titling his head and pressing his index finger against his temple. 

You hum at the question, wracking your brain. “I’m. . .not sure, honestly. I mean, I probably have at some point, but all the conflicting timelines make it hard to tell.” There’s a generous amount of sarcasm in your voice. So much, in fact, that you have to concentrate on emphasizing the right words.

Of course, Wilford’s response is an overexaggerated quirk of his lips, his eyes as thoughtful as they are mischievous. “True, true, very true. Sometimes you wish those pesky timelines would just fit in your hands so you could organize them to your taste.”

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” you reply, tone dry enough to make Death Valley look rather lush. 

“BUT,” Wilford, never to not have the last word, continues. “If you could do that, then you wouldn’t really be able to have any more adventures. You wouldn’t get to be surprised or horrified! Things would go from challenging and unforgettable to. . .thoughtless and predictable. Sooner or later, you wouldn’t be able to appreciate whatever comes to grip at your mind or heart!”

His hands are a blur as he throws out one dramatic gesture after another. His expressions follow suite, obviously. Even so, the conniving ember in his eyes never completely fades away. In fact, that ember seems to glow a bit brighter as he finally returns to sitting still and staring at you. “True beauty really lies in thrill, my friend. There’s just no two ways about it!”

You don’t bother trying to suppress an eye-roll. . .and yet a small, genuine smile still manages to fight its way onto your face. Wilford’s statement is partially undeniable. Sure, you’ve been through hell and back, but you saw so many things along the way. You’ve met all sorts of people. The scenarios you keep finding yourself in are literally anything and everything but boring. 

Yes, your existence and abilities have proven to be a curse. . .but that curse has still shaped itself into a gift more times than you can count. 

That’s why you rang that little call-bell: to be taken here to this studio in order to see this insane, frustrating, omnipotent journalist who you (somehow) still have a soft spot for.

“. . .Y’know, I can’t remember the last time you were so specific with your questions,” you point out, leaning back in your provided chair. “What made you bring up writing, of all things?” 

Wilford tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsks at you, raising an eyebrow so high that it could potentially need a drug test. “Sounds like someone has forgotten who’s the interviewer and who’s the interviewee.” 

You spread your arms in a small lame gesture, making sure that your eyes help your incredulousness to be palpable. “Hey, listen. One of these days, the roles are gonna be reversed. MARK my words. I’ll be damned if that doesn’t happen at least once.”

“You make a good argument; there’s a chance something like that has already happened,” Wilford admits. He drags out a conspiratory hum for about ten seconds or so, slipping off his pink afro and fidgeting with it. “Well, writers can be a bit of a rare breed nowadays. They’re plentiful if you’re exploring the right circles, but even then, many are still so shy about their work.” 

“Can’t really blame them for that,” you reply. “Not with how unfair the industries have gotten.”

“Oh, don’t I know it!” Wilford huffs a mirthless laugh. “I used to write for the odd column and blog or two. The readers were lovely, but lemme tell you—”

“The higher-ups were not?” You guess with an empathetic smile, just barely noticing how he’s started to squirm in his seat. 

Wilford groans in exasperation. “Don’t even get me started. They turned their noses up at so many things, you’d think they were each three tapirs in a trenchcoat! I remember thinking, ‘If they’re so desperate for cookie-cut stories to have complete control over, then why don’t they just write these goddamn stories themselves?!’’’

You don’t blink: partially because your eyes aren’t dry, and partially because, if you had, you would’ve missed the mixture of sadness and frustration that just flickered on Wilford’s face. It was a tiny amount, and it’s already been beaten into submission by his trademark coyness. 

But it was genuine. 

“. . .I can tell you why,” you declare. “Because writing requires patience and effort and thought. Heart, too. And in my experience, it’d be a miracle for an employer to have at least one of those things.”

Wilford’s eyes ever-so-slightly widen as your words sink in. Something warm and appreciative etches its way into the smile he’s wearing. 

“Words to live by,” he announces with a proud nod. “I don’t think I ever saw anything like that in my old head-honchos. It was always, ‘ThErE’s No WaY wE cAn PuBlIsH tHiS wItHoUt CeNsOrInG hAlF oF iT.’ ‘jUsT bEcAuSe ThE rEaDeRs LeAvE fEeDbAcK DoEsN’t MeAn YoU cAn InTeRaCt WiTh ThEm.’ ‘OuR sHaReHoLdErS wIlL bE oFfEnDeD bY tHiS.’ ‘rEaDeRs DoN’t NeEd To KnOw AbOuT tHaT.’ ‘wHeRe DiD yOu GeT tHaT kNiFe?’ ‘WhAt ThE hElL aRe YoU dOiNg?’ ‘I’m CaLlInG tHe PoLiCe YoU mAnIaC!’”

The droning pitch he’d put on falls away as he collapses into a fit of chuckling.

You, meanwhile, force out an awkward cough to try and hide the nervous grimace that has crawled into your features.

Even if Wilford is an old friend, even if his heart is sometimes in the right place, you can’t afford to forget that his brain is not. That it hasn’t been for a long time now. And it will probably never be anywhere near the right place again.

Not only that, but the longer you listen to Wilford’s giggling, the more you realize just how. . .off it sounds. As though Wilford’s voice is layered; like something else is trying to worm its way up through his bubbly tone.

“And those trials were just in the world of journalism,” Wilford continues once the hilarity finally dies down. “I can hardly imagine what writers in more creative circles have to go through.”

For seemingly no reason, that statement prompts a tidal wave of adrenaline to come rushing through you. 

“Simply taking notes of things in reality can be so difficult. Just think about how long it’s taken for us to make some actual progress with this interview,” Wilford muses, gesturing to all the twinkling lights that decorate his studio. “But how could that struggle even compare to someone creating an entire world of their own? Birth is already one of the most traumatic things a person is capable of, and that’s just when it happens on the outside. So it’s astounding that anyone can survive birthing so many things inside their little head!” 

Perhaps to drive the point home, he lightly raps his knuckles against his forehead as he returns his pink afro to its rightful place. 

“Could’ve gone my whole life without hearing that analogy,” you blurt. 

“No, I don’t think you could’ve,” Wilford whispers. 

You glare at him as an uncomfortable, oily energy slithers along your ribcage. The fact that Wilford is now visibly shaking doesn’t help. 

“Are. . .are you okay, Wil?” You wonder aloud, your irritation slowly but surely leaning toward paranoia. 

“Peachy!” Wilford answers, gesturing toward his face with a flourish. “Why, does this not look like the face of someone who’s peachy?”

You attempt not to cringe too hard as you offer one of those nod-shrugs, gingerly poking the skin beneath your eyes.

Wilford’s expression contorts with confusion. He rises to stand on the seat of his chair, reaching up toward the ceiling. After producing a hand mirror from somewhere you can’t see, he sits back down and peers at his reflection.

Of course, he doesn’t react to the sight of blood oozing down his cheeks from his tear ducts like most people would. Instead of screaming or fainting or trying to pluck his eyes out in order to keep whatever curse they may or may not be harboring from infecting the rest of his body, Wilford casually tosses the mirror over his shoulder, not acknowledging the sound of glass shattering as he fishes a handkerchief from one of his pockets. 

“Meh, it’s a wednesday. You know how wednesdays are,” Wilford mentions as he begins scrubbing at the small, dark red rivers. 

“I’m not so sure I do,” you murmur. 

You consider suggesting to pause the interview here with an oath to resume it some other day. . .but that consideration evaporates when you remember exactly what happened the last time this interview was interrupted. Gunshots echo between your ears, and your heart more or less threatens to start palpitating. 

Hell, you’re already expecting this interview to be cut short sooner or later; it’s had to be delayed at least sixty-nine thousand, four-hundred-twenty times by now, if memory serves (though, let’s be honest, it probably doesn’t). 

But despite everything you’ve gone through up until this point, you still trust your instincts.

Which are currently screaming at you to not be the thing that prompts the inevitable next raincheck.

Plus, while one part of you is worried for Wilford’s wellbeing, the other part of you knows that it doesn’t matter. This is Wilford Warfstache we’re talking about. Even if he got mauled by a hippopotamus fueled by copious amount of acid and maliciously-intended vibes, he’d still find a way to continue existing with a chipper, knowing smile. 

“Now, where were we?” Wilford inquires. You don’t know why, because he immediately snaps his fingers. “Ah, yes! Writing!”

Seeing that his face is clean once again, he throws the now bloodstained handkerchief into the air, where it quickly flutters down to join the broken mirror somewhere on the floor behind his chair. 

“Well, I’ve already rambled on about my adventures with that. Please, tell me more about your thoughts on writing. You know I’d love to hear them!”

“Is that why you booked me for this? And here I was, thinking you just wanted me to sit here and look handsome and/or beautiful!” You joke, hoping to distract yourself from the dread that’s just started festering in your stomach.

Wilford chortles at that. And although the sound almost unveils some happy memories, you can still tell that he’s acutely aware of aforementioned dread.

You chew your lip, thinking.

By the time you’re able to predict what that question could lead to, it’ll probably be too late.

Might as well be honest with your answer, then. 

“I think writing is pretty incredible,” you pronounce. “Some people try to say it isn’t a real type of art, and I’ll never be able to understand why. Like you just said: it’s always so much harder and scarier to do than it’s given credit for. It takes the same amount of energy and care to write as it does to sculpt or paint or sew.”

The words seem to make Wilford grow more excited. “Speaking of which: don’t you just love it when different types of artists work together? I’m always seeing writers basing plot elements off of drawings and drafters sketching out scenes from stories. That camaraderie is one of the best kinds, I think. Reminds me of how wolves and crows help each other hunt.”

“Exactly!” You reply. “Writers and other artists do wonderful stuff like that all the time! Just because they can! And—”

You abruptly trail off, the chemicals in your brain rerouting themselves before they even have a chance to signal more happiness. 

“And. . ?” Wilford prompts, watching you curiously.

“. . .And they barely get any appreciation,” you eventually resume, feeling your face drop. “It’s just so. . .depressing that creative people can’t rely on their craft. Don’t get me wrong, some of them get lucky, but most. . .no matter how hard they practice or research, no matter how much time they spend polishing their projects. . .they still end up having so little to show for it.”

“Such a damn shame,” Wilford agrees, his voice uncharacteristically soft. 

Your gaze wandered down to the floor during your little monologue, so you can’t help but flinch when Wilford pats you on the shoulder. 

The gesture isn’t forceful—it’s not like he’s digging his nails through your shirt—but nothing could’ve prepared you for how hot the skin of his palm feels. Wilford’s hand retracts quickly enough, but the heat lingers, racing down your arm as though some invisible person accidentally spilled a translucent cup of fresh-outta-the-pot, wraithlike coffee onto you.

(I’ve read/heard plenty of symbolism that involves boiling blood, but this is ridiculous.)

A gasp catches in your throat as you return your attention to Wilford. 

He almost resembles a celebrity who, thanks to the power of hubris and a little too much xanax, drowned in their backyard swimming pool. . .Well, really, that’s just because of his clothes; if he wasn’t dressed in a bowtie and button-down (which looks suspiciously like silk), he’d probably look like the average corpse that was just pulled out of a river. Minus the awful bloating that always comes with underwater decay, that is. 

You’d only looked away from him for a moment.

How the hell could someone’s skin turn so sickly pale in such short time?

“If there are any artists watching tonight, I’m sure you’ve made them get a little misty,” Wilford reMARKs, reaching up to wipe a single tear from the corner of his left eye. “But that doesn’t mean they have to worry. One way or another, the arts will get more respect in the future.”

“. . .You think so?” You’re not exactly sure where that question came from, but you know better than to stay silent. Besides, you can’t be blamed for having let a mite of pessimism creep into your attitude over the years.

“I know so!” Wilford promises. “So long as a virtuoso shows off what they can do, there’ll always, always be a number of admirers in their corner.” 

You nod without hesitation. It’s impossible to disagree with that sentiment. In fact, you almost start to wonder if whatever the hell has been happening to Wilford throughout this conversation is about to reverse itself. . .

“Though, I have to wonder,” Wilford maintains, glancing over at nothing in particular with a wry, thoughtful smirk. “Could what you just talked about be the reason for the current shift in creative circles?”

(Aaaaannnd that’s why you almost got hopeful.)

“‘Shift?’” You echo. “What do you mean by that?”

You already know, of course. But you also know that Wilford is nothing if not a theatrical bastard. You’ve already played along with whatever has been building up for the past few minutes, so why stop now?

“Well, it seems like the majority of artists celebrate Halloween all year ‘round,” Wilford explains. “Drawings and sculptures of monsters, stories full of insanity, the whole shebang. I’m certainly not complaining, and neither are all those admirers I mentioned. But. . .do you think an artist’s frustration is what causes them to serve muses on the darker side of the spectrum?”

You shift in your seat, trying to ignore the fact that someone out there is probably rolling their eyes and muttering, “i’M fOuRtEeN aNd ThIs Is DeEp.”

(Then again, everything you and Wilford just said is completely valid, so that judgemental prick can just fuck off.)

“I guess it can, in a lot of cases,” you answer. “It’s amazing how many unique ways artists can go about symbolizing those struggles. Even so, a lot of artists focus on twisted aspects just because they see things in ways that other people might not. Just because of their individual personalities.”

“Of course, of course,” Wilford subscribes. “And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that!”

A sharp, muffled pop called from somewhere in his chest. It’s followed by another. . .and another. . .and another, until a chorus of organic cracking and stretching and clicking threatens to drown out Wilford’s voice. 

Wilford doesn’t seem unbothered perse, but to his credit, he doesn’t let the cacophony stop him. 

“I suppose my instincts as a journalist drove that question,” Wilford muses. “I’ve found myself working with the whole ‘If it bleeds, it leads,’ shtick so many times. But only because. . .”

A violent twitch—the same type that so many people experience in their sleep, and the same type that would render those people unable to ever sleep again if they managed to see a recording of it—wracks his body.

“. . .it works. . .”

He barely had enough time to give you a wink before his eyes practically bulge from their sockets and roll into the back of his head, one after the other. 

“. . .so damn well!”

The skin of his cheeks neatly tears as his smile stretches wider than humanly possible, to the point where he’s quite literally grinning from ear-to-ear.

A strange outline appears in his shirt, trying to push out from underneath the fabric.

Except, it’s not underneath the fabric. 

You can do nothing but watch as the shape moves upward, causing Wilford’s neck to distend. His skin ripples in a way that reminds you of a sea krait swimming close to the surface without actually breaking it. As it gathers in Wilford’s head, the silhouette starts writhing. The movement is frantic. Desperate. Like an animal caught in some kind of trap.

All the while, Wilford’s new, eerie simper never falls away. 

Not even when his features are forced to swell and quiver, as though his skull is tearing itself apart.

Plltk-Sssquiiwrrrlrlct!

One half of Wilford’s face pulls away from the other, like a seam running down the center has burst. 

In a matter of seconds, the rift races down, splitting Wilford’s throat and torso open. 

Gravity attempts to drag the fleshy fractions even farther apart, but by some odd miracle, both Wilford’s afro and bowtie staunchly refuse to be divided like the rest of him. 

So, that means the two halves of Warfstache are hanging in place, only connected by thick, glistening strands of dark pink blood. 

You jerk away so aggressively that it’s a wonder your chair doesn’t tip over. Your stomach roils in a painful way, and a shuddering, terrified cry slithers up your throat and out between your teeth. You automatically fight to close your gaping mouth for fear that something much more solid than a scream might spill out next.

Surprisingly enough, nothing like that happens. 

But perhaps that’s because you haven’t seen the worst of this yet.

(Don’t hold your breath. You’re about to.)

As you stare and scream, you finally realize that. . .you can’t see through the gory chasm of Wilford. 

There’s something caught between the awful ratios of Wilford.

. . .No, not something.

Someone.

Someone who’s dressed in a tan military uniform, along with a pair of spectacles that boast dual loupes on that right lens. 

Someone whose screams make it clear that he speaks with an accent similar to Wilford’s.

Someone who you recognize. . .and, who seems to recognize you as well.

“H-Help me! PLEASE, HELP ME!” The Colonel wails, the fingers of his right hand curling around Wilford’s lower jaw, struggling for purpose. “I CAN’T GO BACK! DON’T MAKE ME GO BACK!”

You don’t respond. 

How the hell could you respond?

It’s one thing to watch a friend’s body spontaneously split itself apart like their skeleton is a bloodsoaked butterfly emerging from a horrific meat-chrysalis.

It’s another thing entirely to watch a friend’s former self shriek and thrash and beg via an unnecessarily brutal rebirthing process for no actual reason. 

“I-I’M SORRY! I’M SO SORRY!” The Colonel howls—if it wasn’t for his volume, the words would have leaked out in a choked sob. “I DIDN’T WANT TO DO IT! I DIDN’T MEAN TO DO IT! I SWEAR—!”

Wilford, meanwhile, is still grinning that sly, too-wide grin. He isn’t showing any signs of pain. You can’t tell whether or not he’d known that this was going to happen.

The Colonel manages to free his left arm from its organic confines. He frantically claws at the air, obviously trying to reach out to you, pleading for you to take his hand and pull him out.

The way your eyes are burning nearly rivals the searing ache in your chest.

You want to help him.

The voices in your head are demanding that you help him.

But you can’t. 

To put it simply, what’s done is done. Even Wilford’s bizarre powers are incapable of reversing what happened in that godforsaken manor all those years ago. 

The Colonel does not exist anymore.

You know that. . .

He knows that. . .

. . .And Wilford knows that.

Still grinning, Wilford raises his arms. With a loud criIiIiIck, they grow. In a manner of seconds, they boast a similar appearance to long, narrow tree branches. Each of his fingers follow suite—now it’s difficult to see them as anything other than talons. 

Wilford’s left hand is a blur as it snatches The Colonel’s wrist in a vice-like grip. His right hand reaches around to clamp down on The Colonel’s head.

Understandably, The Colonel isn’t having it. He writhes with twice as much panic as before. “DAMIEN! CELINE! WHERE ARE THEY?! I NEED TO FIND THEM!”

Wilford’s grin spasms. His knuckles turn white as he digs his nails into The Colonel’s scalp. When that doesn’t seem to work, he does what he does best: up the ante with no regard for anything. 

It’s hard to believe that you can hear the sound of glass splintering through The Colonel’s shouting, as Wilford’s index finger jabs through the left lens of his spectacles. 

In comparison, the squelching noise The Colonel’s eye makes as Wilford’s finger is driven into it is almost deafening. 

The Colonel buckles under the new, white-hot pain he must be feeling. His screams reach a truly heart-stopping octave as blood oozes down his cheek.

Instinct seems to take over, seeing as The Colonel’s arm finally retracts, as he attempts to apply pressure to his punctured eye.

There’s really no point, though. It’s not like he has time to stop the bleeding. 

To a chorus of snapping bones, Wilford shoves The Colonel down.

The Colonel’s torso as a whole seems to cave in.

All this time, Wilford’s hot-pink blood has been fountaining onto the floor—you’ve had to cross your legs on your chair to keep your shoes from getting drenched—but as you glance down, you notice that the puddle has stopped spreading. It stays still for a second or two. . .and then it starts rolling back in the direction it came. It glides up Wilford’s legs, and back into his chest, your eyes following it all the while. 

And now the blood seems to be more than just a liquid. It’s coiling around The Colonel like a nest of snakes, binding his arms, encircling his neck. It drags him deeper, obscuring his form until you can barely see his face.

“NO! NO!” The Colonel screams. He can’t struggle anymore, but you know better than anyone just how much of a bitch adrenaline can be. “I CAN’T—!”

It looks like the two halves of Warfstache have finally worked out their differences, because they meet one another with a sickening Ssshlift-pop. 

Wilford’s skin trembles. 

The line running down the center of his face, his throat, his chest. . .it just. . .seals itself shut. As though it’s a new type of magnetic clay. 

After a millisecond, that line itself disappears. It doesn’t even scar over. 

It’s just gone.

Just like that, a whole Wilford Warfstache is sitting before you once again. 

Like nothing even happened.

The next moment feels like several hours as you stare at Wilford, bracing yourself for something else to happen as hot, fat tears stream down your features. 

Wilford’s eyes roll back into place, milky white scleras finally being replaced by his warm, dark brown irises. 

That damn grin finally wavers as he blinks, shaking his head like he’s just woken up from a fever dream.

“Ah—I’m sorry,” Wilford announces, carefully kneading at his forehead. “I must’ve zoned out for a bit.” He glances at his wristwatch, raising an eyebrow. “Strange. . .the longer daydreams usually only happen on the thirteenth. Perhaps something else will be going on then? I know I had a lot of things lined up for the thirteenth in January, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I got around to them. . .unless I did, of course. In which case we might have a few problems.”

Wilford trails off as he finally notices that you’re still here. 

“. . .Are we going to have to reschedule again? No offense, but you’re looking a bit green around the gills.”

You collapse against the back of your chair, not even registering how the world spins. Not that registering is an option; darkness is quick to swallow up everything within eyesight.

(Really? You’re fainting now?)

Somehow, you still manage to hear Wilford’s voice, which seems to echo as he concludes, “I’ll take that as a yes,” with a melodramatic sigh.

@sammys-magical-au

#the thirteen days of goretober 2023 #goretober 2023 #my writing #my stories #wilford warfstache #wkm the colonel #markiplier #mark fischbach #tw blood #tw gore #tw body horror #tw trauma/flashbacks #tw fear/panic

[grigori77]

Summer 2021′s Movies - My Top Ten Favourite Films (Part 1)

The Runners-Up:

20.  LUCA – I’ll admit I really wasn’t sold on Disney/Pixar’s coming-of-age fantasy comedy, which revolves around a pair of young sea monsters living off the coast of the 1950s Italian Riviera, who discover they can assume human form when they dry out and go on land on a quest of discovery.  Thankfully the strong reviews convinced me to give it a chance – this is a frothy and irreverent romp through an exotically nostalgic world filled with Vespas, pasta-eating contests and found families that’s fun for kids of all ages.

19.  FAST & FURIOUS 9 – the high concept action franchise may be bursting under the ever-increasing weight of its own ludicrousness, but it’s still TONS of fun, packed with stunning over-the-top action, colourful globe-trotting and a loveable bunch of misfits we’ve grown incredibly fond of over the past TWENTY YEARS.  This time Dom (the irrepressible Vin Diesel) and the team are up against ruthless hi-tech mercenary Jakob (John Cena), a lethal jack-of-all-trades with a dark connection to the Toretto name.

