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whileiamdying · 2 years

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The 10 Biggest Cannes Film Festival Premieres to Look Out For

A gaudy Elvis biopic, a tender family drama, the latest from the director of Mad Max: Fury Road, and much more.

BY RICHARD LAWSON AND REBECCA FORD

MAY 17, 2022

BY ANDREAS RENTZ/GETTY IMAGES.

The landmark 75th Cannes Film Festival kicks off on May 17, beginning a nearly two-week parade of what is hopefully the best in international cinema. As the success of last year’s Cannes breakout Drive My Carshowed, the festival can be an invaluable launchpad for a film’s world-domination campaign. What will be the standouts this year? Vanity Fair’s chief critic, Richard Lawson, and senior awards correspondent Rebecca Ford have picked 10 films they think could hit big—or, at least, could be most worth buzzing about.

Armageddon Time

For director James Gray’s fifth appearance at Cannes, he’s brought a more personal coming-of-age story set in upscale Queens in the pre-Reagan ’80s. The Focus Features film is inspired by his own childhood, when his parents moved him to the private Kew-Forest School (Donald Trump was an alumnus), and follows a 12-year-old and his best friend as they hatch a plan to escape their confines. Four of Gray’s previous films—The Yards, The Immigrant, Two Lovers, and We Own the Night—debuted at Cannes, though none won any awards. As we continue to see filmmakers dig into their childhoods (the Romaeffect, if you will), Gray’s turn—which stars Anne Hathaway, Anthony Hopkins, and Jeremy Strong—promises to take us back to a specific time and place while exploring issues that feel timely today. —R.F.

Broker

After he won the Palme d’Or in 2018 for his exquisite, heartbreaking family drama Shoplifters, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda switched over to French and English for 2019’s warmly received, if under-seen, The Truth. Now he’s traveling to South Korea for Broker, which is about so-called baby boxes—places where infants can be dropped off anonymously by people unable to care for them. It sounds like subject matter that Kore-eda, such a caring and yet unflinching filmmaker, will handle with signature nuance. And the cast! The film features Song Kang-ho, now forever Cannes famous for starring in Parasite, and Bae Doona, one of the biggest stars in Korea. It’s hard to repeat a Palme d’Or win, but Kore-eda’s film at least has the makings of an indelible festival favorite. —R.L.

Crimes of the Future

There’s been plenty of buzz for David Cronenberg’s first film since 2014’s Maps to the Stars. The visceral body-horror film, which will be released by Neon this summer, is set in a future in which the human body has begun to change due to the synthetic environment of society. Cronenberg, who’s stated that the film is “a meditation on human evolution,” reunited with his muse Viggo Mortensen, who stars as a performance artist who uses these new developments in his art; Kristen Stewart and Léa Seydoux also star. The film is likely to push audiences’ comfort levels (Cronenberg recently said the film was too racy for “conservative” Netflix), but hopefully in a good way and not in a “booed in the Palais” way. —R.F.

Elvis

Baz Luhrmann doing a big, splashy Elvis Presley biopic is about as quintessential as a Cannes out-of-competition premiere gets. What’s more, the film features both Tom Hanks doing a zany accent as Presley’s menacing svengali, Colonel Tom Parker, and a potentially huge star-making turn from a mostly untested actor, Austin Butler, in the title role. Will Elvis be the stuff of awards glory, like Bohemian Rhapsody was just a few years ago? Will it be a garish, gregarious oddity befitting of Luhnrmann’s oeuvre? We’re dying to find out—as are many people here in Cannes. Elvis has been among the most speculated-about films ahead of the festival, and not just because everyone is curious to finally see the movie that gave Hanks COVID. —R.L.

One Fine Morning

Cannes mainstay Mia Hansen-Løve is taking no time off. Last year she debuted the critically beloved Bergman Island at the festival; this year she’s returning to her native French for a romance starring Léa Seydoux. That actor, one of the stalwarts of the festival in recent years, plays a woman caring for her ailing father who begins an affair with an old, already taken friend. That premise sounds somewhat run-of-the-mill, but the ever-sensitive and clever Hansen-Løve will likely turn it into something more. —R.L.

Showing Up

It’s a solid bet that a Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams team-up will be a worthwhile viewing experience. The duo, who previously collaborated on Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy, Meek’s Cutoff, and Certain Women, reunite for the filmmaker’s first Cannes main-competition film, which sees Williams playing an artist on the verge of a career breakthrough. Reichardt’s 2019 film, First Cow—about the bond of two men trying to survive in the 1820s Northwest—won best film at the 2020 New York Film Critics Circle Awards and landed on the National Board of Review’s list of the top films of the year. Showing Up, which will be released by A24, is expected to be more comedic than much of her previous work—and hopefully, the next step toward wider recognition. —R.F.

The Stars at Noon

It’s been a shame that French filmmaker Claire Denis hasn’t had a film in the official competition at Cannes since her 1988 debut, Chocolat. That changes this year, with The Stars at Noon, a romantic thriller following a mysterious English businessman and an American journalist who work together to escape Nicaragua during the Nicaraguan Revolution. Originally planned to star Robert Pattinson (who worked with Denis on High Life), the film now centers on performances by Joe Alwyn and Margaret Qualley, with an interesting supporting cast that includes Danny Ramirez, Benny Safdie, and John C. Reilly. —R.F.

Three Thousand Years of Longing

George Miller hasn’t made a movie since 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road, which took Cannes by storm that year and eventually landed 10 Oscar nominations and six wins. His latest, also debuting out of competition, will be very different in scope and experience, described as a more dialogue-driven film that stars Idris Elba as a djinni who offers three wishes to a scholar (Tilda Swinton). Miller has dabbled in various genres throughout his career, from fantasy-comedy (The Witches of Eastwick) to animation (Happy Feet), so I’m interested to see what he does with this fantasy romance, as it’s so mysteriously described. —R.F.

Triangle of Sadness

We could give you the more high-minded reasons why we’re excited for Ruben Östlund’s new film. Such as how it will be interesting to see the Swedish director’s follow-up to his Palme d’Or–winning The Square, and how Östlund has been a must-see filmmaker since his masterful Cannes hit Force Majeure, one of the best movies of the previous decade. But honestly, we just want to see Harris Dickinson as a pampered model who winds up on a yacht with a scheming Marxist captain played by Woody Harrelson. That sales pitch is enough for us. Movies about yachts should probably always premiere at Cannes, where those unconscionably expensive seacraft are ever visible in the marina and floating ominously out in the bay. We hope Östlund gives them, and their owners, the what-for. —R.L.

War Pony

When the actor Riley Keough and the producer Gina Gammell began hanging out with Franklin Sioux Bob and Bill Reddy after Keough met them on the set of 2016’s American Honey, they were fascinated by the two men’s stories of living on a Native American reservation. Those men have now channeled those experiences into the screenplay for War Pony, which Keough and Gammell direct. Set on a Lakota reservation in South Dakota, the film follows a young man and a young boy scrambling to make their way amidst grinding poverty. If handled well, the film—which features a cast of mainly Indigenous first-time actors—could be something in the vein of The Rider, Chloé Zhao’s 2017 Cannes breakout that takes a docudrama approach to a community little seen on film. Or War Pony could be more Sean Baker–esque, wild and antic and yet rooted in crucial realism. Either way, we’re intrigued. We’re also curious to see how Keough fares behind the camera, just as a huge movie about her grandfather is set to premiere on the Croisette. — R.L.

#vanity fair #cannes 2022 #richard lawson #rebecca ford

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recentanimenews · 2 years

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The Fruit of Evolution: Before I Knew It, My Life Had It Made English Dub Announced, Cast & Crew Revealed

Isekai comedy anime The Fruit of Evolution: Before I Knew It, My Life Had It Made is about to take the next step in its evolution with an official English dub, and we're pleased to announce that you'll be able to take a bite when it launches on Crunchyroll today, May 5 at 3:30pm Pacific Time!

Here's the cast and crew for Episode 1:

Cast

Mark Allen Jr. (Nazumi in SSSS.DYNAZENON) as Seiichi

Jalitza Delgado (Raido's Little Sister in Aharen-san wa Hakarenai) as Saria

Comona Lewin (Climb in Overlord) as Saria (Kaiser Kong)

Corey Pettit (Sawa Sugimoto in Kageki Shoujo!!) as Artoria

Erica Muse (Diva in She Professed Herself the Pupil of the Wise Man) as Kannazuki

Supporting Cast

Rachel Glass (Elma in Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid) as Mister Sheep

Dalton Tindall (Atsushi Miyuki in ALL OUT!!) as Kenji

Aaron Michael (Toranosuke Kurayoshi in Skate-Leading Stars) as Shouta

Hope Endrenyi (Maki Shijo in KAGUYA-SAMA: LOVE IS WAR) as Miu

Ray Gestaut (Casey in Tokyo ESP) as King Kaiser

Shawn Gann (Doc in RADIANT) as Helio

Kristian Eros (Yuki's Drummer in Rumble Garanndoll) as Ayoyama

Matthew David Rudd (Panda in JUJUTSU KAISEN) as Daiki

Additional Episode 1 Cast

Kristian Eros as Acrowolf 1A, Clever Monkey 1D, Male Student 1C

Matthew David Rudd as Clever Monkey 1A

Dani Phillips as Clever Monkey 1B, Female Student 1A, Female Student 1C, Female Student 1E

Kayla Parker as Clever Monkey 1C, Female Student 1B

Kimber Martin as Female Student 1D

Katie Caruso as Female Voice 1A

Crew

ADR Director: Jonathan Rigg

Lead ADR Engineer: Victor Acosta

Assistant ADR Engineers: James Baker, Rickey Watkins, Noah Whitehead

ADR Script Writer: Leah Clark

ADR Script Supervisor: Bonny Clinkenheard

ADR Prep: Brandon Peters

Mix Engineer: Matt Grounds

RELATED: TSUKIMICHI -Moonlit Fantasy- English Dub Announced, Cast and Crew Revealed

Based on the light novel by Miku and U35, The Fruit of Evolution: Before I Knew It, My Life Had It Made is directed by Yoshiaki Okumura at studio Hotline, with series composition by Gigaemon Ichikawa and character designs by Minami Eda.

