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piracytheorist · 4 years

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Allen & Colin interview (pt. 2) summary and tidbits

Again, these are just the bits I found interesting and worth mentioning. I still tried to mention as much as possible, but the interview was one hour long, and I only did this on my own whim to share with the people who, for whatever reason, have no access to the interview. So it is what it is :P

Once again, I recommend supporting Allen on patreon if you can. Without him and the work he shares we wouldn’t have this in the first place. Plus he has lots of interesting podcasts too ;)

(starting off under the cut, I’m very tired right now and there will probably be a lot of mistakes here and stuff I forgot to mention, I’ll try to look it up better tomorrow but I wanted to share it as is now, knowing how not being part of that stuff can be a BIG itch. So y’know, if you want, check it up tomorrow too, lol, it may be better :P)

They started by talking about Colin's career after he graduated from drama school. Colin talked about how in drama school, compared to the "real world", it was like being in a bubble because of the limited number of actors in one’s specific school. So it was difficult getting out and realizing how much more competition there is out there, and how you'll audition for a part that you feel you're ideal for but still not take it a lot of the time. He talked about how early in an actor's career, if they don't get such a role, they may start wondering why the producers don't see what the actor has to offer, when later they realize it can be for any reason, including small ones like their eyes being the wrong colour.

(And I'm here like, how can anyone look at Colin's eyes and think they're "wrong" for anything???)

(joking aside, it was just an example he gave, but I found it fitting because THOSE DAMN EYES)

And he mentioned how, due to the tight schedule any production has, they don't have the time to tell to every single actor they rejected why they rejected them in the first place (he's so understanding about it too, despite how much such rejections could have cost him, I love him so much!), so they can either spend a lot of time wondering what they did wrong or just move on to the next project they can apply for.

"Yeah, you come out thinking that you're gonna be the next James Bond straightaway or whatever, do you know what I mean?" He talked about while school prepares actors a bit about the realities of the world, a lot of people still come out of drama school with very high expectations, and how often that happens. But sometimes it's just pure luck that very young actors get big roles in big productions.

A lot of understanding of the job comes with the experience, he says. Of course training is necessary, but it develops with practice. On that note, Allen asked him if he thought young Colin could handle working on a big production right after finishing college, and Colin said that he can't give a straight answer because while he had experience when working in The Rite, his first big film, he had lots of confidence when straight out of college... so it would also depend on how well the production did, like if it flopped, it would've been a hit to his confidence.

He talked about how his very first job after college was a theater play - also dark and heavy, it was centered around suicide - and they went on tour for it too. He then mentioned Home for Christmas, his first TV role. "It was a great role, it was a really dark, black comedy."

(baby actor Colin finding his place in the world <3)

One of his favourite memories from there was that the prop master had an oyster farm, so you know, instead of biscuits, he'd bring oysters to share with his coworkers. (XD)

He also talked about how different it was to learn to act for the camera instead of the theater, where with a camera you can be much more subtle, and you're not projecting to an immediate audience. He always wanted to do film and TV and he was watching films and such, so it wasn't hard for him to learn to "rein it in", as he referred to it.

The year after Home for Christmas was released, he won an IFTA award for Best New Talent - which wasn't just an acting category, it also included directing, screenwriting, etc. so it meant a lot to him, he hadn't expected to win that award.

He talks about how dark that film was and he sounds so excited about it. Never change, Colin <3

Allen remembers how when they all watched it together, Colin was very self-conscious about it being him on the TV, and Colin said (now) that it's still the same for him now. Like, it's still weird, from acting out emotions ("You don't look in the mirror when you're crying") to the most mundane things like walking ("You don't see the way that you walk"), so even now it makes him self-conscious to watch himself.

Then Allen said about how he couldn't attend the award ceremony, but was waiting on news about it all day and as soon as he learned Colin won he tried to get there as fast as he could. What a proud and supportive bro.

Colin talked how he was in such a high after college, but then due to not getting a job for a long time the toll it had on him and his confidence was very big, especially considering how much more confident he was before. During that time, he was playing with The Enemies as his day job, and he is very grateful to "the lads" for giving him the flexibility to not play for a couple of days if he needed to be elsewhere to have an audition or something. But still he felt fulfilled with playing in the band, making music with it meant a lot to him. He misses playing with them.

At the time the whole "sending out a video auditioning for a role" wasn't a thing yet, especially the way it is nowadays, so Colin had to go to Dublin and London a lot to audition for stuff.

His first agency, before even starting college, was a modelling agency. "We never modeled [laughs]." He clarified that it was mostly because that agency also did commercials and stuff, so it was a way for him to get into acting and make some money before starting college. Through that he auditioned for an anti-bullying video (if I got that right) and the casting directors connected him with an agent in Dublin. He continued with his acting course though, so he already had an agent when he finished college.

His work in theater after that allowed him to hone his craft and work with bigger and more experienced actors, so he kept contact until he worked in The Tudors, where a casting director in the US saw him in. She contacted Colin about connecting him to agents there, and though at the time most of his savings would be going for his wedding that summer, he and Helen decided that he could invest in going to the US and take the opportunity. Six months later, he was on the set for The Rite, opposite Anthony Hopkins. "It was a surreal thing." He talked about how nervous he was for the first read-through with Hopkins, but on that first meeting Hopkins told him "Hello Colin, nice to meet you. Let's just have fun" and it immediately helped him relax and focus.

They originally wanted a big name for Michael Kovak, saying that even though they wanted Colin, the studio might ask for a big name, but once they got Hopkins in for Father Lucas, Colin got it.

(And I just... you know, I find this quite important. Like, it wasn't a common-courtesy promise of the type "Leave your contact info and we'll let you know if you get the role", it was a legit "We want you but the studio makes the final decision", and once the studio had their big name, the casting directors went through with their word.)

He had faced a lot of rejection by that point, so he said that he was very close to giving up before he got cast for The Rite. He still remembers the day he got the call confirming to him that he got the role, and again, how Allen rushed to him to celebrate.

{Ahhh they're adorable, I love getting that glimpse into their relationship :)

Allen mentions how different it is for actors, when they have to deal with a lot of rejection, when that doesn't happen on a regular basis with a lot of other careers. Colin said how one of the most frustrating parts about that is not that you don't get the job, but that you get the feeling that people can't see what you have to offer. And again, they talked about how due to the tight schedule directors can't provide constructive criticism on what went wrong in the audition.

He doesn't consider one thing factoring to his persistence to acting; it felt right for him, but the support from his family had also a big impact.

So much about The Rite was a new thing for him, like even the fact that he had about 3 months to prepare for the role - he even boxed during that time because the description for the role talked about a guy who was boxing all his life - to going to Rome and being part of such a big production was so big but also inspirational for him. Also getting to see posters of the film in places like Times Square or Los Angeles, and having people send him pictures of posters of the film was so wild for him. "It's one of those things where you can't think about it too much, you just sort of hop on and enjoy the ride."

(WHAT A PURE BEAN T_T)

He talked about being introverted and how acting allowed him to put on a facade. When he first went to LA, it not only was a different cultural experience, but also with how it was the thing of going to the right parties and talking to the right people, and Colin said "That's not me." And being a true introvert, he said "I'd rather sit in the corner until I have to go home. I can't go up to some random stranger that I don't know and introduce myself and start telling him how great I am and why they should put me in their movie."

He talked about being considered for a series of big films but he eventually didn't get the role, and I now wonder which one it could be. He said how the directors were interested in changing the character up a bit to make him Irish, so I don't think he meant Superman, for whom he was a contestant at the time...

He then mentioned doing the Pilot for Identity, the show that ABC didn't pick up, then doing Storage 24, then getting hired on OUAT, and how big of a commitment that was, since he had to move to Vancouver, away from his friends and family aside from Helen, who went with him, and sign a contract for six years where it was basically a huge part of his life.

Even though he loved Vancouver, going there was like completely starting over, since he had no support system set before he went. But he was glad for the people who helped him during this change in his life, and even without factoring in what impact working on OUAT had on his career, it was still a very positive experience for him.

Working on OUAT was different especially since he entered a show that was already a hit. Due to his young age he'd never expected he'd play Captain Hook. It was unexpected, but it gave him the job security to have a family, and after working so long he bonded with the cast and crew and felt them as family too (no, he didn't mention any names), especially with people who, like him, had relocated and didn't have that support system set.

(And that gave me the feeling of how it was like when I was studying, when I made many friends who, like me, had left their parents' home to go to a brand new place where they didn't know anyone and made a new start. And that kinda feeling helps you bond deeper with them.)

He talked about how tough it was for him on the first conventions he attended, like, getting up on the stage and answering questions about himself. He became more comfortable, though, when he realized that the actors weren't the central theme of conventions, but rather the feeling of community among the fans. He loves seeing people who even now discover the show and love it.

He talked about how playing in Dolly Parton's Heartstrings helped him "shake off" Hook after having played him for so long, and then being able to jump to The Right Stuff, which was also a commitment (unlike Heartstrings, which was one standalone episode). He's very proud of his work there, he loved the cast and the story, how for those characters going to space was so brand new and unsure whether they'd survive. He's so excited for it to come out, and for people and him to see it.

He concludes by saying he feels good with his career, that the periods of uncertainty and not working prepared him for his future. He feels content, though still ambitious for roles he wants to play but he feels he's given his best self.

He feels so humbled and blessed for his fans that watch his stuff and hopes they'll enjoy his future works.

(We will! :D)

#Allen & Colin interview #Colin O'Donoghue

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petriichvrs · 4 years

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𝒘𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒍𝒆𝒚, 𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐘.

´ ･ . ✶ ⧼ jessica barden, demigirl, she & her & they & them / mariners apartment complex by lana del rey + short nails with dirt caught beneath them and worn out jeans with muddy patches on the knees. scuffed trainers that have seen better days ( you understand how they feel ) and a handknit jumper that is somehow still too large, with stitches pulled hither and tither. windswept red hair and a stubbornly set mouth, the kind that used to twist into the most infectious smile ; but doesn’t, now that you are the girl on fire who has seen it all and yet, not enough. in the depths of those brown eyes, flames rage, good and strong, and isn’t that the savage beauty of it all? that in spite of everything, you remain - sturdy and smelling of smoke. ⧽ ━━ hey, isn’t that GINEVRA MOLLY WEASLEY? i read a daily prophet article on them, once ; the TWENTY TWO year old pureblood WITCH is a GRYFFINDOR alumus, who has gone on to be a PROFESSIONAL CHASER FOR THE HOLYHEAD HARPIES. i’ve heard they can be quite RESILIENT & INTUITIVE, but i don’t know… they came off very HEADSTRONG & WAGGISH in that interview. it really is hard to know what to believe these days though, isn’t it? click HERE for ginny’s entire history ( also linked within ) & HERE for her pinterest board.

and they call us hard women, as if SURVIVAL could ever be delicate.

𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐒 !

FULL NAME: ginevra molly weasley.

MEANING OF NAME(S): an arthurian baby name meaning ‘fair one’. a name of irish origin and derived from ‘mary’, meaning ‘star of the sea’. a surname of unsure origin.

NICKNAMES: ginny.

AGE: twenty two.

BIRTHDATE: august 11th, 1998.

BIRTHPLACE: great britain.

ETHNICITY: white.

EDUCATION: homeschooled as all wizard children are, before attending hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry upon turning eleven.

JOB: chaser for the holyhead harpies.

LANGUAGES: english, french, german, spanish.

GENDER IDENTITY: demigirl.

PRONOUNS: she / her / they / them.

SEXUALITY ORIENTATION: bisexual biromantic.

𝐖𝐈𝐙𝐀𝐑𝐃 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐒 !

HOGWARTS HOUSE: gryffindor.

WAND TYPE: eight and a quarter inches yew with phoenix tail feather.

PATRONUS: a horse ( an ardennais stallion ).

BOGGART: tom riddle ; not lord voldemort. people often forget that ginny faced him all alone, aged eleven, and only barely lived to tell the tale.

AMORTENTIA: molly weasley’s homemade mince pies, harry potter’s preferred cologne and the smell of the quidditch pitch at hogwarts, after spring rain.

MISC. INFO: trained and registered animagus, with the ability of transforming into a ginger tabby cat.

𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 !

FATHER: arthur weasley.

MOTHER: molly weasley neé prewett.

SIBLING(S): william, charles, percy, fred, george & ronald weasley ( older brothers ).

RELATIVES: the weasley & prewett families ( and all who have subsequently married into them ).

SIGNIFICANT OTHER: none.

EX SIGNIFICANT OTHERS: harry potter & dean thomas & michael corner.

CHILDREN: none.

PET(S): arnold ( purple pygmy puff with a shocking lifespan ) & archimedes ( a screech owl ).

𝐏𝐇𝐘𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 !

HEIGHT: five foot one inch.

EYE COLOR: brown.

HAIR COLOR: ginger.

SCARS: she has scars along her thighs and upon her fingertips that she doesn’t remember getting, from her second year. 'blood traitor’ on her right arm from lines she was forced to write by the carrow twins, in her sixth year. scars from the crack of a whip along her back, and scars upon her wrists and ankles from the chain bonds that filch preferred. a scar along her left cheekbone that she pairs with the gnarly one upon her knee, because both of them were sustained under the cruciatus curse. she has more scars than she can possibly remember that serve only to remind her of the war that they fought ; and she tries very hard to be proud of them, but even she finds it hard.

GLASSES / CONTACTS: no / no.

PIERCINGS: basic lobe piercings and a scaffold piercing in her right ear.

TATTOOS: a tiny snitch, stick and poke tattooed on the inside of her arm - done in her third year, it glows when the weather is perfect for quidditch.

OTHER NOTABLE TRAITS: there’s a dent on her forehead that you would only see if you were looking for it, sustained in the chamber of secrets.