18.  REMINISCENCE – Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy’s attempt to make it on the big screen looks set to go down as one of the biggest cinematic flops of 2021, which is a shame because the feature-debuting writer-director has crafted a genuinely fascinating speculative sci-fi noir detective thriller.  Set in a darkly dystopian future in which Global Warming has caused the sea levels to rise and society to start breaking down, it tells the story of Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman), a former soldier who ekes out a living using revolutionary tech to help the idle rich relive their fondest memories, until a life-changing mystery from his own past resurfaces, threatening to tear his whole world apart.  Frustratingly, it looks like most audiences are going to bypass this, which is a criminal loss.

17.  FREE GUY – after a seven year hiatus, Night at the Museum director Shawn Levy returns to the big screen in fine form with this deliriously inventive fantastical comedy adventure about Guy (a typically on-fire Ryan Reynolds), an NPC in an anarchic, Grand Theft Auto style MMORPG called Free City who discovers his own sentience after falling in love with Millie (Killing Eve’s Jodie Comer), a player with a hidden agenda that puts them both at odds with the game’s nefarious creator, Antwan (a thoroughly hilarious Taika Waititi).

16.  EVANGELION 3.0 + 1.01: THRICE UPON A TIME – visionary anime creator Hideaki Anno brings his long-running sci-fi saga to a close with this fourth instalment to his wildly ambitious cinematic “Rebuild” of cult TV series Neon Genesis Evangelion. It’s as frothy, melodramatic and bonkers as ever, packed full of weighty themes and crazy ideas, while the animation maintains this series’ ridiculously high levels of quality and the action is as explosive as ever, and Hideaki brings the whole mad mess to a climax that’s as rich, powerful and thoroughly befuddling as the saga deserves.

15.  THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD – Sicario writer Taylor Sheridan returns to the director’s chair (after impressive debut Wind River) with this intense and enthralling suspense thriller adapted by bestselling author Michael Koryta (along with Sheridan and Blood Diamond’s Charles Leavitt) from his own acclaimed novel. Angelina Jolie is (ahem) fiery but fallible as haunted smokejumper Hanna Faber, whose PTSD drives her to protect a desperate boy (Finn Little) who’s being hunted through the wilds of Montana by a pair of relentless assassins (Aidan Gillen and Nicholas Hoult).

14.  CRUELLA – far from the clunky cash-in retcon many were predicting, Disney’s ambitious black comedy crime caper does a thoroughly admirable job in delivering this fascinating and deeply compelling reimagining of the story of rogue fashion designer Cruella de Vil (one of the best performances I’ve ever seen Emma Stone deliver, hands down), the dastardly villainess of 101 Dalmatians. She’s certainly far more complex here, no longer a raging monster, but far from a whitewashed PC apologist, either, much more of a morally grey antihero with a very wicked dark side – then again, with I, Tonya director Craig Gillespie at the helm it’s not really a surprise.  Richly designed and dripping in spectacularly adventurous period detail, this is an divine romp from start to finish.

13.  THE GREEN KNIGHT – the latest feature from writer director David Lowery (Ain’t Them Bodies Saits, Pete’s Dragon, The Old Man & the Gun) is as offbeat and unusual as you’d expect from a visionary filmmaker with such a wildly varied CV.  Adapting the fantastical chivalric romance Sir Gawain & the Green Knight, he’s crafted what’s surely destined to be remembered as the year’s STRANGEST film, but it’s a work of aching beauty and introspective imagination that sears itself into the memory and rewards the viewer’s patience despite its leisurely pace.  Dev Patel is unbearably sexy and wonderfully complex as Gawain, while Sean Harris delivers show-stopping support with stately charisma and world-weary integrity as King Arthur.  This film is sure to divide opinions as well as audiences, but I think it’s a bona fide masterpiece that must be seen to be believed.

12.  CANDYMAN – after watching this wildly imaginative and frequently gut-wrenching soft-reboot/sequel to Bernard Rose’s acclaimed adaptation of Clive Barker’s short story The Forbidden, I feel supremely confident about emerging writer-director Nia DaCosta’s coming MCU breakout with The Marvels.  Wisely papering over the clunky previous sequels, this streamlined trailblazing deep dive into the pure horror of the legend of the righteously mad spectral killer haunting the Chicago housing ghetto of Cabrini-Green sees a daring modern artist (Aquaman’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) find his latest project turning into a dangerously self-destructive obsession. Writer-producer Jordan Peele’s fingerprints are all over this, but DaCosta clearly shows signs that she’s going to be a hell of a talent to watch in the future.

11.  THE WITCHER: NIGHTMARE OF THE WOLF – I wouldn’t normally shout about an animated spinoff to a TV series like this, but I was SO INSANELY IMPRESSED with this brilliant prequel to Netflix’ popular fantasy show (which clearly intends to lay some origin story groundwork for the impending second season) that I just can’t help myself. Recounting the backstory of Geralt of Rivia’s own Witcher mentor Vesemir, this beautifully expands on the already compelling universe the series has created, as well as delivering some breath-taking thrills and chills through some of the most exquisite cell animation I’ve ever seen outside of the greats of anime.  A must-see for Witcher fans, then, but one I’d also highly recommend to anyone who likes their animation a bit more grown-up and edgy.

#movies 2021 #luca #disney luca #fast & furious 9 #reminiscence #reminiscence movie #free guy #evangelion thrice upon a time #rebuild of evangelion 4 #those who wish me dead #those who wish me dead movie #cruella #cruella movie #the green knight #the green knight movie #candyman #candyman 2021 #the witcher nightmare of the wolf #awesome sauce

[sebastbu]

My Top 40 Movies of the Decade

***just my opinion***this list is not set in stone either***

1. 12 Years A Slave (2013)

What Steve McQueen has managed to do with this movie in nothing short of the best thing art is capable of. He takes the horror of humanity and turns it into a heart shattering tale of the best of humanity. A film that could have sunk easily among the brutality it contains, instead soars with Solomon’s survival. It is one of the most life-affirming, uplifting works of art I’ve ever seen. It makes you cry, it makes you shout, it makes you cheer, it makes you breathless. In short, all the things movies are best at. Not just a definitive movie, but a definitive work of art.

2. The Act of Killing (2012)

This has my vote for the best documentary film of all time. What begins as a transfixing profile of the mass murders responsible for the 1965 Indonesian genocide quickly transforms into a Brechtian nightmare as director Joshua Oppenheimer somehow convinces these men to stage scenes for a fake movie reenacting their crimes. As the film progresses you can hardly believe what you’re witnessing. Horrifying, yet you can’t look away. Oppenheimer holds your attention for every second. What’s captured for film here is truly unique, ground-breaking, soul shaking. A statement about the banality of evil as profound as Ardent’s essays. 

3. The Tree of Life (2011)

Malick has reached his final form here. An organic art form, pure cinema, visual poetry, whatever you want to call it. Nothing but a movie could be this. The images he crafts here are as close to a religious experience as I’ve ever had watching a movie, and probably ever will. In exploring childhood memories, Malick’s style perfectly matches his subject manner. He use of ellipsis and fluidity mirrors the way memories flash through our heads. It is as if we are witnessing memory directly, unfiltered. This movie will move you in ways you didn’t know a movie could. 

4. The Social Network (2010)

That Facebook movie? Hell yeah that facebook movie. What Fincher and Sorkin have managed to do is take what could be a standard biopic, or dull tech movie, and made it into an epic tale of betrayal, greed, friendship, coming of age, and identity. Ross and Reznor’s score pulses, as does the dialogue. This movie starts the instant you press play and it doesn’t let you catch your breath for one second until the very end. Endlessly quotable, perfected acted. A masterclass.

5. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

What can I say about this movie? Every shot is perfect. Every joke, beat, pan, zoom. Well, I guess I’ll say this. This movie disarms with its charm, its facade. But at its heart is a wrenching tale of loss, nostalgia, and the fleeting nature of everything, especially those we love. A jewel of a film. Anderson makes sure you’re cozy and then pulls the rug out from under you, and suddenly you’re crying. 

6. The Master (2012)

Career best performances from Joaquin Phoenix and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Lushly shot. Greenwood delivers another ground breaking score. PTA has made an aimless film about aimless characters that nevertheless is riveting. At the end, you may not know exactly how far you’ve progressed, but you’re sure glad you went on the journey. 

7. Drive (2011)

This is not an action movie. It’s a love story. The now famous dream pop soundtrack. Ryan Gosling doing so much with so little. Refn’s breathtaking cinematography. Diluted dreams. Crushed hopes. Silent gazes, filled with more emotion than dialogue could ever render.

8. The Revenant (2015)

An achievement of pure cinematic insanity. I still have no idea how they got some of these shots. A brutal, thrilling story of survival among nature’s cruelty. Inarritu’s camera is like magic in this film, uncovering the previously thought not possible. 

9. La La Land (2016)

A reinvention of a genre that somehow manages to have its cake and eat it too: a nostalgia trip that also subverts expectations. Right up there next to Singin’ in the Rain, in my book at least. How on earth was that only Chazelle’s second ever movie? 

10. The Lighthouse (2019)

TELL ME YE FOND O ME LOBSTER! WHYD YA SPILL YOUR BEANS? IF I HAD A STEAK ID FUCK IT. That about sums it up.

11. Parasite (2019)

Bong Joon Ho has made a beautifully twisted psychological thriller that is also hilarious, touching, and a lasting commentary on class and social mobility. 

12. The Florida Project (2017)

Baker’s approach of setting this story from the viewpoint of children makes it a glorious romp through a world of innocence as well as tragedy, and also makes it all the more emotionally impactful.

13. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

It’s all about the cat. Alongside the Coen’s mastery of dialogue and the side character, as well as the beautiful folk music, this film acts as a deeply moving portrayal of depression, and how sometimes we are our own worst enemy. 

14. Moonlight (2016)

Expertly crafted. Expertly acted. Expertly shot. A gorgeously rendered coming of age story. I’m not really the person who should speak of its importance. I’ll just say: it is. Very. A movie that will stun you. 

15. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Practical! Effects! Yeah, that really is Tom Hardy swinging fifty feet off the ground on a pole as explosions go off behind him. A feminist, post-apocalypse, road trip movie brought to you by the director of Happy Feet and Babe 2. What more could you want?

16. Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

A wonderful celebration of childhood and of fantasy. Anderson crafts a world you want to return to again and again. Anyone else get jump scared when they realized Lucas Hedges was in this??? 

17. Arrival (2016)

I love Denis Villeneuve’s films for so many reasons. The most important I think is that he balances entertainment and artistic depth so well. Like all great scifi Arrival is not really about aliens, it’s about us. 

18. Inception (2010)

A film that runs on all cyclinders. Smart, funny, jaw dropping, just plain fun. Nolan manages to build some surprisingly moving moments as well. 

19. Gone Girl (2014)

Ah Fincher and his twists. Rosemund Pike at the top of her game. Ross and Reznor return with another gripping score. Around the narrative, Fincher creates a fascinating portrayal of the media and marriage, one with endless twists and turns. You never quite know where it’s headed.

20. Sicario (2015)

A second thing I love about Dennis Villeneuve: he does point of view characters better than anyone else. 

21. Enemy (2014)

A third thing I love about Dennis Villeneuve: he plays with genre and narrative structure unlike anyone else working right now.

22. Incendies (2010)

A fourth thing I love about Denis Villeneuve: he’s given us some of the best female lead characters this decade.

23. Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

A fifth thing I love about Denis Villeneuve: he somehow managed make a Blade Runner sequel work. Here’s hoping for Dune. 

24. The Look of Silence (2014)

The companion film of The Act of Killing. Oppenheimer does it again, this time focusing more on the victims of the genocide. Groundbreaking cinema.

25. Shame (2011)

Slow clap for Michael Fassbender. Slow clap for Carey Mulligan. Slow clap for Steven Mcqueen.

26. Hereditary (2018)

Using horror to examine mental illness and family trauma. Aster has made a new classic of genre, taking it to new heights.

27. Under The Skin (2014)

How to make a movie about an alien descended onto earth in order to capture men and engulf them in her weird black room of goo? Make a very alienation movie. Chilling. Otherworldly. Haunting. 

28. Son of Saul (2015)

In making any holocaust film there’s always the risk of feeling exploitative. Nemes’s radical camera work, focusing almost entirely on the main character’s face in close up leaves this concern in the dust. The horrors enter only at the corners of the frame, while humanity is firmly centered the whole time. An important film everyone should see. 

29. Whiplash (2014)

As visceral and heart pounding as the solos performed, the film as a whole is a perfectly made portrait of a obsession. 

30. Amour (2012)

Haneke takes his unforgiving approach and lays bare a topic with incredible emotional depth. The result is deeply moving without ever being sentimental. I’m hard pressed to find another film about old age that is this poignant. 

31. Birdman (2014)

A whirlwind of a film. A high wire act. The long takes turn it into something more akin to a play. A pretty damn good one at that. 

32. Once Upon A Time In Anatolia (2011)

What’s Chekhov doing in the 21st Century? He’s in Turkey. He name is Nuri Ceylan. 

33. The Favourite (2018)

Lanthimos turns down his style and turns up his humor. The result is the best of both worlds: a dark, twisted tale of power and a hilarious parody of monarchy and British costume drama. 

34. Phantom Thread (2018)

PTA delivers again. What could easily have been another tired tale of the obsessive artist and the woman behind him is instead a fairy tale-ish ensnaring of two people’s ineffable pull towards each other. 

35. A Hidden Life (2019)

Still fresh in my mind. Malick’s late style is given the backbone it needed in the form of a relevant tale of resistance and struggle. A meditative, prayer-like film about the power of belief. 

36. Prisoners (2013)

A sixth thing I love about Denis Villeneuve: his movies have layers, but only if you look. Otherwise, the ride is pretty great as well. 

37. Manchester By The Sea (2016)

A masterclass in doing less with more. 

38. Foxcatcher (2014)

Bennett Miller does biopics unlike anyone else. That is to say, maybe better than anyone else working today. 

39. The Witch (2015)

Eggers’s first foray into historical New England horror. A chilling commentary on the evils of puritanism.

40. The Kid With A Bike (2011)

The Dardenne brothers managed to make a gut-wrenching tale of childhood, masculinity, abandonment, the power of empathy, belonging, and redemption in 84 minutes. Here’s a suggestion. Watch this movie. Then watch it again. A better use of the same amount of time it takes to sit through The Irishman. Oh wait, no you still have 30 minutes left over. 

#movies #top10 #decade list #movies list #2010s cinema

[letterboxd]

Most Picture 2020.

In which we award the Most Picture Oscar to the most-rewatched of the 2020 Best Picture nominees, and track down the Letterboxd member who most obsessively rewatched the Most Obsessively Rewatched Film in our 2019 Year in Review—Avengers: Endgame—to ask “Why?”.

Once again, we dive into the data on the Oscar Best Picture nominees to name not the Best Picture (respect to Parasite!), but what is the Most Picture, as in, which of the nine 2020 finalists was rewatched the most by Letterboxd members?

And the 2020 “Most” Picture Award goes to… Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Letterboxd member Movie15 has the distinction of having logged Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood the most—a whopping 26 times since its August release, and though he hasn’t reviewed it on Letterboxd, we’ve enjoyed his quest to see Tarantino’s latest in as many Los Angeles movie theaters as possible, on 35mm as often as he can.

Bong Joon-ho’s multi-Academy-Award-winning masterpiece, Parasite, comes next, just 859 views behind—Khoi is the Letterboxd member who has most obsessively rewatched the film to date, with eleven recorded watches. Third place (and almost 14,000 views behind the two leaders) goes to Joker, watched the most (seventeen times) by Kenai Fleck, a hard-core Batman fan.

In fourth place, Little Women. Micah Simmons has logged the film fourteen times (but may in fact be pushing 20 views). On the thirteenth view, “I have nothing to add, except for mentioning a shot right before the scene where Amy does *the thing* to Jo, and there’s a crazy shot that foreshadows *the thing* so well and fuck this movie is smart.” Then come Marriage Story, The Irishman, 1917, Jojo Rabbit and Ford v. Ferrari in that order.

The official Letterboxd Most Picture list reveals the combined number of watches for all members with two or more entries for these films.

The Rewatches We Logged Along the Way

Avengers: Endgame was the Most Obsessively Rewatched Film of 2019 in our Year in Review, which means it had the highest number of Letterboxd members logging it five or more times in their diaries.

Member Max Joseph has the distinction of having logged Avengers: Endgame more times than any other. When we told him we needed to know why, he replied: “I’d be honored to talk about my love for Avengers Endgame!” Spoilers follow in this Q&A with Max (though at this point if you haven’t seen Avengers: Endgame it’s probably only because Max has watched it for you). This interview was conducted prior to the 2020 Academy Awards.

How many times do you think you have seen Avengers: Endgame? Max Joseph: Well, I’ve logged it 26 times as of today. But I also think there are a good three or four watches I didn’t log because I occasionally put it on before bed, and just never logged it. So I’d say my final answer is 29, but that honestly may be lowballing it. I have a feeling that by the time the Oscars roll around, it’ll probably be at 30. I always watch every single film, documentary and short nominated for the Oscars, and thankfully, Endgame was nominated!

What’s your reaction to the news that you are the member who has logged it the most? Kind of shocked! I really didn’t even realize how many times I watched it until you told me! I watch Avengers: Endgame because it brings me happiness, and I love the adventure! When it finally came out on Blu-ray and digital, there were a few times I would watch it multiple times in one day. Then I’d throw something else on, then get upset that I wasn’t watching Avengers. So maybe it isn’t as shocking as I had thought!

What keeps you coming back to it? I love all genres of film. Take this season for example. I love the more meaty and dramatic films like Parasite, 1917, Waves, Queen & Slim. I love comedies like Jojo Rabbit and Booksmart. Animation like Toy Story 4, Frozen II and Klaus.

But, you give me someone flying, turning invisible, super speed… that’s where I live. Superhero movies are just my favorites, and I think the reason I keep coming back to Avengers: Endgame is because besides being a superhero movie—which I just naturally gravitate towards—in Endgame, I get a little bit of every genre and mood. I also like that it’s split up into three acts, and each act gives me what I want in a superhero movie:

Act one is the slow burn, which we never really got in the MCU up to this point. It’s the aftermath of Avengers: Infinity War, and them dealing with the implications and the new normal of the universe. And this gives a chance for the story to build, and our actors to show off, especially Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson. It gives something new to the fans of the franchise and is one of the biggest reasons I keep coming back for more.

Act two is the “time heist” and it is a pure love letter to the fans of the franchise. They revisit some of the best parts of our MCU journey over the last eleven years and mess with it. Is it fan service? Absolutely! But I think they did it right.

Act three is the final battle at the now-destroyed Avengers headquarters. And this was where the slow burn pays off. It is what we’ve all been waiting for since 2008. The grand finale. The culmination of eleven years and 22 films. We are gifted my favorite battle I’ve ever seen, bone-chilling and heartbreaking moments, as well as the most cathartic endings to the most epic story I’ve ever had the privilege to watch, nearly 30 times over.

What have you noticed with each rewatch? Two things: firstly, how unbelievable the visual effects are. I may be alone in this, but I think Marvel has the best visual effects on the planet. By miles. And rewatching this makes me appreciate how much time and dedication was put into making this. So much happened behind the scenes, that I personally don’t really think about while watching it. But after 26 views, I start to think about green screens, the motion capturing, all of those elements, it’s insane! Go on YouTube and just check out all of that work they did visually. It’s beautiful.

Secondly, how brilliant Robert Downey Jr. is. I’ve been saying it for years, but RDJ was born to play Tony Stark. Has he had many other brilliant performances throughout his career? Absolutely. But I think that if he was not cast as Iron Man, this franchise wouldn’t have turned out the way it did. He is the heart of the MCU. And he has so many brilliant moments throughout the film, meets his dad during the “time heist”, the realization of “the one”, even the way he interacts with his daughter, Morgan. It’s truly exceptional work. I think it’s his best performance as Stark.

What is the single greatest scene in the film? Oy, well that’s near impossible. A few standouts are Cap wielding Mjölnir, the scene with Tony and his dad, the reveal of Professor Hulk, thicc Thor, Cap vs. Cap, “the snap”. There are so many! But I think the popular answer is also the greatest, and that is when our Avengers return.

As soon as I heard Sam Wilson’s (Falcon) voice, I lost my mind. And they brilliantly added “On your left” right before all the portals open up. “On your left” is a callback to Captain America: The Winter Soldier. That’s the first line of the movie, and is repeated again at the end. Both times are between Sam and Steve, and it was the same in Endgame. And then you add Alan Silvestri’s score (the song is titled ‘Portals’) which is building and building with emotion, which leads into Cap finally saying…

“Avengers (music cuts) Assemble”… (enter Avengers theme song)

It. Is. Perfection. I have chills as I type this. It was probably the greatest theater experience I’ve had in my life. I was sobbing. Imagine how I was by the end…

What has the overall Avengers cinematic adventure meant to you? I remember seeing the first Iron Man in theaters with some friends in 2008. We all dressed up in suits, because we were at a high school awards show kind of thing, and just went straight to the theater, and we had the best time. From the first moment ’til the end, when Tony says, “I am Iron Man”, then Black Sabbath’s ‘Iron Man’ starts playing, my jaw was on the floor. I gave a standing ovation. In a suit. From that moment on, I knew that this was made for me.

It has given me the greatest moments in a movie theater, incredible discussions with friends and strangers, and although it may seem cheesy, some much-needed happiness in some of the most difficult times in my life. I watch these stories because I love them. They mean something to me. They are an important part of who I am.

What would you say to people who say that blockbusters like these aren't ‘real’ cinema? Hahaha! This is a hilarious question, and I’m thrilled that you asked it. I’ve actually had a good 20 people ask me this, and I always said that I’d write something or make a video about it, so here we go…

Let me start off by saying that Martin Scorsese is arguably one of the greatest directors of all time. I love his work, I respect it, and I encourage everyone to watch his full repertoire, ’cause it’s beautiful.

That being said… ‘real cinema’ is a matter of opinions. To me, Avengers: Endgame is just as much real cinema, as The Irishman, Goodfellas, The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, anything. I don’t care who you are, you can be Martin Scorsese, Kevin Feige, one of my friends, a stranger, I don’t think you have the right to tell me what is ‘real cinema’. You can say something isn’t good, or only being made to earn a profit, but you don’t get to say that movies like this aren’t worthy of being ‘real cinema’. To me, they are. You’re more than entitled to that opinion! I just happen to disagree with you, but you’re not wrong by any means. I’m entitled to my opinion, you’re entitled to yours. And that’s what it comes down to. Opinions.