With a sequel already on the way, there's never been a better time to check out The Fruit of Evolution: Before I Knew It, My Life Had It Made, right here on Crunchyroll!

High school student Hiiragi Seiichi is bullied by his classmates for being a "loser." One day, his entire school is suddenly transported to a video game-like world of swords and sorcery. When he accidentally eats "the Fruit of Evolution," his life as a successful "winner" begins.

Der shy man behind @Shymander, Liam is a timezone-fluid Aussie with a distinct fondness for anime, Eurovision and creating odd stats projects despite hating math.

By: Liam Dempsey

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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aliveandfullofjoy · 3 years

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It’s the first day of 2021, which calls (yet again!) for my ten favorite new-to-me movies I watched in 2020!

The rules are the same as always: no movies from this past year (2020) or the year before (2019). Every other year is free game.

All ten of these movies are fascinating and beautiful and well worth your time, so consider this a strong endorsement for all of them. I’ve also included ways to watch all of the films (as of this writing, Jan. 1, 2021).

01. Two for the Road (dir. Stanley Donen, 1967; USA) Donen takes the ideas of romantic cinema and celebrates it while injecting a healthy dose of painful reality. He chooses two of the English language's most attractive movie stars, Albert Finney (in full himbo mode!) and Audrey Hepburn, and follows their ten-year marriage as seen on their various road trips across Europe. It's a memory piece more than anything else, but the arc of their relationship is clear and their palpable connection burns through the screen. These are two beautiful, intelligent adults who love each other deeply, who are still physically attracted to each other, who are able to hurl verbal jabs and insults at each other with the best of them. Finney is magnificent, but Hepburn sort of steals the show. In what is probably her finest onscreen performance, she gets to grow from a virginal bride to a fully fleshed out adult, living beautifully in different shades of sexy and goofy and bitter. They make a screen couple for the ages. The script is funny without losing its honesty, it's tragic without leaning too far into artifice, it's romantic without being treacly. It's a remarkable balancing act and makes for a masterpiece. (Two for the Road is available to rent online or viewed at this link.)

02. Stop Making Sense (dir. Jonathan Demme, 1984; USA) Stop Making Sense feels like a miracle. It hints at a narrative arc, but that part is unimportant. It’s a live performance recorded and packaged specifically for consumption as a film. In its brief runtime, it becomes a living, breathing, sweating testament to David Byrne’s skill as a performer, as a songwriter, as a storyteller, and to the remarkable talents of everyone in Talking Heads. It’s a breathtakingly joyous experience. I can’t remember the last time I watched a recording of a live performance that captured the same brand of energy, of buoyancy, that you feel as you’re leaving a great communal experience. This is a masterpiece that proclaims as loudly as possible that there is no joy greater than making art with people you love. (Stop Making Sense is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.)

03. Scattered Clouds (dir. Mikio Naruse, 1967; Japan) Filled to the brim with unspoken turmoil and emotional devastation, Naruse's final film chronicles the rough terrain of a relationship between a widow and the man responsible for her husband's death. Spanning years and exploring just how deeply these wounds can go, much of the Scattered Cloud’s success rests on the performances from Yuzo Kayama and Yoko Tsukasa. Kayama is a handsome, likable screen presence who beautifully lives in his own cloud of grief. Tsukasa gets a bit more to chew on, as this really is her story: her arc and her inability to move forward, despite the best intentions, is one of the film's most lasting ideas. Brutally sad but incredibly beautiful. The work of a master filmmaker. (Scattered Clouds is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.)

04. L’Atalante (dir. Jean Vigo, 1934; France) My only regret with L’Atalante is that I didn’t see it sooner. The final (and only feature-length) film from Jean Vigo before his untimely death at 29, this film is a technical marvel and a humanist miracle. Featuring spirited performances from Dita Parlo, Jean Dasté, and the great character actor Michel Simon, and intoxicating dreamlike imagery, as well as a relentlessly romantic score from Maurice Jaubert, this film looks and feels like no other film from its era. (L’Atalante is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.)

05. Daisies (dir. Věra Chytilová, 1966; Czechoslovakia) Věra Chytilová's iconic masterpiece of anarchic cinema more than lives up to its reputation. Operating on its own chaotic wavelength, Daisies follows the exploits of Marie I (Jitka Cerhová) and Marie II (Ivana Karbanová) who seek to spoil themselves after realizing how spoiled the world is. They begin to live extravagantly and rip off older men and cause general mischief. Over less than 80 minutes, Daisies upends a whole slew of cultural norms. Beautiful, ambiguous, funny, cynical, and truly visionary. (Daisies is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel and HBO Max.)

06. The Hero (dir. Satyajit Ray, 1966; India) The Hero sort of feels like Satyajit Ray's answer to 8½ in its meditation of fame and regret. Uttam Kumar is fantastic as Arindam Mukherjee, a superstar actor who works through his career and his loss of values in an interview with a reporter played by Sharmila Tagore, who is also fantastic. Under Ray's sleek direction, gracefully opening up the world of the train, and with his intelligent and human script, the cast uniformly sinks their teeth into this film. Kumar is the MVP out of necessity -- without him, the whole film would fall apart -- but the whole ensemble is remarkable, peppering the background of the train scenes and in Arindam's flashbacks. This also has one of the all-time great nightmare sequences. Easily one of the master director’s best films. (The Hero is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.)

07. Malcolm X (dir. Spike Lee, 1992; USA) Malcolm X is a truly massive film housing an even bigger performance from the great Denzel Washington. Tracing Malcolm X’s life and career while juggling numerous tones and visual styles and spanning across decades and continents, this is surely Spike Lee’s most ambitious film up to this point in his career. Washington is onscreen for virtually all of its long runtime, from the early exuberant days before his imprisonment all the way up to that fateful day in the Audubon Ballroom, and he is, of course, tremendous. All that classic Denzel charisma and magnetism is on full display, whether in his impassioned speeches or in his more intimate scenes. Lee’s direction is top notch, making this full story about a life with an incalculably profound impact feel richly and deeply intimate. This is one of the essential American epics. (Malcolm X is available to rent online.)

08. Beau Travail (dir. Claire Denis, 1999; France) Beau Travail’s place in the modern canon of world cinema is assured, and Denis is rightfully seen as a master, but it really can’t be overstated just how much of a gem this film is. Pepper with sparse dialogue (though always packed with meaning), the film lives in one of two modes: muscular, suntanned men doing slow, precise choreographed exercises in the heat of the day and those same muscular men dancing and gyrating with attractive young women in some ethereal nightclub. Between these poles lies Denis’ almost cosmic meditation on masculine ego, homoerotic obsession, and regret. A fascinating, enigmatic, devastating beauty. (Beau Travail is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.)

09. Only Angels Have Wings (dir. Howard Hawks, 1939; USA) Only Angels Have Wings might be Howard Hawks' crowning directorial achievement. The aerial work, the rainy nights, the beautiful atmosphere of the bars, the palpable camaraderie of the characters, the tragic loss of life and yet the persistence to move forward. Cary Grant leads a terrific cast, including a quietly moving Richard Barthelmess and a rarely-more-likable Thomas Mitchell, and his chemistry with both Jean Arthur (the most charming) and Rita Hayworth is a joy to watch. This film seems to dabble in multiple genres at once, subverting the cliches of the Hollywood formula while still embracing the melodrama and the artifice within. In that way, the film feels very strange, but if the viewer lets themselves be carried along with Hawks' unique rhythm, the reward is one of the most fascinating and exciting films in Hollywood's fabled 1939 output. (Only Angels Have Wings is available to rent online or viewed at this link.)

10. Closely Watched Trains (dir. Jiří Menzel, 1966; Czechoslovakia) Between the precise composition of the shots and the young narrator-protagonist, Closely Watched Trains feels like a spiritual predecessor to Wes Anderson's work. This comparison extends to the thematic content of the film as well, as the story of a young man coming-of-age against the backdrop of the Nazi regime is definitely cut from the same cloth as The Grand Budapest Hotel. Lucky for me, I love Anderson's work, and Grand Budapest is my favorite of his, so Menzel's stylistic flourishes immediately endeared me to the film.Menzel maintains a skillful tonal balancing act throughout Closely Watched Trains. Even under the wry, almost self-deprecating humor, the film never loses track of preciousness of life and the horrific tragedy of war. Beautiful cinematography, strong performances across the board, a memorable score, and a clever script make this a gem of the Czech New Wave and a moving, delightful, and accessible coming-of-age tale. (Closely Watched Trains is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.)

Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order): Ace in the Hole (Billy Wilder, 1951), The Band’s Visit (Eran Kolirin, 2007), But I’m a Cheerleader (Jamie Babbit, 1999), Carnival of Souls (Herk Harvey, 1962), A Cottage on Dartmoor (Anthony Asquith, 1929), Crossing Delancey (Joan Micklin Silver, 1988), Divorce Italian Style (Pietro Germi, 1961); Eat Drink Man Woman (Ang Lee, 1994), Fireworks (Kenneth Anger, 1947), The Freshman (Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor, 1925), The Hitch-Hiker (Ida Lupino, 1953), Kuroneko (Kaneto Shindo, 1968), Le Bonheur (Agnès Varda, 1965), Le Notti Bianche (Luchino Visconti, 1957), Like Father, Like Son (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2013), Local Hero (Bill Forsyth, 1983), Love & Basketball (Gina Prince-Bythewood, 2000), Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (George Miller, 1981), Monsoon Wedding (Mira Nair, 2001), One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (Agnès Varda, 1977), Pennies from Heaven (Herbert Ross, 1981), Pickup on South Street (Samuel Fuller, 1953), Rushmore (Wes Anderson, 1998), Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954), Sleepless in Seattle (Nora Ephron, 1993), Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (William Greaves, 1968), Tea and Sympathy (Vincente Minnelli, 1956), They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (Sydney Pollack, 1969), Tomboy (Céline Sciamma, 2011), Wendy & Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, 2008), Within Our Gates (Oscar Micheaux, 1920), Whisper of the Heart (Yoshifumi Kondo, 1995), and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Robert Zemeckis, 1988).