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘 !

STAR SIGN: leo, the lion ( passionate, earnest, enigmatic, jealous ).

PERSONALITY TYPE: estp, the entrepreneur ( high energy, independent, reckless, bold ).

ALIGNMENT: chaotic good.

TEMPERAMENT: melancholic.

RELIGION: agnostic.

PHOBIA(S): ophidiophobia ( fear of snakes ).

VICE: anger, recklessness, impatience.

VIRTUE: confidence, passion, perseverance.

𝐌𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 !

ALLERGIES: none.

SMOKING/ALCOHOL/DRUGS: sometimes, but has mostly broken the habit / socially, and regularly / no.

DIAGNOSES: post traumatic stress disorder, survivors guilt and chronic insomnia.

BLOOD TYPE: a positive.

𝐅𝐔𝐋𝐋 𝐇𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘 !

click this link to be brought to ginny’s entire history.

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 !

seventh child and only daughter of arthur and molly. first girl born into the weasley fam for GENERATIONS, so that makes her special. had too many brothers. biggest grievance was they never let her play quidditch with them, so she broke into their shed and taught herself. cried every single time they went to hogwarts without her.

eventually got there herself. her first year notoriously SUCKED.

if ‘sucked’ is a good enough word to describe being possessed by tom riddle and opening the chamber of secrets, which ultimately led to a lot of people almost dying, including herself.

this, understandably, royally fucked ginny’s shit up. easily seen by her extra special hysterical reaction to the dementors. didn’t do much in her second yr other than be upset by them on the train and be hermione granger 2.0 ( overachiever extraordinaire ).

fully supported harry potter during his fourth year, when he became the unwitting fourth champion. would have gone to the yule ball with him if she hadn’t pledged herself to neville longbottom, who goes on to become one of her best friends.

got all up in order business in her fourth year, against her parents wishes. you can take the girl from the rebellion but you can’t take the rebellion from the girl. joined dumbledore’s army. also named it. became a royal pain in umbridge’s ass. was super talented at spells ( she’s special ) that they were being taught. had a rough christmas cos her dad almost got killed by voldemort’s ugly snake. hexed draco malfoy and still giggles about it to this day. fought off death eaters in the department of mysteries and was witness to sirius black’s death.

everyone rly wanted a piece of ginny in her fifth year ( understandable ). she got invited to slug club. was also made chaser of the gryffindor quidditch team ( after playing seeker the previous year when harry was banned ). she dated harry for a hot minute after she finally got rid of dean thomas ( srry dean ), but... after dumbledore died and death eaters attacked the school he broke up with her to ‘protect her’ which... sucked.

honestly. summer in general sucked. her bro got attacked by a werewolf. her boyfriend dumped her for her own good. there was a wedding, for some reason.

sixth year also sucked. the da was reformed ( by ginny & her friends ) but could only do so much in the face of the gross misuse of power by grown ass adults. ginny did all that she could even when they were actively torturing them all, but was made go into hiding at easter.

followed her fam to hogwarts for the battle. almost had to sit the whole thing out, but ran off after she was forced to leave the room of requirement.

let’s recap the battle real quick : her brother? died. her friends? died. the love of her life? never even said goodbye and died. ginny? almost died! she did not have a good time. 0/10 stars on yelp, in fact. but they prevailed! they made harry proud! love when you succeed and get ptsd for your troubles.

ginny helped rebuild hogwarts over the summer, and went back in september to finish her seventh year, but... it wasn’t really home anymore. a war will do that. loss will do that. she was trying very hard to be okay - and in a lot of ways, trying a little too hard to be who she had ALWAYS been. she probably could have done with being told that no one expected her to be unchanged, but... everyone was going through their own stuff.

she tried to honor the one’s that they lost by living, but... that was easier on paper. ginny didn’t seem to make it all the way through the five stages of grief. she was angry, and she was sad, but she couldn’t deny it and she couldn’t change it - and acceptance was impossible. her grief turned into a persistent feeling of emptiness, and that took a toll on her, as a person.

a lot that made her happy once didn’t, anymore. she was scouted by the holyhead harpies fresh out of hogwarts, but when they asked her to sign, she didn’t immediately take them up on the offer. quidditch was about the only thing she had left at that point that brought her some measure of joy, and it felt...surreal, to be considering taking such a small pleasure and turning it into her life work. it felt not right, for some reason. doing something so ‘normal’ felt insulting, almost, to all the people who wouldn’t do anything normal again - but she couldn’t do nothing forever, and eventually, she was convinced.

she took the offer. she never looked back. things haven’t really gotten better in all the time since then, but at least they can’t get any worse.

𝐀𝐃𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 ! / talk of scars & death & trauma.

ginny’s scars tell more stories about her life at hogwarts than she has ever uttered. from her first year, she has marks that she can’t name the cause of. scarring along her thighs and upon her fingertips that were obtained in some of her black outs, that her parents BEGGED madam pomfrey to remove, but who she quietly told to not bother. there’s a small dent on her forehead that she sustained when she collapsed in the chamber of secrets, and you wouldn’t see it, if you weren’t looking. she doesn’t point it out.

of course, she sustained some in her fourth year. she fell over during a dumbledore’s army session and she scraped up the palm of her hand, something that they all laughed about, back then. she broke her ankle badly enough that it continues to click, even now, but luckily was never a hassle in her chosen career. maybe she’d have been even worse of, if bellatrix had tortured her like planned. ginny counts her blessings.

but it’s her sixth year that ruined her. that instilled within her a LOVE of long sweaters and a fear of being seen entirely naked. ‘blood traitor’ is carved into her right arm from lines she was FORCED to write with her own blood, over and over, after being caught putting graffiti on the side of green house number five. she didn’t cry, to them. she didn’t shed a tear. along her back there are criss cross scars from the CRACK of a whip, so many of them that ginny still closes her eyes when she’s getting into the bathtub, so she doesn’t catch a glimpse in the mirror. she’s been suspended by her ankles, by her wrists, and she has the taut skin there to show for it, and under one instance of the cruciatus curse, she FELL and sustained two wounds most commonly paired together in her thoughts - a scar along her left cheekbone, and a gnarly one upon her knee.

the war scarred her too. scarred her deeper. scarred her truer. she has more now than she can possibly remember that serve as a reminder to the war that they fought, together - and she tries to be proud of them. she really does. but even she finds it difficult.

ginny still keeps a bag packed and ready to go at the drop of a hat under her bed, just in case she has to run. it’s a habit instilled in her by her parents from when they went into hiding, and it’s one that she’s finding almost impossible to break. she still sleeps with her wand underneath her pillow every night, fingers curled around the wood - terrified, always, to be caught without it.

her nightmares vary, but they’re there. sometimes she wakes in a cold sweat, blinking away the MEMORY of green light that came all too close to finishing her off. sometimes, all she can see is the rotting body of her older brother and his open, vacant eyes. sometimes it’s harry, and he’s all alone, and she’s screaming at him - just screaming and crying and begging him to turn around and stop and come back, but he never does. sometimes she’s back in the dungeons of hogwarts, hanging by her ankles, and when she’s shakily sipping coffee in the morning, she can still hear the carrow twins laughter in her ears, clear as day.

she’s suffered from sleep paralysis, too, though this predates the war and began in the weeks after the chamber of secrets. her limbs too heavy to move, the demon that stands over her is tom riddle - her longest and most withstanding nightmare. she’s ashamed of the fact that though she fears she’s forgotten the exact sound of fred’s laugh or the feel of harry’s hand in hers, she’ll never be able to forget the features of sixteen year old voldemort.

ginny can throw off the cruciatus curse, now, and perhaps can even resist imperio. she’s never wanted to TRY, but after the many times it was used upon them in her sixth year.. she believes it possible.

she trained to be an animagus, more out of… boredom, than anything else. she’s registered as an orange tabby cat, and it’s not uncommon for her to run off in this form in the direction of the lake, where she can sit for hours.

ginny is bloody awful at all of the things her mother tried to teach her. knitting, cooking, general housework. she would sit for HOURS with molly in the lead up to christmas, a pair of knitting needles held awkwardly in both hands, fingers incapable of making the loops and stitches that molly is so skilled at doing, until SHE had all the christmas jumpers done… and ginny only had a rather pathetic excuse of a scarf. similarly, she tried many a time to lend a hand in the kitchen, or memorize the recipe and replicate her mothers famous homemade fudge - almost always creating some sort of inedible goop at the end of it all. she tries, god bless her, but she just doesn’t seem to have the knack that came so EASILY to molly, and years ago after a particularly disastrous attempt at knitting the weasley family matching jumpers that ended with tears all around, ginny gave up that particular hobby.

she can garden, though. BOY can she garden. neville taught her how to take care of plants she thought were beautiful, and when she moved into her little bedsit, ginny pulled up the entire garden in her allotment - redoing it in her image. she spends hours out there, knee deep in mud, hands covered, and she comes in, sunburnt, smiling, blazing and beautiful. it’s such a simple joy to her, but it is one, nonetheless.

she always had an interest in muggles. ginny idolized her father ( and still, perhaps, does ), and some of her earliest memories were of clambering onto piles of scrap in the burrows yard, just to peek through the little dusty window on arthur’s shed and watch as he tinkered with some new muggle artifact. she was the one who told fred and george about the car, you know - though she never thought even for a MOMENT that they would end up driving it.

she learned the concept of ‘stick and poke’ tattoos from a worn out fiction book she borrowed from hermione, and learned how to replicate them with a good quill, some magical ink and a couple good spells. she gave herself her own one, in fact - the little snitch inside of the crook of her left arm, that isn’t a perfect circle, but still manages to glow BRIGHT when the conditions are perfect for quidditch. she got pretty good at them, too, giving many of her classmates their own magical tattoos as the years went by - though, like many things that brought her joy, she stopped doing them after the battle of hogwarts.

#nox.intro #( 𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐘 𝐖𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐋𝐄𝐘 ) ━━━ * biography !

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yoolee · 7 years

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About Lee

@cavern-of-bells made a FUN LIST OF THINGS so I answered them.

1. What kind of food can’t you stand?: I fervently avoid all food that squelches – like grapes and ‘gelatinous snow fungus’ (that is a google-translated name for a mushroom in a soup my roomie from China made me once – aside from that ingredient, it was interesting). I’ve never, not once in my life, eaten Jello.

2. If you could choose one minor inconvenience to never have to deal with again, what would you pick?: Smoke alarm chirping. I could also happily do without pharmaceutical ads, which I think should be illegal, and election campaign ads.

3. Have you got any useless talents?: AHAHAHA. I can sing the chipmunk Christmas song and say the alphabet backwards? I’m also hypermobile—did a stint in the local circus as a contortionist in high school. (non-animal circus – just acrobatic acts)

4. If you could be really really good at one thing, what would it be?: Making people smile.

5. Name a few people you think are extremely good-looking: Mila Kunis, Barbara Palvin, Wendell Lissimore, Chris Evans, Zendaya Coleman, Natalie Portma, Godfrey Gao

6. What was your favorite way to pass the time as a kid?: READING (/daydreaming about book worlds) but also figure skating while we could still afford it. It was as close to flying as I could get!

7. What is something you’re proud of?: When I was in my MBA program, my 59 classmates voted me ‘Most Likely to Change the World’. It’s framed next to my diplomas. Though, to be fair, it also sort of haunts me because I feel like I’m not living up to it.

8. What’s one character flaw in people that you just can’t tolerate?: I despise being patronized. Being ignorant and refusing to admit it in the face of facts.

9. Do you consider yourself to be more of a leader or a follower?: Leader - not a good one, but, I’m not a follower.

10. What kind of student are/were you?: A really lazy, procrastinating one who still got A’s/B’s. I was a really good test taker.

11. Butterfly effect question! Has there ever been a seemingly minor decision you’ve made (at the time) that ended up having a profound influence on your life?: Reading in class in 7th grade science. My teacher made a deal with me – if I could pass the pre-quiz at the start of every week, he’d let me read instead of pay attention, but he would get to pick the book. He introduced me to Michael Crichton and Anne McCaffery, which were my first forays into sci-fi, and my involvement in that has rippled through most of my major friend groups since. Alternately, attending a training at my first career job, which introduced me to the career I now have.

12. Name your most irrational fear/aversion: Ants. I hate ants. Where there’s one, there’s hundreds, and there’s nowhere I can go that they can’t get too, and they’re small enough to crawl in your nose and stuff. I sat in a fire ant hill as a kid, which was strike one. Strike two was moving into a house that had been abandoned for seven months when I was in third grade – turned on the tub water and it came out black there were so many ants in the pipes, and they just POURED into the tub and swarmed up the sides oh god it was like a horror movie. Other than that, most of my fears are pretty average – failure, my family being hurt, etc.

13. Are there any fictional characters you find especially relatable?: I am self-centered enough to find myself in most characters – there’s usually one or two aspects that line up. Unless they are Lawful Good then I’m like…uuuugh. Nope, nothing there.

14. If you drink, what kind of drunk are you? Alternatively, what sort of person are you at parties?: I am a giggly, ballet-dancing drunk. I get hyper paranoid about my spatial issues so I literally go into ballet-mode because the movements are naturally slower and more flowy. I am also pretty clingy drunk. I like to snuggle, which is funny because sober me is not big on touching or being touched. Not to overanalyze, but I think being drunk takes away the fear of that. At parties I am that awkward wall-hovering introvert who likes to find an extrovert and make them talk while I nod and wait to GTFO. I spent the entirety of my bro’s wedding reception babysitting a 4 and 5 year old because it was so much less stressful than making small talk (simultaneously playing Go Fish AND Who’s Who Monster Edition LIKE A CHAMP)

15. Do you fall in love easily? Or does it usually take a long time for you to trust someone?: AHAHAHAHA no. I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever honestly been in love – just more fond of one person than most. Invariably, I find I prefer my own company to theirs after a time.