Thicc Thor—keep or send back to the gym? I totally don’t care. Taika Waititi figured out how to write that character in Thor: Ragnarok, and thankfully they continued writing him this way in Endgame. So as long as the writers continue on the path that Waititi sent him on, I’m good. Make him thicc, give him an eight-pack, as long as the character has purpose and the lines flow naturally, I’m more than satisfied with whatever he looks like.

How amped are you to learn more about Natasha’s background in this year’s Black Widow? Finally! We’ve been waiting since Iron Man 2, and it is finally time for the Black Widow movie she deserves! I’m fascinated by the Red Room, which was where she started her training as a Russian spy. They showed us glimpses of her beginnings in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, and I’ve always been hungry for more information because it looked really interesting.

I also think that we may finally find out what happened in Budapest. It was first mentioned in The Avengers back in 2012, as a bit of banter between Black Widow and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), and has kind of been a mystery ever since. It was actually mentioned again in Endgame. I’m basing this on the San Diego Comic-Con Hall H panel. There was a title card that said “Budapest”, so it would make sense that we’re gonna get what we’ve been asking for!

I’m also thrilled because the cast is awesome. Obviously double Oscar-nominated actor this season, Scarlett Johansson, Rachel Weisz, David Harbour and one of my favorite actors, Florence Pugh, who had an unbelievable 2019, with Fighting With My Family, Midsommar (one of my favorite performances of the decade), and she topped it off with an Oscar-nominated performance in Little Women!

What do you think should win best picture at this year’s Oscars? Parasite. And it’s not even close. I think Parasite is one of the greatest films I’ve seen in my life. I think it deserves that number one slot on your Top 250 Narrative Features list.

It features the best performance from an ensemble, Song Kang-ho should have been nominated for supporting actor (he should be winning). The production design is fabulous. They literally built the Park family’s house for the film! Hong Kyung-pyo’s photography is worthy of being framed. He created a few shots that are permanently engraved in my head (in a good way). And of course, Bong Joon-ho’s direction flows with emotion and his script is original, gripping and electric. He is the definition of a visionary, at the top of his game.

Parasite is the crowning achievement of the decade and should be awarded as such. It would be the perfect way to end the decade with the first foreign-language film (now titled “International Feature Film”) winning Best Picture at the Oscars. #BONGHIVE all the way!

What do you think will win? My heart says Parasite, but I think it may end up going to something like Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood, The Irishman or 1917 (which is in my top ten this year). The easy answer is probably Hollywood because it won the Globe, but that doesn’t always translate into an Oscar.

But if it’s not Parasite, I think it should be 1917. It is a technical work of art from Oscar, Golden Globe and Tony Award-winning director Sam Mendes. Roger Deakins outdid himself and is pretty much guaranteed to earn his second Oscar [update: he did!]. Thomas Newman’s score is probably my favorite of the year (possibly of his career), followed closely by Emile Mosseri’s for The Last Black Man in San Francisco and Hildur Guðnadóttir’s for Joker. And George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman should be on everyone’s radar. They’re phenomenal. It’s shaping up to be quite a race this year!

What’s your favorite thing about Letterboxd? I think the reason I love it so much is because it feels like a family. I’ve had such a passion for the cinema for my whole life, and I like to share it wherever I can. But other social platforms (as wonderful as they are), aren’t always the best place to post about every single movie I’ve watched, or a top ten that I make. Letterboxd is the only place where I can let out all of my opinions, all of my thoughts, without feeling embarrassed or like I’m bothering anyone when I say how perfect Avengers: Endgame is. Or if I watch it and spot something new, I can post about it, and have great conversations about what I’ve discovered. It is the place for movie lovers, and it actually helped me love movies more, and to learn more about the crews, studios, and everything behind the film.

#AVENGERS #AVENGERS ENDGAME #letterboxd #most rewatched #most rewatched film #best picture #oscar #oscars #oscar2020 #oscars2020

[curly-q-reviews]

ROAD TO THE OSCAR MAYER WIENER AWARDS 2K19

Black Panther, 2018 (dir. Ryan Coogler)

Nominated for: Best Original Score, Best Original Song, Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing

ok y’all lets get this party started with a movie i didnt get to catch in theaters (i think i ended up renting it) but people were absolutely raving about it all of last year, and for good reason i gotta say!  it was one of the better marvel films that came out last year (though in my humble opinion Infinity War takes the gold)

speaking of marvel lets talk about it for a spell!  lets have a lil sit-down chit-chat shall we!!  cause its kind of insane how much of an american media phenomenon marvel has become, they are arguably single-handedly responsible for reviving the superhero movie subgenre and now these types of movies bring hollywood more dineros than they probably know what to do with (besides make more superhero movies).  what used to be a niche market where only your most hardcore of nerdy types dared to dwell has been embraced into the mainstream wholeheartedly, and now its hard to imagine the american film industry without them. 

from a film critique standpoint, marvel movies seem to be a hit-or-miss as far as quality, however i cant really think of a particular marvel movie that i thought was a total piece of hot garbage (the first two Thor movies come close but they were more boring than anything else).  however last year was a real success for the studio, they just kept pumping out quality movies left and right and once disney managed to get its grubby lil mouse paws on Spider-man it was a done deal baby.  DC and other companies have tried again and again to recreate the success that Marvel has managed and so far they’ve failed to various degrees.  Marvel’s just got that special something with their cinematic universe, some magical combo of great actors and creative directors and an ever-expanding budget that keeps them staying at the top every time.

so whats my stance on superhero movies???  well theyre not my usual cup of tea but i gotta say they’re real damn entertaining.  i kinda view them like a high-speed ride at an amusement park, super fun and thrilling and exhilarating and just a real good time!  but thats about as far as it goes for me, and im sure thats the same for a lot of people.  to be honest its kinda refreshing to have movies that quality-wise are up to my standards that i dont have to think too hard about.  so for me the movies i typically go for are like museums, whereas superhero movies (and action movies in general) are like a carnival.  both entertaining and fun, but the latter is just all about letting loose and not wondering about the why’s and how’s.  when i think about it, this kinda mindset is for sure a factor in how these movies got so popular, because with the shitshow that is our current government and the potential imminent death of our planet people are once again looking for movies as a form of escapism, rather than a way to get deep and philosophical and ask the tough questions and see something profound. 

with that being said, despite some exceptions that have proven me wrong to my utter joy and delight (im looking at u Logan), i expect movies that are nominated for wiener awards to be more like museums than like carnivals y’know what i mean?  u catchin my drift???  u takin what im dishin out????  the academy awards have a long history of prestige, of nominating the best of the best of any given year. quite a few movies that won oscars are now considered to be timeless classics.  which is why superhero movies, at least the typical marvel types that are chocked to the brim with CGI and epic massive fight scenes and explosions, dont really strike me as anything that could eventually become a timeless classic.  the amount of computer-generated effects alone will make these movies feel really dated as soon as like five years from now with how fast technology is progressing.  i just dont see it happening.

and that brings us to the first wiener award nominee ill be talking about, Black Panther.  this isnt director Ryan Coogler’s first time at the rodeo; his first feature film Fruitvale Station received critical acclaim in 2013, and the spiritual Rocky sequel Creed actually got nominated for some oscars a few years ago.  so we’ve got a promising and talented director at the helm which is a great start!  we’ve also got a stellar cast with the likes of michael b. jordan (who has been in all of Coogler’s films so far), lupita nyong’o, angela bassett, and forest whitaker in the bunch.  it also has the astronomical financial backing of Supreme Overlord Disney so u know this is gonna be some high-quality shit.

so i’m gonna tell y’all why i think this movie got nominated for so many oscars, because in a way i do think this movie is deserving of noms from the academy.  theres no denying that it is very groundbreaking for a movie of this scale and magnitude to have a black director and a nearly all-black cast.  in fact, i think a lot of the crew members (including set and costume design) were black as well.  thats fuckin huge my guy.  and this movie was by no means a flop either; it ended up being one of the highest-grossing films of 2018 and stayed in theaters for a loooong-ass time.  and not only were the people on this project mostly black, the movie itself is a story praising and showing off the beauty of african culture without exotifying or demeaning it in any way.  like i can say 100% without a doubt that this movie deserves its best costume design nom cause holy shit the outfits in this movie are stunning, just the perfect blend of ancient/current tribal african aesthetics and a more futuristic sleek style that any fashion enthusiast can drool over.

i cant say much about best musical score or best sound mixing or anything like that cause it all seemed like typical marvel stuff to me and wasnt all that memorable.  however i can say that the production design on this movie, while it didnt impress me as much as costuming, did still impress me.  the one thing i gotta knock it on is all the fucken CGI, like whole entire towns and landscapes were digitally rendered.  i wouldve been a lot more impressed and would agree more to the production design nom if they used more practical effects and real sets/locations. 

so.  best picture.  this is where i feel the most conflicted.  cause this is where i now have to look past all the pretty fancy visuals and music and look at the actual meat of this movie, its story and characters.  usually best picture noms also get noms for things like best actress, best script, and best director, cause those are all really important elements of a good film.  ur movie can look and sound as pretty as it wants but if the storys shit and the characters are shit and the actings shit then u dont have much going for u.

and by no means am i saying that Black Panther was shitty in these aspects, it was just well.  passable.  it was ok.  but nothing to write home about

we got some good performances from newcomers letitia wright and chadwick boseman, lupita kills it as always, but then everyone else was like.  okay.  michael b. jordan didnt really do his best in this and idk if its the script’s fault or something but it was weird.  and speaking of the script it was uuuuhhhhh well.  not great.  every time i think about that “what are those” reference i die a little inside.  and the story overall wasnt really anything new when u break it down, just another “son of king struggles to take his place” narrative.  and that aspect of the story couldve actually been more developed into something interesting, i found myself really intrigued with the political scenes.  but there just wasnt enough of that cause they needed to make more room for the PEW PEW POW EXPLOSIONS

granted, movies with lots of shimmer but little substance have been nominated for best picture before (just look at James Cameron’s Avatar which is apparently getting a sequel now????????).  and its not even that this movie is completely devoid of substance cause theres some interesting things going on plot-wise, and some stand-out characters too (shuri is the boss and no one can tell me otherwise).  its just, u know, a good superhero movie.  nothing really profound about the story itself except for the cultural, historical, and social context behind it.

so lemme get back to why i think this movie got a best picture nom.  i think the academy wants to keep up their appearance of being #woke now by continuing to nominate more than one poc-heavy project each year, but they seem to be caring less and less about the actual overall quality of these movies.  and theres even some movies on the noms list that i think actually have what it takes to be a strong oscars contender, like If Beale Street Could Talk and BlacKkKlansmen.  but i think in Black Panther’s case, they were under a lot of pressure to give it top noms (or any noms at all) because of the intensely positive response this movie got, as well as the accusations of racism to people who didnt think it was as great as fans were saying. 

also i have no doubt that Supreme Overlord Disney like threw piles and piles of money at the academy like they tend to do (cause i’d bet good money thats the only fucken way Incredibles 2 got nominated for anything)

well anyway ive gone on long enough about this, lemme know what y’all think.  really the only nom im iffy about when it comes to this movie is Best Picture, but the others i think are well enough deserved, especially costume design.  so i guess the one thing i struggle with is this: does a movie becoming a pop culture phenomenon and being groundbreaking in its cast and crew count as enough for it to be nominated for the top prize of the wiener awards, despite any fallbacks in script, direction, and acting?  idk man im just hoping it doesnt get the award by default or something but then again maybe after watching all the other nominees it may turn out that the rest of them were worse than Black Panther i guess i’ll have to find out

stay tuned for my A Star Is Born review y’all stay fresh and funky eat ur vegetables stay in school u dont need drugs when ur high on life

#road to the oscar mayer weiner awards 2k19 #curly q reviews #black panther #oscars #academy awards #oscars 2019 #chadwick boseman #letitia wright #lupita nyong'o #forest whitaker #angela bassett #marvel #superhero movies #best picture #fruitvale station #creed #ryan coogler #thor #avengers infinity war

[thejoeywright-blog]

YEAR IN REVIEW : Film 2018

Good evening/afternoon/morning,

A few notes on the breakdown on my year at the movies. I saw a grand total of 134 films released in 2018. A fair amount thanks in great part to MoviePass and various streaming services. If you are a fan of comic book movies, I would like to extend to you a personal thank you as you kept the movies theaters afloat this year. However, with the exception of Black Panther, I was located in the auditorium just down the hall. Full disclosure: I did actually try and see Avengers : Infinity War, but two four year-old’s were not being parented correctly and I ended up walking out. I hope they enjoyed seeing their favorite heroes turn to dust. I also most notably missed Mary Poppins Returns, Aquaman, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Spider-Man:Into the Spiderverse, Oceans 8, and Fifty Shades Freed. One film I did have the privilege of seeing and would surely be in my top ten, Under the Silverlake, is technically not scheduled for release until the Spring of 2019. So look forward to hearing about it next year. All that being said, here is how I saw the movies this year. Enjoy.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Black Panther, Bodied, Boy Erased, First Reformed, Hearts Beat Loud, Hot Summer Nights, If Beale Street Could Talk, Isle of Dogs, Minding the Gap, Mission Impossible:Fallout, A Quiet Place, The Rider, Thunder Road, Tully, Won’t You Be My Neighbor

THE TOP TEN

10. The Miseducation of Cameron Post

This is the “other gay conversion camp” movie that sadly was overlooked in place of Boy Erased. I saw both, and while the latter packs some excellent performances, judging by my exposure to Christian camps, this was the one that rang most authentic.

9.  Suspiria

Coming on the heels of Luca Guadagnino’s masterpiece Call Me By Your Name, there was no other film I was looking forward to more in 2018 than Suspiria. I also wouldn’t believe they had the same director. This heavy on style remake of the 1977 horror classic of the same name is truly made in Guadagnino’s image. It was vile, erotic, funny, beautiful, and captivating often in the same breaths. The buzzed about “contortionist dance sequence” from CinemaCon lived up to its vomit inducing hype reminding me while I liked the film a great deal, it’s not for the squeamish.

8.  Vice

Some are saying it lionizes former Vice President Dick Cheney. Others are saying it runs his name through the dirt.Part biopic, more parts political satire. It is definitely more Dr. Stangelove than Lincoln in terms of story and tone.  In a somewhat packed theater, those looking for a straight biopic, who I imagine missed director Adam McKay’s previous works Anchorman and The Big Short were seen heading for the exits due to the amounts of silliness. Amy Adams gives a downright diabolical performance as Lynn Cheney often overshadowing that of her on screen husband. 

7.  Annihilation 

Alex Garland’s follow-up to Ex Machina is much bigger film which in his hands is not a bad thing. Natalie Portman plays a biologist looking for answers after her presumed dead husband suddenly returns from secret military assignment.Your typical “journey into the unknown” story is enhanced with amazing visuals, intriguing scientific concept, and chilling horror. I’m still haunted by the sounds coming out of that, uhh, lets just call it a bear.

6.  Burning

An American remake of Burning would clock in at 92 minutes and be forgotten immediately upon leaving the theater. This is why I’m glad this was in the hands  Chang-dong Lee, a director who focuses greatly on the human condition. Large amounts of the run time of Burning is dedicated to the emotions, reactions, and exploration of our characters. The Walking Dead’s Steven Yeun gives the supporting performance of the year as the mysterious Ben. A love-triangle, a missing girl, and burning greenhouses amount to the most rewarding cinematic experience I had in 2018. 

5.  Roma

Roma is a film that asks of its viewer to almost meditate within it. Those familiar with director Alfonso Cuaron’s other films, Children of Men and Gravity, will find a more reserved and personal picture. The story of a maid and the middle class family she cares for in the Colonia Roma neighborhood of Mexico City is the most relatable and touching film of the year. First time actor Yalitza Aparicio gives one of the most award-worthy debut performances in recent memory as Cleo. Scenes have lingered in my mind since my viewing almost a month ago now, particularly a single-shot sequence of a family swimming into the ocean with no realization of how powerful the surf can be. 

4.  The Favourite

This cheeky period COMEDY, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, had me laughing harder than any other film in 2018. The story of Queen Anne’s two most trusted advisers battle for her commendation is delicious and diabolical at every turn. The film relies strongly on the equally grand performances it’s three ladies Olivia Coleman, Rachel Weisz, and Emma Stone, but DO NOT, I repeat do not sleep on the duck races.

3. A Star is Born

A Star is Born has been a social and commercial juggernaut with hefty box office sales, record sales, music award nominations, and memes beyond galore. However, it’s also an excellent example of Hollywood at its nostalgic best. There are easy avenues director, star, screenwriter, songwriter, catering manager Bradley Cooper could have taken with the thrice revamped story, but he plays it very close to the chest. It’s well known within my circle of friends and family how much I truly adored Cooper as the burning out rock star Jackson Maine.. Or Jack as you told me at the bar you wanted to be called... Every line of dialogue. Every smirk. Every caring gesture to Allie, Lady Gaga in frankly the best thing she’s ever breathed life into. Everything works here. See it the biggest and loudest way possible. 

2.  BlacKkKlansman

Here is my pick for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. It checks all the boxes. Great performances, screenplay, and direction with a great message tied in. I used to hold issue with Spike Lee’s political and social statements book-ending his films, but here it really works. Ron Stallworth, the excellent John David Washington, is Colorado Springs first African-American police officer, who on whim manages to infiltrate the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. He works as the voice on the phone while his partner is the nice upstanding wh-ite man they are seeing. What follows is a wild, funny, thrilling, and cautionary tale that rings truer in 2018 than its setting of the 1970s.

1. Sorry To Bother You

I saw Sorry To Bother You on July 16, 2018. It has held my number one spot for almost seven full months. Leaving the theater I had a feeling I have not had in a movie since 2003, “Well I’ve never seen anything like that before!” That alone holds a lot of weight after watching 133 other films this year that I could compare to something previous. The feature film directorial debut from The Coup musician Boots Riley ten years from now, much in the same way Pulp Fiction and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are viewed, will be seen as “the norm” and a turning point in the way movies in its genre are made. I realize that is high praise, but risks are taken here where lesser films have flown off the rails. Somehow Riley takes what many would deem “absolutely insane” and makes it work. The performance of Lakeith Stanfield has been grossly unmerited all award season and is one of the best of the year. No other performance this year is asked to navigate the varying levels of despair, satire, and rage than Stanfield. Sorry To Bother You arrives without training wheels or a brake, possibly even handle bars. Enjoy the ride because you’ve never been on one like it before. 

YEAR END AWARDS

BEST FILM: BlacKkKlansman

BEST DIRECTOR: Alfonso Cuaron for ‘Roma’

BEST ACTRESS: Olivia Coleman for ‘The Favourite’

BEST ACTOR: Bradley Cooper for ‘A Star is Born’

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Amy Adams for ‘Vice’

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Steven Yeun for ‘Burning’

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: ‘Burning’

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: ‘Sorry to Bother You’

CINEMATOGRAPHY: ‘Roma’

BEST SCORE : IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK’

BEST ANIMATED FILM: Isle of Dogs

BEST DOCUMENTARY: Minding the Gap

BEST FIRST FILM: Boots Riley for ‘Sorry To Bother You’

BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE: Jim Cummings in ‘Thunder Road’

SCENES OF THE YEAR:

“Shallow” from ‘A Star is Born’

“Breaking the Waves” from ‘Roma’

“What’s On the Menu” from ‘Vice’

“Eulogy” from ‘Thunder Road’

Final scene from ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’

“The Contortionist” from ‘Suspiria’

#film #movies #topten #sorry to bother you

[homeplanetreviews]

Best Films of 2017 by: Will Whalen

Hello everyone! I know, we’re already a month into 2018 but some films that were 2017 releases didn’t come out near me till 2018 and I just had to wait and see them. However, it didn’t change much because (for the most part) my top films list is nearly the same as it was when I made it in December. So, here it is! This was a terrific year for film but these are my absolute favorites of 2017. 

First, I have a few honorable mentions: Molly’s Game, Alien: Covenant, John Wick 2, Get Out, My Life as a Zucchini, Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2, Call Me By Your Name, and All the Money in the World.

So, here we go!

15. The Disaster Artist

I was really surprised by The Disaster Artist because I was really excited for it because of The Room and I was expecting it to be a comedy about how The Room was made. And if you’ve ever seen The Room, anyone would be excited for that reason. However, what I got was a surprisingly super touching film about friendship and achieving your dreams no matter what the cost is or no matter how many times someone says you can’t.

14. Dunkirk

Dunkirk was a war film from the incredible mastermind Christopher Nolan that wasn’t a typical war film. It wasn’t some character drama on top of being a war film but instead a more accurate look at war. It was about survival and this horrible situation that these brave men were stuck in and basically all had to fend for themselves. I only got to see it once and I was lucky enough to see it in 70mm film but I can’t wait to revisit it.

13. Good Time

Good Time was actually a great time (bad pun intended) and was one of the most stressful, thrilling and non stop downward spirals of a film I have seen in recent memory. Robert Pattinson also gave his best performance and really should’ve been nominated. It was also directed excellently by the Safdie Brothers who took risks. They did things in this that most filmmakers would never dare to do. If you’re easily stressed, maybe stay away from this movie. But, its a good time...

12. It

You’ll float too… when you see It. It was one of the best horror films I’ve seen in quite a long time and definitely one of the funniest movies of last year. We finally got a It film and it was so wonderful. Andy Muschietti did a great job helming this work and the phenomenal cast from all the talented young actors involved make this movie one of a kind and one of the best Stephen King adaptations.

11. A Ghost Story

A Ghost Story was such a special movie. This film explores death, grief, and the afterlife in one of the most beautiful films of last year. Casey Affleck also gave one of the best performances of his career and he was under a sheet the whole time. His performance spoke volumes and I would’ve liked to have seen him get some recognition. This film floored me and if you haven’t seen it, do check it out. It’s not a horror movie but it will haunt you.

10. Thor: Ragnarok

This was one one of Marvel’s best to date. Takai Waititi takes the Thor story into a new direction and made one of the funniest and one of the most all out entertaining films of the entire year. Just on a pure fun and comedic level, this was one of the best and definitely one of the most fun films of last year. Also, Waititi gave us Korg and I don’t think we can thank him enough for that.