And some miscellaneous viewing stats:

First movie watched in 2020: A Fantastic Woman (Sebastián Lelio, 2017)

Final movie watched in 2020: Holiday (George Cukor, 1938)

Worst movie watched: The Notebook (Nick Cassavetes, 2004)

Oldest movie watched: Ten films by the Lumière Brothers (Louis Lumière, 1895)

Longest movie watched: Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954; 207 minutes)

Month with most amount of movies watched: December (58 movies, including shorts)

Month with least amount of movies watched: February (11 movies) (pre-COVID, naturally)

First movie from 2020 seen: Birds of Prey (Cathy Yan, 2020)

Total movies watched: 455

#sometimes elliott watches movies #year in review #two for the road #stop making sense #scattered clouds #l'atalante #daisies #the hero #malcolm x #beau travail #only angels have wings #closely watched trains

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scrabbleknight · 4 years

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Roleswap Owl House AU between Raven Lady Lilith and Leader of the Emperor's Coven Eda.

Lilith, at that particular night, decided not to curse Eda. But the magic had been cast and so, the curse went to her by accident. Despite that, Lilith decided not to tell Eda about it and chooses to suffer alone, living in the wilds in isolation (with King). Eda, however, was consumed by rage and sisterly love that she spent the rest of her life on a wild goose chase. She'd join the EC for this purpose alone and finding a cure for her sister's curse, slowly turning unfriendly and a loner.

Eda is still stronger than Lilith and since she's not cursed, that means stronger than ever. Lilith, on the other hand, lives in the middle of the woods like a hermit. However, Lilith spent her free time studying magic. The lack of responsibilities bei so she ultimately gets smarter and craftier over time. Eda, being busy with the Emperor's Coven and not fueled by jealousy, would not train as much. Power-wise, roleswap!Eda would be stronger than canon but skill-wise is less.

In the fight to save her student Luz, Lilith is the underdog. Eda could just spam powerful spells and can last longer, especially since Lilith is cursed. But her years of being behind the desk had made her rusty and Lilith takes advantage of that like some "David Vs Goliath" battle, beating her younger sister through the art of cheating and trickery.

#the owl house #edalyn clawthorne #lilith clawthorne #lilith the raven lady #toh au #the owl house au #roleswap au #toh

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letterboxd · 3 years

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A Leaf in a Stream.

The matriarchs of Minari—Youn Yuh-jung and Han Ye-ri—talk to Aaron Yap about chestnuts, ear-cleaning, dancing, Doctor Zhivago and their unexpected paths into acting.

A delicate cinematic braid that captures the sense of adventure, sacrifice and uncertainty of uprooting, Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari might be the closest approximation of my immigrant experience on the big screen yet. Sure, Arkansas is a world of difference from New Zealand. But those dynamics and emotional textures of a family in the process of assimilation—authentically realized by Chung—remain the same.

The film is a wonder of humane storytelling, with the American-born Chung encasing deeply personal memories in a brittle, bittersweet calibration that recalls the meditative, modest glow and touching whimsy of an Ozu or Kore-eda. As Jen writes, “To describe Minari? Being embraced in a long, warm hug.” Or perhaps, it’s like Darren says, “floating along peacefully like a leaf in a stream”.

Neither is alone in their effusive praise. Minari rapidly rose to the top of Letterboxd’s Official Top 50 of 2020, and by year’s end our community had crowned it their highest-rated film. Despite its cultural specificity—a Korean family shifting to the Ozarks in the 1980s—the film has transcended barriers and stolen hearts. Run director Aneesh Chaganty says, “I saw my dad. I saw my mom. I saw my grandma. I saw my brother. I saw me.” Iana writes, “Its portrayal of assimilation rang so true and for that, I feel personally attacked.” The versatile herb of the title, Kevin observes, is “a marker of home, of South Korea, but it can grow and propagate as long as there is water.”

Though a large portion of Minari was vividly drawn from Chung’s childhood, a few of the film’s most quietly memorable moments were contributions from its Korean-born cast.

Youn Yuh-jung as Soonja in ‘Minari’.

Veteran actress Youn Yuh-jung, who’s extraordinary as the visiting, wily grandmother Soonja, traces the origins of the scene where she cracks open a chestnut in her mouth and hands it to seven-year-old grandson David (Alan Kim), to her time living in America. “I’ve seen one grandmother visiting at the time—we don’t have chestnuts in Florida—she brought them all the way from Korea. Actually it was worse than the scene. My friend’s mother brought [the] chestnut. She chewed it and spit it out into a spoon and shared it with her grandson. Her husband was an Irishman. He was almost shocked. We didn’t do that, but I shared that kind of thing with Isaac.”

Most viewers watching this scene will likely recoil in horror, as David does, but co-star Han Ye-ri, playing Soonja’s daughter Monica, notes the practicality of the gesture: “If you give a big chunk to children they could choke on that, so it’s natural for them to do that for their children.”

In another brief, beautifully serene scene—one that is so rarely depicted in American cinema that it’s almost stunning—Monica is seen gently cleaning David’s ears. Han came up with the idea. “Originally it was cutting the nails for David,” she says. “Cleaning your wife and husband’s ears is such a common thing in Korea. Initially the producer or somebody from the production opposed the idea because they regarded it as dangerous, but because it is something that is so common in our daily lives I thought we should go with the idea.”

Neither actress comes from a traditional movie-oriented background. With no acting ambitions, Youn began her fifty-year career with a part-time job hunt that led her to distributing gifts to an audience at a TV station. “It was freshman year from college and they gave me pretty good money. So I thought, ‘Wow, that’s good!’.”

“I’m kind of ashamed about that, as nowadays all the kids plan their future,” she says. “When I talk to the younger generation, they start having dreams about being an actor in the sixth grade. In the sixth grade, I was just playing—nothing. I didn’t plan anything. [Laughs.]”

Han Ye-ri and Noel Kate Cho in ‘Minari’.

Before acting, Ye-ri trained as a professional dancer, and while she wasn’t specifically inspired by movies to cross over into acting, she was an avid film watcher in her formative years. “Working as an actress made me realize how many films I’ve seen growing up.”

“My first memory of a non-Korean-language film left such a strong impression on me, especially the ending,” she says. “The film is called Doctor Zhivago. I saw it on TV and not in theaters. The first film I saw in theaters was Beauty and the Beast. But even growing up I remember because Koreans love films so much they would have films on TV all the time. I watched a lot of TV growing up because both my parents were busy, and in retrospect that really helped become the basis of my career. [Laughs.]”

She also grew up “taking reference from Miss Youn’s body of work to study from, as did many other actresses”. Grateful for the opportunity to work with her on Minari, Ye-ri says, “On set working with her, it made me realize how wonderful it is that this person still carries her own distinct color and scent. And seeing her taking part in this production in a foreign country—she’s over 70—it just really encouraged me that I should be more fearless like her.” She adds: “One of the things that I really want to learn from her is her sense of humor but I think I’m going to have that for my next life. [Laughs.]”

As for Youn’s adventures in early movie-going, she recalls the first Korean film she saw with her father was the 1956 historical drama Ma-ui taeja, based on a popular Korean fairy tale. “I was so scared. I cried so my father had to take me out of the theater.”

“At [the] time, we always had to watch the news on the screen before the movie. It started with a national anthem and every audience from the theater would need to stand up and pledge to the Korean flag. It’s a very stupid thing for you guys but it was like that 60 years ago.”

Han Ye-ri as Monica in ‘Minari’.

For Minari fans who want to discover more of Youn’s work, she recommends starting with the first movie she made with the late, great director Kim Ki-young, Woman of Fire—a remake of his own 1962 Korean classic The Housemaid. “A long time ago I couldn’t see it. Of course I first saw it when it was shown at the theater back when I was twenty. But later on we had a retrospective, so I saw that movie 50 years later. Wow, he was very genius. I was very impressed. That time we had censorship and everything but with that crisis he made that film. That was a memorable movie to [me].”

Youn admits finding it difficult to be emotionally invested watching a film starring herself, including Minari. “It’s terrible, it’s killing me,” she says. “I always think about why I did this and that scene like that. I’m just criticizing every scene so I’m not enjoying it at all.”

Asked which films she enjoys, she offers: “Some other people’s movies like Mike Leigh and Kore-eda Hirokazu. Your Chinese movies I fell in love with. Zhang Yimou when he started. Then later on when he became a big shot, I don’t enjoy [them]. [Laughs.]”

During the shoot, members of the cast and crew caught Lulu Wang’s The Farewell, 2019’s powerful, heartfelt Chinese-American immigrant story. While Youn missed it (“I was just staying home trying to memorize the lines and resting”), Ye-ri watched with interest: “That film also had a grandmother character, so did ours, and these two are completely different. But at the same time from both films you can feel the warmth and thoughtfulness of grandmothers in different ways. To me they are both very lovely films.”

Of her recent viewings, Ye-ri reveals she found Soul made her as emotional as Minari did. “It made me look back at how I live and my day. It’s not necessarily for children but I think it’s a film for adults. [Pauses.] I’m Thinking of Ending Things. I love that film also.”