16. Would you rather have one close friend or 100 casual friends?: This is a really hard one. 100 casual friends means more people to do stuff with, but, I treasure my close friends. I don’t know. Pass!

17. Do you consider yourself to be more of a slob or a neat-freak?: I. AM. SUCH. A. SLOB. *sobs* My room should have a hazard sign.

18. Describe a place (imaginary or real) that you would find incredibly cozy: I am not feeling creative – a bedroom that cleans itself, with lots of soft, fuzzy blanket piles and pillows, with tea services (including scones!) and lots of bookshelves. A view of a duck pond would be appreciated too lololol.

19. Do you have kids? If not, do you want them someday?: I don’t have kids. I truly treasure spending time with the kids in my family, and I work part-time as a princess/elf/storyteller at the local zoo – I like kids, but, I am a really selfish and self-centered person, and I move on to new things—including people—with serious regularity. I don’t think I would be a good parent at all. I wish I could be, but, knowing my flaws, it would be really irresponsible to have kids.

20. What was your favorite book as a child? Elementary school – it was a book about a little black cat who went to boarding school, and there was a yellow spotted cat with a fire truck. Don’t remember the name. I also love the Wizard of Oz books (SO DARK). As a middle schooler – The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley. I needed a Mary Sue at that point in my life. Also loved the Dragonsinger series by Anne McCaffery, and everything by Mercedes Lackey and Tamora Pierce. In high school…The Things They Carried, I suppose. Now, probably Fuyumi Ono’s Twelve Kingdom’s series. It’s YA, but, the characters are so flawed, and so redeemed, I find it really interesting.

21. Name one thing you just don’t get what all the hype is about: Disney World

22. Name one thing that you think is tragically underrated: The Emperor’s New Groove is the best Disney movie ever. ALSO, Mary Sues. Middle School me needed Mary Sues. I think most do. Go easy on ‘em.

23. If you had to be glued to a person for a month, real or fictional (who you have never met), who would you choose?: UM. HM. Someone who doesn’t need to shower to smell clean? XD Lady Luck, maybe. It would be fascinating to watch – both good and bad luck – unfold all around.

24. What’s something you’d like the chance to do someday?: This feels super arrogant – but I’d like to be a good enough author to have a book published and do a book signing. With people who actually come to get the book signed!

25. Do you typically speak your mind when you have a controversial opinion? Or do generally prefer to not rock the boat?: I like to work behind the scenes. Usually I write like a multi-page rebuttal with linked references, but I rarely post it. Sometimes I do. I call my senators roughly weekly, for what that’s worth, but public discourse is not my thing.

26. What’s the dumbest fad you’ve been caught up in?: ….uuuum. Hmm. Butterfly clips, maybe? But then, it was the 90s and I was eleven, so.

27. What’s something you thought was cool as a kid/adolescent, but now cringe at yourself for?: I DON’T CRINGE AT MYSELF but Dragonball Z. XD I forgive my kid/adolescent self for a lot, okay.

28. What’s a trait you consider to be very admirable?: The willingness to publically, and politely, engage in debate in service of someone else. Genuine ability to interact with other people in a way that leaves them feeling better for having interacted with you.

29. Is there a particular kind of item people always tend to give you as gifts? (For instance, people always get you things with ducks on them because you like ducks, etc.): LITERALLY, DUCKS. I love ducks. People give me ceramic ducks all the time. Also socks, because my grandma collected fancy decorative perfume bottles and one Christmas my mom and I went to like 10 stores looking for one she didn’t have and I pitched a FIT saying when I was older I was going to collect socks because you always need more, and there’s no way people would run out of options for me. My family thought this was hilarious and took me up on it. My grandpa shipped me socks from the dollar store once a month while I was in college.

30. Do you speak multiple languages? Which ones?: I wish I did! I can cuss in quite a few, and I know some conversational Irish from studying abroad there and studying it.

31. Would you rather live in the big city or the countryside?: Having lived in both – the big city. It’s too easy to self-isolate in the countryside, and for me, personally, that’s fairly unhealthy. Countryside is definitely prettier and more peaceful, just, not for me.

32. Has there ever been something you were certain you’d hate, but ended up loving?: Literally all the time. Like, Mitsunari in SLBP for example!

33. Do you mind being the center of attention, or do you prefer the spotlight to be on someone else?: Ahahahaha give me all of the attention please /sigh

34. Favorite holiday?: Halloweeeeen. But I also really like Diwali even if I feel a little bit like I am trespassing/being a tourist. It’s just beautiful.

35. Are you a more go-with-the-flow type of person, or do you need to have things planned meticulously?: “PLANNED” AHAHAHA WHAT IS THAT WORD IDK. I am so last-minute and haphazard it’s absurd.

36. Is there something you loved so much you wish you could forget it and experience it all over again? (A tv show, book, series–anything.) : The pleasure of reading books in middle school. Those ‘first’ exposures, without expectation or standards. EVERYTHING was magical and exciting, and I devoured it all. Alternately, college.

37. What hobbies do you have?: UM. I dress up as a princess/superhero and visit kids in the hospital which is…weird, I know. I get paid to do it at the zoo, and some parents reached out to them and asked if we could visit and then it became a thing. Less so now that I’m in a new city. Martial arts (Hapkido, Judo, Taekwondo), ballet, baking with zucchini, photoshopping, reading, writing SLBP fanfiction, playing otome games…XD

38. If you could have a superpower, but it was only mildly useful, what ability would you want to have?: THE ABILITY TO FEEL WELL-RESTED AT ANY TIME. Or good luck, but I’d argue that would be more than mildly useful. Ability to find the right thing to say to cheer someone up!

39. Something people are always surprised to learn about you: Online folks are usually surprised to learn I’m old? Friends IRL are usually surprised I’m Chaotic Evil (I won’t say I’m two-faced, I’ll say I try really hard to be nice, and I act like it well, but it is an act – I don’t genuinely possess any empathy to speak of. I will listen to you, but I probably don’t actually care, I just want to – there is a difference) and work folks are usually pretty surprised at the Chemistry background. FOLLOWERS OF THIS BLOG won’t be surprised but, I friggen love Waffle House. That usually throws people for al oop.

40. Something that took you way too long to figure out: That I’m bi? I was on BC for so long I thought I was ace, so when I finally developed a drive in my late/mid-twenties it was sort of shocking to realize it’s only rarely set to hetero, and like, I still don’t know how to act on that. ALSO for years I had no idea there was a little arrow on your gas gauge to tell you which side the gas pump’s on – comes in super handy in rental cars.

41. Worst injury you’ve had? Physically? Fell out of a tree as a kid and snapped an arm bone in half – one half went on top of the other. Other things have happened that took longer to emotionally recover, but, physically that was the worst probably. Weirdly, I fell off of the roof with no injury, but…idk I’m weirdly durable.

42. Any morbid fascinations?: Snake venom. I could probably write a dissertation.

43. Describe your sense of humor: I LOVE PUNS. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. I like ‘smart’ humor (puns are clever) and nerdy humor, but I don’t like mean humor. I also laugh at gallows humor a lot.

44. If you had to be born in another era/place, which would you choose?: Okay this is really hard because I would be useless in most other eras and I would miss indoor plumbing and women’s rights and people not regularly dying around me. I am probably biased by being interested in times with the best myths/stories. Ancient Egypt? Viking Age? Basically any time period in China or Japan because my US-centric world history studies seriously failed me they are a bit of a fascinating mystery.

45. Something you are irredeemably bad at: LOL this would be a long list. (you said ‘thing’ singular, I am taking that as a friendly suggestion not a mandate) Push-ups (hypermobile elbows, okay). Cleaning. LOGISTICS AND PLANNING OH LORD. Editing my own work. SMALL TALK oh god I am the worst at small talk I even took a class on it trying to get better. Gracefully accepting compliments - how does one do that and not come off as obnoxious ;.;

46. Something that sucked but you’re glad you went through: Most recently, dumping a Really Good Guy. A past me would have just quietly let it fade into oblivion and that would have been worse. I think?

47. Would you rather have a really godawful ugly tattoo in a place that is only slightly inconvenient to conceal with clothing (upper arm, thigh, etc.), or the coolest, most beautiful tattoo ever in the middle of your face? (Neither tattoo can be removed or concealed with makeup, and the ugly tattoo will deeply offend anyone who sees it.): lololol oh my gosh. I don’t like offending people. So. I guess pretty one on my face.

48. Are you more of an optimist or a pessimist?: Eeeeeeh.I guess optimist, but that’s mostly laziness.

49. What would be the most flattering compliment someone could give you?: That I have made their life better or brighter somehow.

50. Something you feel people often misunderstand about you: I am simultaneously incredibly confident about things and incredibly craven about people! And that’s hard for people to get sometimes. Like, my writing I am wholly confident of and proud of to the point of arrogance – as a thing. But the moment someone talks to me about it I get petrified because oh god what if I, as a person say or do something that turns them off to the point where they can’t enjoy the writing (the thing). It’s greatly exacerbated by the internet where I can’t read tone or facial expressions – but I’m still pretty bad about this offline too. Like, I hate even going to Chipotle or Qdoba where there isn’t a big line of people (if there’s a big line of people everything is hustling and bustling and moving along) – I greatly dislike social interactions that lack a script. But, put my project in front of a board of directors or the company president, and I will kick tush and take names. It’s a weird dichotomy, but that’s how I’m wired.

THIS WAS FUN. GOOD QUESTIONS

I TAG YOU, PERSON READING THIS.

#about yoolee

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glenngaylord · 5 years

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MARVEL’S EUROPEAN VACATION - My Review of SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME (3 Stars)

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

One of the advantages of hating all things superhero is that I don’t have to take part in those “bro-ey” discussions that usually begin with, “Dude, did you see what Thanos did to civilization? I can’t wait for the next 40 installments!” I tend to go blank when I’m with a gaggle of gays who think movies begin and end with all things Marvel. Isn’t there one other gay who seeks out the works of Pawel PawIikowski and Michael Haneke? Please! Slide into my DMs!!

I totally understand that studios need their big tentpoles to prop up the rest of the industry, but I just can’t with the dense lore, the Halloween costumes, the CGI third act destruction, the lack of nuance, and the fact that I can never remember anything I see from these films. Can’t we just reserve fantasy and fighting for the bedroom where it belongs? I do, however, have a soft spot for Spider-Man. He’s just a kid, standing on top of a spire, telling us he loves saving the world. I thoroughly enjoyed Sam Raimi’s original, which did such a fantastic job of letting us feel Peter Parker’s fear and excitement when he discovers his powers. I loved last year’s animated Into The Spider -Verse, thinking that this style was the perfect fit for the genre. I thought Spider-Man: Homecoming from 2017 had fun with its John Hughes-style teen comedy disguised as a comic book movie. Tom Holland, Zendaya, and national treasure, Marisa Tomei, all brought a lively comic energy to their characters, and the film wasn’t just a giant spectacle or quip machine.

So I can’t say I approached the new one, Spider-Man: Far From Home with any sense of dread, but I also only went because a friend from breakfast asked me along. The film, directed by Jon Watts, and written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, has a lot of laughs, a lot of fun, and yes, a painful third act in which things blow up real good. It does, however, have an up-to-the-minute ending which pings on the fake news era in which we currently reside, and any film series which ends for the second time with a main character shouting, “What the f*ck?!!” before smash cutting to black gets a few bonus points. It’s their signature line and I’m here for it.

Since I don’t regularly travel through Marvel’s Universe, my friend kindly caught me up on some blip which occurred which wiped out half of civilization only to return them five years later. Couldn’t they just have ditched the whole superhero thing and made this about Peter Parker’s very confused, very mixed-age Senior Class? Give me Spider-Man: Back From The Future now, please! Anyhow, Peter and company take off for a whirlwind trip to Europe, with Peter trying to leave his costume behind so he can just relax in places like Paris and London and make googly eyes with MJ. I enjoyed all of the high school comedy elements, with Jacob Batalon returning as Peter’s BFF, Ned, who finds instant love with Betty Brant (Angourie Rice, all grown up from The Nice Guys and Tracy Flick-ing the hell out of her uptight co-ed role). My big question was, where the hell is Josie Totah (formerly J.J. Totah from Other People and Champions) from Homecoming? Always a welcome presence, I missed her “get it gurrlll” sass in this one.

Of course, the good vs. evil has to rear its ugly head in Venice when this giant, swooshy thing destroys gondoliers and canals, only to be destroyed by a laser-y, scuba helmet-wearing superhero named Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal). Welcomed into the fold, he befriends Peter, who has been given EDITH, the late Tony Stark’s powerful sunglasses, which have untold powers. Imagine if SIRI had anti-glare capabilities and you’ll get the gist. Together they try to stop further destruction and mayhem, and…this is when I stopped caring. It doesn’t help that Gyllenhaal and superhero movies aren’t quite a good fit. He looks spectacularly uncomfortable in his garb and the script stiffens up this usually loose, limber actor.

Still, this film has its pleasures. Samuel L. Jackson, as usual, gets the best lines as the irascible Nick Fury. Martin Starr (Silicon Valley) and J.B. Smoove (Curb Your Enthusiasm) do HBO proud as the adult chaperones on this adventure, and, you guys, Peter Billingsly (Ralphie from A Christmas Story) is a grown-assed man and is worth keeping an eye on here. Zendaya, in full Aubrey Plaza deadpan mode, won me over, especially when she unwillingly takes a shaky-cam ride through the city with Spider-Man. Stick around for the usual 6 endings buried in the final credits, because these moments feature a welcome cameo and what I’m gathering is a game-changing reveal. Hell, the proper ending to the film changes everything without all those hidden scenes.