9. T2: Trainspotting

Aye ya doss cunt! This is a sequel to one of my top favorite films of all time, Trainspotting. Trainspotting came out in 1996 and now here we are, 20 years later with a sequel. This could’ve easily not been good but with Danny Boyle once again behind the camera, our favorite skagboys back and with a wonderful script, this was a fantastic sequel and a beautiful one too. Plus, it’s Trainspotting! Plus, there’s a great soundtrack once again. 

8. Baby Driver

B-A-B-Y Baby! Baby Driver was an all out blast. It’s a fast paced, thrilling, exciting and wonderful film that has one of the best soundtracks to any film that has come out in a long time. All this is due to the amazing Edgar Wright who has made yet another great film with Baby Driver. 

7. Logan

Logan is the wolverine film we’ve all dreamed about. An R rated Wolverine film is exactly what the world of superhero films needed. In Hugh Jackman’s supposed final performance as the Wolverine, we got one of the all time best superhero films. It was directed gorgeously and had a story that I was in love with. It didn’t even feel like a superhero movie but more like a western. Patrick Stewart also gave a phenomenal performance and I wish our two main actors would’ve gotten some more praise. If this really is Jackman’s final portrayal as Logan/Wolverine, then what a hell of a way to send out on.

6. Split

M. Night Shyamalan makes a grand return to the screen with Split. It felt so incredibly good to be seeing a great M. Night Shyamalan film in theaters. James McAvoy gives one of the best performances of last year and this was absolutely snubbed at the Oscars. I won’t spoil this film but if you have never seen Shyamalan’s Unbreakable, watch it and then watch this. Trust me. I loved this film so much and absolutely cannot wait for Glass. Also, the dance scene... just watch this movie.

5. War for the Planet of the Apes

This is the third and (I think) final film in the new Apes series and was, believe it or not, a mesmerizing masterpiece. What they did with this film is absolutely mind boggling. It’s not some big over the top action movie. There are action scenes, sure. But no, instead it was a psychological warfare, revenge and prisoner of war film that was absolutely beautiful. Andy Serkis gave a chilling and insanely great performance as Caesar. What he did with this character in this film, was just wonderful. If you’ve never seen these films, they’re all great and I highly suggest watching them.

4. Star Wars: The Last Jedi

This film was one of the most fun times I’ve had the theater in quite some time. Rian Johnson took over for Episode 8 and took the Star Wars saga into a new direction and did something new, unique and just awesome. Of course, “fans” got pissed but anyone that loves film and any legit Star Wars fan, will love this one and appreciate what Johnson did with this. The Last Jedi also includes some of the best scenes in any of the Star Wars films. Sure, it does have flaws but this was a phenomenal spectacle and there’s one scene that I’ve been thinking about at least once a day since I saw this on opening night.

3. Lady Bird

This magnificent coming of age film is written by Greta Gerwig and is her directorial debut. This is a really special type of movie. It doesn’t even feel like it’s a movie but instead, just you watching people live their lives. And movies that feel so natural like that, are special. It’s also special because it’s so relatable. Whether you’re a boy or a girl or whatever, anyone can watch this and in some way, relate to it. It’s got excellent performances and it’s clear that Greta Gerwig has some real talent. I can’t wait to see what she does in the future. Lady Bird is going to be a teen classic for years to come.

2. The Shape of Water

When I saw this, I thought it may have taken place as my number one favorite of the year. Guillermo del Toro wrote and directed this and this is without a doubt, his best film yet and a beautiful masterpiece. Sally Hawkins is electric in this film alongside Oscar worthy performances from all of her costars. The Shape of Water absolutely floored me and left me in a puddle of tears. What blows me away, is how a movie like this gets 13 Oscar nominations. However, it’s well deserved.

1. Blade Runner 2049

Here it is folks. My personal favorite of the year. The movie that I thought was better than all the rest and that’s the cinematic marvel that is Blade Runner 2049. This was one of the best films I have ever seen. That’s not even a joke. On every level, it was so far beyond anything else I had ever seen. Denis Villeneuve directs this flawlessly but the cinematography from Roger Deakins, is probably the actual best from any other film I’ve ever seen. Each frame of this is dripping with dystopian neon noir and I couldn’t get enough of it. The score from Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch was so special and so hypnotizing. This is my favorite score to any film from last year as well. Ryan Gosling is in my number one film of the year yet again and this man is incredible. He gives such a subdued performance but one that spoke high volumes. It was also great to see Harrison Ford return as Deckard who also gave an amazing performance. Blade Runner 2049 should’ve been nominated for Best Picture and Best Director but I’m just happy it got some recognition. Either way, this film is a flawless masterpiece and was my number one of 2017.

That’s it folks! My top 15 of the year. I apologize about the delay, but hey, at least I finally did it! Stick around for many other review for the year!

#Best Films of 2017 #Best Of #Blade Runner 2049 #denis villeneuve #The Shape of Water #Guillermo Del Toro #lady bird #Greta Gerwig #star wars the last jedi #the last jedi #war for the planet of the apes #Matt Reeves #split #m night shyamalan #Logan #James Mangold #It #Baby Driver #edgar wright #a ghost story #t2 trainspotting #trainspotting #danny boyle #Good Time #Safdie Brothers #thor ragnarok #thor #Taika Waititi #dunkirk #Christopher Nolan

[poisonappletales]

Our Gift on Christmas Eve: Beauty and the War (X Playing Pieces) Demo Beta Ver. 2

DOWNLOAD DEMO Ver. 2 HERE

Rating: 13+ for blood, violence, intense situations, suggestive dialogue and adult themes.

Eyes like almond Skin like dew Eyes that can plunge you into the deepest avenues of desire Skin that would shame the purest snow

In the prison designed for the lowest echelons of society, X is the undisputed king of the jungle.  As a supernatural wielder of flames, who would dare to approach his throne and hope to survive?

One woman does.

X's days of meaningless killing and tireless monotony come to an end when this woman leaps down from the sky to kiss him.

Who is this enchantingly dark-haired beauty, bold enough to touch him? And just what does she want with him?

❁❁❁❁

"I'll convince you that Virgo Island exists."

To escape from prison, Ambrosia needs him. However, that hinges entirely on securing X's help, which is no easy task when he thinks she's insane.

"You might as well tell me that you come from the land of fairytale and make-believe!" he laughs.

He doesn't believe that she's a Phoenix (which one might find ironic, given his predisposition to fire). He definitely doesn't believe that she hails from Virgo Island - a beautiful yet frightening world populated by creatures of legends, myths and fairytales.

Nevertheless, he hasn't met a woman like her before. She will convince him that Virgo Island exists and she must...before she receives her third strike from the prison's worst warden.

---

This is Demo Beta Ver. 2 for Beauty and the War, the first official arc of the X Playing Pieces series. This game will have both a free version and a paid version. Come and hear the story of the one known as the fairest of them all.

This is a female-fronted dark/epic fantasy. This is a tale of intrigue, blood and passion. Yes, who can look upon the fairest of them all without desire (that which makes a cold man's blood run hot and turns a sane mind mad)? Yes, let's not forget...

It's been said that men have gone to war because of a woman.

✿ DEMO FEATURES ✿

✿ est. 2+ Hours of Gameplay - Explore Virgo Island and meet the fantastic creatures that make up its residents. Immerse yourself in the X Playing Pieces universe. ❀ 100+ Choices with Consequences - Decide what Ambrosia says and does as she goes about her life as a healer on Virgo Island. Your choices affect your Reputation and determine your Schedule. Your actions shape your relationships! ✿ Animations - Expect scenes to feel cinematic and thrilling! Experience it to believe it. ❀ Partially Voiced - Here’s a little taste of the full voice acting that will be in the complete version. ✿ Rich Fantasy Lore - Virgo Island is home to clans made up of supernatural creatures, complete with a few fairytale trappings. Oh, and let's not forget that the world with the prison has its own vibrant story... ❀ 5 Romance Options + 2 Secret Ones - For demo ver. 2, you'll mostly get to interact with 2 of the bachelors - Chase, a cheerful Trold with a sense of humor, and Arsenik, a sweet, yet alluring Hulder gentleman... ✿ 1 Fun Easter Egg - Have fun finding it! Feel free to let us know if you do.

❀  OUR AMAZING VOICE ACTORS ❀

Ambrosia of the Phoenix - Lady A. Sia Arsenik of the Hulder - Jack "KamiSFX" Kamionko Brooks of the Valkyrie - Meaghan H, @thegeekynarwhal​ Chase of the Trold - Nick Smith Bo-Peep of the Cucuy - Maria Aliberti Imugi - Tyler Lafontaine Rosemary of the Phoenix - Rachel Jones X - Benjamin Orr

✿ CONTACT US! ✿

Please support us on Patreon!

Do you want to let us know what you thought of the demo? Have any questions? Just send us a message or reach out to us on any of the following: 

Lemmasoft. A friendly thread chock full of info.

tumblr. Our main website! Follow us for sneak peeks and more…

Facebook. Don't forget to like us!

Twitter. Use #xplayingpieces to talk about this dark fantasy game.

Pinterest. Want more pics? Look no further.

Whoo! Demo ver. 2 is finally finished - and on Christmas Eve no less! Polishing took far longer than anticipated, but we’re quite pleased with the result. We hope you are, too! It must have felt much like waiting for the ball to drop on New Year’s Eve.  Well, to make up for that, we did all we could to make the game come in with a bang. 

Merry Christmas, everyone! Here’s our gift to you. We’ve been paying close attention to all your feedback, and this is the result. Are you surprised by the mystery man plastered across the front cover? Better find out who he is in the demo!

I hope everyone has a warm and wonderful Christmas this year. Oh, and when you have a spare moment, feel free to let us know what you think of the demo! (Unless you’re just waiting for the full version to come out. Either way, any support/comments you make are deeply appreciated!)

...This is pretty much the third time I’m using this gif, but you know what? I like it, and I’m so happy.

#Beauty and the war #beauty and the war x playing pieces #x playing pieces #batw #poison apple tales #poisonappletales #visual novel #visualnovel #english visual novel #Visual_Novel #otome visual novel #otome #otome game #english otome #anime game #evn #vn #demo #choose your own adventure #choose your own story #free game

[grigori77]

2018 in Movies - My Top 30 Fave Movies (Part 1)

30.  MANDY – easily the weirdest shit I saw in 2018, this 2-hour-plus fever dream fantasy horror is essentially an extended prog-rock video with added “plot” from Beyond the Black Rainbow director Panos Cosmatos. Saying that by the end of it I was left feeling exhausted, brain-fried and more than a little weirded-out might not seem like much of a recommendation, but this is, in fact, a truly transformative viewing experience, a film destined for MASSIVE future cult status. Playing like the twisted love-child of David Lynch and Don Coscarelli, it (sort of) tells the story of lumberjack Red Miller (Nicolas Cage) and his illustrator girlfriend Mandy Bloom (Andrea Riseborough), who have an idyllic life in the fantastically fictional Shadow Mountains circa 1983 … at least until Mandy catches the eye of Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache), the thoroughly insane leader of twisted doomsday cult the Children of the New Dawn, who employs nefarious, supernatural means to acquire her.  But Mandy spurns his advances, leading to a horrific retribution that spurs Red, a traumatised war veteran, to embark on a genuine roaring rampage of revenge.  Largely abandoning plot and motivation for mood, emotion and some seriously trippy visuals, this is an elemental, transcendental film, a series of deeply weird encounters and nightmarish set-pieces that fuel a harrowing descent into a particularly alien, Lovecraftian kind of hell, Cosmatos shepherding in one breathtaking sequence after another with the aid of skilled cinematographer Benjamin Loeb, a deeply inventive design team (clearly drawing inspiration from the artwork of late-70s/early 80s heavy metal albums) and a thoroughly tricked-out epic tone-poem of a score from the late Jôhan Jôhannsson (Sicario, Arrival, Mother!), as well as one seriously game cast.  Cage is definitely on crazy-mode here, initially playing things cool and internalised until the savage beast within is set loose by tragedy, chewing scenery to shreds like there’s no tomorrow, while Riseborough is sweet, gentle and inescapably DOOMED; Roach, meanwhile, is a thoroughly nasty piece of work, an entitled, delusional narcissist thoroughly convinced of his own massive cosmic importance, and there’s interesting support from a raft of talented character actors such as Richard Brake, Ned Dennehy and Bill Duke.  This is some brave, ambitious filmmaking, and a stunning breakthrough for one of the weirdest and most unique talents I’ve stumbled across a good while.  Cosmatos is definitely one to watch.

29.  THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER’S WEB – back in 2011, David Fincher’s adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s runaway bestseller The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo became one of my very favourite screen thrillers EVER, a stone-cold masterpiece and, in my opinion, the superior version of the story even though a very impression Swedish version had broken out in a major way the year before. My love for the film was coloured, however, by frustration at its cinematic underperformance, which meant that Fincher’s planned continuation of the series with Millennium Trilogy sequels The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest would likely never see the light of day. Even so, the fan in me held out hope, however fragile, that we might just get lucky.  Seven years later, we have FINALLY been rewarded for our patience, but not exactly in the fashion we’ve been hoping for … Fincher’s out, Evil Dead-remake and Don’t Breathe writer-director Fede Alvarez is in, and instead of continuing the saga in the logical place the makers of this new film chose the baffling route of a “soft reboot” via adapting the FOURTH Millennium book, notable for being the one released AFTER Larsson’s death, penned by David Lagercrantz, which is set AFTER the original Trilogy. Thing is, the actually end result, contrary to many opinions, is actually pretty impressive – this is a leaner, more fast-paced affair than its predecessor, a breathless suspense thriller that rattles along at quite a clip as we’re drawn deeper into Larsson’s dark, dangerous and deeply duplicitous world and treating fans to some top-notch action sequences, from a knuckle-whitening tech-savvy car chase to a desperate, bone-crunching fight in a gas-filled room.  Frustratingly, the “original” Lisbeth Salander, Rooney Mara, is absent (despite remaining VERY enthusiastic about returning to the role), but The Crown’s Claire Foy is almost as good – the spiky, acerbic and FIERCELY independent prodigious super-hacker remains as brooding, socially-awkward, emotionally complex and undeniably compelling as ever, the same queen of screen badasses I fell in love with nearly a decade ago.  Her investigative journalist friend/occasional lover Mikael Blomkvist is, annoyingly, less well served – Borg Vs McEnroe star Sverrir Gudnasson is charismatic and certainly easy on the eyes, but he’s FAR too young for the role (seriously, he’s only a week older than I am) and at times winds up getting relegated to passive observer status when he’s not there simply to guide the plot forward; we’re better served by the supporting cast, from Lakeith Stanfield (Get Out, Sorry to Bother You) as a mysterious NSA security expert (I know!) to another surprisingly serious turn (after Logan) from The Office’s Stephen Merchant as the reclusive software designer who created the world-changing computer program that spearheads the film’s convoluted plot, and there’s a fantastically icy performance from Blade Runner 2049’s Sylvia Hoeks as Camilla Salander, Lisbeth’s estranged twin sister and psychopathic head of the Spiders, the powerful criminal network once controlled by their monstrous father (The Hobbit’s Mikael Persbrandt).  The film is far from perfect – the plot kind runs away with the story at times, while several supposedly key characters are given frustratingly little development or screen-time – but Alvarez keeps things moving along with typical skill and precision and maintains a tense, unsettling atmosphere throughout, while there are frequently moments of pure genius on display in the script by Alvarez, his regular collaborator Jay Basu and acclaimed screenwriter Steven Knight (Dirty Pretty Things, Locke) – the original novel wasn’t really all that great, but by just taking the bare bones of the plot and crafting something new and original they’ve improved things considerably.  The finished product thrills and rewards far more than it frustrates, and leaves the series in good shape for continuation.  With a bit of luck this time it might do well enough that we’ll finally get those other two movies to plug the gap between this and Fincher’s “original” …

28.  ISLE OF DOGS – I am a MASSIVE fan of the films of Wes Anderson.  Three share placement in my all-time favourite screen comedies list – Grand Budapest Hotel, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou and, of course, The Royal Tenebaums (which perches high up in my TOP TEN) – and it’s always a pleasure when a new one comes out.  2009’s singular stop-motion gem Fantastic Mr Fox showed just how much fun his uniquely quirky sense of humour and pleasingly skewed world-view could be when transferred into an animated family film setting, so it’s interesting that it took him nearly a decade to repeat the exercise, but the labour of love is writ large upon this dark and delicious fable of dystopian future Japanese city Megasaki, where an epidemic of “dog flu” prompts totalitarian Mayor Kobayashi (voiced by Kunichi Nomura) to issue an edict banishing all of the city’s canine residents to nearby Trash Island. Six months later, Kobayashi’s nephew Atari (newcomer Koyu Rankin) steals a ridiculously tiny plane and crash-lands on Trash Island, intent on rescuing his exiled bodyguard-dog Spots (Liev Schreiber); needless to say this is easier said than done, unforeseen circumstances leading a wounded Atari to enlist the help of a pack of badass “alpha dogs” voiced by Anderson regulars – Rex (Edward Norton), King (Bob Balaban), Boss (Bill Murray) and Duke (Jeff Goldblum) – and nominally led by crabby, unrepentantly bitey stray Chief (Bryan Cranston), to help him find his lost dog in the dangerous wilds of the island.  Needless to say this is as brilliantly odd as we’ve come to expect from Anderson, a perfectly pitched, richly flavoured concoction of razor sharp wit, meticulously crafted characters and immersive beauty.  The cast are, as always, excellent, from additional regulars such as Frances McDormand, Harvey Keitel and F. Murray Abraham to new voices like Greta Gerwig, Scarlett Johansson, Ken Watanabe and Courtney B. Vance, but the film’s true driving force is Cranston and Rankin, the reluctant but honest relationship that forms between Chief and Atari providing the story with a deep, resonant emotional core.  The first rate animation really helps – the exemplary stop-motion makes the already impressive art of Mr Fox seem clunky and rudimentary (think the first Wallace & Gromit short A Grand Day Out compared to their movie Curse of the Were-Rabbit), each character rendered with such skill they seem to be breathing on their own, and Anderson’s characteristic visual flair is on full display, the Japanese setting lending a rich, exotic tang to the compositions, especially in the deeply inventive environs of Trash Island.  Funny, evocative, heartfelt and fiendishly clever, this is one of those rare screen gems that deserves to be returned to again and again, and it’s definitely another masterpiece from one of the most unique filmmakers working today.

27.  VENOM – when Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man saga came to a rather clunky end back in 2007, it felt like a case of too many villains spoiling the rumble, and it was pretty clear that the inclusion of bad-boy reporter Eddie Brock and his dark alter ego was the straw that broke that particular camel’s back.  Venom didn’t even show up proper until almost three quarters of the way through the movie, by which time it was very much a case of too-little-too-late, and many fans (myself included) resented the decidedly Darth Maul-esque treatment of one of the most iconic members of Marvel’s rogues’ gallery.  It’s taken more than a decade for Marvel to redress the balance, even longer than with Deadpool, and, like with the Merc With a Mouth, they decided the only way was a no-holds-barred, R-rated take that could really let the beast loose. Has it worked?  Well … SORT OF.  In truth, the finished article feels like a bit of a throwback, recalling the pre-MCU days when superhero movies were more about pure entertainment without making us think too much, just good old-fashioned popcorn fodder, but in this case that’s not a bad thing.  It’s big, loud, dumb fun, hardly a masterpiece but it does its job admirably well, and it has one hell of a secret weapon at its disposal – Tom Hardy. PERFECTLY cast as morally ambiguous underdog investigative journalist Eddie Brock, he deploys the kind of endearingly sleazy, shit-eating charm that makes you root for him even when he acts like a monumental prick, while really letting rip with some seriously twitchy, sometimes downright FEROCIOUS unhinged craziness once he becomes the unwilling host for a sentient parasitic alien symbiote with a hunger for living flesh and a seriously bad attitude.  This is EASILY one of the best performances Hardy’s ever delivered, and he entrances us in every scene, whether understated or explosive, making even the most outlandish moments of Brock’s unconventional relationship with Venom seem, if not perfectly acceptable, then at least believable.  He’s ably supported by Michelle Williams as San Francisco district attorney Anne Weying, his increasingly exasperated ex-fiancée, Rogue One’s Riz Ahmed as Carlton Drake, the seemingly idealistic space-exploration-funding philanthropist whose darker ambitions have brought a lethal alien threat to Earth, and Parks & Recreation’s Jenny Slate as Drake’s conflicted head scientist Nora Skirth, while there’s a very fun cameo from a particularly famous face in the now ubiquitous mid-credits sting that promises great things in the future.  Director Ruben Fleischer brought us Zombieland and 30 Minutes Or Less, so he certainly knows how to deliver plenty of blackly comic belly laughs, and he brings plenty of seriously dark humour to the fore, the rating meaning the comedy can get particularly edgy once Venom starts to tear up the town; it also fulfils the Marvel prerequisite of taking its action quota seriously, delivering a series of robust set-pieces (the standout being a spectacular bike chase through the streets of San Fran, made even more memorable by the symbiote’s handy powers). Best of all, the film isn’t afraid to get genuinely scary with some seriously nasty alien-induced moments of icky body horror, captured by some strangely beautiful effects works that brings Venom and his ilk to vivid, terrifying life.  Flawed as it is, this is still HUGE fun, definitely one of the year’s biggest cinematic guilty pleasures, and I for one can’t wait to see more from the character in the near future, which, given what a massive success the film has already proven at the box office, seems an ironclad certainty.