‘Minari’ is out now in select theaters across the US and other territories, with virtual screenings available to US audiences in the A24 screening room.

#minari #a24 #lee isaac chung #lulu wang #the farewell #hirokazu koreeda #Youn Yuh-jung #han ye-ri #han yeri #steven yeun #korean film #korean director #korean films #letterboxd

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disneytva · 4 years

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August 2020 Synopsis Highlights

Saturday, Aug. 1

Original Series – Episode Premiere on Disney Channel

Big City Greens “Friend Con/Flimflammed”

(8:00-8:22 P.M. EDT)

“Friend Con” – When the Greens attend Farm Con, Bill and Chip Whistler become friends.

*Darin De Paul (“Overwatch”) guest stars as Good Ol’ Joe, and Paul Scheer (“The League”) and Cheri Oteri (“Saturday Night Live”) return as Chip Whistler and Gwendolyn Zapp, respectively.

“Flimflammed” – Cricket stumbles into $100 and is persuaded to invest it.

TV-Y7

Original Series – Season Two Premiere on Disney Channel

Amphibia “Quarreler’s Pass/Toadcatcher”

(8:22-8:44 P.M. EDT)

“Quarreler’s Pass” – Hop Pop drops Sprig and Polly off at an obstacle-filled mountain trail designed to help them get along.

“Toadcatcher” – Sasha and Grime must reconcile their differences to escape Newtopia’s most skilled warrior, General Yunnan.

*Zehra Fazal (“Voltron: Legendary Defender”) guest stars as General Yunnan. Anna Akana (“Youth & Consequences”) returns as Sasha, Matt Jones (“Breaking Bad”) returns as Percy, and Troy Baker (“Young Justice”) returns as Grime.

TV-Y7

Original Series – Episode Premiere on Disney Channel

The Owl House “Really Small Problems”

(8:44-9:06 P.M. EDT)

King confides in a carnival fortuneteller who makes his dream come true, but it comes at a cost.

*Parvesh Cheena (“Outsourced”) returns as Tibbles.

TV-Y7 FV

Original Series – Episode Premiere on Disney Channel

Saturday August 8

The Owl House “Understanding Willow”

(9:06-9:28 P.M. EDT)

Luz, Willow and Amity take a trip down memory lane.

*Rachael MacFarlane (“American Dad!”) guest stars as Mrs. Blight, Amity’s mom.

Original Series – Episode Premiere on Disney Channel

Big City Greens “Greens’ Acres/Dolled Up”

(8:00-8:22 P.M. EDT)

“Greens’ Acres” – Young Bill will do whatever it takes to keep the family farm in business.

*Andre Robinson (“The Loud House”) guest stars as Young Bill, Candace Kozak (Disney Channel’s “Just Roll with It”) guest stars as Young Nancy, and Jason Maybaum (Disney Channel’s “Raven’s Home”) guest stars as Young Keys.

“Dolled Up” – When Tilly and Nancy celebrate Saxon’s birthday at a fancy doll store, they set their sights on a seat next to Cantaloupe Sinclair, the tea party’s posh VIP.

*Melissa Fumero (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine”) guest stars as Cantaloupe Sinclair. Wendi McLendon-Covey (“The Goldbergs”) returns as Nancy Green.

TV-Y7

Amphibia “Swamp and Sensibility/Wax Museum”

(8:22-8:44 P.M. EDT)

“Swamp and Sensibility” – When Anne discovers an old friend who has been living a double life, she becomes fixated on helping him be his true self.

*Kermit the Frog guest stars as Crumpet the Frog and Hugh Bonneville (“Downton Abbey”) guest stars as Wigbert.

“Wax Museum” – The family visits a mysterious roadside oddities museum where every treasure comes with a price.

*Alex Hirsch (Disney’s “Gravity Falls”) guest stars as The Curator and Frog Soos.

TV-Y7

Friday, Aug. 14

Original Series – Episode Premiere on Disney Channel

Puppy Dog Pals “Pups in the Apple/Won’t You Be My Puppy”

(9:30-10:00 A.M. EDT)

“Pups in the Apple” – On the morning of the Playcare bake sale, Bob is devastated when he can’t make his “Big Apple” pie because he’s out of apples.

“Won’t You Be My Puppy” – Bingo and Rolly go on a mission to find their favorite television host’s special sweater in time for his show.

*Malcolm-Jamal Warner (“The Resident”) guest stars as Floyd, a dog, and Chi McBride (“Hawaii Five-0”) returns as Mr. Kimble, a television host.

TV-Y

Saturday August 15

Original Series – Episode Premiere on Disney Channel

The Owl House “Enchanting Grom Fright”

(8:44-9:06 P.M. EDT)

Luz experiences Grom, Hexside’s version of Prom, and it’s not what she expects.

TV-Y7 FV

Original Series – Episode Premiere on Disney Channel

Big City Greens “Gabriella’s Fella/Cheap Show”

(8:00-8:22 P.M. EDT)

“Gabriella’s Fella” – When Cricket’s crush, Gabriella, returns, Remy seizes the opportunity to help push Cricket out of his comfort zone.

*Jenna Ortega (“You”) and Betsy Sodaro (“Duncanville”) return as Gabriella and Community Sue, respectively.

“Cheap Show” – The family wants to visit a street fair, but Bill wants to stay home to save money.

TV-Y7

Original Series – Episode Premiere on Disney Channel

Amphibia “Marcy at the Gates”

(8:22-8:44 P.M. EDT)

The family must defeat an entire ant army before they enter Newtopia.

*Haley Tju (“Bella and the Bulldogs”) guest stars as Marcy, Michelle Dockery (“Downton Abbey”) guest stars as Lady Olivia, and Keith David (“The Princess and the Frog”) guest stars as King Andrias.

TV-Y7

Original Series – Episode Premiere on Disney Channel

Saturday August 22

The Owl House “Wing it Like Witches”

(8:44-9:06 P.M. EDT)

Not your average underdog story.

Original Series – Episode Premiere on Disney Channel

Big City Greens “Green Mirror/Cricket’s Tickets”

(8:00-8:22 P.M. EDT)

“Green Mirror” – When the Greens visit BigTech, Tilly jumps at the chance to test Gwendolyn Zapp’s new technology, which promises to make them the “perfect family.”

“Cricket’s Tickets” – Cricket wins tickets to a show and must decide whether to bring Tilly or Remy.

*Lucy Lawless (“Xena: Warrior Princess”) and Tim Robinson (“Saturday Night Live”) guest star as Mimi O’Malley and Gregly, respectively.

TV-Y7

Original Series – Season Two Premiere on Disney Channel

Amphibia “Scavenger Hunt/The Plantars Check In”

(8:22-8:44 P.M. EDT)

“Scavenger Hunt” – Anne, Sprig and Marcy receive a mysterious message from the king of Newtopia that sends them on a puzzle-solving mission.

*Nicole Byer (“Loosely Exactly Nicole”) guest stars as Gertie. Haley Tju (“Bella and the Bulldogs”) returns as Marcy.

“The Plantars Check In” – Anne finally meets with King Andrias and tries to enlist his help in getting back home.

*Kristen Schaal (“Disney’s “Gravity Falls”) guest stars as Bella the Bellhop. Keith David (“The Princess and the Frog”) returns as King Andrias.

TV-Y7

Saturday August 29

Original Series – Episode Premiere on Disney Channel

The Owl House “Agony of a Witch”

(8:44-9:06 P.M. EDT)

On a school field trip to the mysterious Emperor’s Castle, Luz strays from the group and into danger.

Original Series –

The Owl House “Young Blood, Old Souls” Season One Finale on Disney Channel

(8:44-9:06 P.M. EDT)

Luz’s skills as a witch are put to the test when she attempts the impossible.

*Matthew Rhys (“The Americans”) guest stars as Emperor Belos alongside series cast members Wendie Malick (“Just Shoot Me!”), Sarah-Nicole Robles (“Star Darlings”) and Alex Hirsh (“Gravity Falls”) as Eda, Luz and King, respectively. Season One Finale on Disney Channel

TV-Y7 FV

Big City Greens “Times Circle/Super Gramma”

(8:00-8:22 P.M. EDT)

“Times Circle” – Tilly and Remy put on a sidewalk play while Cricket and Bill meet their favorite costumed superheroes.

“Super Gramma” – Cricket and Tilly try to keep Gramma at home while she recovers from eye surgery.

*Sandy Martin (“Ray Donovan”) guest stars as Gertie.

TV-Y7

Original Series – Season Two Premiere on Disney Channel

Amphibia “Lost in Newtopia/Sprig Gets Schooled”

(8:22-8:44 P.M. EDT)

“Lost in Newtopia” – Anne and Polly vow to experience the city like locals but end up on a wild ride through the streets of Newtopia.

“Sprig Gets Schooled” – Sprig is offered a spot at Newtopia University.

Sunday, Aug. 30

Original Series – Episode Premiere on Disney Junior

Fancy Nancy “Trois Cheers for Mrs. Devine/Escar-No!”

(12:00–12:30 P.M. EDT)

“Trois Cheers for Mrs. Devine” – When Mrs. Devine gets the blues, Nancy becomes determined to cheer her up.

*Christine Baranski (“The Good Fight”) returns as Ms. Devine.

“Escar-No! ” – Nancy questions her love of all things French when she encounters French food for the first time

Friday, Aug. 28

Original Series – Episode Premiere on Disney Channel

Mira, Royal Detective “The Mystery of the Secret Room/The Mystery of the Magnificent Musicians”

(8:30-9:00 A.M. EDT)

“The Mystery of the Secret Room” – When Mira and her friends get stuck in a hidden room in the palace, it’s up to her to find a way out.

“The Mystery of the Magnificent Musicians” – When some of the townspeople’s musical instruments go missing before a big music jam, Mira must find out what happened.