Tom Holland, so earnest and fast-talking, keeps things grounded in a way that sits with me better than the non-stop meta-comedy of the Deadpool and Guardians of The Galaxy films. He’s playing a real character here, and I especially loved his heroic actions in the sequence where he doesn’t don the costume. He comes across like a mix between James Bond and Marty McFly. More costume-free antics, Marvel!! In fact, in my head, I’ve erased the mind-numbing action scenes and reformatted this into Sixteen Candles: That Time Across The Pond.

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weekendwarriorblog · 5 years

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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND Christmas Day – Holmes and Watson, Vice

This is it. The last column of the year and at one point, this was going to be my last column ever. I’ve just been very frustrated with the fact that I can’t get paid writing work despite being a film critic for over 17 years now. The times are changing, and the last eight months since I lost my job at Tracking Board has been an incredible drag, as I try to stay motivated to write about movies even though it’s obvious no one wants to pay me to do so.

That all said, I’m going to make this a shorter column, and yes, I’ll be back next week (and next year) with my first column of 2019 on Jan. 2, so hopefully you’ll all stick around.

In the meantime, also check out this year’s Top 25 movies!

HOLMES & WATSON (Sony)

Comedian and former “SNL” star Will Ferrell has been somewhat absent from theaters this year after appearing in two movies in 2017, one (Daddy’s Home 2) more successful than the other (The House). It was only a matter of time before he would be reunited with John C. Reilly, co-star of two of his most successful comedies, 2006’s Talladega Nightsand 2008’s Step Brothers, both which achieved the $100 million milestone. Sure, Ferrell has had a number of $100 million comedies since then, but it certainly feels like he needs a change, so what else, but a comedy based on Sherlock Holmes and Mr. Watson, as played by Ferrell and Reilly?

Reilly has been having moderate degrees of success in the ten years since Step Brothers, particularly with Disney’s animated Wreck-It Ralph in 2012, which grossed $189 million domestic, and the recent sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet, which is almost out of the top 10 this week with more than $160 million. He’s also appeared in stranger places like 2017’s hit Kong: Skull Island and Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy. Earlier this year, he received critical raves for his role in the Western The Sisters Brothersand also appears this week in the British indieStan and Ollie, playing Oliver Hardy.

Both of the duo’s previous movies opened with more than $30 million – Talladega Nights with an astounding $47 million opening – but both also opened in summer and over ten years ago. Although the Anchorman sequel fared decently over the holidays nine years after the original movie, that was a direct sequel whereas this is the duo doing a spoof. Ferrell’s comedy Daddy’s Home opened with $38.7 million over Christmas weekend in 2015, but that was because its Christmas Day opening was a Friday vs. a Tuesday. If Holmes and Watson gets some of the diehard Step Brothers fans out to see it earlier in the week, it’s not gonna have that much business left for the weekend.

Missing from the tried-and-true comedy equation is director Adam McKay, Ferrell’s production partner, who has moved onto other things (see below), and this comedy is the work of filmmaker Etan Cohen, who wrote the cool comedies Idiocracy and Tropic Thunder, as well as writing and directing Ferrell’s horrible comedy Get Hard. (Yikes!)

It’s that last bit that has me worried, and it certainly won’t help that the movie looks idiotic, plus it’s coming out just seven years after the Robert Downey-Jude Law sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, which grossed $186 million over the holidays in 2011 despite not being as well received as its predecessor. Wisely (or fearfully?), Sony decided not to screen the movie in advance for critics.

While the movie might make $4 to 5 million on Christmas Day, it’s likely to follow other Christmas releases where it will slowly lose business on Wednesday and Thursday so by the weekend, it will probably be lucky to make $15 million and likely will make less with stronger films still playing in theaters.

VICE (Annapurna Pictures)

The other movie being released on Christmas Day is Adam McKay’s new movie, and if you’re wondering if that’s the same Adam McKay that directed Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly in Step Brothers and Talladega Nights, yes it is!

McKay continues his serious filmmaker stage following 2015’s The Big Short, which received five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and a win for McKay’s screenplay. It also grossed an impressive $70.2 million after a $10.5 million wide release over Christmas weekend that year. (Oddly, the movie’s expansion went up against Ferrell’s Daddy’s Home in its opening weekend.) That year, Christmas Day fell on a Friday but McKay’s foray into political humor – he had previously written for “Saturday Night Live,” as well as political comedies The Campaign and co-wrote and directed Ferrell’s George W. Bush Broadway show You’re Welcome America.

Clearly, McKay has as much an interest in politics as he does comedy, and the “Vice” of the title is former US Vice President Dick Cheney, as played by Christian Bale in another transformative role that’s likely to at least get him an Oscar nomination. Yes, this is more of a biopic than The Big Short, and it’s definitely going to be more divisive than Anchorman due to its politics.

Bale is once again joined by the amazing Amy Adams from David O. Russell’s American Hustle, and she may be heading for yet another Oscar nomination… and possibly a win this time? The movie also stars recent Oscar winner Sam Rockwell as Bush Jr, and McKay regular Steve Carell playing Donald Rumsfeld, just days after his latest movie Welcome to Marwen bombed very, very badly.

What The Big Short has that Vice doesn’t is a name star on the par of Brad Pitt, but also it’s being released by relative newbie Annapurna Pictures vs. Paramount, who has much more clout to release movies around awards time. (Oddly, Paramount also released Daddy’s Home the very same weekend it released The Big Short – that’s how much confidence the studio had in both movies!)

Reviews so far haven’t been great, at least not on par with The Big Short, though that doesn’t mean that the Academy will ignore a movie that already has a lot of Golden Globe and SAG nominations under its belt.

The awards recognition will drive the audience curiosity, even for those poor suckers on the Right who may realize that McKay’s movie will generally be biased towards the liberal side of things. Opening on Christmas Day Tuesday may mean that those who are really interested in seeing the movie will rush out to one of the 2,378 theaters into which Vice is being released.

I figure Vice can make a solid $3 or even $4 million on Christmas Day, but it will peter away after that, and the lack of school and many people having off work should help it make between $7 and 9 million over the weekend, as it works its way to around $40 million or higher depending on awards, making it Annapurna’s highest-grossing release (as a distributor) to date.

Mini-Review: Imagine if you’re Adam McKay, and you’re finally being taken seriously as a filmmaker after you tackled real-world sociopolitical issues with The Big Short, then of course, you’d want to follow that up with a movie that can be taken just as seriously. So why not make a biopic about a controversial Republican Vice President in Dick Cheney and have an actor like Christian Bale transform himself to play him?

Sure, on paper it sounds fine, and as long as you go into Vice realizing it’s a comedy with a small “c” yet also realizing you should only take it seriously to a point, and you should be fine. The film acts as a thesis, of sorts, to show how Cheney masterminded the unwarranted invasion of Iraq that killed thousands of soldiers. Once Cheney becomes VP, the film becomes far more clinical and far less entertaining, as if McKay would rather be mentioned in the same breath as Michael Moore, than be remembered as the director of such great comedies. There are still more than a few funny ideas like having the movie abruptly ending before Cheney goes back to the White House to support Bush Jr., but by then, he’s already done his damage by reinstating the executive order.

The film is a showcase for another jaw-dropping Christian Bale transformation as he channels the former VP in his early days, and then gets some added help from the make-up department in his later years. Either way, it’s the type of performance that makes you frequently forget you’re watching Bale. Amy Adams is also fantastic as Lynn Cheney, who plays a pivotal role in all aspects of Dick’s life, a performance strong enough to get another Oscar nomination. (The Cheney’s in-bed Shakespeare recitation is another one of the film’s weirder moments.) Then there’s Sam Rockwell, funny as always playing George W, and a surprising turn by Tyler Perry as Colin Powell (a small role), which leaves Steve Carell as the film’s weakest link, because Donald Rumsfeld basically just doesn’t seem too far removed from other Carell characters.

Some of the film’s better moments are in showing the evolution of Cheney’s relationship with his two daughters, the youngest Mary who comes out as gay in college, putting a damper on Cheney’s future Presidential chances. (She also becomes estranged from the family when her older sister speaks out against gay marriage during her own political run.)

Where the film really goes off the rails is with its narrator, played by Jesse Plemons, as you spend the entire movie hearing his voice, then seeing his character in various spots without understanding the connection. When his connection to Cheney is finally revealed, you are left aghast that McCay would go that route, and it almost kills the entire film.

Vice isn’t great but it isn’t terrible, and it’s no surprise this is already quite divisive even when not considering the film’s obvious politics. Either way, it’s not as strong a political biopic as either The Front Runner or On the Basis of Sex.

Rating: 7/10

Considering that there’s a lot of strong movies already in theaters, the two new wide releases will probably end up somewhere in the mid-range by Friday , so this weekend’s Top 10 should look something like this…

1. Aquaman (Warner Bros.) - $40.5 million -45% 2. Mary Poppins Returns (Disney) - $18 million -19% 3. Bumblebee (Paramount) - $15.5 million -26% 4. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse (Sony) - $14.2 million -15% 5. Holmes and Watson (Sony) - $13.7 million N/A 6. Vice (Annapurna) - $8 million N/A 7. The Mule (Warner Bros.) - $7.5 million -25% 8.Second Act (STXfilms) - $6.8 million +7% 9. Ralph Breaks the Internet (Disney) – $5 million +9% 10. The Grinch (Universal) - $4.5 million -45%

LIMITED RELEASES

On Christmas Day, there are a bunch of movies that have been playing the festival circuit, including two that made it onto my top 25.

Oscar nominee Felicity Jones plays Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Mimi Leder’s ON THE BASIS OF SEX (Focus Features), a film that looks at her years going through Harvard Law School while helping her ill-stricken husband (played by Armie Hammer), leading up to the two of them going in front of the Supreme Court to fight for gender equality. If you enjoyed the doc RBG released earlier this year, this excellent drama gives even more life and emotion to the story of this amazing, inspiring woman who has done so much for civil rights in this country. Sadly, it seems to have been ignored during awards/festival season, but I think Jones gives another awards-worthy performance, and it will be playing in roughly 33 theaters across the country starting Christmas Day.

I was also a big fan of STAN AND OLLIE (Sony Pictures Classics), as in Laurel and Hardy, as played by Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly. Directed by Scottish filmmaker Jon S. Baird (Filth) from a fantastic original script by Jeff Pope, the film begins with the duo’s final days at Hal Roach Studios, then cuts forward decades later when the duo are signed to play a series of live shows in England, a tour that isn’t going particularly well, at least to begin. It’s a fantastic story of the relationship between this incredibly talented duo, and one can’t overlook the contribution of Nina Arianda and Shirley Henderson as Stan and Ollie’s respective wives who add a lot to the humor. It will open in New York and L.A. on Friday and fingers crossed it will expand in the new year to other areas.

Nicole Kidman in her third movie of the year glams it down in Karyn Kusama’s DESTROYER (Annapurna Pictures), playing detective Erin Bell, who is investigating a murder that has connections to an undercover assignment she took on earlier in her career. This is another fantastic performance by Kidman in terms of playing this person who has clearly been put through the wringer over the course of her life, and I love seeing Kusama continuing with the genre realm in which she’s already done some decent explorations. It opens in select cities Christmas Day.

Also, if you happened to miss Peter Jackson’s World War I doc THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD (Warner Bros./Fathom Events) on Monday, December 17, then you’ll get another chance this Thursday, December 28, so definitely check it out while you have a chance to see it on the big screen in 3D as it was intended.

REPERTORY

Similar to last week, much of this week’s repertory offerings are continuations of the past few weeks with most of the new series beginning in the new year.

METROGRAPH (NYC):

The Metrograph’s holiday series will include screenings of Bad Santa, The Muppet Christmas Carol and 3 Godfathers on Christmas Day as well as the continuing Miyazaki at Studio Ghibli series and In the Year of the Grifter. This week’s Playtime: Family Matinee is the excellent Gotham Award-winning doc Mad Hot Ballroom (2005).

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Christmas Day sees Laurel and Hardy’s March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934) paired with the Marx Brothers’ Horse Feathers (1932) as well as the roadshow version of Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. Weds and Thursday sees double features of Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) and What’s So Bad About Feeling Good? (1968), but Friday and Saturday sees a double feature of The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979). Saturday and Sunday’s family friendly film is Joe Dante’s Gremlins (1984), while the Saturday midnight movie is New Year’s Evil (1980). Sunday and Monday, there will be double features of The Godfatherand The Valachi Papers, both from 1972.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Besides the Christmas with Nat King Cole program on Christmas Day, the Film Forum will kick off a week-long run of Mitchell Leisen’s Easy Living (1937) with a screenplay by Preston Sturges and starring Jean Arthur. The weekend’s Film Forum Jr. is Laurel and Hardy’s Way Out West (1937), probably to tie-in with Stan and Ollie, which shows the filming of the movie. The Film Forum will have a single presentation of Susan Dryfoos’ 1996 doc The Line King: The Al Hirschfeld Story will be screened in 35mm with a QnA with Hirschfeld’s wife and the film’s director to follow.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Although closed on Christmas Eve and Day, the theater will show the 70mm version of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey for the rest of the week.

AERO (LA):

Also closed on Christmas, but it will reopen on Thursday, Dec. 27 with the start of its Screwball Comedy Classics 2018, beginning with Ernst Lubich’s The Shop Around the Corner (1940), paired with Christmas In Connecticut (1945). Also part of that series is Friday’s WC Fields double feature of It’s a Gift (1934) and Never Give a Sucker An Even Break (1941), Saturday is Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night (1934) with Midnight (1939), both starring Claudette Colbert, and Sunday is a Preston Sturges double feature of The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek and Hal the Conquering Hero, both from 1944. On New Year’s Day, the Aero will show the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup(1933).