26.  SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY – the second of Disney’s new phase of Star Wars movies to feature in the non-trilogy-based spinoff series had a rough time after its release – despite easily recouping its production budget, it still lost the $100-million+ it spent on advertising, while it was met with extremely mixed reviews and shunned by many hardcore fans.  I’ll admit that I too was initially disappointed with this second quasi prequel to A New Hope (after the MUCH more impressive Rogue One), but a second, more open-minded viewing after a few months to ruminate mellowed my experience considerably, the film significantly growing on me.  An origin story for the Galaxy’s most lovable rogue was always going to be a hard sell – Han Solo is an enjoyable enigma in The Original Trilogy, someone who lives very much in the present, his origins best revealed in the little details we glean about him in passing – but while it’s a flawed creation, this interstellar heist adventure mostly pulls off what was intended.  Like many fans of The Lego Movie, I remain deeply curious about what original director duo Phil Lord and Chris Miller could have achieved with the material, but I wholeheartedly approved Disney’s replacement choice when he was announced – Ron Howard is one of my favourite “hit-and-miss” directors, someone who’s made some clunkers in his time (The Da Vinci Code, we’re looking at you) but can, on a good day, be relied on to deliver something truly special (Willow is one of my VERY FAVOURITE movies from my childhood, one that’s stood up well to the test of time, and a strong comparison point for this; Apollo 13 and Rush, meanwhile, are undeniable MASTERPIECES), and in spite of its shortcomings I’m ultimately willing to consider this one of his successes. Another big step in the right direction was casting Hail, Caesar! star Alden Ehrenreich in the title role – Harrison Ford’s are seriously huge shoes to fill, but this talented young man has largely succeeded.  He may not quite capture that wonderful growling drawl but he definitely got Han’s cocky go-getter swagger right, he’s particularly strong in the film’s more humorous moments, and he has charisma to burn, so he sure makes entertaining viewing.  It also helps that the film has such a strong supporting cast – with original Chewbacca Peter Mayhew getting too old for all this derring-do nonsense, former pro basketball-player Joonas Suotamo gets a little more comfortable in his second gig (after The Last Jedi) in the “walking carpet” suit, while Woody Harrelson adds major star power as Tobias Beckett, Han’s likeably slippery mentor in all things criminal in the Star Wars Universe, and Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke is typically excellent as Han’s first love Qi’ra, a fellow Corellian street orphan who’s grown up into a sophisticated thief of MUCH higher calibre than her compatriots.  The film is dominated, however, by two particularly potent scene-stealing turns which make you wonder if it’s really focused on the right rogue’s story – Community star Donald Glover exceeds all expectations as Han’s old “friend” Lando Calrissian, every bit the laconic smoothie he was when he was played by Billy Dee Williams back in the day, while his droid companion L3-37 (voiced with flawless comic skill by British stage and sitcom actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge) frequently walks away with the film entirely, a weirdly flirty and lovably militant campaigner for droid rights whose antics cause a whole heap of trouble.  The main thing the film REALLY lacks is a decent villain – Paul Bettany’s oily kingpin Dryden Voss is distinctive enough to linger in the memory, but has criminally short screen-time and adds little real impact or threat to the main story, only emphasising the film’s gaping, Empire-shaped hole.  Even so, it’s still a ripping yarn, a breathlessly exciting and frequently VERY funny space-hopping crime caper that relishes that wonderful gritty, battered old tech vibe we’ve come to love throughout the series as a whole and certainly delivers on the action stakes – the vertigo-inducing train heist sequence is easily the film’s standout set-piece, but the opening chase and the long-touted Kessel Run impress too – it only flags in the frustrating and surprisingly sombre final act.  The end result still has the MAKINGS of a classic, and there’s no denying it’s also more enjoyable and deep-down SATISFYING than the first two films in George Lucas’ far more clunky Prequel Trilogy.  Rogue One remains the best of the new Star Wars movies so far, but this is nothing like the disappointment it’s been made out to be.

25.  AQUAMAN – the fortunes of the DC Extended Universe cinematic franchise continue to fluctuate – these films may be consistently successful at the box office, but they’re a decidedly mixed bag when it comes to their quality and critical opinion, and the misses still outweigh the hits.  Still, you can’t deny that when they DO do things right, they do them VERY right – 2017’s acclaimed Wonder Woman was a long-overdue validation for the studio, and they’ve got another winner on their hands with this bold, brash, VERY ballsy solo vehicle for one of the things that genuinely WORKED in the so-so Justice League movie.  Jason Momoa isn’t just muscular in the physical sense, once again proving seriously ripped in the performance capacity as he delivers rough, grizzled charm and earthy charisma as half-Atlantean Arthur Curry, called upon to try and win back the royal birthright he once gave up when his half-brother Prince Orm (Watchmen’s Patrick Wilson), ruler of Atlantis, embarks on a brutal quest to unite the seven underwater kingdoms under his command in order to wage war on the surface world.  Aquaman has long been something of an embarrassment for DC Comics, an unintentional “gay joke” endlessly derided by geeks (particularly cuttingly in the likes of The Big Bang Theory), but in Momoa’s capable hands that opinion has already started to shift, and the transition should be complete after this – Arthur Curry is now a swarthy, hard-drinking alpha male tempered with a compellingly relatable edge of deep-seeded vulnerability derived from the inherent tragedy of his origins and separation from the source of his immense superhuman strength, and he’s the perfect flawed action hero for this most epic of superhero blockbusters.  Amber Heard is frequently as domineering a presence as Atlantean princess Mera, a powerful warrior in her own right and fully capable of heading her own standalone adventure someday, and Wilson makes for a very solid and decidedly sympathetic villain whose own motivations can frequently be surprisingly seductive, even if his methods are a good deal more nefarious, while The Get Down’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is more down-and-dirty BAD as David Kane, aka the Black Manta, a lethally tech-savvy pirate who has a major score to settle with the Aquaman; there’s also strong support from the likes of Willem Dafoe as Curry’s sage-like mentor Vulko, Dolph Lundgren as Mera’s father, King Nereus, the ever-reliable Temuera Morrison as Arthur’s father Thomas, and Nicole Kidman as his ill-fated mother Atlanna.  Director James Wan is best known for establishing horror franchises (Saw, Insidious, The Conjuring), but he showed he could do blockbuster action cinema with Fast & Furious 7, and he’s improved significantly with this, delivering one gigantic action sequence after another with consummate skill and flair as well as performing some magnificent and extremely elegant world-building, unveiling dazzling, opulent and exotic undersea civilizations that are the equal to the forests of Pandora in Avatar, but he also gets to let some of his darker impulses show here and there, particularly in a genuinely scary visit to the hellish world of the Trench and its monstrous denizens.  It may not be QUITE as impressive as Wonder Woman, and it still suffers (albeit only a little bit) from the seemingly inherent flaws of the DCEU franchise as a whole (particularly in yet another overblown CGI-cluttered climax), but this is still another big step back in the right direction, one which, once again, we can only hope they’ll continue to repeat.  I’ll admit that the next offering, Shazam, doesn’t fill me with much confidence, but you never know, it could surprise us.  And there’s still Flashpoint, The Batman and Birds of Prey to come …

24.  THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI – filmmaker brothers Martin and John Michael McDonagh have carved an impressive niche in cinematic comedy this past decade, from decidedly Irish breakout early works (In Bruges from Martin and The Guard and Calvary from John) to enjoyable outsider-looking-in American crim-coms (Martin’s Seven Psychopaths and John’s War On Everyone), and so far they’ve all had one thing in common – they’re all BRILLIANT.  But Martin looks set to be the first brother to be truly accepted into Hollywood Proper, with his latest feature garnering universal acclaim, massive box office and heavyweight Awards recognition, snagging an impressive SEVEN Oscar nominations and taking home two, as well as landing a Golden Globe and BAFTA for Best Picture.  It’s also the most thoroughly AMERICAN McDonagh film to date, and this is no bad thing, Martin shedding his decidedly Celtic flavours for an edgier Redneck charm that perfectly suits the material … but most important of all, from a purely critical point of view this could be the very BEST film either of the brothers has made to date.  It’s as blackly comic and dark-of-soul as we’d expect from the creator of In Bruges, but there’s real heart and tenderness hidden amongst the expletive-riddled, barbed razor wit and mercilessly observed, frequently lamentable character beats.  Frances McDormand thoroughly deserved her Oscar win for her magnificent performance as Mildred Hayes, a take-no-shit shopkeeper in the titular town whose unbridled grief over the brutal rape and murder of her daughter Angela (Kathryn Newton) has been exacerbated by the seeming inability of the local police force to solve the crime, leading her to hire the ongoing use of a trio of billboards laying the blame squarely at the feet of popular, long-standing local police Chief Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson). Needless to say this kicks up quite the shitstorm in the town, but Mildred stands resolute in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds, refusing to back down.  McDormand has never been better – Mildred is a foul-mouthed, opinionated harpy who tells it like it is, no matter who she’s talking to, but there’s understandable pain driving her actions, and a surprisingly tender heart beating under all that thorniness; Harrelson, meanwhile, is by turns a gruff shit-kicker and a gentle, doting family man, silently suffering over his own helplessness with the dead end the case seems to have turned into.  The film’s other Oscar-winner, Sam Rockwell, also delivers his finest performance to date as Officer Jason Dixon, a true disgrace of a cop whose permanent drunkenness has marred a career which, it turns out, began with some promise; he’s a thuggish force-of-nature, Mildred’s decidedly ineffectual nemesis whose own equally foul-mouthed honesty is set to dump him in trouble big time, but again there’s a deeply buried vein of well-meaning ambition under all the bigotry and pigheadedness we can’t help rooting for once it reveals itself.  There’s strong support from some serious heavyweights, particularly John Hawkes, Caleb Landry Jones, Peter Dinklage, Abbie Cornish and Manchester By the Sea’s breakout star Lucas Hedges, while McDonagh deserves every lick of acclaim and recognition he’s received for his precision-engineered screenplay, peerless direction and crisp, biting dialogue, crafting a jet black comedy nonetheless packed with so much emotional heft that it’ll have you laughing your arse off but crying your eyes out just as hard.  An honest, unapologetic winner, then.

23.  RED SPARROW – just when you thought we’d seen the last of the powerhouse blockbuster team of director Francis Lawrence and star Jennifer Lawrence with the end of The Hunger Games, they reunite for this far more adult literary feature, bringing Jason Matthews’ labyrinthine spy novel to bloody life.  Adapted by Revolutionary Road screenwriter Justin Haythe, it follows the journey of Russian star ballerina Dominika Egorova (Lawrence) into the shadowy world of post-Glasnost Russian Intelligence after an on-stage accident ruins her career.  Trained to use her body and mind to seduce her targets, Dominika becomes a “Sparrow”, dispatched to Budapest to entrap disgraced CIA operative Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton) and discover the identity of the deep cover double agent in Moscow he was forced to burn his own cover to protect.  But Dominika never wanted any of this, and she begins to plot her escape, no matter the risks … as we’ve come to expect, Jennifer Lawrence is magnificent, her glacial beauty concealing a fierce intelligence and deeply guarded desperation to get out, her innate sensuality rendered clinical by the raw, unflinching gratuity of her training and seduction scenes – this is a woman who uses ALL the weapons at her disposal to get what she needs, and it’s an icy professionalism that informs and somewhat forgives Lawrence’s relative lack of chemistry with Edgerton.  Not that it’s his fault – Nate is nearly as compelling a protagonist as Dominika, a roguish chancer whose impulsiveness could prove his undoing, but also makes him likeable and charming enough for us to root for him too.  Bullhead’s Matthias Schoenarts is on top form as the film’s nominal villain, Dominika’s uncle Ivan, the man who trapped her in this hell in the first place, Charlotte Rampling is beyond cold as the “Matron”, the cruel headmistress of the Sparrow School, Joely Richardson is probably the gentlest, purest ray of light in the film as Dominika’s ailing mother Nina, and Jeremy Irons radiates stately gravitas as high-ranking intelligence officer General Vladimir Andreievich Korchnoi.  This is a tightly-paced, piano wire-taut thriller with a suitably twisty plot that constantly wrong-foots the viewer, Lawrence the director again showing consummate skill at weaving flawlessly effective narrative with scenes of such unbearable tension you’ll find yourself perched on the edge of your seat throughout.  It’s a much less explosive film than we’re used to from him – most of the fireworks are of the acting variety – but there are moments when the tension snaps, always with bloody consequences, especially in the film’s standout sequence featuring a garrotte-driven interrogation that turns particularly messy.  The end result is a dark thriller of almost unbearable potency that you can’t take your eyes off.  Here’s hoping this isn’t the last time Lawrence & Lawrence work together …

22.  WIDOWS – Steve McQueen is one of the most challenging writer-directors working in Hollywood today, having exploded onto the scene with hard-hitting IRA-prison-biopic Hunger and subsequently adding to his solid cache of acclaimed works with Shame and 12 Years a Slave, but there’s a strong argument to be made that THIS is his best film to date. Co-adapted from a cult TV-series from British thriller queen Lynda La Plante by Gone Girl and Sharp Objects-author Gillian Flynn, it follows a group of women forced to band together to plan and execute a robbery in order to pay off the perceived debt incurred by their late husbands, who died trying to steal $2 million from Jamal Manning (If Beale Street Could Talk’s Brian Tyree Henry), a Chicago crime boss with ambitions to go legit as alderman of the city’s South Side Precinct.  Viola Davis dominates the film as Veronica Rawlings, the educated and fiercely independent wife of accomplished professional thief Harry (a small but potent turn from Liam Neeson), setting the screen alight with a barely restrained and searing portrayal of devastating grief and righteous anger, and is ably supported by a trio of equally overwhelming performances from Michelle Rodriguez as hard-pressed mother and small-businesswoman Linda Perelli, The Man From UNCLE’s Elizabeth Debicki as Alice Gunner, an abused widow struggling to find her place in the world now she’s been cut off from her only support-mechanism, and Bad Times At the El Royale’s Cynthia Eriyo as Belle, the tough, gutsy beautician/babysitter the trio enlist to help them once they realise they need a fourth member.  Henry is a deceptively subtle, thoroughly threatening presence throughout the film as Manning, as is Get Out’s Daniel Kaluuya as his thuggish brother/lieutenant Jatemme, and Colin Farrell is seemingly decent but ultimately fatally flawed as his direct political rival, reigning alderman Jack Mulligan, while there are uniformly excellent supporting turns from the likes of Robert Duvall, Carrie Coon, Lukas Haas, Jon Bernthal and Kevin J. O’Connor.  McQueen once again delivers an emotionally exhausting and effortlessly powerful tour-de-force, wringing out the maximum amount of feels from the loaded and deeply personal human interactions on display throughout, and once again proves just as effective at delivering on the emotional fireworks as he is in stirring our blood in some brutal set-pieces, while Flynn help to deliver another perfectly pitched, intricately crafted script packed with exquisite dialogue and shrewdly observed character work which is sure to net her some major wins come Awards season.  Unflinching and devastating but thoroughly exhilarating, this is an extraordinary film (and if this was a purely critical list it would surely have placed A LOT higher), thoroughly deserving of every bit of praise, attention and success it has and will go on to garner.  An absolute must-see.

21.  JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM – Colin Trevorrow’s long-awaited 2015 Jurassic Park sequel was a major shot in the arm for a killer blockbuster franchise that had been somewhat flagging since Steven Spielberg brought dinosaurs back to life for the second time, but (edgier tone aside) it was not quite the full-on game-changer some thought it would be.  The fifth film, directed by J.A. Bayona (The Impossible, A Monster Calls) and written by Trevorrow and his regular script-partner Derek Connolly (Safety Not Guaranteed and JW, as well as Warner Bros’ recent “Monsterverse” landmark Kong: Skull Island), redresses the balance – while the first act of the film once again returns to the Costa Rican island of Isla Nublar, it’s become a very different environment from the one we’ve so far experienced, and a fiendish plot-twist means the film then takes a major swerve into MUCH darker territory than we’ve seen so far.  Giving away anything more does a disservice to the series’ most interesting story to date, needless to say this is EASILY the franchise’s strongest feature since the first, and definitely the scariest.  Hollywood’s most unusual everyman action hero, Chris Pratt, returns as raptor wrangler Owen Brady, enlisted to help rescue as many dinosaurs as possible from an impending, cataclysmic volcanic eruption, but in particular his deeply impressive trained raptor Blue, now the last of her kind; Bryce Dallas Howard is also back as former Jurassic World operations manager turned eco-campaigner Claire Dearing, and her His Girl Friday-style dynamic with Pratt’s Brady is brought to life with far greater success here, their chemistry far more convincing because Claire has become a much more well-rounded and believably tough lady, now pretty much his respective equal.  There are also strong supporting turns from the likes of Rafe Spall, The Get Down’s Justice Smith, The Vampire Diaries/The Originals’ breakout star Daniella Pineda, the incomparable Ted Levine (particularly memorable as scummy mercenary Ken Wheatley) and genuine screen legend James Cromwell, but as usual the film’s true stars are the dinosaurs themselves – it’s a real pleasure seeing Blue return because the last velociraptor was an absolute treat in Jurassic World, but she’s clearly met her match in this film’s new Big Bad, the Indoraptor, a lethally monstrous hybrid cooked up in Ingen’s labs as a living weapon.  Bayona cut his teeth on breakout feature The Orphanage, so he’s got major cred as an accomplished horror director, and he uses that impressive talent to great effect here, weaving an increasingly potent atmosphere of wire-taut dread and delivering some nerve-shredding set-pieces, particularly the intense and moody extended stalk-and-kill stretch that brings the final act to its knuckle-whitening climax.  It’s not just scary, though – there’s still plenty of that good old fashioned wonder and savage beauty we’ve come to expect from the series, and another hefty dose of that characteristic Spielbergian humour (Pratt in particular shines in another goofy, self-deprecating turn, while Smith steals many of the film’s biggest laughs as twitchy, out-of-his-comfort-zone tech wizard Franklin).  Throw in another stirring and epic John Williams-channelling score from Michael Giacchino and this is an all-round treat for the franchise faithful and blockbuster fans in general – EASILY the best shape the series has been in for some time, it shows HUGE promise for the future.

#mandy #the girl in the spider's web #isle of dogs #venom #solo a star wars story #aquaman #three billboards movie #red sparrow #widows #jurassic world fallen kingdom #2018 in movies

[petty-crush]

"Okja"

-shout out to New Beverley for showing this on the big screen in 35 mm; what a experience

-this film is a tone-a-sauras. It's like eight films in one, each changing with the language. But all of them are great, Bong Joon Ho lets loose a streak of genuine eccentricity, and this is one of the best films I have ever seen.

-the pre credits showcase Tilda Swinton's character ramping up we the audience with a cutesy graphic about ending world hunger via super pigs;

+notably popping his head in is her associate repeating her words with a movement like a puppet master; suggesting he is pulling the strings behind her image

-off to Korean as the film introduces Ann-Seo Hyun as Mija, and her relationship with Okja, forming a bond with far more resonance than I was expecting

-I am somewhat in awe of Bong introducing Okja so soon in the running time and so casually. Like in "The Host" the creature is introduced concurrently with the humans, suggesting they are a character like the rest, a natural part of the world

-this section of Mija and Okja hunting for food in the forest really really brings to mind "My Neighbor Totoro". Except I actually think this is better

-the part of Okja running valiantly to hook Mija to a tree and seemingly sacrifice herself dropped my jaw

-I literally never expected such a scene let alone so suddenly in the film

-one aspect of this film I am really enjoying is how Bong doesn't introduce Mija as being a "normal" element or or stand in; he simply shows what she wants, so that we empathize with her, and we never lose track of who she is or what she desires in life (mostly happiness and frolic with Okja)

-Okja swimming like a goof and flinging her shit like a hippo is so positively sublime in its patience to show a character be content with itself

- I have to pause here and say I have no idea how to describe Jake Gyllenhaal's character Dr. Johnny Wilcox.

+What tone or planet Jake is going for is completely lost on me, and yet I was never once less than thrilled to see him.

-Dr. Wilcox is a character I got the gist most of the audience couldn't stand, and some will be quick to label a failure, but I (in addition to imagining him a double shotgun parody of the male character from "Her") found him so bizarro and different that I wouldn't have taken a second away from him

-Mija's sheer enthusiasm at seeing him is doubly sad considering his sinister intentions

-I love how baffled Dr. Wilcox is at seeing Okja being so super by being (essentially) given a free range life; to wander and enjoy her environment

+that it never was considered anywhere else is troubling and so very pathetic

-Mija's grandfather is utterly awful, he seemingly never gets her, and attempts to woo her with money (I say all grandparents real love is food until you are a human boulder and then money as a cherry on top)

-the fact that he does so while at the graves of her parents is the ultimate low

-there is something of cultural significance to this golden pig I am not getting right now, but suspect my intuition will reveals later (I don't mean in terms of the story, but how it relates to Korean culture)

-no attempt is made to humanize Okja, and her shyness is beguiling

-beautiful touch as Mija is ready to jump at this glass office door with her full force, looks at it from a long hallway, and carefully adjusts use backpack at the last moment

-I never get tired of moments where it seems the target is standing then collapses two seconds later

-this girl can't stop, not stop

-Mija's athletic attempts to get on the truck that is carrying Okja away is so Spielbergian in its utter mastery and disdain for realism in geography that I simply must say that anyone who doesn't think Joon Ho is a master can go eat shit

-the jumpcuts and angles as we follow this tiny 14 year old as she; attempts to jump on moving truck, doubles speed and actually jumps on truck, ducks and narrowly avoids being hit by low bridge, seeing even lower bridge and runs back to grab back of door is spellbinding

-the red herring truck driver/really pissed off blue collar worker is just killing me. Especially his disgruntlement at "I got vehicle insurance, but no workman's comp; so, fuck you"

-Okja running through a Seoul mall is so vintage 70's American cinema; I'm emotionally standing up and clapping

-odd but delightful detail with the masked rescuers using umbrellas to block the tranquilizer darts

-the most jarring tonal shift happens as the masks come off and they are revealed as the animal liberation front, with Paul Dano as Jay, and he fills Mija in via a lengthy monologue

-it somewhat reminds me of the council scene in "North by Northwest" where the action and events are so fast and piled so high, there needs to be a "what the fuck is going in" scene before it shift gears

-of course Bong being Bong, this is intercut with moments of a animal lover almost fainting because of his hungry, trying to "leave the tiniest carbon footprint" before being conviced to eat a tiny cherry tomato

-I suspect Bong's real feelings are coming out in Mija's cry to just leave her and Okja alone, he being one to put personal decisions and values above those put group identity and politics above all, but translations are mislead and the journey continues

-I cannot help but feel the character of K saying "learn English, it will open doors" and the later "translations are sacred" is not only Bong commentating on entering the American film industry but his dust up with the weinsteins over "Snowpiercer"

+at least in my head

-Tilda Swinton deepens her character's insanity as we find out she is obsessed with clearing her company's name and making it gold

+also that she personally designed all the uniforms for the security, seemingly inferring that she can see the trees, but not the forest

-in an extremely long and up close take the same associate from the beginning(Gicarlo Espisito) slides the chair away (as loud as possible) then casually walks over to the coffee machine, equally as loud as the chair, to the dismay and fright of the other underling is in the room

+he definitely walks along a tightrope as only he can

-Shirley Henderson (as the personal assistant) is doing this voice in a way only Betty Boop world approve of

-here's the interesting thing; pretty much every major character in this corporation (excepting Expisito's) from Swinton's to Gyllenhaal is utterly fucking demented or emotionally unstable; conversely Dano's character, while forlorn and moody, comes across as thoughtful and sincere in his convictions (for animal rights)

+ it would certainly be much different potentially if made by Americans; as animals activities tend to be painted with a bucket of antisocial paranoia

-nonetheless Mija is conned back into coming to America and agrees only out of desperation ; meanwhile the animal activists see more disturbing shit from their video feed

-in a moment I am entirely unsure of the reason for, Okja is forced to mate with another super pig; this is more inferred than seen but is certainly vividly disturbing

-Dr. Wilcox is entering the height of his carpet eating hysterics, as he drunkenly punctures Okja for her meat

-the taste test of the tiny sausage (with the second judge being a kid who says "fuck yeah!") is something out of "Robocop"

-the tone is varying wildly, as I literally have no idea what to expect

- Paul dano communicating with Mija via cue cards (including one that says "Don't look back) is a beautiful, freewheeling touch

-I note these similar cinema colors and hues to again point out Bong Joon Ho knows how to mix and match and meld with the best of them; he steals like a artist

-Paul Dano shedding his bellhop uniform just makes me happy

-another thing I like about Ho is how he treats each new scene, particularly in a new location, as way to add visual textures and patterns, keeping my eyes stimulated

-Pink Floyd pigs; I just have it in my mind

-Lucy is scared of her sister Nancy, and Espitsio's character is very subtle in revealing who his real alliance is to

-it's very impressive how much heavy emotional lifting Hyun is doing as Mija through her eyes and her movements

-despite all the attacks and chaos, the most disturbing thing in this section is how militarized and corporate controlled the police are.