*Danny Pudi (“DuckTales”), Parvesh Cheena (“Outsourced”) and Sonal Shah (“Scrubs”) return as Sanjeev, Manish and Poonam, respectively.

TV-Y

Sunday, Aug. 23

Original Series – Episode Premiere on Disney Junior

Elena of Avalor “Coronation Day”

(7:00-8:30 P.M. EDT)

As plans for Elena’s coronation are underway, Esteban’s team of villains unleash legendary spirit misfits, the Four Shades of Awesome. In order to save her kingdom, her family and her friends, Elena must journey to the Spirit World and back and face the ultimate test of her courage and character before becoming queen.

*Jenny Slate (“Muppet Babies”), Mark Hamill (“Star Wars” franchise), Fred Armisen (“Saturday Night Live”) and Andy Garcia (“Ocean’s Eleven”) guest star as the Four Shades of Awesome, and Patrick Warburton (“The Tick”) voices Grand Macaw, ruler of the dark side of the Spirit World.

TV-Y

#Amphibia #The Owl House #Owl House #Big City Greens #BCG #Puppy Dog Pals #Puppy Dog Tails #Elena Of Avalor #Mira Royal Detective #Fancy Nancy #Disney's Fancy Nancy #Disney Channel #Disney Junior #Disney Jr

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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The Loud House Reviews: The Boss Maybe/ Family Bonding

Loud House weekly coverage continues as Leni is pushed into the deep end of responsiblity and taking over Lori’s old role of babysitter while her parents are gone and promptly drowns in a sea of comedy clubs, human body parts both on screen and in the fridge, old men in holes and indoor beach volley ball.

First things first: Last week I forgot to mention Rusty’s mustache freezing off as god, wether it be the judeo-christian god, Odin, that prick Zeus, the flying spagehtti monster or one of many other gods out there. Perhaps all of them did it at once out of hatred for the little weiner. Maybe one of them finally answered my prayers which in that case, that was nice and all but there are far worse things going on i’d prefer you took care of. Also the “stuff I couldn’t fathom” turned out to be just more loudcest, because of course it did. Loudcest is like David Spade, you think it’s finally gone or isn’t doing as much but then it comes around and makes the wrong missy and you waste 90 minutes of your life thinking i’td be so bad it’s good when it’s really just boring and a waste of it’s main actress talent. I lost track of that metaphor, but Loudcest is like david spade in that people like it for reasons I can’t fathom and it hasn’t quietly faded into the background for reasons I can’t fathom, though at least david spade was funny once. So maybe Loudcest isn’t like david spade. or maybe i’ve been taking too long with this bit.

But whlie last week was a bit wonky it also had a lot to setup.. but now it’s time to see what the show does with all the setup over, and a lot of new possiblities ahead. PItter Patter!

The Boss Maybe Ah now this is exactly what I was hoping for this season. New situations brought about by the year-up and all the changes it brought, with the same old heart and humor and character progression that drew me back into the show. This is the kind of episode i love and have talked about in the past and dosen’t fall into any of the shows usual pitfalls in the process. Just great. I could end it there but I haven’t shut up before why do it now. So this episode focuses on Leni who I talked about a bit last week and easily had the best plot and in general tends to have good episodes, both before and after the show became an ensemble piece, and even in episodes without her tends to slide in just fine. She’s always a nice breath of fresh air when she shows up.

I think that’s due to a number of things. For one it’s how sweet a person she is: She’s genuinely nice, kind and well meaning. While she is dumb as a box of rocks that resemble Pauly Shore, what I like is her stupidity isn’t malicious, or overused for misery. She causes comical injuries from time to time with it but she’s quick to apologize iff she realises it and usualyly has no ill will to anybody unless provoked or fighting Lori over a dress despite them wearing the same clothes all the time. I know standard animation thing but it’s always weird to me when shows with a stock outfit for a character have a fashionista, and prefer when shows have stylish characters actually change outfits like Kim Possible did with it’s title character, Xiaolin Showdown did with Kimiko and of all things LIttlest Petshop did with Blythe. Granted Blythe is a nothing of a character but still, credit where it’s due. But I do get this is also a nick show and they givet hem the budget of 50 cents and a network memo that says “BEG US FOR MORE MONEY” written in blood, so fair enough.

That aside she’s just plesant to watch. The other factor is Liliana Mumy. If you haven’t heard of her , she’s a vetran voice actress whose been doing this on and off since she was a kid, voicing Panini on chowder as a child and later going on to voice Beth in bravest warriors among other roles. Why she only does work so ocasionaly I have no idea but when she does she’s great. She’s also the son of fellow child actor BIll Mumy, aka the guy who as a kid played Anthony Fremont from the Twilight Zone classic “It’s A Good Life”, which if you haven’t seen it is about a small child who has the power of a god and thus can banish people who are “bad”, i.e. disobey him and thus rules over a small town as a creepy and cruel despot. Oh and he can read minds so if you dare to have a thought he dosen’t like your getting banished, with no telling what that means or where anyone disappeared goes. It’s good stuff. Highly recommend it, Mumy is absolutley terrifing and a brilliant actor even at that age and I wish he’d done more as an adult. I also bring it up because Lily played his daughter when they did a sequel episode during the UPN version of the show, set decades later and showing just what the little terror was like grown up... as well as what happens when his DAUGHTER gets the power. It was also really good and worth a watch after the first one. Good stuff.

TLDR: Leni is one of my faviorites, so’s her voice actress, i’ve rambled enough about unrelated stuff at this point.

We open at the mall, where for Leni life begins after schol, that’s when we bend all the rules time to hang with all her friends in the place where she belongs!

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I mean technically she’s 17 now, but she was 16 when she started this job and none of them were 16 by the time the show ended so nyeh. This started in season 3 when the show started giving the girls not just their own stories but their own supporting casts., storylines, love intrests etc. Luna and Luaan got their romance plots with Sam and Benny, Lori got her college plot towards the end of the season, Lynn’s friends started showing up in her plots more, Luna’s mortuariy club went from assorted background friends of hers to a full fleged supporting crew, and of course Lincoln’s friend group started to become a recurring part of his plots away from his sisters.

For Leni, being one of the only three kids that could legally work at the time, another possible plot to dig into, and with Luna having way less incentive to get a 9-5 job with her music to work on and the fact we’ve seen her use said music to make money once in a blue moon, Leni was a good choice. It gave her something she was good at besides fashion, even if it’s fashion adjacent and gave us a new supporting cast for those stories: Her boss Mrs. Redinger, your standard “i’m tough by fair” type, and her new friends Fiona and Miguel, two fellow fashion savy teens played by actors i’d never heard of but who do a damn good job and play off her well, with both being a bit sarcastic but Fiona being a bit more mopey and deadpan and Miguel being a possibly but defintely gay teen. Both play off her well by being more down to earth and more wiling to be negative, but still enjoyable enough to be around you can buy them being friends with Leni and their a stellar addition to the cast. I wish, much like we’ve gotten with Liam lately, we could see more of them outside leni stories. Their a treat.

But I really like Leni’s work there. Besides the cast it puts Leni in a role of responsiblity she excels at. My only real problem is her boyfriend, maybe I dunno, Chaz, one of the ONLY love intrests from l is for love to get mentioned again and one of the more intresting ones, never shows up despite also working at hte mall and the story potetial of them working for rival stores or the same store. I mean I can’t blame them for not throwing another love intrest on the pile when they had two ongoing romance plots, but now both Luna and Luann are on steady ground with their steadies, it’s time to pull that trigger, get off hte ground and eat that horse. Also let LIncoln have one again will ya? It dosen’t have to be stella but Girl Jordan is right there, i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again.. where is she. And if not her just make one you’ve proven to actually be really good at it.

Where was I? Ah yes the mall. Leni is doing great at her job, suggesting some gloves to scoots, who ceases being skeptical when a hunky younger man of 30 something compliments her on them them chases off after him. If you don’t remember who scoots was that’s the old lady on a scooter who makes troulbe and appareltly can still get it. Good for her. Granted this is coming from someone who ships eda and stan pines still even though it’s now revealed she’s 30 but... frankly I don’t think age is a concern with her and stan can make this joke, so it evens out.

I mean he would right? I”m getting off topic even more than usual, point is Leni is doing great and her boss takes her to the break room for cake room... it’s just the one cake but can you imagine a cake room? that’s the life. Just a fridgerated room full of cake.

Turns out she’s EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH. And she didn’t have to chain squidward to an ancient battle ship to get it or anything. After some confusion, Fiona has to clarify it’s NOT her birthday because of course she does, Leni is proud. Full of cake and pride she tells her mom whose decided to reward her good job at work.. by dumping a bunch of respnosiblity on her. I kid. Rita is being somewhat resonable here. She asks Leni to take over Lori’s old role of babysitting/making sure the other 10, now 9 kids don’t burn the house down... no really she actually specifies that when leaving in the next scene. Which.. fair enough.. you have 11 kids, all likely to plug in a lot of stuff especially Luna and Lisa, said Lisa is a mad scientest who ends up nearly being the one to do it this time, Lynn has no common sense, and the younger ones who aren’t mad scientst are still reckless and vain and combattive respectivley so the odds of a house fire nearly breaking out on any given night are 1:1. But Leni in a show of self doubt that’s rare for her is scared (Though her revealing that by answering a question of how she’d feel about about babysitting the kids with “Scared” was fucking gold. I swear Lily’s deliveries are always so great. ), and while Rita assures her she’s not sure. But as I said, she is being resonable: While Leni’s not the brightest she’s kind, she’s been shown even before her recent major award she’s responsible, she’s babysat for other people’s kids, and she’s kind. I mean they COULD put Luna or Luaan in charge but while when I first read the preview blurb for this episode I was cuirous why they didn’t think of that or thought they would, this episode does a good job presenting WHY they’d do it, while other episodes fill in the gaps: Luna is a bit reckless and Luaan can get caught up in her bidness and as we know once a week goes through the green door and comes out a gamma monster fuled by the sound of her own laughter, a horrible mixture of the joker and madman.. the leader’s insane brother. I’m a huge nerd, you all know this. Leni is the right choice.