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

What’s a better way to spend Xmas than with the Quad’s Rated X series? (Trenchcoat optional.)

IFC CENTER (NYC)

The downtown theater will open a 75thanniversary digital restoration of the cinema classic Casablanca (1942), beginning on Wednesday.

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

Jacques Tourneur, Fearmaker continues through Jan 3.

MOMA (NYC):

Modern Masters: Douglas Fairbanks Jr.concludes this week with reshowings of Gunga Din (1939) on Weds, Little Caesar (1931) on Thurs and The Corscian Brothers (1941) on Friday. The retrospective Ugo Tognazzi: Tragedies of a Ridiculous Man also concludes on Sunday.

That’s it for this year, but I’ll be back next week (on Wednesday) with Escape Roomand more. Happy New Year!

#WhatToWatchThisWeekend HolmesAndWatson Vice OnTheBasisOfSex MoviesBoxOffice Reviews TheWeekendWarrior

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demitgibbs · 5 years

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Michael Bublé Talks Eggplant Emojis, ‘Sexist’ Christmas Cover

“You’re my first. Be gentle with me. Can we start with, like, a foreplay thing where you can just take it easy on me? Some gentle licking perhaps, and then we’ll get into the heavy stuff.” And so my interview with Michael Bublé, who has almost made me forget he has a wife, Argentine actress Luisana Lopilato, begins.

Returning to music with a new heart-emoji-titled album called love that he will support on a world tour in 2019, Bublé – who introduces himself by that mononym when he rings me directly – spoke openly on a variety of topics, including the difficulties of being a public figure amid familial distress, atoning for his “sexist” Christmas song and doing his part to support the LGBTQ community.

It’s sweet that this album uses the heart emoji for its title, though the gay community certainly wouldn’t have argued with you naming your album using the eggplant emoji.

Oh god, I wanted to use the eggplant. You have no idea.

You fought for that.

I did. I had long conversations about it. And you think I’m joking. I’ve already said this a million times when talking to my friends: They were like, (in a deeply bro voice) “Why didn’t you use the eggplant?” and I’m like, “Oh, I would have.”

Did you intend for the album to be a Band-Aid for our divisive times?

Yeah, it’s funny that you just said that: I’ve actually said that in private. You know what, man, obviously everything I’ve gone through has everything to do with this record and what I want to put out to the world. I had different names that I’d come up with, but there was nothing that really explained the record and the concept as well as just one word could.

The record is about love, but it’s not simply about romantic love. It was really a record that was kind of my theory on this word, this emotion that has so much range. When you hear it you think, “Oh god, romantic and lovey-smovey,” but there’s so many different things that happen with that word.

youtube

“When I Fall in Love” is such a beautiful track and people say, “Oh, it’s so romantic.” It is romantic. But for me, it’s really sad. As I put myself into the character of that song, I thought about a guy sitting at the bar at 4 o’clock in the morning, drunk, looking over at another couple, wishing that he had that because it hasn’t happened for him. It’s very unique in that way. It’s a very sad song about longing. I could go on through the whole tracklist. They all have a story for me.

Did you personalize any of the songs?

I wanted to do the best I could to be as personal and honest in the storytelling, in becoming the characters for the song, but at the same time give the audience a way to be able to hear and have their own opinions.

If I want to use this album to get a guy to fall in love with me, which song do you suggest I play to make him swoon?

Honestly, I think “La Vie En Rose” (a duet with jazz vocalist Cecile McLorin Salvant) is incredible because when I did this song my concept was to build a mirror of the relationship I had with my wife. It was me going to this foreign land with someone who didn’t speak my language and having this kind of dance of love with them.

I felt like there were these two characters and one is singing to the other, where I was singing to her in my language and my culture and she was answering in hers. Though we were on this path together, we were still apart; and by the middle of the song we have this beautiful dance together, this incredible night, and by the morning we were walking through the streets of Paris. I have sort of assimilated to her culture and I am singing in her language, and I loved that because that’s exactly what happened in my life.

I don’t think you thought you’d be recording music again after your 5-year-old son, Noah, was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2016, days after our last conversation. But I’ve heard you say he’s holding up and is in remission. Was creating this album more cathartic than past albums?

I don’t think I ever fell out of love with making music or being a creative person; I just think I knew it had to be put aside. The part of being a public person, that part I didn’t know if I was ready for. There are always reminders every time you go out and people speak and you’re trying to move on with your life or yourself and your family. At first, there were always these reminders of it and so it was hard to just move on.

I made a promise to myself that it would be organic and that it would be joy and it would be blissful – and if it ever becomes what I consider work, or egotistically driven, then I would step away. But I never fell out of love with making music. You know, I’m having to leave the family and stuff for little bits, and if I do then it has to be for the right reasons.

Harder than usual to leave the family right now?

No, it’s not. When I do something, I know that there’s a great reason for it. We can make more money and we can make more music and we can make more this and more that, but it’s time – you can’t make time. I wanna make sure I’m spending time doing what I love and that it’s all worthwhile.

You talked about being an LGBTQ ally in our last interview. Why did you decide to express your compassion and advocacy for the LGBTQ community at that moment in your career?

I don’t know if it was about that moment. I think I had an opportunity to speak with you, and I felt like it was a really good chance to say how I felt. Now more than ever I think it’s important for me to just be honest, and it’s what I believe. It’s part of who I fundamentally am, how I was raised. And it’s about equality. It’s simple. That’s it.

I wish it were so simple. When we last spoke, Trump hadn’t been elected, and a lot has changed in the last couple of years politically. How are you feeling about the way this administration has treated the LGBTQ community and other marginalized groups?

I don’t… (pause)… it sounds crazy, but after what I’ve been through, I really promised myself that I would try not to get into – and when I say “get into,” I just didn’t want to be a part of negative things. So I stopped reading things. I stopped reading things about myself. I stopped reading things that made me feel badly.

I really, truly feel like more than ever in my life actions speak much louder than words do and how you treat people is – it’s funny, a friend heard me talking to my son. My son was going to his first day of kindergarten and he saw me kneel down to my boy and I said to him, “Noah, I just want you to know that” – and it sounds like a cliché, but I said, “You treat people the way you want to be treated, kid.” I said, “If you’re kind to people and you’re good to people, life will always be OK for you.” And I got up and I walked away and my friend said to me, “They may not remember what you did or what you said but they’ll remember how you made them feel.”

I can’t stop the politicians or stupid, uneducated people from thinking and saying and doing stupid things, but I can make a stand, I can talk to you, and when I’m with groups of friends or I’m in public places or when I’m with people who I think can use that sense of love and education, I can open my mouth and tell them how I feel. And one at a time, you can change the world like that.

Listen, I’ve gone through too much not to feel this way. I just feel this way really strongly. I also think it’s important – it’s really easy for someone selling something, an artist, to say that they support or love the gay community; I just think it’s a different thing to say it than to do it.

When we spoke in 2016, you told me you had plans to get involved with the Harvey Milk High School in New York City, but then, of course, you had to tend to your family. Do you plan on picking up where you left off?

As a matter of fact, (my publicist) Liz (Rosenberg) and I have spoken many times and talked about the plan that we have. We have a plan (that involves) the Hetrick-Martin Institute (a NYC-based professional provider of social support and programming for LGBTQ youth and host agency for the Harvey Milk High School).

To start, I just wanted to go. I wanted to go and just let people know they had my support. Young kids who have been bullied and haven’t felt comfortable have a place to go, which is just disturbing in the first place, that in 2018 they didn’t. There wasn’t an environment where they felt they could be who they are. Listen, I can’t get into the details. I can’t.

You can’t get into details about the project?

Not those details, but within my family there are things that I can’t really speak to that have made this even more pressing for me. It’s because it’s not my story to tell. But I’ll just say that within my family these are the same issues that every family has. I wouldn’t and I couldn’t talk about something so personal. Definitely, I just know there needs to be advocates. Being a public person is having a responsibility sometimes to show that kind of love and that kind of support and to step out there and to do that. It’s not an edgy fucking thing to do. It’s not.

For some public figures it seems so.

Why? Because what – half of the audience doesn’t buy your records anymore? Well, that’s fucking stupid, isn’t it? Then you gotta ask yourself if you want half of those people buying your records in the first place, and what’s really important to you. Because if you’re gonna tell people that you know what’s important or that you’ve had an epiphany in your life that you know what matters then, again, actions speak louder than words, don’t they?

Knowing what Noah has gone through, has the feeling of loving your kids no matter who they are, which we discussed in 2016, intensified in the last couple of years?

No, it was always the same. I could tell you the truth: I never had to find that perspective, I always felt that way. And I think I’m very lucky because I really do think that came from the way I was parented. I really do think I was very lucky to be raised in a family that was so open and liberal and loving. I just think they were always so unconditionally loving – not just toward us children, but toward our family.

Again, clichés, but I just tell both of my boys now that they’re old enough to understand: “You know, boys, the things that make you different are what makes you special.” What’s amazing to me about that school and wanting so badly to go to that school is, I just feel so strongly that the difference between a child and an adult is only life experience. An adult’s life experience is, “It’s gonna get better. This isn’t how it has to be, and this isn’t how it’s going to be.” So for me, it’s really massive to be able to meet kids and to say publicly – really: “It’s not always going to be like this.”

youtube

In light of the holidays, you do realize your gay fans would’ve gone wild for a version of “Santa Baby” by you that was actually called “Santa Baby,” right?

(Laughs) Yeah, exactly. Instead of “Santa Buddy.” I think I used “Santa Baby” in one of the lines.

You did.

I should’ve gone full.

I mean, a straight man can shop at Tiffany’s.

(Laughs) Yeah, no, you’re right. It’s funny: When I did that song, I tried to put it into my perspective and modernize it. I changed words; I asked for a Rolex or Mercedes or things I would want. The best part about it is: I get to sing those kinds of songs now in my life, and if I do concerts and I wanna add a Christmas song, then you know what? I can amend it and I can sing “Santa Baby.”

A straight guy singing “Santa Baby” is the progress we need.

F*ck yeah. You’re right, you’re absolutely right. It was sexist of me not to.

I’m looking forward to your live rendition of it.

I’ll do it for you. That’s a promise. I promise I’ll do it for you even if it’s not f*cking Christmas.

Even if it’s the middle of summer?

You think I’m kidding, but you shout it out and I promise you I’ll get it done. Madison Square Garden, f*cking done.

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/12/13/michael-buble-talks-eggplant-emojis-sexist-christmas-cover/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.tumblr.com/post/181080332255

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cynthiajayusa · 5 years

Text

Michael Bublé Talks Eggplant Emojis, ‘Sexist’ Christmas Cover

It’s sweet that this album uses the heart emoji for its title, though the gay community certainly wouldn’t have argued with you naming your album using the eggplant emoji.

Oh god, I wanted to use the eggplant. You have no idea.

You fought for that.

Did you intend for the album to be a Band-Aid for our divisive times?

youtube

Did you personalize any of the songs?

If I want to use this album to get a guy to fall in love with me, which song do you suggest I play to make him swoon?

Harder than usual to leave the family right now?

You talked about being an LGBTQ ally in our last interview. Why did you decide to express your compassion and advocacy for the LGBTQ community at that moment in your career?

You can’t get into details about the project?

For some public figures it seems so.

Knowing what Noah has gone through, has the feeling of loving your kids no matter who they are, which we discussed in 2016, intensified in the last couple of years?

youtube

In light of the holidays, you do realize your gay fans would’ve gone wild for a version of “Santa Baby” by you that was actually called “Santa Baby,” right?

(Laughs) Yeah, exactly. Instead of “Santa Buddy.” I think I used “Santa Baby” in one of the lines.

You did.

I should’ve gone full.

I mean, a straight man can shop at Tiffany’s.

A straight guy singing “Santa Baby” is the progress we need.

F*ck yeah. You’re right, you’re absolutely right. It was sexist of me not to.

I’m looking forward to your live rendition of it.

I’ll do it for you. That’s a promise. I promise I’ll do it for you even if it’s not f*cking Christmas.

Even if it’s the middle of summer?

You think I’m kidding, but you shout it out and I promise you I’ll get it done. Madison Square Garden, f*cking done.

source https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/12/13/michael-buble-talks-eggplant-emojis-sexist-christmas-cover/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazin.blogspot.com/2018/12/michael-buble-talks-eggplant-emojis.html

0 notes

hotspotsmagazine · 5 years

Text

Michael Bublé Talks Eggplant Emojis, ‘Sexist’ Christmas Cover

It’s sweet that this album uses the heart emoji for its title, though the gay community certainly wouldn’t have argued with you naming your album using the eggplant emoji.

Oh god, I wanted to use the eggplant. You have no idea.

You fought for that.

Did you intend for the album to be a Band-Aid for our divisive times?

youtube

Did you personalize any of the songs?

If I want to use this album to get a guy to fall in love with me, which song do you suggest I play to make him swoon?

Harder than usual to leave the family right now?

You talked about being an LGBTQ ally in our last interview. Why did you decide to express your compassion and advocacy for the LGBTQ community at that moment in your career?

You can’t get into details about the project?

For some public figures it seems so.

Knowing what Noah has gone through, has the feeling of loving your kids no matter who they are, which we discussed in 2016, intensified in the last couple of years?

youtube

In light of the holidays, you do realize your gay fans would’ve gone wild for a version of “Santa Baby” by you that was actually called “Santa Baby,” right?

(Laughs) Yeah, exactly. Instead of “Santa Buddy.” I think I used “Santa Baby” in one of the lines.

You did.

I should’ve gone full.

I mean, a straight man can shop at Tiffany’s.

A straight guy singing “Santa Baby” is the progress we need.