+They beat the shit out anything that they are pointed to

-the part with Mija and Jay barely missing Okja is so very heartbreaking

-Nancy (also Tilda Swinton) is fully in control

And in her detached way the most demented of them all

-my stomach turned several times when they track Okja down to the slaughterhouse

-I will be truthful; I'm not entirely sure why nancy agrees to sell Okja for the golden pig; perhaps I had missed something, but the pure cinematic force of dread just wants that poor animal to be free

-in a wholly disturbing moment a momma and poppa superpig throw their young for Okja to save

-the part with all the pigs moaning and screaming into the night seems like a "Animal Farm" moment

-at last there is a moment of happiness, of light at the end of darkness, of new beginnings of Mija and Okja together.

+They certainly deserve it

-a wholly hilarious post credits sequence where Dano gets everyone in his bus to put in a mask to attacking the corporate stock holders, including a surprised granny

-a most unusual film that won me over several times, and had me upset at bacon. Bong Joon Ho certainly unleashes more pure cinema and human heart than anyone else I have seen in a long time. I grow ever more excited to see this man and his work. He is one of the greatest, and this quizzical film is his most audacious yet. I cannot wait to see it again

#okja #bong joon ho #netflix #tilda swinton #jake gyllenhaal #ahn seo hyun #new beverly cinema #paul dano #new bev #film #art

[glenngaylord]

THANKS FOR SHARON - My Review of ONCE UPON A TIME...IN HOLLYWOOD (4 Stars)

[Excerpted from https://thequeerreview.com/ ]

As a movie lover, I’ve always been a little averse to writer/directors who only seem to reference other films in their work.  I prefer to learn how they view things through the prism of their life experiences, not cinematic ones. Quentin Tarantino has certainly come across as a movie encyclopedia throughout his career, yet in his case, films so clearly ARE his life.  He finds joy from a breathtaking set piece, a surprising turn of phrase, or that perfect marriage of visuals and music. I can easily imagine how thrilled he must have been when watching the kinetic opening sequence to Trainspotting.  You can almost see him filing away a great line like, “All I want out of life is a 30 share and a 20 rating” from Network and desperately wanting to make his own mark some day.  He obviously has done so, but time marches on, and while he still has a singular voice, he has publicly questioned his own desires to continue making films.  With that in mind, he seems to have poured all of his angst into Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood, one of the most problematic yet entertaining films I’ve seen in a long time on the topics of aging and relevancy.  

Set gloriously in 1969 Los Angeles, the film follows alcoholic, fading star, Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), as they try to stay afloat in an industry that has discarded them to make room for the new shiny pennies. As embodied by rising stars Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha) who move in next door, Rick knows he’s just one small fence and a pool party away from scoring a role in the hot director’s next film.  His reality, however, sees him relegated to playing bad guys in TV Westerns.  Cliff, even lower on the totem pole, acts more like Rick’s personal assistant than as a stuntman these days.  An early scene with an old school agent (Al Pacino, overdoing the Jewish stereotype to cartoonish effect) leaves him with the option of escaping to Italy to make Spaghetti Westerns. Pacino calls them “pictures” and I’d like to propose we resuscitate that amazing term!  Rick will do anything to stay in the game.  Simultaneously, we intercut Rick and Cliff’s adventures with that of their neighbors as Sharon and Roman drive fast, dance at parties, and generally live that charmed life where everything is still possible.  I mean, wouldn’t you have loved to have gone to the Playboy Mansion and get whisked away by Mama Cass or get ogled by Steve McQueen?  Also, lurking in the background, we see the Manson Family ambling through the fringes of society. History, of course, tells us where all of this is headed, but Tarantino is less interested in that, staying focused on his fictional characters’ dying hopes and dreams.  

The story takes its good, sweet time getting anywhere.  Shaggy and rambling, it reminded me of Inherent Vice in that stoner/hangout way, but Tarantino knows film structure, and what seemed random feels intentional and necessary in retrospect.  Yes, had he cut out half of the shots of characters driving around to an endless array of 60s pop songs, the film would have been 30 minutes shorter, but Tarantino has gone for a fully immersive experience here.  He wants you to know exactly what Los Angeles felt like at the time.  We get the inky blacks of the Ventura freeway, the neon overkill of Hollywood Boulevard, and the sunny casualness of Westwood Village, and I wanted to live inside legendary cinematographer Robert Richardson’s beautiful frames.  Besides, we would have been robbed of a great sequence in which Cliff speeds from Rick’s house to his trailer behind a drive-in theatre.  He greets his precious pitbull Brandy for a long, slow, viscerally engaging dinner scene. Brandy waits patiently as Cliff plops kibble and canned food into a giant bowl.  It’s all so casual until you later realize everything has a purpose.  

Same goes for a fantastic set piece in which Cliff picks a fight with Bruce Lee (scene stealer Mike Moh) or an extended sequence on the set of a pilot where Rick meets his match in the body of an 8-year-old co-star (the wonderfully self-possessed Julia Butters).  Fosse/Verdon Emmy nominee Margaret Qualley as one of Manson’s followers also makes a great impression as she continually crosses paths with Pitt’s character.  The highlight for me, though, gave us Sharon Tate talking her way into the Bruin Theatre in Westwood to watch herself on screen in The Wrecking Crew. I loved her innocence and pride as the audience laughed and applauded her performance.  When entering the theatre, she poses for a picture with all of the goofy charm our current selfie culture lacks. In fact, I found it so refreshing that the photographer snapped the pic of Sharon alone instead of posing with her.  Tarantino, in this moment, gives Sharon back to us, reframing her as a promising talent instead of as a murder victim.  Robbie, despite having very little dialogue, brings a magical presence to the film. It feels like an unexpected gift.

Tarantino overstuffs the movie with tons of cameos.  Some work better than others.  Kurt Russell gets some laughs as a Stunt Coordinator who absolutely does not want to hire Cliff, and Dakota Fanning creeped me out as Squeaky Fromme.  Many of the lesser known cast members, however, made a much bigger impression.  Austin Butler gives Manson’s henchman, Tex, a chilling edge, while Nicholas Hammond (Friedrich from The Sound Of Music, you guys!) perfectly captures the phoniness and transparent negotiation skills a director needs in order to get what he wants out of his actors. Talented actors like Lena Dunham, Damian Lewis and the late Luke Perry feel plopped in simply because they wanted to be in a Tarantino film.  It’s a lot to absorb but doesn’t ruin it.  

None of this would work quite as well as it does, however, without DiCaprio and Pitt’s great chemistry and committed performances.  DiCaprio proved in The Wolf Of Wall Street he had a gift for an over-the-top style of acting, but he outdoes himself here.  Insecure and short-fused, he taps into Rick’s rage and despondency yet never forgets to entertain the audience.  It’s a very showy piece of acting, but also surprisingly moving.  Pitt adopts a more laconic style, the better to conceal his astute observations, whether it be of Rick himself or of the dangerous cult which grows insidiously closer to him.  Moreover, he knows exactly how to make his scenes with his dog sing.  Both DiCaprio and Pitt walk that fine line between broad comedy and genuine pathos, and do so to perfection.  

With its extended length, there’s plenty of time to reflect on where Tarantino’s headed.  The cumulative effect of all this casualness slowly reveals his central thesis, which I found disturbingly conservative yet intensely relevant. Those in power won’t give up so easily.  Rick and Cliff aren’t going to let the young upstarts and the hippies get in their way.  They intend to fight for old Hollywood, for a time when films had a classic sheen, before the 70s gave us antiheroes and grittiness, before life got messy with Vietnam, Watergate, assassinations, and yes, the Manson murders.  They want to make America great again.  God help us all.  He may employ an overused method of his to make his point in the shockingly graphic, insane final half hour, but it still works like gangbusters and all comes together in the end.  The final shot of the movie packs a quiet, lovely, heartbreakingly emotional punch.  

Tarantino takes a flamethrower to the influx of the counterculture yet disguises it with a wistful nostalgia.  He’s tapping into a similar feeling which gave rise to our current political “leadership”, yet finds something sweet at its center.  Problematic messaging?  Sure, but not as pointless as it first appears.  Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood, like its title suggests, embraces a fairytale quality to make some scabrous observations about ego, about aging, and about the thirst for a seat at the table with all the newbies out there ready to take your place.  

[letterboxd]

Fallout.

With Mission: Impossible – Fallout thumping its way into the world’s cinemas like a punch-up in a Parisian nightclub, we undertook our own mission to identify your favorite Mission: Impossible movie to date.

There are two ways to accomplish this mission, should we choose to accept it (we did). First, we could rank each title by weighted average rating. Easy. Second, we could delve into some 1,350 Mission: Impossible power ranking lists created by all you true enthusiasts. Spoiler: we did both, and y’all ranked the Mission series the same way no matter how we sliced it.

As of M:I – Fallout opening week, these are the best previous instalments of the franchise according to your rankings, and a few words from recent rewatches:

1. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011) Directed by Brad Bird

“Tom Cruise doesn’t ‘perform’ in Ghost Protocol. He climbs buildings and leaps and punches and dives and drives a car off the side of a parking garage, but he never acts. Brad Bird just happened to film Tom Cruise in the process of growing a third penis, and here we are.” —SilentDawn

2. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015) Directed by Christopher McQuarrie

“McQuarrie’s debut into the franchise must not be forgotten in the shadow of his newest; Rogue Nation deserves its own share of acclaim and appreciation. Powered by a similar energy and propulsive storytelling; the film hops from astonishing setpiece to astonishing setpiece, soaring on the backs of Tom Cruise’s singular charisma and McQuarrie’s deft handle on the nuts and bolts of this franchise. The opera set piece is among my favorite from the action genre of this decade. Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust is a perfectly realized character for the genre and an impossibly seamless addition to this franchise. Everything is so beautiful, so thrilling and so well-realized; it’s difficult not to view McQuarrie’s future in filmmaking as one of the more exciting things on the current cinematic horizon.” —Jared

3. Mission: Impossible (1996) Directed by Brian De Palma

“Filled with so many fun sequences and intoxicating direction, I was able to forgive De Palma for the lack of interesting characters or relationships. This thing is all about [his] ability to put together an impeccably edited sequence that leaves you breathless, and Tom Cruise’s unquestioned charisma… The train/helicopter finale is as insane as anything I’ve ever seen, but equally thrilling as it is absurd. It’s really a testament to De Palma that any of this works. You gotta love all the faux-1990s tech employed too. I was getting nostalgic about things that never even existed.” —Rich Corle

4. Mission: Impossible III (2006) Directed by J.J. Abrams (R.I.P. PSH)

“While a vast improvement on the second M:I film, this third entry in the series often feels a little busy for busy’s sake… The real draw is Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Owen Davian, perhaps the best and most brutal villain of the entire M:I franchise, who steals every scene he’s in. Hoffman clearly is relishing his role, taking what could have been a one-dimensional character and turning it into something darker and scarier. Abrams gives the franchise a much needed jolt after the misfires in M:I II, and Cruise gets a chance to do a little more acting rather than just running around here, but the series really finds its groove in the later entries to come.” —Emmy Potter

5. Mission: Impossible II (2000) Directed by John Woo

“Definitely inferior when compared to the first one, but I still enjoyed it enough. Tom Cruise was hotter in this one too so I can’t really complain.” —Heather

Poor old M:I II, which has surely been disavowed by the Secretary. Still, Matt Singer of Screencrush has had a rethink, arguing “it’s a sneaky good John Woo movie… pretty much all of Woo’s best movies are about the same things: how good guys and bad guys (not to mention the line between right and wrong) are often indistinguishable, and how the war between these two sides gets very confusing, very violent, and very oddly beautiful”. Read the rest of his M:I II rewatch.

Early reviews have Mission: Impossible – Fallout up there with the best. We’ll leave it another month or so to see where it finally lands in your power rankings. This message will self-destruct, etc.

#letterboxd #mission impossible #ranking #ranked #movies #films

[lefilmdujour]

500th movie celebration

Last month I have quietly passed the 500th movie landmark on my Tumblr, so I decided to make a post with text instead of pictures for a change.

Five and a half years ago, I have decided to create a Tumblr, my own personal space where I would upload film frames, mostly so I could remember all the many movies I watch. By associating an image to a title, it helps to maintain my mind fresh and pinpoint exactly why I loved or despised a certain movie, linking them to the people I have watched them with and the surrounding circumstances.

The criteria is simple but methodical: no more than one post per day, all films I watch are represented even if I am ashamed of having spent time with them, all films are represented only once regardless of the amount of times I’ve re-watched them throughout the existence of the Tumblr.

I like to watch Artsy Avant Garde movies. Trash movies. 80′s “classics”. 70′s sleaze. Documentaries, a whole lot of them. Surrealism. Nouvelle Vague. The occasional Hollywood blockbuster. Skin. I usually get complaints from people about the amount of nudity represented in the Tumblr. 

Movies, regardless of how bad they are to the viewer, always mean something special to someone, so I respect them all.

To celebrate the 500th movie landmark, I decided to pick 50 of the ones that evoke the most vivid memories in me. Quality and circumstance were the deciding factors. Random order. I recommend them all.

The Virgin Spring (Ingmar Bergman) - An inspirational exercise on mythology, symbolism, and pacing.

Philanthropy (Nae Caranfil) - Romanian New Wave is my latest passion. This one is a highlight. A very entertaining tutorial on how to scam and be scammed.

Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders) - Poetry in motion. Falling in love every day.

The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner (Stefan Komandarev) - A road movie, on a bicycle. Friendship, memory gaps, backgammon.

The Red Turtle (Michael Dudok de Wit) - If a movie makes me cry, it goes to the favorites bucket. The story is simple, the animation is fluid, the outcome is expected. Yet, its message is always powerful.

The Imposter (Bart Layton) - More than a very compelling story of deception and manipulation, this documentary shines due to its brilliant editing. Made me feel pity, anger, compassion and repulse, often at the same time.

American Movie (Chris Smith) - If you love movies, then you cannot skip this documentary about a film director who makes his life mission to finish his crap movie, despite lack of funds, means, and talent. Funny and heartfelt. Highly quotable.

Mustang (Deniz Gamze Ergüven) - Growing up as a woman in traditional Turkey. A feminist look on a closed society. Beautifully shot.

Mad Max Fury Road (George Miller) - A throwback to a time when action movies were being made with a sense of movement and a requirement for suspension of disbelief. Amazing cinematography, highlighted in the recent “Black & Chrome” edition.

Nights of Cabiria (Federico Fellini) - The fruitless search for true love. Finding it, losing it, finding it again, losing it again, getting up, trying again. “Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks in it”.

Bicycle Thieves (Vitorio de Sicca) - A masterpiece. The importance of a bicycle as an instrument of survival in 40′s Italy. Puts things into perspective. Nothing can be taken for granted.

Underground (Emir Kusturica) - In my opinion, the greatest Kusturica movie. The sad story of a country that no longer exists.

The Hourglass Sanatorium (Wojciech Jerzy Has) - A very surreal experience where time and space are meaningless. Living in a lucid dream.

Despair (Rainer Werner Fassbinder) - The only Fassbinder movie I ever watched to date. I always want to watch more of him, but somehow keep forgetting. This movie makes justice to it’s title, despair creeps in slowly, but overwhelmingly by its end.

Mary and Max (Adam Elliot) - A claynimation film about friendship and mental health. Funny and melancholic. People should write letters to their friends more.

Blue is the Warmest Color (Abdellatif Kechiche) - A beautiful love story.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson) - Twee as fuck, like all Anderson’s movies. This man can do no wrong.

Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen) - I have a special interest in movies related with mental health. The last great Woody Allen movie to date.

Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata) - I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I claim that this is the saddest movie ever made. It took me days to recover from the emotional impact it left in me. War makes victims of us all.

Teorema (Pier Paolo Pasolini) - What would you do if you have been touched and subsequently abandoned by Divinity? The final scene is one of my all time favorites.

Forbidden Fruit (Dome Karukoski) - Two girls escape from a oppressive religious cult and experience life for the first time. The scene when one of the girls watches a movie for the first time, in a theater, left a good memory in me.

Forbidden Zone (Richard Elfman) - I like musicals too! This one in particular was scored by Danny Elfman, who also plays the devil in its most memorable scene. A weird freakout of a movie. Specially recommend the colorized version that adds up to the surreal atmosphere.

 Enter the Void (Gaspar Noé) - To be seen on a big screen with the best speakers money can buy. Intense psychedelic experience. Stay on the safe side, remain sober while watching this one.

My Best Fiend (Werner Herzog) - I find most of Herzog’s documentaries to be very relaxing. Not this one. Klaus Kinski was a fabled asshole. Werner Herzog is an eccentric lunatic. How these two geniuses managed to work together without killing each other (although both came very close to it) is definitely documentary material. An intense story about friendship, respect, and guttural hate.

The Big Lebowski (Joel Coen & Ethan Coen) - My favorite Coen brothers film. The week from hell on an otherwise quiet and unremarkable life. Improves with repeated viewings.

Mulholland Drive (David Lynch) - Spent years analyzing and trying to make sense out of this movie. I only understood it upon giving up on my quest. My favorite Lynch movie.

Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (Shunya Itō) - 70′s Meiko Kaji is a Goddess. A talent wasted in exploitation movies. Her eyes talk louder than all of the movies’s dialogue. This film is a Pink Women-in-Prison Japanese cheap thrill on surface, but the amount of symbolism and surrealism adds weight to a paper-thin plot. And the title song was borrowed to Tarantino’s Kill Bill. Truly one of my favorite movies ever.

Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein) - Soviet Propaganda? Yes. Compelling gut-wrenching story? Yes. Cinematic masterpiece? Yes. Regardless on how you feel about the topic, there is no question that the Odessa steps sequence is a work of art. 

The Holy Mountain (Alejandro Jodorowsky) - Watch in on psychedelics, or don’t bother.

Heima (Dean deBlois) - A documentary about Sigur Rós’ return to Iceland. Even for people who are not fans of the band, the landscape is undeniably beautiful.

Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino) - I am finding the latest Tarantino efforts to be a tad boring on repeated viewings. I usually love them when I see them on cinema, but then abandon them half-way when I try to watch them at home. But this one passed the home test, so it gets my thumbs up!

Disquiet (João Botelho) - Squeezing in a Portuguese movie due for national pride reasons. Not that I care much about those things. But I believe more people should watch this movie. The dialogue is lifted from my favorite poetry book, written by Fernando Pessoa. Heavy, dark, contemplative narrative.

Baraka (Ron Fricke) - There is a particular documentary style associated with both Ron Fricke and Godfrey Reggio that I find very appealing. Visual snapshots of people in their homelands. The silent contrast between traditional and modern. And the omnipresent feeling that all life is meaningless and mankind is a just a random occasion on a ball floating in space. Baraka is the best of all.

Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa) - There is nothing in the World like Kurosawa’s samurai movies, and no better samurai than Toshiro Mifune. Rashomon rises above the other excellent Kurosawa movies by its symbolism and usage of light. A murder story told by four different characters. The truth is somewhere in between the lies.

Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos) - A perverse tale of innocence and isolation. 

Gomorra (Matteo Garrone) - Disturbing stories from Napoli’s crime underworld. Realistically shot, no sugar coating, no happy endings, no poetic criminals.

Kids (Larry Clark) - I had this one on VHS, a double feature that also included Trainspotting. Found memories attached to this movie, I saw the actors as a parallel to the kids in my street. Several of the participants in the movie are dead or living miserable lives nowadays. Just like the street kids from my youth.

A Woman Under the Influence (John Cassavetes) - It is not easy to get into this director. And this is a psychological scarring movie. The audience is led to descend into madness like its main character. 

Down by Law (Jim Jarmusch) - “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.”

Daisies (Vera Chytilová) - My most popular post for some reason. An excellent, imaginative, innovative, playful, senseless fun movie to watch. 

Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami) - A man’s quest to end his life. The ultimate taboo.

Black Orpheus (Marcel Camus) - Greek Mythology meets Brazilian Slum. A wonderful, poetic ending makes up for some dull parts in between. Excellent soundtrack!

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (Robert Wiene) - Insane expressionist film with lovely painted backdrops that add a sense of depth and misdirection to its scenes. Timeless movie experience!

Amélie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet) - Modern Fairy tale. Inspirational. Makes me want to enjoy life more.

Oldboy (Park Chan-Wook) - Part of the Vengeance trilogy, I picked Oldboy because I now realize that I haven’t seen Sympathy for Lady Vengeance again ever since I started this Tumblr. Both films are excellent tales of twisted revenge. Oldboy’s fight scene has inspired a generation of copycats.