Despite her nerves Leni has little choice but to take it on and Mr. Loud proudly sees her out with ye olde english as he and Rita, with lily in a cute little knight’s helmet in tow, are going to a renisance fair to cater, with Lynn Sr needing the backup. And while you may say “what about his staff”.. their either going with and he just needs an extra pair of hands since it’ll be nuts, or some of them are staying behind to man Lynn’s Table while he’s out on his catering gig. I mean the man has plenty of time for his kids, he’s not at the restraunt 24 hours a day. Someone else has to run it when he’s gone. I asked internally why they didn’t just take them along.. then reminded myself that taking all 11 kids to the faire at once, without anyone to watch them and likely having to call in favors when jsuta s likely, Lynn Sr and Rita can take them all another day with presumibly free passes as part of the catering job as that sounds like the kinda thing he’d do. Also Senior’s into scarf’s now thanks to Leni, which I love. Looks good on him. Hank should give her a call. Ascots may be out but I think he could rock a scarf. I’ve had ventures on the brain. What follows is naturally Leni having several panic attacks as chaos naturally insues btu without Lori’s lifetime of experince dealing with it. IT’s a nice dynamic: Leni, as we’ve established, has always been sort of Lori’s sidekick, her best friend, her amigo. Sure they fight, siblings do that, but they’ll always be there for each other when it counts. SHe’s never really had to THINK without her or be without her, so throwing her into the deep end of taking care of the kids really leaves her shook. It’s a HARD job, it’s probably why the louds don’t bring in babysitters often: there are 11 kids to look after, 10 now and only 9 tonight but still a LOT of them and most of htem pretty high maintince. It was just easier with Lori because she grew up knowing each of them, knowing each of their weaknesses and putting the fear of her righteous wrath into them. They’ve spent their whole lives looking up to her, literally and figuratvely, as their big sister and respecting her as the biggest authority in the house that’s nto her parents, sometimes bigger. Those aren’t just big shoes to fill , their Galactus size and that combined with her big sister worship leaves Leni understandably scared, lost and frequently paralized with anxiety this episode. No really multiple times she just freezes and one times she screams. As someone with Anxiety disorder I related to this.. sometimes you either just break down or you just FREEZE from the stress and everything hitting you at once and have no idea how to progress while people are still barking at you to do something. It’s a lot but it was a nice touch that really added to her sympathy. And her anxiety is also understandable when she’s being hit with 80 problems at once, which i’ll tackle all at once here rather than in order as this episode has a really frentic and good pace: while it follows the formula of “Leni runs into a problem, Leni freezes, then Leni gets help from Lori twice hten mr.grouse, more on that in am inute”, the quick pace and great jokes help keep things from feeling too repetivie.

Anyways the chaos: Just from the start Lucy puts a possibly human liver in the fridge, Lana eats all the cookies then gets skunked by her pet skun, and Lola and Lynn get into a fight over 5 bucks Lynn found, and since Leni can’t just let one kill the other as nature intended she has to fix all this.. mostly by removing the smell with tomato juice and scaring off the skunk and cutting the dolar bill in half. Money dosen’t work that way as both sisters point out but frankly it’s Lola and Lynn, I don’t care who they feel.

Meanwhile two of my other faviorties get into a tiff over their room: Luaan turns it into a comedy club and kicks luna out, with Scoots and her new man returning. Again, get it girl, get it, and Leni, under Lori’s advice, pretneding to be a fire marshall.. only for Luna towarsd the end to turn it into her own rock club. Lisa creates a corossive super substance that burns a hole in the floor, Lana continues to grapple with the skunk and finally Lincoln and Clyde.. watch a scary movie despite Lucy’s warnings.. and Lucy does something else.. I think? It was a chaotic episode with a lot of set pieces so forgive me if I forgot one of them. Honestly she’s the most well behaved there.But yeah as per the cliche Lincoln and Clyde, after Leni gets the wifi fixed with Mr. Grouse’s help, they get super scared and freaked. Everyomne is freaking, the house is falling apart and Senior wants permission to wear a pinky ring via thought cloud.. which.. no man no. Scarves yes but no one looks good with a pinky ring. No one. And I say that as amporphous blob covered in hair, sweat and regrets.

As for how Leni deals with all this she leans on Lori, calling her twice, but at inportune times: during a golf game and at the library where said phone gets taken. Granted, I don’t get why she didn’t have it on silent, as I would in those situations, but then we wouldn’t have an excuse to include her and it feels necessary to show WHY Lori can’t just help all night or reassure her sister and with Lori gone the panic only intensifies. As I said she gets paralized with fear and later just outright screams.. which attracts an irate Mr Grouse, the next door neighbor who I need to watch more of’s episodes. Including 12 louds of leapin.. I know i’m way overdue on that. This december. Promise.

The old man who yells at Louds helps for a bit, helping get rid of a beach Lynn set up because she’s lynn, she has the consderation of a puppy, but eventually falls in a hole like most great heroes and most elderly people. I mean the ones up the street at the retierment home must fall in once a week. They get out of course because the assitant living mole lets them ride out as it digs into the walls. Or maybe that was just a hallucination. Eventually though the start at her job comes back as she calls the only people she has left for help: Fiona and Miguel, who are at the mall in chairs because of courser they are, and both are confused why she’s so helpless: She’s fantastic at work, she’s kind, confident and smart.. about certain things, she can do this. Besides helping her confidence with this really sweet moment they also give her a good tool for how to use said confdience from work: just treat her siblings as customers. It’s also a nice call back to how we’ve seen Leni learn way back in season 1 during “Driving Miss Hazy” we’ve seen that she can have troulble grasping things, but when you put it in terms she understands, like fashion, or shopping, or in this case helping customers with their issues, she snaps into it. She learns at her own pace in her own way, it’s why I think sh’es neurotypical, and possibly ont he spectrum like yours truly: while her stupidity isn’t part of that the unqiue way she processes things has me supscious. either way it works.

So with a new strategy Leni.. literally adresses them like shoppers, which is comedy gold. However it’s a valid strategy: besides the visualation part by getting them to form a line, instead of trying to handle 2 or 3 problems at once she simply handles them one at a time: She scares the skunk off again, shuts down both competing clubs in the older kids room, uses water to take out lisa’s universal solvant, gives Lola and Lynn 5 bucks instead of just cutting a ten in half this time, and in the sweetest moment of the episode, reads Clyde and Lincoln a childrens book to clam them down. Sure it’s a bit funny but their genuine relief and all threes adorable expressions really melt the heart.

Leni finally wins, just as her parents get home and congradulate her, Rita’s faith not misplaced. While Rita probably knew it’d be an adjustment, and frankly should’ve prepped her sooner, she knows her daughter and knows waht sh’es caapable of. Also Senior brought home meet and gives leni a turkey leg who gives it to the old man who now lives in a hole inside their house. That’s his home now. Mr Grouse is just there now. Or I wish he was. But I guess you can’t always get what you want epsecially if it’s an old man living in a hole in the loud’s living room. Someday. Final thoughts for The Boss Maybe: As you could easily tell I loved this one. Funny with a hell of an emotional core, and with great pacing espeially for a loud house episode, this was a joy to watch and easily one of the best episodes the show has done. Just a funny, breezy watch with a lot of subtext, intetional or not, regarding what we’ve seen of Leni and honestly i’m going to go with intetional. It felt really rooted in who Leni is, her relationship with lori, and her work without hitting you over the head with it. It just all flowed really well and made for a hard one to top for the season this early. I’m impressed and it gives me hope for the rest of the season.

Family Bonding

This one was.. okay. As i’ve learned the hard way from doing Amphibia when an episodes just okay it’s best to breeze through it.. but I can give it this. While it’s mostly a standard loud house episode the ending.. wasn’t predictable. That’s for sure. I mean.. it left me with only one thought really...

But i’m getting ahead of myself. The episode’s plot is standard for the most part: Lincoln’s obessed with a new spy comic book about a james bond expy.. okay so that’s what Sterling Archer did besides physical therapy for the three months between his waking up and Season 11. Anyways they soon get more exciting news from Lynn. New Neighbors! Before Rita can stop them, the rest of her family tramples over her and goes to make their aqunatince and of course be a bit overbaring with it before Rita rushes in with a spray bottle to spray them like a bad dog because frankly when your dealing with 11 people most of whom are really impuslive, sometimes dog training just works. You try raising eleven kids and see how long before your brain breaks. Anyways after introductions and the mom turning down cherry pie, you monsters, lincoln sees strange flashing lights and a device and is convinced something is up and unable to convince his family and on a spy kick, recurits clyde. Now why he dosen’t call on Stella and Zach I dunno. And yes I said Zach and not my boy Liam. I have my reasons: Stella, besides being a faviorite of mine, is a tech whiz as shown in one of the comics and in the cookie episode, and Liam is already a paranoid conspiracy nut and as we’ve seen with Dale Gribble, they can be suprisingly useful. I mean Dale is not the best on common sense but he knows goverment bilaws in and out, is skilled with a gun or a bag of pocket sand, and has danny trejo’s octavio, whose basically danny but as hired muscle instead of a master actor, on speed dial. I mean we don’t know if Zach dosen’t have a danny trejo on speed dial or not. We never asked. As for the other two while I love LIam, spying just dosen’t seem to be in his sizeable skill set and Rusty.. well rusty’s about as subtle as a man covered in screeching cats he glued to himself blowing an airhorn, while screaming the script to a micheal bay movie while doing the explosion noises himself.. which Rusty has probbbly done. The real thing i’m getting at is I don’t get why, outside of Clyde and LIam, the writers think when LIncoln has an epiosde it either just needs ot be ClyncolnMcCloud or the ENTIRE group, when one or two would do the trick. YOu CAN seperate them out. People do hang out with diffrent friends at diffrent times. I know the show’s grasp on reality is tenous at best, we got to that last week with the whole one teacher for core classes thing with schooled and this week.. again we’ll get to it in a second, but friends DO hang out seperate. We saw each member of the Lincrew, minus stella because she didn’t exist yet, doing their own thing in Racing Hearts. It’s not that complicated. It’s hard to flesht hem out when their used as one solid unit and not unresonable to just use one or two. it’s a lesson I hope the show learns eventually and hope it’s sister show learns too.