F*ck yeah. You’re right, you’re absolutely right. It was sexist of me not to.

I’m looking forward to your live rendition of it.

I’ll do it for you. That’s a promise. I promise I’ll do it for you even if it’s not f*cking Christmas.

Even if it’s the middle of summer?

You think I’m kidding, but you shout it out and I promise you I’ll get it done. Madison Square Garden, f*cking done.

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2018/12/13/michael-buble-talks-eggplant-emojis-sexist-christmas-cover/

0 notes

theworstbob · 7 years

Text

yellin’ at songs: june week three

capsule reviews of the pop songs which debuted on the billboard hot 100 on 17 june 2017 and 16 june 2007

16 June 2007

56) "Beautiful Flower," India.Arie

I'll cop to not knowing that much about India.Arie. I understand she has at least one classic album, and I can also see that there is no India.ArieVEVO account, so her entire career transpired when I was assuming it was acceptable to live life only listening to white men complain about women. This has clearly been to my detriment, because this song is simply astonishing. It's an inspirational song, but it's only India.Arie, a guitar, and some other voices for the occasional harmony, so it actually felt like, when India.Arie said "When they say shake your moneymaker/Shake your head," she was talking directly to me, decidedly not the target audience for this song. (I want to shout out how fucking great that lyric is again. "When they say shake your moneymaker/Shake your head." GODDAMN RIGHT. HELL YEAH. GIRL POWER FOREVER, SISTAHS.) It's such a cool and compelling twist on the girl power anthem, something toned down, but not so toned down that it feels like you're sitting around the campfire with the youth pastor. This is the second song, this and "Get Buck," that I think we unjustifiably left behind in 2007, and I say we bring it back.

78) "The Way I Are," Timbaland ft./Keri Hilson

I give Timbaland a lot of heck for being making loud and unnavigable music in these parts, but it would be dishonest of me to deny that this is a hot one. There's a build here that's absent from the rest of Timbaland's ouevre. Typically, it sounds like he's giving you a thousand things to listen to all at once, but on this one, he slowly adds more and more things, so once the chorus hits, it's the typical Timbaland mess of sound, but there's a structure, there's a logic to how everything fits together, and I can finally hear what made Timbaland the name that he was. This is GOOD trashy 2007 music. I'm down with this.

80) "Can't Tell Me Nothing," Kanye West

What 2007 vs. 2017 might ultimately come down to is that 2007 has the old Kanye and 2017 has the new Kanye. (Wait. I'm not sure Kanye West has figured into the 2017 equation at all, actually. Have I not been paying that much attention when Wikipediaing the rap songs? Has he legit not been involved with ANYTHING on the chart?) This is probably the best pure-rap song Kanye ever made, one of those songs where it's not the production carrying the day (though this is an astounding track), Kanye is actually on point with his flow and his rhymes. I sometimes rag on Kanye for the fact that his rapping might be the weakest part of his whole thing, but I'm comparing him to like Jay-Z and Kendrick and other dudes in consideration for GOAT, of course Kanye is going to falter, KANYE STILL MADE THIS SONG. This song doesn't work without a capable MC guiding the proceedings. Love this. Only reason it's not higher is because I don't want a cluster of Kanye at the top, and also I'm tickled with "Get Buck" being the rap song of the year so far and don't wanna see that end. Like, OBVIOUSLY, if this were 2007 and this song just came out, it'd be the new #1, but this is a retrospective, and I think it's important we reflect on how violent the "Get Buck" beat was.

91) "Whine Up," Kat Deluna ft./Elephant Man

You know what I don't think about enough? How pop songs end. That's partially because I am bad at this, but it's also not something I think about because we're not exactly conditioned to think of songs as stories. Songs generally don't leave you hanging, or end by saying it was all just a dream (with the possible exception of that one Nelly song from a few years back ("Cruise")), they're sort of like museum exhibits, where they present themselves to you in full, and you consider their merits as a piece. (This is why the critique Mariah Carey gave of David Cook's "Always Be My Baby," where she specifically says she loves how he ends the song on this off note and leaves it unresolved, has stayed with me.) I bring up endings because this song ends with Kat DeLuna singing "Whine up! Whine up! Whine up! Oh, yeah!" for half a minute before fading out. I think the song understands that it's really just here to go "Whine up! Whine up! Whine up! Oh, yeah!" for four minutes, but we still had a few years to go before "We Found Love" dropped, so it needed to go through the verse-chorus-verse motions, yeah sure feature verse can't have a song without a feature verse, but this is a song which knows what it is, and it gives you as much of what you want as it can before backing out, aware that there's only so much "Whine up! Whine up! Whine up! Oh, yeah!" one can take. The fade suggests the song could just go "Whine up! Whine up! Whine up! Oh, yeah!" for ten hours, but we have expectations of our pop songs, and this wants nothing more than to live up to expectations. Quality chorus, though! Had a great big dumb time with this one! 2007's got it rollin' this week! Can't wait to see how 2007 keeps the momentum goin'!

96) "Wall to Wall," Chris Brown

Welp.

97) "Bartender," T-Pain ft./Akon

This song is just comfy. A lovely chaser for the song I didn't listen to but still had to acknowledge existed. After writing a good chunk about "Whine Up," a song that may as well have had four words, I don't want to over-analyze what is simply a nice song, sort of what to let it be, want to point out the casual misogyny that kinda takes some of the chill out the zone, but mostly want to acknowledge that none of the several sets of three minutes we've all spent with this song somewhere in our space is pretty neat. Well done, everyone.

99) "Startin' with Me," Jake Owen

"I took a swing at my old man one Christmas/I never dreamed that it would be his last" ...Did. Did this dude kill his dad? Fuckin' hell, dude, someone should've caught that lyric. How many people wrote this one? Three. Three people. Not one of them said, "Hey, what do we think of this line? It sounds like this dude killed his dad with a punch." But like even if this dude didn't kill his dad, he had sex with his bro's sister, he sold his grandpa's guitar, he punched his dad, he went to jail and yelled at his brother for not bailing him out, he wasn't with his family when his grandma died, this man is fucking irredeemable, and he just goes, "Yeah, I sure goofed up some things back there, didn't I? Ha, if I had a dime..." You get to say that about small stupid mistakes, like the thing about bein' too big a dick to a girl, or the thing about smoking. You don't get to have a dime for every time you commit patricide. You don't get second chances for ruining every single relationship in your life. Who on earth relates to this song? This is nonsense. It's this dark, twisted man singing this Tim McGraw melody, and it's illogical.

100) "Do You," Ne-Yo

2:48 PM 6/4/2017: Wow! A Ne-Yo song I don't remember! What a treat! 2:52 PM 6/4/2017: ...Oh. Oh I forgot this because it wasn't great. I get it. No, no, that's fair. Learning that this was a sequel to "So Sick" is equally disappointing. We talked about endings -- whoa, a thematic link between capsule reviews, who ever heard of such a thing -- and "So Sick" has a really solid ending, that lonely, soft "Why can't I turn off the radio?" and this is, this doesn't ruin "So Sick?" But knowing that dude doesn't get over it for two years kinda makes the dude seem more pathetic than sad. 2:53 PM 6/4/2017: REMIX WITH UTADA HIKARU?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? I HAVE THREE WORDS FOR THE WAY THIS IS MAKING ME FEEL. AND BABY, IT AIN'T COMPLEX AND FILTHY, I CAN TELL YA WHAT.

Two new songs in the Top 10, AND Lil Mama hangs on for another glorious week! 20) "Get Me Bodied," by Beyonce (5.26.2007) 19) "Lip Gloss," by Lil Mama (6.9.2007) 18) "I Don't Wanna Stop," by Ozzy Osbourne (5.26.2007) 17) "Stolen," by Dashboard Confessional (4.21.2007) 16) "Beautiful Liar," by Beyonce & Shakira (3.31.2007) 15) "Cupid's Chokehold," by Gym Class Heroes ft./Patrick Stump (1.13.2007) 14) "The River," by Good Charlotte ft./M. Shadows & Synyster Gates (2.10.2007) 13) "Say OK," by Vanessa Hudgens (2.17.2007) 12) "Alyssa Lies," by Jason Michael Carroll (1.13.2007) 11) "Never Again," by Kelly Clarkson (5.12.2007) 10) "Can't Tell Me Nothing," by Kanye West (6.16.2007) 9) "Get Buck," by Young Buck (4.14.2007) 8) "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," by Jennifer Hudson (1.13.2007) 7) "Thnks fr th Mmrs," by Fall Out Boy (4.28.2007) 6) "Candyman," by Christina Aguilera (1.13.2007) 5) "Because of You," by Ne-Yo (3.17.2007) 4) "Umbrella," by Rihanna ft./Jay-Z (4.28.2007) 3) "Beautiful Flower," by India.Arie (6.16.2007) 2) "Dashboard," by Modest Mouse (2.17.2007) 1) "The Story," by Brandi Carlile (4.28.2007) Strong, strong week for 2007. Congratulations, year I have randomly personified.

6.17.2017

74) "Somethin Tells Me," Bryson Tiller 85) "Self-Made," Bryson Tiller 89) "Don't Get Too High," Bryson Tiller 91) "Run Me Dry," Bryson Tiller 98) "No Longer Friends," Bryson Tiller

The artists who have debuted three or more songs on the Billboard Hot 100 in the same week this year are, in some order, Ed Sheeran (AAA), Big Sean (hip-hop stalwart, AA), Migos (one AAA hit), Future (AAA), Nicki Minaj (AAA), Drake (AAA), Kendrick Lamar (AAA), and Bryson Tiller. ...I enjoyed the couple of Bryson Tiller songs I heard the last couple of years. I would not have guessed he had the clout to release a surprise album, the wattage to get five of the 19 songs on the album to chart, but here we are! Five songs! That were all pretty much the same thing! "Run Me Dry" was noticably bouncier than the other songs, but like these songs, this dude, like, you know how, with Netflix and YouTube, they sink so much into original content because the goal isn't to create something great, the goal is to create something people will watch? Like, if you're watching something on Netflix, you're not watching something on Hulu or Twitch, so it's in Netflix's best interests to throw a thousand spaghettis at the wall in the hopes of finding something to stick. These songs are designed for you to you listen to so that you're listening to that record label's version of this and not something else on some other label. (I can think of no other reason that this should be 19 songs long. I kinda wanted to listen to this album on the bus ride home, get a jump start on these songs, but the album was longer than my bus ride. Why.) Like, these are not, technically, bad songs. I don't like them and barely remember them however-long-I've-been-writing-this-paragraph later, but I never felt compelled to hit skip, and that feels like that's what we're going for here. Listen to this hour-long album. Don't hit other buttons.

88) "Met Gala," Gucci Mane ft./Offset

"I was that nigga locked up in the cell/And they treated me like I was normal/Thankin' the Lord for them blessings/I just left the Met Gala dressin' up formal" I wonder what a better lyricist would have done with that concept, of being an ex-con who can score tickets to the Met Gala. Like, I think Metro Boomin structured a track around that idea, of someone at the Met Gala experiencing anhedonia because they've been treated like the lowest form of humanity and now there's all these rich people who've never had anything bad happen to them, and the dude can't even feel like he's made it because this is a thousand miles from his scene. This is what the sound songs like independent of the words, at least, though I think we've established that the words are the least essential part of this kind of hip-hop. I'd probably listen to an album of Metro Boomin instrumentals, I don't see why we need Gucci Mane in here bleating about whatever.

90) "No Such Thing as a Broken Heart," Old Dominion

This was a'ight. I like that it doesn't suggest that if you love this hard all problems will go away; there's no resolution in this song, only a group of dudes promising to try their best, and that's the closest we're gonna get to complexity this side of Stapleton.It actually sort of reminds me of "Hey Ya!", not in terms of craft oh my stars not in those terms, but in its depiction of relationships where two people look at each other and say "I don't know how to be committed to you." Pop-country dude song of the year 2017, by a mile. (To reiterate, Thomas Rhett is ineligible because "Craving You" is pure bubblegum.)

94) "There for You," Martin Garrix x Troye Sivan

so baby hold me closer in the backseat of your rover that i know you can't afford, bite that tattoo on your shoulder, pull the sheets off of the corner of the mattress that you stole from your roommate back in boulder, we ain't ever gettin' older

99) "Butterfly Effect," Travis Scott

this was fine! travis scott can be counted on to deliver solid songs, and while I'm not gonna say this is my favorite thing he's ever done, it's still nice to hear him chime in. what a pleasant surprise! these reviews have gotten progressively shorter. the next review prolly just gonna be one word.

100) "Strangers," Halsey ft./Lauren Jauregui

So here's something I'm guilty of: Me: There should be more women on the chart! Y'all: Here's one we like! Me: /sucks in air through teeth/ Not this one? So I'm glad that Halsey made a song I think is actually pretty dope. Like, I actually went back and listened to it again, simply because, hey, girl-girl love duet, that's new! I'm actually having difficulty recalling any hit song that was specifically about a same-sex relationship, and I'm sure they exist and I'm forgetting something thuddingly obvious, but this is cool, and thankfully, it's a good song on its own merits. Halsey and Jauregui mesh really well together, and the track is a perfect complement, something propulsive, yet understated enough to let the singers do the work they need to do, a backing track that knows what it needs to be. (Suppose it makes sense that someone who won a Producer of the Year Grammy would write a decent song.)