Spring Summer Fall Winter... And Spring (Kim Ki-duk) - Episodes of the life of a Buddhist monk, from childhood to old age. The wheel of life and rebirth. As Buddhist as it gets.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Terry Gilliam) - This got me into Hunter Thompson. There’s no such thing as too much drugs.

Battle Royale (Kinji Fukasaku) - A high school class is taken to a remote island and instructed to kill each other until only one survives. Classic 80′s video game plot, tickles the nostalgia bone just right without resolving to remakes and rehashes. Incredibly fun!

House (Nobuhiko Ôbayashi) - A horror movie, a comedy, a fever dream, an art-house lysergic extravaganza. Don’t know what to make of this movie, just that watching it is an amusing experience.

Band of Outsiders (Jean-Luc Godard) - I love all Anna Karina’s movies with Godard, so it’s hard to pick one. I went with Band of Outsiders because of its dance sequence. Godard had fun while experimenting with filming techniques, and this feeling is contagious to the audience. 

Thanks for reading and sticking around.

#50 movies #yay me #movie recommendation

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New from Kevin Wozniak on Kevflix: Most Anticipated Movies of 2020

Every year, hundreds of movie are released.  From micro-budget indies to gigantic blockbusters, the year the full of movies of all kinds from all around the world.  There are films that come out of nowhere (seriously, who saw Parasite being the movie of 2019?) which are always fun to see, and movies we have been hearing about for years finally being released.  But of the ones that I know are coming out this year, these are the ones that I am most excited for.

And look, I know we’re already almost a quarter of the way through 2020, but let’s be real, there wasn’t a lot of exciting movies coming out in January and February anyway. The only films from the first couple months that would have made this list would have been Bad Boys for Life, and possibly The Invisible Man. However, starting in March, 2020 gets really exciting, so it seemed like the perfect time to do this list.

Here are my most anticipated movies coming out in 2020.

  *NOTE* – I am excluding any film that I saw at Sundance 2020.

        25. THE LAST DANCE (Jason Hehir, June 26)

Is it cheating to have ESPN’s 10-part docuseries about the Chicago Bulls during their historic 1997-1998 season on this list?  Maybe.  But as a life-long Bulls fan, I cannot wait to see the footage they show, the insight they get, and for them to show just insane and competitive Michael Jordan was.  This should be a real treat to any sports fan.

    24. VENOM 2 (Andy Serkis, October 2)

Venom was pretty silly, but rather fun and Tom Hardy’s performance was something special.  The sequel brings in the great Woody Harrelson to play Cletus Kasady/Carnage and pits Andy Serkis behind the camera, which should add more chaos to an already wild film.

    23. SOUL (Pete Docter, June 19)

Pixar has two original movies coming out this year, Onward and Soul.  Of the two, I am more excited to see Soul, mainly because I think the story sounds more interesting – it’s about a musician who has lost his passion for music is transported out of his body and must find it back – and co-director Pete Docter has yet to have made a bad movie (his previous films include Monster’s Inc., Up, and Inside Out).

    22. GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE (Jason Reitman, July 10)

Though I was a big fan of Paul Feig’s 2016 female-led reboot, bringing back most of the original cast (R.I.P. Harold Ramis) and adding Paul Rudd in the mix could make for a great summer flick.

    21. THE ETERNALS (Chloé Zhao, November 6)

Black Widow is a near sure-thing for Marvel, but The Eternals, a relatively unknown part of Marvel with all new heroes and actors, will set the stage for the future of the MCU following the Endgame finale.

    20. THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT (Michael Chaves, September 11)

I love the Conjuring franchise, particularly the Conjuring films, but with James Wan not behind the camera, I have my hesitations.

    19. GODZILLA VS KONG (Adam Wingard, November 20)

This franchise might be incredibly stupid and all over the place, but being able to see King Kong and Godzilla duke it out on the big screen will be ridiculously fun.

    18. COMING 2 AMERICA (Craig Brewer, December 18)

Between Dolemite is My Name and his hosting duties on Saturday Night Live, Eddie Murphy proved that even after a few missteps, he was still the man.  Coming 2 America is the sequel I didn’t know I needed, as Murphy reprises his role as Akeem who finds out he has a long-lost son in the United States.

    17. MULAN (Niki Caro, March 27)

Save for 2019’s The Lion King, I genuinely like the Disney live-action remakes.  Mulan looks gorgeous and epic and given the PG-13 rating (the first of these movies), looks to be a bit more intense than the animated original.

    16. NO TIME TO DIE (Cary Joji Fukunaga, November 25)

Usually I’d be more excited for a James Bond movie, but after the dud that was Spectre, I have my hesitations.  Still, Daniel Craig is one of the best Bonds ever and Fukunaga is an interesting choice for director, so I’m at the very least intrigued.

    15. A QUIET PLACE PART II (John Krasinski, March 20)

I LOVED the first film and thought John Krasinski showed a real talent behind the camera and really am excited to see what he does next in this world.  However, I wish he had focused the movie on another family or person during this bizarre invasion/crises, but we’ll see where he takes this story.

    14. LAST NIGHT IN SOHO (Edgar Wright, September 25)

Genre-maestro Edgar Wright dives back into the horror genre in a film about one girl’s mysterious journey into the 1960’s that isn’t what it seems.  Anya Taylor-Joy and Thomasin McKenzie lead the cast.

    13. THE SOUVENIR: PART II

Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir, a powerful, beautiful look at love, trauma, and memory, was one of my favorite films of 2019 and a film I still think about to this day.  I cannot wait to see what Hogg does with Part II, as this is one of my most anticipated sequels of the year.

    12. MALIGNANT (James Wan, August 14)

The plot is unknown as of yet, but it’s an original James Wan horror movie and that is all I need to see this movie.

    11. DUNE (Denis Villeneuve, December 18)

I love Denis Villeneuve as a director and am always excited for any project he is a part of.  However, with such a big cast, budget, and the general idea of a Dune movie at this scale, is this going to be a “good” movie or just the “most” movie?

    10. THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 (Aaron Sorkin, October 2)

Any Aaron Sorkin screenplay gets me excited.  Even though it is the same in every movie, I am a sucker for the pacing and density of his words.  With 2017’s Molly’s Game, Sorkin proved that we was great behind the camera as well.  Having written A Few Good Men (one of the best courtroom dramas ever), The Trial of the Chicago 7 looks to be right up Sorkin’s alley, and with the likes of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Eddie Redmayne, Jeremy Strong, Michael Keaton, Frank Langella, and Sacha Baron Cohen, and Mark Rylance reciting his dialog, this seems like it could be a Sorkin classic.

    9. F9 (Justin Lin, May 22)

The Fast and Furious franchise is one of my favorites.  It is an utterly insane franchise that features ridiculous stunts, gigantic set pieces, some racing, and the theme of family.  I don’t know what F9 has in store for us except for Charlize Theron is back as our villain Cipher, John Cena is in the film as Dominic Toretto’s (Vin Diesel) brother, and Han (Sung Kang) is back some how.  Whatever.  I’m in.

    8. NOMADLAND (Chloé Zhao, TBD)

The fact that we could get two films from the great Chloe Zhao in 2020 gives us a brief insight as to how great 2020 is going to be.  Though Eternals will arguably be the movie that shapes the MCU for the next decade, I’m more looking forward to Zhao’s look at woman (two-time Oscar winner Francis McDormand) as she embarks across the American West after losing everything in the Great Recession.

    7. THE FRENCH DISPATCH (Wes Anderson, July 24)

Wes Anderson is one of the best and most unique auteurs working today.  All of his movies are wildly original, wonderfully written, gorgeous to look at, and feature a stellar cast and The French Dispatch looks to have all of that and then some.

    6. TOP GUN: MAVERICK (Christopher McQuarrie, June 26)

Tom Cruise is one of my favorite actors and his partnership with writer/director Christopher McQuarrie has been one of his best career choices.  Their latest collaboration pits Cruise back in the cockpit (literally) as he reprises his legendary role as Maverick in this sequel to the 80’s classic Top Gun.  Val Kilmer returns as Iceman and we get a slew of new cast members such as Glen Powell, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Ed Harris, and Miles Teller as Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, the son of Maverick’s late-friend Goose.  I’m most interested in the meta-narrative of the film, as Maverick’s career in the Navy seems to replicate Cruise’s as a movie-star, which has been a fascinating one.

    5. WONDER WOMAN 1984 (Patty Jenkins, June 5)

Does the DCEU still exist?  Who knows and honestly, who care?  But back in 2017 when it was in full swing and doing miserably, Gal Gadot and Patty Jenkins came and shook the game up.  Wonder Woman is one of my favorite comic book movies ever  It was a thrilling, funny, action-packed film that features one of the greatest superhero moments ever on camera with the “No Man’s Land” scene.  There has only been one teaser for Wonder Woman 1984 and it already looks incredible.  Gadot looks great, Chris Pine is back, Kristen Wiig and Pedro Pascal are the villains, and every visual esthetic, from the costumes to the sets to the color pallet look great.  Oh, and did I mention Wonder Woman swings from lightning bolts using her lasso?  No?  Well that, and I’m sure many more exciting moments like that are going to happen in my most anticipated comic book movie and sequel of 2020.

    4. WEST SIDE STORY (Steven Spielberg, December 18)

This is the most interesting and weirdest film on the list, yet it is one I genuinely cannot wait to see.  Everyone knows West Side Story, the legendary Romeo and Juliet reimagining about two lovers from rival gangs that won numerous awards for its stage play and ten Oscars when it was adapted to the big screen.  The fact that this latest adaptation is directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Tony Kushner is what makes it intriguing.  Spielberg has never made a musical and his films of late have been quieter, politically-focused films (save for The BFG and Ready Player One).  How will he fare in an adaptation of one of the most beloved plays of all-time and one of the greatest cinematic musicals ever?  Spielberg is a master director, so this is bound to be interesting.

    3. DA 5 BLOODS (Spike Lee, TBD)

For a while there, I thought Spike Lee had lost it.  Having not made a great movie since 2002’s 25th Hour, it looked like Lee had lost all of his creative spark, making some of the worst movies of his career.  But with 2017’s BlackKklansman, writer/director Spike Lee proved that he still had the goods and that he was just as great as he was in 90’s.  Da 5 Bloods, a title I love, Lee heads to the jungle of Vietnam, as veterans from the Vietnam War return to the jungle to find their lost innocence.  Starring Chadwick Boseman, Paul Walter Hauser, and a slew of great character actors in Delroy Lindo, Isaiah Whitlock Jr., Clarke Peters, Giancarlo Esposito, and Jean Reno, let’s see is Lee can keep his streak alive.

    2. MANK (David Fincher, TBD)

It’s been seven years since David Fincher directed a feature film.  The Oscar-nominated director spend that back-half of the 2010’s focusing on producing Netflix shows like Mindhunter, House of Cards, and Love,Death, & Robots, so at least he was staying busy.  Director’s latest cinematic venture follows screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz’s tumultuous development of Orson Welles’ iconic masterpiece Citizen Kane.  The great Gary Oldman stars and Mankiewicz and Tom Burke, who gave one of the great breakout performances of 2019 in The Souvenir, stars as Welles in a performance I cannot wait to see.  It’s one of my favorite directors making a movie about one of the greatest movies ever made.  How can I not be excited?

    1. TENET (Christopher Nolan, July 17)

Is Christopher Nolan the best director working today?  There’s a strong case for it.  After a decade that saw Nolan make films like Inception, Interstellar, and Dunkirk, he’s back with yet another original action epic.  The plot of the film is unknown as of yet, but it has something to do with globe trotting espionage and time travel.  The cast is Nolan’s most impressive since Inception, featuring spectacular actors such as John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh, and Nolan’s favorite, Michael Caine.  Nobody makes movies like Christopher Nolan.  Every film he makes is an event and in a year with no Star Wars and a mysterious Marvel slate, Tenet is the cinematic event of 2020 and the perfect way to start the decade.

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Usa today CES Editors' Choice Awards: The best and coolest tech to expect in 2020 - USA TODAY

Usa today

— Suggestions are independently chosen by Reviewed’s editors. Purchases you fashion by our hyperlinks might presumably perchance well also carry out us a commission.

CES is the birthplace of hundreds of contemporary tech merchandise every Twelve months, and the scope of innovation is getting better. No longer restricted to TVs and laptops, know-how has made inroads into parenting, health merchandise, fitness, beauty, and end to everything you possess. Nonetheless that would now not mean chances are you'll presumably perchance well also take everything that debuts right here.

That's why we created the Reviewed CES Editors' Different awards: to single out the very ideal merchandise that we have confidence you can genuinely are attempting to protect end in 2020. Each winner excelled in a roundabout blueprint, standing out from its peers in innovation, know-how, assemble, or designate. In the occasion chances are you'll presumably perchance well also very successfully be attempting to strengthen this Twelve months, take into account of this your shortlist.

Usa today TVs & Audio

Samsung The Sero

For the previous couple of years, Samsung has been introducing contemporary, innovative TV designs meant to salvage a distinct vibe or everyday life. The contemporary “Sero” (Korean for “vertical”) is a TV that pivots between ragged 16:9 widescreen and a vertical mode, making it the total extra appropriate for smartphone-oriented whisper. Once your mobile telephone is linked to it, shifting from panorama to portrait orientation to your mobile telephone will instructed the veil to rotate, making it a straightforward technique to allotment photos, movies, and social media in a world the put nearly 50% of movies are shot in a vertical orientation. The TV additionally sits on a mountainous base with an embedded speaker, giving it an audio relief. Samsung is for certain aiming for GenZ and millennial traders with The Sero, however this one’s as innovative as it's quirky.

LG CX OLED

LG’s “C” series of OLED TVs were our #1 ranked TV for the closing three years, so the CX (pronounced C10) has mountainous sneakers to bear—however we genuinely feel confident it must bear ‘em. Whereas LG produces a fat suite of OLED TVs every Twelve months, the “C” line is continually the one we recommend for many traders: You salvage all of the savor tech and beautiful image quality of the extra costly OLEDs, however don’t find yourself paying for some of the fancier assemble ingredients. Maybe better of all, the CX series has expanded the veil size alternate choices to embody a brand contemporary 48-stir model, the first sub-50-stir OLED that’s ever been produced. Now not ideal does this give TV enthusiasts without as critical space the probability to salvage pleasure from an LG OLED TV, alternatively it's miles continually considerably extra inexpensive in contrast to the closing couple of years.

Samsung Q950TS 8K

The principle legitimate 8K decision TVs hit the market closing Twelve months, so naturally, this Twelve months TV corporations are upping the ante. Samsung has launched three different 8K QLED TVs, and the Q950TS is the ideal and fanciest choice in the contemporary series. Featuring an insanely skinny veil border (the TV is form of 99% veil, Samsung claims), the Q950TS is stuffed with futuristic tech savor machine studying to optimize the image and sound quality in genuine time, an 8K “quantum” processor, and synthetic intelligence that helps to chop back the quantity of bandwidth required to circulation whisper. Whereas pricing hasn’t been launched, the Q950TS might presumably perchance well also very successfully be one in all basically the most technically proficient TVs ever produced, so it completely received’t approach low-designate. Despite whether chances are you'll presumably perchance well even contain ample cash it, alternatively, there’s no denying that the Q950TS is an absolute beast of a TV.

Vizio OLED

OLED TVs are nothing contemporary: they’ve been some of the accurate-attempting TVs on this planet for the closing 5 years. Genuinely, we savor them—our ideal complaint is that they’re so dang costly. That’s what’s so thrilling about Vizio lastly becoming a member of the OLED market. Whereas the corporate makes heavenly TVs, it additionally manages to fashion these TVs markedly extra inexpensive than critical of the opponents. Whereas Vizio wasn’t ready to present us a designate point but, they did verify that their blueprint was as soon as to protect end that penchant for designate right here. Working instance, the contemporary Vizio OLED might presumably perchance well also very successfully be an OLED TV all and sundry can genuinely contain ample cash. It received’t be the accurate-attempting choice on the market, alternatively it does employ the an identical panel as LGs OLED TVs, so when you happen to’ve been craving an OLED TV however didn’t are attempting to pay mountainous bucks for it, you have to always restful protect the Vizio OLED to your radar in 2020.

Sony ZH8 8K

Sony is enjoying ball the put extremely-top charge 8K TVs are concerned, and the contemporary Z8H delivers a smorgasbord of savor choices and chilly tech. These astronomical 75- and 85-stir TVs are mountainous, boxy, and savory to glimpse, despite their very sturdy industrial designs. The sturdy squared bezels additionally camouflage one in all basically the most attention-grabbing TV audio innovations quickly: embedded tweeter audio system, which work in conjunction with the TV’s ragged midrange audio offerings to make a soundscape that’s great of the astronomical, 8K screens. The Z8H has additionally been upgraded with embedded far-self-discipline microphones for fingers-free protect watch over. Pricing hasn’t been launched but, alternatively it’s safe to squawk these jaw-losing TVs received’t approach low-designate.

Vizio M-Series Quantum (2020)

Closing Twelve months’s M-Series Quantum was as soon as a demolish hit for TV enthusiasts attempting to search out a inexpensive choice that also seemed mountainous, and the 2020 M-Series Quantum guarantees to ship a identical journey for consumers this Twelve months. For the cash, you’re getting one in all basically the most inexpensive TVs around that also delivers “quantum dots,” a more moderen TV tech that amps up a TV’s color manufacturing into luminous beauty. The M-Series Quantum is a 4K/HDR trim TV as successfully, however all the blueprint by its wide fluctuate of veil sizes it’s critical extra inexpensive than a host of the opponents, delivering mountainous image quality alongside a minimalist manner to assemble and choices. Where pure designate is worried, the M-Series Quantum is on the tip of the heap for CES 2020 TVs, and seems to be to be one in all basically the most promising alternate choices for many of us this Twelve months.

JBL Bar 9.1

Right here's JBL’s first Dolby Atmos-succesful soundbar and the hefty, modular providing hopes to ship customers the “closing cinematic journey.” Whereas right here's positively one day of the high-end fluctuate (it’ll be available this spring for $999), it justifies its designate. This 9.1 channel system choices two removable encompass audio system, a wireless powered subwoofer, and astronomical flexibility by constructed-in Google Chromecast and Apple AirPlay 2 functionality. Total, you’re getting a wide 820 watts of audio vitality—about 800 extra than the frequent TV delivers. Whereas your neighbors might presumably perchance well hate you for shopping it, your ears might presumably perchance well also appropriate thanks.

Vizio Elevate

Vizio’s made a title in the soundbar market, and the Elevate is no longer appropriate the corporate’s fanciest soundbar in 2020—it’s positively ingenious. What makes the Elevate so chilly is that it works as every a 5.1 and a 5.1.4 soundbar, using two end-cap audio system that rotate forward or up reckoning on whether or no longer it’s using upward-firing audio by Dolby Atmos or DTS:X codecs, which employ object-oriented sound to produce a three-dimensional listening journey. In the future of a demo, the Elevate sounded heavenly in every modes, and is barely easy on the eyes, too. It additionally interfaces with Vizio’s contemporary OLED in a terribly chilly blueprint: the TV can dock into it, turning it into a twin-motive stand and soundbar. And in frequent Vizio vogue, we’re making a guess the associated charge tag will seemingly be inexpensive, too.

Usa today Laptops & Cell

Asus Chromebook Flip C4346

Asus has long made a few of our common Chromebooks, with its Flip C434 line providing the accurate-in-class steadiness of designate, performance, and top charge assemble. The upgraded C436 takes it one step further, with a slimmer, lighter assemble that genuinely feels extra top charge than its predecessor. Chrome OS has approach blueprint from its earliest days, and with greatly improved purple meat up for running Android apps this Asus must restful be ready to address end to anything a frequent user would need it to. In the occasion you’re attempting to search out a inexpensive pc for on a traditional basis employ this Twelve months, the C436 seems savor an early guess to be our common Chromebook for the cash.

Dell XPS 13 9300 (2020)

For end to a decade, Dell’s XPS 13 has been the dominant different in phrases of lightweight, high-end Windows laptops. The most up-to-date iteration choices upgraded Intel 10th-gen chips interior and a brand contemporary veil with end to no bottom bezel. It feels mountainous to make employ of, with the heavenly keyboard and trackpad we’ve blueprint to put a question to, and a supposed 19-hour battery lifestyles with some configurations. The upgraded veil ditches many of the bottom bezel, pushing the demonstrate to a pretty taller 16: 10 ratio that is heavenly for buying the win and bettering spreadsheets and displays. Like a flash, blooming, and with a extraordinarily inexpensive starting designate of appropriate $999.99, it appropriate might presumably perchance well also very successfully be the accurate 13-stir pc.

Acer Dart 5

Whereas other pc manufacturers are speeding to apply Dell and Apple’s lead by providing skinny, lightweight laptops with appropriate USB-C ports, Acer is catering to the team that hates dongles. The Dart 5 offers Intel’s most up-to-date 10th-gen chips with Intel’s upgraded Iris Plus constructed-in graphics, a rotating 2-in-1 demonstrate, and a fat array of ports in conjunction with USB-C, HDMI, and frequent USB-A. The assemble makes employ of a magnesium aluminum alloy that is sturdy and but feels luminous. It’s an $829 pc that will without shriek compete with units that designate end to successfully over $1,000, and can already be one in all the accurate values when it debuts later this Twelve months.

Samsung Galaxy Chromebook

In the occasion you continue to have confidence Chromebooks can ideal be budget-oriented laptops, Samsung’s Galaxy Chromebook will substitute your mind. It choices an extremely high-end assemble that is lightweight, skinny, and packed with wonderful tech equivalent to a QLED demonstrate and an integrated S Pen stylus. It'll designate roughly $1,000 at beginning, on par with Google’s possess Pixelbook. For that, you salvage Intel 10th-gen chips, a 13.3-stir 4K touchscreen with a 2-in-1 hinge, as a lot as 16GB RAM, as a lot as a 1TB SSD, two USB-C ports, and WiFi 6 purple meat up.

Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Fold

Though Samsung has already brought folding gadgets to market with its Galaxy Fold mobile telephone, folding screens are speedy coming to tablets and laptops as successfully. Lenovo’s Thinkpad X1 Fold is the first pc with a folding veil, and it works blueprint better than you’d put a question to. The X1 Fold is truly a mountainous 13-stir OLED tablet that runs Windows 10 Pro and might presumably perchance well fold in half of savor a thick leather-basically based mostly portfolio. It comes with a runt Bluetooth keyboard that neatly matches between the veil when shut and is also outdated alongside it or on high of one half of of the veil, reckoning on how critical room you contain got to work. It positively feels savor the future, however with ample little assemble touches that Lenovo has clearly thought about how this can even genuinely work into your on a traditional basis lifestyles. The future is right here, and it’s awesome.