But yeah our dynamic duo spend the episode as youd’ expect; unraveling conspriacies and stalking the new family, though there are some funny bits. Besides Rita squirting her family like a cat or a dog, we have flip getting half his face shaved by a survelince drone and okay maybe just those two things. not bad bits, but the general concept of them roleplaying into mischief.. has been done before. The show’s done the detective bit before and the spy trappings really don’t change that. And you CAN do a good spy takeoff episode, this one just sin’t it and feels like your standard LIncoln and Clyde messaround with tuxedos. Which to be fair are pretty awesome but still. It’s pretty flat. The climax though? I’ll give it this.. it’s pretty entertainngi if also 100% what exactly the fuck. So our heroes are naturally caught sneaking into the neighbors house and its eems they were wrong, etc etc, exactly what we expected the new kid will hang around.. at least we have a new character. Instead.. LIncoln accidently hits a knob and unveils a panel

So yeah... turns out the new family ARE spies, just for Peach Growers and plan to wipe out all cherries in royal woods. Yup.. look I know this universe is patently insane but even for loud house, even with all of lisa’s super science... even with the slapstick but this is just.. nuts. Like i’m fine with suspending my disbelif, this show is a goofy comedy, but this is a bit much. I LOVE it for being nuts but only in a “what on spagehtti monster’s green earth were you thinking”. I get swinging for the fences but Lincoln getting into a fight with a bunch of spies after playing spy, well beating them with slapsticks and stopping their plot to elmitie cherries..t his isn’t Kids Next Door. This just.. dosen’t work. Jeff Goldblum tell em why, my brains too broken to articulate this anymore

Yeah that. It’s just a weird climax and ends iwth LIncoln vetting the new neighbors.. which does it include girl jordon? Did they just write her out? If so why? Fans liked her, you can have more than one female character in Lincoln’s friend group. Zach is replacable. You can give me whatever the fuck this was, but not an intresting friend for him who has personality already. I get 50% chad but not your decision making. Gah.

Final Thoughts for .. this. one This one really didn’t work. Besides the ending just not fitting the series specific brand of ludicrous, I mentioned KND for a reason as it made this sort of plot work fine by having it’s whole unvierse be really fucking weird and specific, it’s mostly just okay. We’ve seen this before.. well okay I haven’t watched many of the Lincoln and Clyde messarounds, but the formula’s about the same. And that dosen’t work. For one you have a HUGE swath of new possiblities: A new school, Chandler coming back, new teachers and faculity, a new principal, and Lynn and LIncoln being in the same school, and you instead just.. retread the same crap. you have 4 of lincoln’s friends other than clyde to use but don’t let them in on the fun. And most agrivating to me you move new neighbors into the neighborhood while neglecting some of your old supporting cast and have them be villians of the week instead of adding someone NEW to the neighborhood. Give one of the other kids a new friend, or give lincoln a new friend to add to his group and replace liam, shake up the dynamic with him and clyde bya dding a third or, most obviously move one of his friends INTO the neighborhood, most obviously stella since you spent so much time building her up then have her addition affect Lincoln and Clyde. Sure we’ve had an episdoe of one of his friends getting in the way of them before, but this would be diffrent. This episode is just.. not great and was a waste of my time, espespcailly after following such a stellar episode. It’s probablyt he first genuinely bad episode i’ve covered on this blog. Now that probably won’t stand, i’ve seen genuiley worse but.. as a wise penguin once said.

One last note. That Young Dylan graphic is really obnoxiou and obtrusive. It’s the second most obnoxious thing i’ve seen on this network.

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I”m out for this week. If you want more check out my Amphibia reviews, as I just finished a new one today, my other loud house reviews in the newly minted nickelodeon tab or other stuff on my other tabs, send me an ask for reviews you’d like to see or pay me to review whatver you want for 5 bucks via direct message. And check this blog Monday for the return of weekly Ducktales coverage, and next weekend for the next episode of loud house, and throughotu the week for more reviews. Until we meet again, GO TEAM VENTURE!. Play us out Mary Kate Wiles. If nothing else this episode let me use this song.

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clockworkouroboros · 4 years

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No I Didn’t Start An EDAs Reread: Vampire Science by Jon Blum and Kate Orman

Love this book. It’s I think widely considered a decent book, which is a shame, because it’s a whole lot more than that. Later in the EDAs (especially with Compassion and Anji), you get a lot of high-quality stories. Here in the beginning, you don’t, so you really appreciate the enjoyable stories when they show up. That being said, Vampire Science is as good a book as they come, and would hold up as being a great, well-written story in the middle of peak EDAs. It’s by Jon Blum and Kate Orman, who together and separately have written some of my favorite Doctor Who books: Unnatural History, The Year of Intelligent Tigers, Fallen Gods. (I haven’t yet gotten to Kate’s VNAs, but I have it on good authority that The Left-Handed Hummingbird is outstanding.) Basically, these are good writers.

Some things you can expect in Vampire Science:

-TV movie Eight dialed up to eleven. He’s adorable, he’s spontaneous, he loves getting involved with people and being close to them, he’s magic. -A large cast of memorable characters. Aside from Eight and Sam, there’s Carolyn, James, Adrienne Kramer, Joanna, David Shackle, Abner, Slake. Even aside from this list of main (or very close to main) characters, there are secondary characters who you at least remember, even if they aren’t all that important to the plot. There are a lot of people, but it’s easy to keep track of who’s who, and more importantly, to care about them. -Eight with kittens. They love him. This isn’t important but I appreciate blorman for including it. -the villain is an over-the-top melodramatic idiot with a Nietzsche collection. He, deservingly, gets mocked by every other character. -This book is fast-paced, by turns funny, heartfelt, and terrifyingly intense. -almost every chapter title is a pun in some way. -Sam isn’t annoying. Trust me, this is a big deal in the early EDAs. Writers struggle to write an idealistic teenager without turning her into an annoying caricature, apparently.

The long and short of this book is that blorman is really great at writing the Eighth Doctor. They have some fascinating ideas about his character that I really vibe with, and this is a great way to introduce his character.

Some screenshots under the cut! (Not as many as I wish I had, I didn’t have the presence of mind to take any until pretty far along.)

#emily reads the edas #doctor who eu #edas #eighth doctor #sam jones

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faline-cat444 · 3 years

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So 2000

The relative has taken to watching reruns of Just Shoot Me.If you aren’t sure what that is then here’s the answer...It’s a sitcom where two members of the cast are played by David Spade and Wendie Malick.Likely known better to the Disney types thanks to a crazy little movie known as The Emperor’s New Groove.

Previously I mentioned an internal conflict on if I’ll interpret Malick as being more of Chicha or Eda and with only having seen four full Owl House episodes as of however long it’s now technically been out and even if the show technically has her regularly talking to Kuzco...I think the Owl Lady won the battle.

#Just Shoot Me #Disney #The Emperor's New Groove #The Owl House #Owl House

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chiseler · 5 years

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Little Devils: 50 Years of Killer Kid Movies

Face it, children are just plain creepy—especially the really cute ones.

Historically—and I’m talking about going back thousands of years—we’ve always been scared to death of the children we’ve spawned. Before they’re born we worry they might be physically deformed or just a little off in the head somehow. And after they’re born and as they start to grow and think and talk, hoo boy, that’s when things really start getting scary, as you start to glean a little something about what’s going on behind those cold, staring eyes. I’m not a parent myself, but having been a kid once I fully understand the panic and fear that can grip parents as they come to better understand their kids. What if they’re no good at sports? What if they start hanging out with a bad crowd and using drugs? What if they get bullied by the other kids and take revenge by shooting up the school? Worse still, what if they decide to bludgeon us to death with a crowbar in our sleep one night? What if they turn out to be the bona fide offspring of Satan himself? What the hell do we do then? Sure, we all pretend to be shocked and dismayed when we hear news stories about some eight-year-old in Kansas or Oregon stabbing the little neighbor girl twenty times for no apparent reason, but let’s be honest—we all know what these pint-sized miscreants are capable of doing, and have simply come to expect it.

As with a few of those other fundamental adult fears, like asteroids, nuclear war, clowns and deadly plagues, over the years our fear of children has led to its own unheralded cinematic subgenre of Killer Kid movies.

While countless slasher films from Halloween onwards feature tykes with butcher knives who grow up to become adults with butcher knives, I’m focusing here on those films in which the snot-nosed killers remain snot-nosed throughout. While I could have included those rambunctious hobo youths from William Wellman’s Wild Boys of the Road (1933), those little back-to-nature wastrels from Lord of the Flies (1963) and the matricidal zombie girl with the trowel from George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968), I, um, didn’t. So sue me.

Here’s a quick chronological list of a double handful of notable features about murderous children. It’s interesting to note that as the years pass, the films themselves seem to grow less clever, endearing, original and interesting. Just like kids!