Only one new thing in the Top 20 because I stared at the list for 20 seconds before deciding I was not going to bump Kendrick from the Top 20 for Old Dominion. We don’t consider how much optics figure into determining how much we love what we love, but they figure in quite a bit. 20) "The Heart Part 4," by Kendrick Lamar (4.15) 19) "Selfish," by Future ft./Rihanna (3.18) 18) "Slide," by Calvin Harris ft./Frank Ocean & Migos (3.18) 17) "Felices los 4," by Maluma (6.3) 16) "Now & Later," by Sage the Gemini (2.25) 15) "Bad Liar," by Selena Gomez (6.3) 14) "DNA." by Kendrick Lamar (5.6) 13) "It Ain't Me," by Kygo x Selena Gomez (3.4) 12) "Craving You," by Thomas Rhett ft./Maren Morris (4.22) 11) "That's What I Like," by Bruno Mars (3.4) 10) "Chanel," by Frank Ocean ft./A$AP Rocky (4.1) 9) "Strangers," by Halsey ft./Lauren Jauregui (6.17) 8) "Either Way," by Chris Stapleton (5.27) 7) "Run Up," by Major Lazer ft./PARTYNEXTDOOR & Nicki Minaj (2.18) 6) "Green Light," by Lorde (3.18) 5) "ELEMENT." by Kendrick Lamar (5.6) 4) "Despacito," by Luis Fonsi ft./Daddy Yankee (2.4) 3) "Issues," by Julia Michaels (2.11) 2) "iSpy," by KYLE ft./Lil Yachty (1.14) 1) "Hard Times," by Paramore (5.13) Also I feel like bumping the Camila Cabello joint for the Lauren Jauregui joint is me drawing a line in the sand I wasn’t ready to draw. Please don’t hate me, the teens, I do not know what dramas have unfolded, what feels you have unfelt.

Who won?

So I actually did go through the weeks before I was reviewing 2007 releases, since I created a Google Sheet for YAS because, when my computer became unusable, I realized it was probably unwise to have just one file trapped inside one very bad computer. But since I put the stuff in spreadsheet form, it made week-by-week comps easier. As it turns our, 2007 got off to an early 3-0 lead, what with “And I Am Telling You,” “Candyman,” and “Jump to the Rhythm” all dropping in the first few weeks, but 2017′s been doin’ better as of late, thanks to two weeks where 2007 didn’t... it didn’t really do anything. 2017: 12 2007: 11 And that’s all the difference! 2007 crushed it this week, which is good, because the next few weeks look pretty bleak for ol’ 2007y. Good opportunity for 2017 to create some separation in this fake competition between two entities that have no sentience as they are arbitrarily determined measurements of time and not actual things. See y’all after seven sunsets.

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weekendwarriorblog · 5 years

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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND December 14, 2018 - Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse, The Mule, Mortal Engines, Once Upon a Deadpool

After two weeks with just one wide release between them, we’re back to the slew of releases that are going to vie for business over the holidays, and while this weekend is fairly busy, next week is going to be absolute madness! One thing that needs to be remembered is that the early part of December always tends to be slower than usual as people spend more time/money buying Christmas gifts for others and getting in some overtime before the holiday break. Because of this, many movies released over the next two weeks might not completely achieve their opening week potential, instead setting things up for some serious legs over the Christmas-New Year’s break. It happens every single year and it creates an environment where you can have movies like The World’s Greatest Showman and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle opening moderately but having ginormous legs.

SPIDER-MAN: ENTER THE SPIDER-VERSE (Sony)

What was once seen as the low-man on the superhero totem pole for 2018 is now looking to be the biggest surprise of the year, as this animated take on the popular Marvel superhero is given new life via animation and a shift to a few newer and younger takes on Spider-Man than have been seen in the live-action movies.

Spider-Man: Enter the Spider-Verse came into being during the Amy Pascal exit deal that got Sony and Marvel Studios co-producing Spider-Man films like last year’s hit Spider-Man: Homecoming, one of Sony’s two huge blockbusters from 2017, as well as one of the studio’s top 5 biggest hits. This one is produced by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who has had huge success with Sony Pictures Animation with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and its sequel, as well as the R-rated 21 Jump Street and its sequel. They also helped launch Warner Bros’ LEGO movie brand with The LEGO Movie, which grossed $469 million worldwide and has a sequel coming out in a few months.

This is a somewhat different superhero movie, not only because it’s animated, but also because it focuses on the character Miles Morales, voiced by Shameik Moore fromDope, and then surrounding him with alternate versions of Spider-Man, including one voiced by Jake Johnson (Jurassic World) and the popular Spider-Gwen, voiced by Hailee Steinfeld. There’s also odder incarnations like Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham, voiced by John Dulaney, as well as different takes on popular Spider-villains.

Critics so far have been raving about the movie with the movie currently at 99% Freshwith 104 reviews (at this writing). Much of that has to do with the unique comic storytelling and innovative animation that makes it look unlike any other animated movie. The movie had sneak previews this past Saturday in IMAX theaters, which will also help generate word-of-mouth for the film’s wide release Thursday night.

What’s good is that this is a PG-rated Spider-Man movie that will allow younger kids to see it who might not be able to convince their parents to take them to a PG-13 Spider-Man movie, but also, the fact that Miles Morales is black and Latino means the movie could attract an even larger urban audience than other Spider-Man movies. We’ve already seen that the demand is out there for more diverse superheroes with the success of Marvel Studios’ Black Panther to the tune of $700 million domestic.

Obviously, the movie has a lot going for it, and not just the fact that Spider-Man continues to be one of the most beloved and recognizable superheroes out there even with the twists introduced in this movie. Last month, it didn’t seem like Enter the Spider-Verse could crack $30 million but with all of the buzz and hype generated from the press, as well as awards attention, this could be seen as a viable family offering with Ralph Wrecks the Internet having already been around for three weeks.

Expect Enter the Spider-Verse to open at #1 with $35 to 40 million and though it has Warners’ Aquaman AND Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns nipping at its tail in a week, I think its uniqueness will help drive word-of-mouth so that it has a nice spike over the holidays much like Jumanjidid last year. In other words, don’t be shocked if this one leaves theaters with $150 million or more sometime next year.

My Review of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

THE MULE (Warner Bros.)

Clint Eastwood is back with his second movie of 2018, and this is not the first time the filmmaker has released two movies, although this might be the first year where neither of those movies are vying for awards. More importantly, this is Eastwood’s first appearance in front of the camera since 2012’s Trouble with the Curve co-starring Amy Adams, which opened with $12.2 million on its way to $35.7 million gross. This movie has Eastwood playing a farmer who takes on jobs delivering drugs to make ends meet… no, I’m not sure why he doesn’t get his mule to do that, since the movie is called “The Mule” but whatever.

On top of that, the movie co-stars Bradley Cooper, coming off his huge blockbuster Oscar fodderA Star is Born, which is close to grossing $200 million, plus Cooper previously starred in Eastwood’s highest-grossing movie to date, American Sniper. That movie grossed $350 million and was one of the biggest films that year.

The movie is opening in December as counter-programming to just about everything else, trying to interest older men and women, especially those in the Red States, who may be too old or disinterested in an animated Spider-Man movie. Reviews are still embargoed as of this writing, but I get the impression that they will be better than some might expect.

Even so, it’s hard to imagine The Mule will do nearly as well as Sniperor even Gran Torino, but opening it relatively wide rather than platforming it like those films, Warner Bros. probably wants this to be an option for holiday-viewing during that week everyone is off around Christmas.

Because it’s opening in the tougher weeks before Christmas, The Mule probably will open lower than normal, probably in the $14 to 16 million range, but if it’s any good, it should act as decent counter-programming to the superhero fare and musicals of the season, so maybe it can do closer to $65 million than the $35 to 50 million of other recent Eastwood offerings.

Mini-Review: It’s safe to say that if you go into Clint Eastwood’s movie thinking you know all of what to expect from the trailer and general plot, you’re likely to be wrong.

In his second movie (at least as a director) of 2018, Eastwood plays Earl Stone, a Peoria, Illinois-based horticulturist who has fallen on hard times to the point where he’s losing his greenhouse, but he’s also been dealing with family issues, including an estranged daughter (played by Clint’s daughter Allison Eastwood) and an angry ex-wife (Dianne Wiest). At a reception for his granddaughter’s wedding, he meets a young man who gives him a business card to earn some extra money driving; turns out that he would be delivering drugs for the Mexican cartel, but the Earl money makes doing so, and what he’s able to do with that money seemingly makes it worth it.

Earl Stone is another great Eastwood character, a cranky curmudgeon, completely incorrect politically, but also quite lovable. Reteaming with his Gran Torino writer Nick Schenk – working from a New Yorkerarticle -- gives Eastwood another chance to play with his public perception as a cranky old man, which he seems to relish, but also, it allows him to play with a different version of that character than in Gran Torino.

As Earl gets better at his driving gig, the DEA is on his tail in the form of Bradley Cooper, Michael Peña and their supervisor, played by Laurence Fishburne, who insists that they get some busts. It’s fairly obvious that Earl is either going to be caught or killed as long as he continues.

In many ways, the film gave me some of the same feelings I had while watching David Lowery’s underrated The Old Man and the Gun, starring Robert Redford and Casey Affleck. The movie is warm and funny during the first act but it eventually becomes more of a cat-and-mouse tale of Earl and his handlers trying to avoid the DEA, which

It’s also impossible to ignore the incredible work by Dianne Wiest as Earl’s wife, a role that gives her a lot of opportunities to show how deserving she was to receive two Oscars and how equally deserving she would be to get a fourth nomination.

The results are an intriguing morality tale that keeps you invested in Earl’s story throughout. It isn’t a perfect movie, but honestly, if this ends up being Clint Eastwood’s swan song, either as a director or actor, then he’s going out on a high note. Rating: 7.5/10

MORTAL ENGINES (Universal)

In any other year or weekend, this adaptation of Philip Reeve’s 2001 Y.A. novel, the first of a series of four books, being adapted by the team behind The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit may have been one of the biggest movies of the holiday season. Unfortunately, that probably won’t be the case.

The fact that I knew next to nothing about this movie which comes out Friday – it involves giant Battlebot-like cities on wheels, apparently -- is proof there was a major fail in some aspect of this movie’s marketing strategy. Sure, I’ve seen quite a few trailers and none of them impressed me more than the ones for that Nutcracker that I really wanted to see for a while. But at least that movie had a known name-brand from decades of Christmas pageants and name stars; are that many fans of the Mortal Engines book really clamoring for this movie?

Sure, it’s exciting that it was written and produced by Peter Jackson with his frequent collaborators Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyden, since we haven’t seen anything from them since The Hobbit trilogy ended in 2014, but even those started to peter out with each installment. The Hobbit: The Unexpected Journey opened with $84 million in 2012, but the third installment The Battle of Five Armies opened with $30 million less and grossed $255 million vs. $300 million domestically.

This adaptation is directed by Christian Rivers, who won an Oscar for his visual effects work on Jackson’s King Kong, and he’s been doing visual FX or other duties on most of Jackson’s films over the years. Probably the only exciting names in the credits are that of Hugo Weaving of the aforementioned Lord of the Rings and the Matrix trilogy, as well as Stephen Lang from the Avatarfranchise, however many movies that ends up being. It stars Icelandic actor Hera Hilmar, best known from Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina and the short-lived Da Vinci’s Demons show. She stars opposite Robert Sheehan, who recently appeared in Bad Samaritan with David Tennant.

Beyond the fact that there isn’t a big-name star to get people interested, the enthusiasm towards Y.A. material has deteriorated greatly in recent years with series likeDivergentand The Mortal Instrument movies failing to the point where they were moved over to television. Popular books like The 5thWave, The Host and The Giver have faltered with bigger name stars, as has The Maze Runner trilogy, which to Fox’s credit, they completed even with the decrease in interest from moviegoers. Since then, they failed to find an audience with The Darkest Minds, while the lower-budgeted The Hate U Give(also starring Amandla Stenberg) is doing slightly better (hopefully boosted by its wins at the L.A. Online Film Critics this past weekend).

And then there are the early reviews for the movie, which are not good and that won’t help convince anyone on the fence to shell out their hard-earned cash to see this.

Even though Mortal Engines is opening in over 3,000 theaters, I just don’t feel very much excitement for the movie among non-readers, especially when compared to Into the Spider-Verse. Because of that, I feel like it might end up in the $13 to 15 million range, which would be absolutely horrible. It also might fall short of 2ndplace against Clint Eastwood’s The Mule, only because Clint is a much more solid known quantity with moviegoers.

Mini-Review: Imagine if you’re an FX artist who has been working with a visionary filmmaker like Peter Jackson for most of his career, and one day, Mr. Jackson comes up to you and says, “Christian,” (because that is your name) “I want you to direct my latest script, and you can use the finest production designers and FX people that money can buy.” And he plops this script he wrote with his frequent collaborators down in front of you and it’s something called “Mortal Engines.” You read it with interest imagining all the amazing visuals you can use to bring the world of this script to life, and you take on the role eagerly even though you’ve never directed a big budget feature film before. I certainly don’t want to pass judgment or cast aspersions on director Christian Rivers for his background in FX, because it’s almost become a cliché when an FX guy direct a movie, and that movie is better for its visuals than for the story or characters.

The central story revolves around these enormous tank-like moving cities including “predator cities” like London that are larger and vaster than the small moving villages they overcome and grind down for fuel and parts. Hannah Shaw is the inhabitant of one such city (Hera Hilmar) that’s engulfed by London, but she has a vendetta against London’s lead archivist Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving), but she ends up stranded outside London with a young Thaddeus protégé named Tom Natsworthy (Robert Sheehan) after an altercation with Valentine. At the same time, London has been at war with the non-traction Asian region of Shan Guo, represented by the rebellious Anna Fang (Jihae), who recuses Tom and Hannah as they’re being chased by Shrike (Stephen Lang), a “Resurrected,” basically a walking metal skeleton, much like the Terminator, who pursues them to get to Hannah.