HP Spectre x360 15

HP’s Spectre x360 laptops are arguably the accurate-attempting machines on the market, with 2-in-1 displays and savory designs. Nonetheless closing Twelve months’s 15-stir Spectre x360 had one serious self-discipline: wide bezels all the blueprint by the veil. It made the total pc critical better (as a result of bottom deck must be the an identical size as the veil when closed), and heavier in consequence. The 2020 15-stir x360 therapies that, with a end to bezel-free demonstrate that shaves several inches off the perimeters. The consequence is a pc that is greatly lighter and extra portable, giving users one other top charge-grade different besides The Dell XPS 15 and Apple’s 15-stir MacBook Pro.

Samsung Galaxy Recount 10 Lite

Samsung’s Galaxy Recount 10 and Recount 10+ are heavenly phones, however they will restful put of residing you back roughly $1,000 or extra. The Recount 10 Lite swaps out many of the first ingredients for more cost effective seemingly picks, however retains the integrated S Pen stylus. It has a flat 6.7-stir veil, the aforementioned stylus, a triple rear camera array, massive 4,5000 mAh battery, and even a headphone jack. The price and timing of US availability are no longer certain, however a extra modest mid-fluctuate model of the Recount series is something we are in a position to very critical salvage in the back of and is without shriek the accurate mobile telephone we noticed at CES this Twelve months.

Usa today Dapper Home

Eufy Video Doorbell (battery powered)

Eufy’s Safety WiFi Video Doorbell is our common trim video doorbell for the cash due to it offers free, encrypted local info storage, custom exercise zones, certain audio, and a dependable connection. So naturally, Eufy’s most up-to-date announcement of the Eufy Video Doorbell (battery powered), caught our attention due to it offers the total an identical bells and whistles—after which some.

The contemporary Eufy Video Doorbell is wire-free, touting a battery lifestyles of as a lot as 180 hours per charge. It offers Dapper Human Detection and it plays nice with Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant. It’s anticipated to be launched early this Twelve months for $199.

BodyGuardz Transportable Over-Door Digicam

The Transportable Over-Door Digicam from BodyGuardz is savor a trim doorbell chances are you'll presumably perchance well also hotfoot with. It connects by WiFi and slides on the tip of most frequent doorways using an adjustable steel bracket. With two 1080p HD cameras providing a 135-degree scrutinize and a favorable video demonstrate veil, the wire-free camera is a valid blueprint for house dwellers and travelers to ascertain what’s happening out of doorways.

The software boasts a battery lifestyles of as a lot as 2 months, detects stir, sends alerts, and helps you to make employ of two-blueprint audio to talk with entrance door guests by the BodyGuardz app (coming rapidly). The camera is predicted to be launched later this Twelve months and price $279.

Hatch Restore

Hatch Restore is an all-in-one nightlight and sleep back that claims to relief folks sleep better and was as soon as designed by sleep consultants. Restore, that might presumably also be controlled with the software's partner app, is sufficiently runt to suit to your nightstand so chances are you'll presumably perchance well also salvage up with a gentle that mimics the sun rising and make customized sleep routines. It additionally choices as a white noise machine, reading gentle, and it displays distinct colours for intervals of time to enable you to with controlled breathing workouts.

Restore must restful be available upon beginning in early 2020 on the Hatch site and other standard retailers the put Hatch is currently offered. It's anticipated to designate underneath $150.

Wayzn Dapper Sliding Glass Door Opener

Wayzn is a contemporary trim sliding door opener—and it was as soon as designed to change ragged doggie doorways. The app-controlled software, which integrates with trim cameras savor Nest, sends a notification to your mobile telephone when stir is detected on the door, prompting you to beginning or end the door for your pooch remotely. Nonetheless it indubitably’s no longer appropriate for pets—chances are you'll presumably perchance well also protect watch over the door from the app to your mobile telephone when you happen to ever salvage locked out, too.

It takes appropriate minutes to set up and no tools or drilling are required. The trim slider matches most frequent sliding glass door tracks. It’s anticipated to be available for take later this Twelve months for $399. Nonetheless, chances are you'll presumably perchance well also reserve one now from Wayzn.

Swann WiFi Safety Tracker Digicam

Swann is recognized for DIY house security solutions, and this Twelve months they’re introducing several contemporary trim merchandise that combine no longer ideal with Swann’s security systems, however additionally with Google Assistant. The WiFi Safety Tracker Digicam has a 180-degree scrutinize and facial monitoring to enable you to protect tabs on who comes and goes from the house. The Safety Tracker Digicam can shriek you to your mobile telephone when it spots a particular person on the door, and also chances are you'll presumably perchance well also enlighten it to respect these that stay with you or talk to continually. The camera will seemingly be available for $79, and there are no longer any subscription charges associated, which is changing into extra and extra rare on this planet of trim security cameras.

Sengled Edison Filament Bulb

Dapper bulbs were, since their inception, all about how they are able to substitute the have confidence about of the room. They'll fashion it brighter, they are able to fashion it red or green, they are able to fashion it have confidence about savor somebody is house must you’re on commute. Nonetheless the bulbs themselves were barely dull in look at ideal. Sengled’s contemporary Edison Filament Bulb is a luminous deviation from that norm. It seems to be appropriate savor a blooming vintage bulb, and it would slot in seamlessly with many decor styles. In our attempting out, Sengled has conducted successfully and we most traditional the vitality-monitoring characteristic in the Sengled app. The Edison Filament Bulb from Sengled will seemingly be available for $29.99 per two-pack.

Usa today Appliances & Cleaning

Usa today LG ThinQ Washer with AI

Take into consideration when you happen to never had to pre-fashion your laundry as soon as more. LG took one step closer to that dream with its ThinkQ Washer with AI. That’s appropriate, synthetic intelligence has lastly approach for your soiled socks. The contemporary washer makes employ of inner sensors to search out out the fabric fashion, weight, and volume of a load to search out out the accurate wash cycle, and an auto-dispenser releases appropriate the accurate quantity of detergent. LG already makes some of the accurate washers on the market, so put a question to this to be one in all the premier units when it hits shops later this Twelve months.

Eufy RoboVac G30 Edge

Now we contain got long-praised the Eufy 11S as the ideal designate in robot vacuums, however the contemporary RoboVac G30 Edge might presumably perchance well lastly “edge” it out. With spectacular suction vitality for its size, a 100-minute bustle time, and optical drift sensors, Eufy as soon as extra pushes the boundaries of how critical performance they are able to stuff into something so inexpensive.

LG CordZeroThinQ A9 with Energy Force Mop

Closing Twelve months’s LG CordZero A9 gave Dyson a bustle for its cash. The suction vitality was as soon as spectacular, however the genuine killer characteristic was as soon as the pair of swappable batteries that doubled your cleaning time. This Twelve months’s model adds a brand contemporary Energy Force Mop head for even better cleaning of laborious surfaces. And when you happen to offered the previous model, don’t terror! The Energy Force Mop will additionally be offered as a separate strengthen kit.

Trifo Lucy

Trifo is a newcomer to the robot vacuum market, however the Lucy is aiming to approach what's seemingly in object recognition. It choices two cameras—one for HD color imaging and one for depth recognition—that are ready to discern objects as runt as one stir in high. The color camera additionally stay-streams to your mobile telephone in drawl so that you just can look at into your house whereas chances are you'll presumably perchance well also very successfully be long gone. Additionally, the Lucy can automatically divide rooms without the need for magnetic strips. With a two-hour battery and 3000 PA of suction vitality, we put a question to mountainous things from Lucy when it hits shops in late Q1 / early Q2. The estimated designate is $799.

LG ProActive Customer Care

Files superhighway-connected house equipment were trickling in for years now, however the advantages are as soon as quickly narrow and laborious to point to. LG is attempting to lastly fashion appropriate on the promise of indubitably trim house equipment with Proactive Customer Care. Leveraging sensors and Wi-Fi one day of the machine, the service will alert house owners sooner than a well-known self-discipline occurs and offer a corrective path of action. Diminished airflow in dryer vents, oversudsing in the laundry, and odd oven pre-warmth readings are all signs that something might presumably perchance well also very successfully be horrible along with your equipment. LG doesn’t are attempting to ship out a service truck to you from now on than chances are you'll presumably perchance well also very successfully be attempting to back around for one, so LG Proactive Customer Care will try to relief sooner than it will get too costly.

Usa today Kitchen & Cooking

Not seemingly Pork

Closing Twelve months, Not seemingly Foods changed into the first worth to ever showcase an accurate food product at CES with their now-ubiquitous Not seemingly Burger. Their most up-to-date product to switch worldwide—Not seemingly Pork, an fully plant-basically based mostly change for the most traditional meat worldwide, is a lot extra versatile than the corporate’s contemporary burger. Vegan, kosher, halal, and made from the an identical soy proteins and “bleeding” heme point to in the Not seemingly Burger, Not seemingly Pork tastes remarkably savor the genuine aspect—and it demonstrates an accurate fulfillment in direction of maintaining biodiversity and cutting back the environmental footprint of animal agriculture. Besides to its ground pork delight in, you’ll salvage it available in a sausage croissant breakfast sandwich debuting at Burger King later this Twelve months.

Anova Precision Oven

Anova has been a toddle-setter in the house sous vide marketplace for years, however they’ve expanded into the extra and extra standard trim countertop oven class with the Anova Precision Oven. What sets it other than the million other trim ovens available? Steam. Certain, Anova has recognized the vitality of steam for accurate temperature protect watch over, sooner cooking speeds, and ragged baking methods, and has labored it into an beautiful countertop equipment for the house chef without a level from Le Cordon Bleu. Following Tovala, Anova is the 2nd major worth to introduce a steam oven to the American market. Whereas we don’t contain a designate appropriate but, we have confidence it’s going to be aggressive with Tovala’s $300 oven.

Whirlpool x Yummly Dapper Thermometer

Digital meat thermometers don’t deserve to designate a fortune, however there are some further-special choices on the Yummly Dapper Thermometer that clarify its $129 designate tag. Unlike most thermometers, Yummly’s contemporary software makes employ of twin temperature sensors to video show food and oven temperatures concurrently. It’s additionally fully wireless, might presumably also be remotely tracked by Bluetooth, and can even be ready to automatically adjust the temperature settings on savor minded Whirlpool ovens by the end of 2020 to enable you to enact the accurate roast. Even when you happen to don’t opt to pair the thermometer with a Whirlpool fluctuate, it must present you far away temperature monitoring you’d ideal salvage from investing in a trim oven—and that’s something to contain time.

GE Kitchen Hub

The GE Kitchen Hub caught our have confidence about at CES 2019 with its boldness—the over-the-fluctuate hood with a 27-stir tablet connected to it's anything however refined. Nonetheless, it’s obviousness disguised some barely useful know-how, in conjunction with a downward-facing camera that offers you a better have confidence about at what you’re cooking, a forward-facing camera for video chatting, and trim connectivity for streaming song, TV, and cooking movies. This Twelve months’s updates to the Kitchen Hub embody a complete microwave disguised in the back of the veil, and compatibility with a third camera constructed into distinct GE oven units for food sensing and monitoring. The most up-to-date model restful entails our common characteristic: a low-powered vent that prevents oily smoke from touching the pristine veil.

Usa today Health, Beauty, & Health

Neutrogena Skin360

Assemble you continually neglect to retract your makeup off at night time or put collectively sunscreen in the morning? The Neutrogena Skin360 app is right here to protect end you responsible to a skincare routine and song your pores and skin's progress in 5 key areas: wrinkles, luminous traces, darkish underneath-have confidence about circles, darkish spots and smoothness. The free app prompts you to retract three photos of your face in drawl to study your pores and skin (a previous model required a dongle to your mobile telephone, however this one makes employ of your mobile telephone's camera). Neutrogena's synthetic intelligence assistant, NAIA, asks questions about your routine habits and your required outcomes to personalize your skincare routine of truly useful Neutrogena merchandise, though chances are you'll presumably perchance well also add your possess. You'd also then retract apply-up photos to charge your outcomes and fashion modifications, as wanted. It's savor having your possess deepest skincare handbook on tempo dial—free of charge.

Nurvv Speed

Extreme runners will seemingly be racing for Nurvv Speed’s GPS-monitoring trim insoles, which dart underneath the insoles of their common kicks and obtain info on their running efficiency—principally their cadence (or steps per minute) and stir length—by 16 sensors per foot. The Nurvv partner app offers actionable, interactive coaching advice to info the runner to fashion modifications to relief them salvage sooner and prevent crash. Nurvv Speed is available for preorder now for $299.95, and can ship in February.

Whistle Fit

From the makers of a GPS monitoring software for canines comes the Whistle Fit, a fitness and health tracker for your treasured pooch. This accelerometer-filled, collar clip-on software tracks the dog’s active minutes, whereas its partner app offers steering for house owners on nudging a sluggish pup to switch extra and feeding advice of the pricetag of food (from an intensive database) you already lend a hand. What’s extra, the tracker can discern if the dog is scratching or licking excessively—every are classic behaviors that might presumably perchance point to health problems that would require a vet talk to. Whistle Fit retails for $79.95, with a $2.95 monthly subscription charge for cloud info storage.

Sleep Quantity Climate360 Dapper Mattress

We're so concerned with the Sleep Quantity Climate360 Dapper Mattress, we integrated it on this checklist despite its anticipated beginning no longer coming until 2021. Besides to the consolation-oriented adjustability Sleep Quantity is recognized for, the Climate360 will allow bedfellows to customize three temperature zones from head to toe on their possess aspects of the mattress. Now not ideal can every protect end out whether they need the zones heated or chilly, however they are able to make an hour-by-hour program to adjust temps one day of the night time.

Colgate Plaqless Pro

Whether you sweep for the fat dentist-instructed two minutes or no longer, chances are you'll presumably perchance well also dart away in the back of plaque, a bacteria-containing movie around your enamel. To enable you to brush smarter, Colgate’s contemporary Plaqless Pro makes employ of optic sensor know-how that detects plaque buildup. Whereas you’re brushing, a hoop all the blueprint by the barrel of the electrical toothbrush flashes blue to point to that there’s a biofilm buildup on these enamel. After an intensive cleaning, the ring flashes white, so you respect to switch on to a brand contemporary house of the mouth. Dispute goodbye to blindly brushing and nerve-wracking dentist appointments—this software teaches you better brushing habits for squeaky-orderly enamel.

Usa today Parenting & Kids' Tech

Comper Forehead Thermometer

Each mum or dad I’ve ever met has the an identical complaint: it’s troublesome to search out a thermometer for young folks that’s rapidly, easy to make employ of, and offers an actual temperature reading. The Comper Forehead Thermometer seems to be to be the thermometer that oldsters were ready for. Right here's one in all the merchandise that impressed us basically the most over the path of CES, basically in consequence of its functionality and the great thing about the assemble. Unlike ragged forehead thermometers that must be slowly moved all the blueprint by a little bit one’s forehead, the Comper works merely by inserting the probe in the center of the forehead and urgent a button to generate a temperature reading in 0.5 seconds. The Comper Forehead Thermometer works so speedy that it’s ridiculously easy to retract a little bit one’s temperature—without reference to how wiggly they might presumably perchance very successfully be.

Miniature one Brezza Formulation Pro Developed WiFi

We’re already fans of the OG Formulation Pro, however the most up-to-date model takes system-feeding to an complete contemporary (awesome) level. The WiFi-enabled software pairs with a smartphone app so that chances are you'll presumably perchance well also correct now fashion warm system bottles with appropriate the tap of a finger. Bought a toddler who constantly wakes as a lot as be fed at 4: 17am? You'd also program the Formulation Pro to contain that bottle though-provoking and ready sooner than your babe lets out their first bawl. Observe your toddler’s feeding, without shriek protect watch over the bottle size and temperature of the water, and even auto-drawl system all the blueprint by the app. The Formulation Pro Developed is launching June 1, 2020, however chances are you'll presumably perchance well also pre-drawl this present day on the babybrezza site.

myFirst Digicam 3

The myFirst Digicam 3 is a Polaroid for the standard know-how of young folks: The camera correct now prints out unlit and white prints of whatever photos your little one snaps. The photos print in appropriate 10 seconds, and the most up-to-date iteration of the myFirst Digicam choices two lenses in case your little one is all about that #selfie lifestyles. Whereas it’s distinct to enchantment to young folks appropriate basically based totally on the assemble and colours alone, seemingly basically the most wonderful characteristic of the myFirst Digicam 3 is that it saves the snapshots to a memory card so that oldsters can print out high quality, color versions of the photos on their house describe printer. There are no longer any pixelated photos right here: the indubitably mountainous shots that your budding shutterbug takes print beautifully in better sizes.

Doodlematic

Flip your little one’s drawing into a easy video sport with the Doodlematic kit and app. Whether your little one is a budding Picasso or can barely draw a stick figure, the Doodlematic will work for them, and young folks will savor seeing their creations blueprint to lifestyles. Scan your little one’s artwork into the Doodlematic app, which pairs their drawings with sweet choices to make easy games that young folks will seemingly be proud to name their possess.

Pali Bedtime Buddy

Whereas there are a host of clocks on the market that claim to enlighten young folks to protect of their beds until a distinct time, we’ve but to search out one that genuinely works. The Pali Bedtime Buddy sleep coaching clock combines the total ingredients of existing “sleep coach” clocks with contemporary choices savor a digital countdown timer and a reward drawer the put fogeys can tuck treats or tokens. The Pali Bedtime Buddy pairs with an app by Bluetooth, by which fogeys can put of residing and protect watch over sleep and wake-up conditions, and even remotely lock the reward drawer so that young folks can’t salvage admission to treats on days they arise too early.

Usa today Cameras

Canon EOS-1D X Tag III

The Canon EOS-1D X line stays the gold frequent for expert sports actions photographers, and for correct motive. It has rock-solid sturdiness and performance, simply getting the job executed for photographers overlaying everything from the Olympics to pure mess ups. Though it’s beyond the scope of what on a traditional basis folks might presumably perchance well need, the contemporary 1D X is at possibility of be the offer of a host of the accurate photos you take into consideration about in the knowledge for years but to approach back. It’s costly, for certain, alternatively it’s appropriate to ascertain Canon continue to push the boundaries of DSLR assemble in 2020 and beyond.

Nikon D780 DSLR

The camera commercial isn’t what it as soon as was as soon as, however for mavens and hobbyists there’s restful nothing savor a dedicated camera. Nikon’s D780 follows up on the wonderful D750, taking a host of the corporate’s ideal-in-class expert choices from its expert-grade D5 and placing them in a camera body that any serious enthusiast can contain ample cash. It’s a mountainous choice, namely for folks that prefer the have confidence about, indubitably feel, and dependable performance of a ragged DSLR to more moderen mirrorless alternate choices.

Usa today Headphones

Jabra Elite 45h

CES is stuffed with a few of basically the most wonderful headphones you’ll ever hear, however a host of them designate a ton of cash. Jabra’s Elite 45h on-ear headphones designate appropriate $99 however offer unparalleled designate. They sound mountainous, are mountainous chuffed, offer as a lot as 40 hours of battery lifestyles, and so that they contain got a welcoming fabric-clad assemble. They work by Bluetooth 5.0 and were ready to protect end a connection successfully, despite CES being jam-packed with wireless networks at all conditions. They aren’t the flashiest headphones we noticed at CES, however with wireless headphones speedy changing into the regular over wired units, the budget-pleasant Jabra Elite 45h contain a needed role to bear.

Fall + THX Panda Wi-fi Headphones

Wi-fi headphones are unparalleled—and with headphone jacks disappearing from end to every mobile telephone, a necessity. Nonetheless they no longer continually present the extra or less dismay-animated audio performance you salvage from top charge over-ear headphones. Fall (formerly Massdrop) seeks to change that with a indubitably high-end assemble that entails Oppo-impressed ribbon planar magnetic drivers, THX AAA amplifier know-how, and a end to distortion-free sound that will present what Fall is asking audiophile-level quality in a chuffed, luminous pair of wireless headphones. They sound fine, namely for the extremely inexpensive $399 designate point.

Puro Pro Quantity-Tiny Headphones

Puro makes our common volume-restricted headphones, however they're marketed largely in direction of youthful young folks and gamers who can suffer lifestyles-long crash from noise-induced hearing loss. The Puro Pro does the an identical however in a chuffed, luminous bundle that is preferrred to older young folks, kids, and even adults that are attempting to limit their exposure to rude volumes. They sound mountainous, offer very appropriate active noise cancellation, and—most importantly—they offer effective volume-limiting tech from a company we know and belief, now not like a host of the units we contain now examined in our labs.

Jabra Elite Active 75t

The Jabra Elite Active 65t were already a few of our common heavenly wireless earbuds for conception, however the contemporary Elite Active 75t improves on them in end to every blueprint. They’re roughly 22% smaller and restful offer better battery lifestyles (7.5 hours per charge, up from 5). They additionally contain an improved water-resistance rating of IP57, that implies they’re rated for accurate submersion and no longer appropriate splashes, sweat, and rain. Adore most heavenly wireless earbuds they are able to retract some getting outdated to, however they sound mountainous and were ready to successfully block out noise even in a crowded commerce demonstrate hall. For conception on the gymnasium or running, they’re a heavenly wire-free partner starting at $199.99.

HyperX Cloud Flight S

The HyperX Cloud Flight gaming headphones were already amongst our favorites for wireless gaming headsets, and the contemporary Flight S makes them even better. They're lightweight, offer heavenly 7.1 encompass sound and 50mm drivers, a claimed 30+ hours of battery lifestyles, and Qi-basically based mostly wireless charging so chances are you'll presumably perchance well also without shriek dart away them to your desk on a charging pad and never deserve to terror about running out of juice. They’ll hit retail for $159.99 rapidly, with purple meat up for PS4 and PC-basically based mostly systems appropriate out of the sphere.

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Costs were exact on the time this article was as soon as printed however might presumably perchance well also substitute over time.

Be taught or Allotment this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/reviewedcom/2020/01/08/ces-editors-different-awards-the-ideal-tech-to-put a question to-in-2020/40960603/