Other than Hugo Weaving and the unrecognizable Lang, this is a cast with so little charisma you rarely care about any of the characters, nor can you keep track of who is good, who is bad, who is this or that person? Are they important? Do we care if they die? That’s not a good place to be when you’re hit in the head with so much narrative and so many wild locations and vehicles, which granted, are quite glorious to behold. No one can say that the production design, art and visual FX teams didn’t put in the work to make Mortal Engines a fantastic-looking film.

Regardless, Mortal Engines feels like a big-screen Y.A. adaptation coming too late in the game when the Twilight and Hunger Games franchises have managed to sate that audience’s appetite, which tries to hit us over the head with a “war is bad” message, which is also likely to fall on deaf ears. Better idea? Skip this and go see Peter Jackson’s WWI doc on Monday instead (see below), because there’s just so much more to get out of that movie then watching this one. Rating: 5.5/10

ONCE UPON A DEADPOOL (20thCentury Fox)

Opening Wednesday is a strange anomaly of a superhero movie, being a PG-13 rerelease of Deadpool 2, which came out earlier this year and grossed $318.5 million domestically. It’s a little strange to think that Fox would try to squeeze out a few more pennies by releasing an edited/censored version of the movie, but apparently there’s new footage being advertised including scenes with Fred Savage.

Again, this seems like it’s competing directly against the stronger Spider-Man: into the Spider-verse. Playing in just 500 theaters (and opening on Wednesday) means it’s going to be tough to make much of a mark over the weekend. I do think that there may be some college-age guys who might go see this instead, but it definitely feels like Deadpool 2 ran its course months ago. It might break into the bottom of the top 10 with around $2.5 to 3 million but even that might be overly-optimistic.

On the other hand, Yorgos Lanthimos’ acclaimed period comedy The Favourite will be expanded into around 525 theaters by Fox Searchlight to take advantage of the buzz from awards and nominations of which more will roll out this week.

With three new wide releases and more to come next week, the returning movies are going to start losing theaters fast, so we could see some bigger drops for movies like Ralph Breaks the Internet and Fantastic Beasts in particular.

This week’s Top 10 should look something like this…

1. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse (Sony) - $36.5 million N/A

2. The Mule (Warner Bros.) - $14.6 million N/A

3. Mortal Engines (Universal) - $12.8 million N/A

4. The Grinch (Universal) - $9 million -40%

5. Ralph Breaks the Internet (Disney) - $8.6 million -47%

6. Creed II (MGM) - $5.3 million -47%

7. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (Warner Bros.) - $3.3 million -52%

8. Bohemian Rhapsody (20thCentury Fox) - $3.2 million -48%

9. The Favourite (Fox Searchight) - $2.9 million +200%

10. Once Upon a Deadpool (Fox) - $2.7 million N/A

LIMITED RELEASES

Before we get to the weekend’s limited releases, I wanted to give a little added attention to a new documentary directed by Peter Jackson that will premiere via Fathom Events in select theaters for two nights only, Monday December 17 and December 27. THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD (Warner Bros.) is a fantastic documentary that shares stories from World War I through recorded interviews with some of the men who served, used to narrate black and white silent footage that was filmed during the “war to end all wars,” Jackson being commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to make a movie out of the archived footage and audio recordings. It isn’t as simple as that might sound, because Jackson took that black and white silent footage, colorized it, used computer FX to make it 3D and added sound FX to really put you into this horrifying trench war. It’s really amazing to watch what starts out as a black and white film with an old aspect ratio expanded to fit the big screen as it becomes more and more vivid and detailed. It’s also crazy to think that everyone we see or hear in this movie is very likely dead since 2018 is the 100thanniversary of the end of World War I. You can find out where this is playing on Monday at the Fathom Events site, and I highly recommend it for History Channel enthusiasts because it’s a very different experience of a war that hasn’t been covered in quite this way before.

Barry Jenkins’ long-awaited follow-up to his Oscar-winning Moonlight is IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK (Annapurna), his adaptation of James Baldwin’s novel, which opens Friday after an acclaimed festival run. It stars newcomers Kiki Layne and Stephen James as Tish and Fonny, a young couple in love who run into troubles when Fonny is erased leaving the pregnant Tish to have to deal with trying to get him released as well as having a baby on her own. The drama also stars Regina King as Tish’s mother, a role likely to get her an Oscar, and Colman Domingo as her father. I’ve become quite fascinated by Baldwin since watching the doc I Am Not Your Negro, and I was definitely interested in how he might tackle a fictional story, which is already having a deep social impact and relevance with African-Americans. You can read more of my thoughts from out of the New York Film Festival, where the film had its US premiere, but I liked the film quite a bit more on second viewing, especially how the love story between Tish and Fonny was portrayed by two fantastic young actors. The movie will open in select cities this week, then slowly expand before being nationwide on Christmas Day.

From Lebanon comes CAPERNAUM (Sony Pictures Classics), the new film from Nadine Labaki (Caramel), which follows a young street kid named Zain (Zain Al Rafeea) who tries to survive after running away from home, angry about the way his sister and other kids are being treated by his foster parents. This is another fantastic film by Labaki that gives you some idea about the issues faced by Lebanon, including poverty and immigration and how they’re related. Zain Al Rafeea carries the film beautifully. It will open in New York and L.A. on Friday and likely will expand further if it gets an Oscar nomination in January.

A thematic sequel to the Norwegian disaster movie The Wave, John Andres Andersen’s THE QUAKE (Magnet) tells another story from the same series of earthquakes that rocks Norway. It will open in scattered cities but mostly can be seen On Demand via various platforms.

On Thursday, Netflix’s post-apocalyptic thriller Bird Box, based on Josh Malerman’s 2014 novel, will be released into select theaters Thursday before its Netflix streaming debut on December 21. Directed by Susanne Bier, it stars Sandra Bullock as the mother of two children who are blindfolded and led through a post-apocalyptic setting. Adapted by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Eric Heisserer (Arrival), it also stars Trevante Rhodes (Moonlight), John Malkovich, Sarah Paulson, Jacki Weaver, Rosa Salazar and Danielle Macdonald. I hope to write more about this next week after I’ve actually seen it.

After a controversial director’s cut screening last month, Lars von Trier’s The House That Jack Built (IFC Films) will get a presumably toned-down version released in select cities, although this version also runs 151 minutes, so who knows? It stars Matt Dillon as a serial killer who we watch killing various victims (including Uma Thurman) as he converses with a mysterious being (played by Bruno Ganz) on his way to the underworld.

Sam Abbas writes, directs and stars in The Wedding (ArabQ Films) about a young Muslim man preparing for his wedding to Sara (Nikohl Boosheri), although he has been keeping his homosexual inclinations a secret as they go against his religious upbringing. It will open at the Cinema Village in New York (with Abbas and other guests in person for a shows all weekend) on Friday.

Big River Man director John Maringouin’s Ghostbox Cowboy (Dark Star Pictures) stars David Zellner (of the filmmaking Zellner Brothers responsible for Damsel and Kumiko the Treasure Hunter) as Texan Jimmy Van Horn as a huckster cowboy who arrives in Shenzhen with ambitions of economic success with the help of his friend Bob Grainger (Robert Longstreet). This darkly comic morality tale also opens at the Cinema Village but it’s currently available On Demand.

Another movie barely getting a theatrical release is Matthew Brown’s Maine (Orion Classics), starring Laia Costa (Duck Butter, Life Itself) and Thomas Mann from Me, Earl and the Dying Girl about a woman who decides to hike the Appalachian trail solo until her trip is disrupted by a young American hiker, played by Mann. It’s in select theaters on Thursday then streaming On Demand Friday.

Fans of animation should always be up for this year’s 20th Annual Animation Show of Shows, which celebrates its 20thyear with some fantastic offerings like “The Green Bird,” Taiko Studios’ “One Small Step,” which had me ugly-crying at its story of a young girl’s dreams of becoming an astronaut, Alain Biet’s highly-innovative and hypnotic “Grands Canons,” Veronica Solomon’s eerie “Love Me, Fear Me” from Germany and many, many more. More than likely, some of these animated shorts might end up on the Oscar shortlist, but you can find out for yourself when the program opens at the Laemmle Theater on Friday then at New York’s Quad Cinema on Dec. 28.

STREAMING

Besides Alfonso Cuaron’s ROMA, which will start streaming on Netflix after a few weeks in theaters, Sunday will see the anticipated debut of Springsteen on Broadway, as the Boss finishes his run on Broadway with his one-man show as a taping of one of his shows streams on Netflix.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

Things are getting mighty busy at my local repertory theater with a couple new series, including In the Year of the Grifter, an interesting series of films about con-men, frauds, fakes and such, which will include everything from Orson Welles’ Mr. Arkadinand F for Fake to Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, Frank Oz’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, David Mamet’s House of Games and The Spanish Prisoner, as well as Stephen Frear’s The Grifters (likely where the series got its name). This amazing-looking series will run through the New Year, so check out the trailer below!

vimeo

The Metrograph has already begun its self-explanatory Miyazaki at Studio Ghibli, which mainly runs through the weekend tie-ing into the Miyazak doc mentioned above, but it could end up being extended through the holidays. If you’re a fan, you probably have already seen the six films being shown on DCP. Opening Friday is a digital restoration of Alexsey German’s 1998 oddball dark comedy Khrurstalyov, My Car!! (Arrow Films) which covers similar territory as The Death of Stalin in a far more madcap way. It really wasn’t for me.December’s offering from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences is Richard Donner’s 1988 holiday classic Scrooged with Carol Kane, Karen Allen and co-writer Mitch Glazer appearing after the (sold out!) Saturday screening then showing two more times next week.Also on Saturday, you can check out the “Dream Double Feature” of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) and the musical Top Hat (1935), both on 35mm, and later that evening, it’s the original Predator (1987), wrapping up the theater’s Bill Duke series. (Those last four are all on Saturday, so I might be moving into the Metrograph that day.)

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Wednesday and Thursday sees a double feature of The Last Safari and Shoot Out, while Friday is a double feature of Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Motorpsycho! (sadly, already sold out online) and another midnight screening of Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. The weekend begins the holiday classics like The Muppet Christmas Carol for the kids on Sunday afternoon, and Saturday night’s midnight screening is 1980’s Christmas Evil. Then on Monday and Tuesday is a double feature of Miracle on 34thStreet (1947) and Santa Claus: The Movie (1985).

FILM FORUM (NYC):

The Film Forum will show a 4k restoration of Yasujiro Ozu’s The Flavor of Green Tea over Ice (1952; Janus Films) for a one-week run, and this weekend’s Film Forum Jr. is Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, which also continues at the IFC Center below.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

The Egyptian will show the classic Auntie Mame (1958) starring Rosalind Russell on Wednesday (sold out) and Thursday nights. Filmmaker William Friedkin will be at the theater for a double feature of To Live & Die in L.A. (1985) and Cutter’s Way (1981)on Saturday, while Sunday is a restoration of Detour (in conjunction with a sneak preview of Karyn Kusama’s new crime drama Destroyer on Friday night).

AERO (LA):

The American Cinematheque’s theater will also be celebrating Japanese Anime legend Hayao Miyazaki (in conjunction with the doc mentioned above) with the series The Never-Ending Hayao Miyazaki, including screenings of My Neighbor Tatoro (Thursday), Spirited Away (Friday), a double feature of Howl’s Moving Castle and Kiki’s Delivery Service on Saturday and then the doc screened on Sunday.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

Running for the next three weeks is the Quad’s Rated X series, which includes the likes of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, John Waters’ Desperate Living and Female Trouble, the controversial Last Tango in Paris, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1 and 2 and many many more films that raised the ire of the MPAA. Also on Friday, the Quad will premiere a 4k restoration of Luchino Visconti’s 1971 film Death in Venice, an adaptation of Thomas Mann’s novel about a German composer on vacation in Lido.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

This weekend’s Late Night Favorites is Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo, while Weekend Classicspresents the Coen Brothers’ True Grit. This weekend’s Shaw Brothers Spectacular is Buddha Palm from 1982.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

Friday’s midnight movie is Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands from 1990.

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

Christian Petzold: The State We Are Inwraps up on Thursday, which leads directly into Jacques Tourneur, Fearmaker, a retrospective of the 2ndgeneration French filmmaker responsible for 1942’s Cat People, 1943’s I Walked with a Zombie, 1944’s Days of Glory, 1964’s The Comedy of Terrorsand many more, all which will screened with others, many in 35mm. This looks like another fantastic series with many films being screened that haven’t seen on the big screen in many decades.

MOMA (NYC):

Modern Matinees: Douglas Fairbanks Jr. presents 1928’s The Barkeron Weds, John Irwin’s 1981 film Ghost Story on Thursday, and then back to 1929 with Our Modern Maidens on Friday. This series will continue through the end of the year. Italian actor and filmmaker Ugo Tognazzi gets his own retrospective called Ugo Tognazzi: Tragedies of a Ridiculous Man running through the end of the year.

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

For some reason, I missed the first half of MOMI’s retrospective of Pawel Pawlikowski, who won an Oscar for Ida and has the fantastic Cold War out next week. This weekend you can see The Woman in the Fifth, starring Ethan Hawke, My Summer of Love featuring a very young Emily Blunt, and a reshowing of Ida. Not only that, but the museum is kicking off a Cher retrospective (to coincide with the opening of The Cher Show on Broadway?) with A Cher For All Seasons. If I lived closer to Astoria, I might check out some of the movies screening including Silkwood, Suspect, Moonstruck, Mermaids a director’s cut of Mask and many more. MOMI is also screening the doc Marwencol on Saturday night to coincide with the release of Robert Zemeckis’ adaptation Welcome to Marwen next week.

That’s it for this week. Next week, out of the frying pan and into the fire with FIVE more wide releases leading into Christmas. The big one are Aquaman, Mary Poppins Returnsand Bumblebee, but there are a couple others.

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