The Bad Seed (1956)

I’ve long been a big fan of that Mervyn LeRoy. As a director, he always understood the darker side of human nature, and had a sly sense of humor about it. In 1931 he directed my two favorite (and two of the bleakest) Edward G. Robinson pictures, Five-Star Final and Two Seconds. Then eight years later he directed The Wizard of Oz. I always like to think (though I’m undoubtedly wrong about this) he intended his 1956 creeper The Bad Seed as a kind of bonk on the head to those audience members who hadn’t recognized the darkness that lay at the heart of The Wizard of Oz.

Okay, Nancy Kelly plays Christine, the nightmare-plagued mother of the world’s most perfect little girl. Not only is blonde, pigtailed and always immaculately dressed Rhoda (Patty McCormack) perfect, the ten-year old knows she’s perfect. As a perfect child, she also knows what she deserves out of life and those around her, and lord help anyone who doesn’t cough it up. As time goes on, Christine begins to suspect Rhoda may somehow be responsible for the tragic drowning of a classmate who’d recently won an award Rhoda felt she rightly deserved. And if she was responsible for that, maybe she was responsible for all those other weird deaths that have been happening all over town, too. And what the hell’s the deal with that recurring nightmare, anyway?

Although based on a stage play that was itself based on a novel, it was LeRoy’s film that would become the standard reference point and template for so many of the Killer Kid movies down the line, though few would come close to matching it.

Village of the Damned 1960

John Wyndham was a reasonably popular pulp writer in the 1930s. While his crime stories gained him the most attention at the time, these days he’s best remembered for his occasional forays into sci-fi and horror. Day of the Triffids, his end-of-the-world masterpiece about killer plants (a personal phobia) was a major hit when adapted for the big screen, but his cautionary evil kid tale Village of the Damned had a much longer reach after director Wolf Rilla got ahold of it.

Yes, we all know the story: one day everyone living in a small English village falls asleep at the same time for some unknown reason. When they awaken several hours later, all the women of child-bearing age (even the virgins!) find they’re pregnant. Weirder still, they all go into labor at exactly the same time.

Ten years later, all the kids born that day have turned out to be extremely intelligent, blond, beautiful, and emotionless. Snappy dressers though they may be, they’re also arrogant little snots who have no time for adults or other kids, and only hang out with one another all the time. They also seem to share a psychic connection, and there are hints they have some larger purpose in mind. Anyone who tries to interfere with them gets the creepy glowing eyes treatment shortly before unexpectedly committing suicide. George Sanders at the top of his game plays a rational sort who tries to get to the Bottom of what all the hell,

It remains a starkly eerie and atmospheric picture that to this day can still make you want to punch blond British pre-teens right in the face.

The film went on to spawn one lesser sequel (1964’s Children of the Damned), one superior sort-of sequel (Joseph Losey’s 1962 These Are the Damned), a 1995 remake directed by Jon Carpenter, and a Simpsons parody. My favorite bit of cultural impact, however, is that some of your more out-there paranoids have worked Village of the Damned into the Montauk Project conspiracy, claiming beautiful, blond alien/human hybrids were created in the secret government labs in the caves beneath Montauk, Long Island. These Montauk Children, as they’re called, were set out into the world as sleeper agents (though most settled in Denver for some reason), and to this day are awaiting their secret orders from above.

The Twilight Zone: “It’s a Good Life” (1961)

It was included as one of the segments in Twilight Zone: The Movie, but good as that was, there’s just no topping the original. And there’s no topping the original because back in the early Sixties Billy Mumy was the creepiest kid on the planet. Rod Serling clearly recognized this, which is why he kept casting him.

Little Anthony Freemont (Mumy) lives in a pleasant small town where everyone knows him and everyone’s really nice to him. I mean really, really, REALLY nice to him,. And they’re really nice because over time they’ve come to realize that even if he doesn’t opt to simply blink them out of existence if they don’t do what he says, he has the power to make incredibly awful things happen to them. Even thinking bad things about Anthony isn’t such a hot idea. Things aren’t any better in the Freemont household, where his terrified parents (John Larch and Cloris Leachman) have to walk on eggshells out of fear he might do something else to his siblings, or them. )“It’s a…very GOOD thing that you did that…”)

It remains one of the most delightfully wicked and true portraits of just how terrified adults are of kids, and just how sinister kids can be.

Interestingly, Mumy apparently also had this power in real life, later going on to have a big hit with the novelty song, “Fish Heads.”

The Other (1972)

Kids alone are creepy enough, but you get twins to boot, you know you’re in for some bad news. And you get twin boys in a rural town in the 1930s? Holy mackerel, you might as well just pack it in right there and go home. Nothing good is going to come of it.

I don’t know how many times I watched Robert Mulligan’s film (based on the Thomas Tryon novel) on TV in the early Seventies, but it was a lot. Enough that to this day I still remember every shot and every line of dialog., but it still gets under my skin as one of the most effective of the lot.

Real twins Martin and Chris Udvarnoky play Holland and Niles Perry. As with most twins, one is mostly nice and sweet and innocent, while the other, Holland in this case, is the dominant, wickedly mischievous one.. Also like most twins, Niles and Holland share a weird psychic link. But in their case, and under the guidance of their Russian grandmother Eda (Uta Hagen), they can use a special ring to take things one step further. They call it The Game. As in Being John Malkovich, they can actually enter the consciousness of anyone they choose, from a magician in a traveling carnival, to a passing crow, to a corpse.

It’s a Northern Gothic tale complete with dark family secrets, farm accidents, dead babies, emotionally shattered mothers and real freaks. And an evil twin. It unfolds very slowly and quietly, and even though we get the Big Revelation at the halfway point, it doesn’t matter because the story rolls on with a few more twists and surprises left. It’s not shocking or terribly bloody, but extremely unnerving. Featuring an early turn by John Ritter and a Jerry Goldsmith score.

Don’t Look Now (1973)

Nicholas Roeg’s brilliantly shattered, hallucinatory narrative with the shock ending might be a loose fit here, but it had such an influence on other sort of Killer Kid movies (like David Cronenberg’s The Brood) it deserves mention.

The great Donald Sutherland was rarely better than he was here as John, an architect whose young daughter recently drowned near the family home in England. He takes a job in Venice, thinking a few months away from home might be just the thing to help him and his wife cope. Shortly after they arrive, however, they encounter a blind psychic in a restaurant who tells them their daughter’s spirit is around, and seems happy. Being the slide Rule sort, John is less willing than his wife to accept this at face value. At least until he starts having recurring visions of what seems to be his daughter all over Venice. Dresses like her, anyway. He becomes a little obsessed with that little girl in the red cloak who may or may not be his daughter. Who cares if she might have something to do with that whole nasty string of brutal stabbings around the city?

The less said about it at this point, the better (and easier, to be honest). Almost 45 years on now, it still works, that ending still gets me, and there’s nothing else like it.

It’s Alive! (1974)

People might cite Rosemary’s Baby as the be-all and end-all of films about pre-natal anxiety, but think about it. Sure, she gave birth to the Antichrist, but she has a good support network right there in the building, and if she treats him right, she’s set for life. No, for my money Larry Cohen’s breakthrough monstrous infant hint trumps them all, beginning with one of the most unsettling ad campaigns of the Seventies.

Funny thing is, though it’s remembered as a film about a baby with fangs and claws who slaughters all the doctors in the delivery room before escaping to go on a killing spree around town, if you go look at it again now you realize that’s only a minor subplot. It’s also a conspiracy film about government scientists using unwitting citizens as guinea pigs. Above all else, though, it’s an indictment of the mass media, which has the power to destroy the lives and reputations of innocent people on a whim, in this case the Davis family. And damn but that John P. Ryan is great as the horrified and disbelieving father who finds himself and his wife being publicly blamed (as is So often the case) for giving birth to a kid who isn’t quite right.

Much smarter and more subtle than most would give it credit for, It’s Alive ! Is loaded with Frankenstein references, and went on to spawn two equally good (and very different) sequels. To this day I will not put my face or fingers anywhere near a baby’s mouth.

Devil Times Five (1974)

The early to mid Seventies were mighty good years for Leif Garret. Not only was his picture plastered all over every teeny-bopper magazine in the country month after month, he was also scoring supporting roles in huge drive-in hits like Macon County Line and Walking Tall. Let’s just say considering his squeaky-clean image, Devil Times Five (aka Peopletoys) was a departure.

Garret plays one of five kids traveling on a bus which crashes in the mountains during a snowstorm. With the driver dead and not knowing what else to do, the five youngsters take refuge in a nearby resort.

It eventually comes out the bus was actually delivering the kids to an institution for the criminally insane, as they’re all kookoo bananas and extremely violent. There were hints of this beforehand, as per the standard asylum movie cliche, each nutty kid has a telltale tic—this one thinks she’s a nun, the black kid thinks he’s in the military. etc. But it’s all just mild comic relief until they pick up the knives.

Well, before you can say “Mr. Green Jeans,” they begin slaughtering everyone at the resort in a variety of hilarious ways, and occasionally in slow motion.

Unlike other Killer Kid movies which try to explain away antisocial behavior by blaming it on assorted external forces (government scientists, radiation, aliens, Satan, or an eclipse), these kids are just plain old evil by nature, and that’s all there is to it.

It wasn’t a big hit, it didn’t do much to propel Garret into leading roles, but today it’s earned itself solid cult status as a pre-slasher grind house number. And what’s not to love about the ol’ “piranhas in the bathtub” gag?

The Omen (1976)

In the Seventies and Eighties, a number of once-huge stars—Ray Milland, Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Rory Calhoun, Ida Lupino, George C. Scott and, in this case Gregory Peck—found themselves making genre pictures simply because that was all that was available to them. Granted, The Omen was a few cuts above The Devil’s Rain and Tentacles, but still.

Okay, regardless what the producers and screenwriter David Seltzer may claim about the franchise’s origins, the original trilogy of Omen films was lifted wholesale from “The Devil’s Platform” episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

Be that as it may, when you get a cast like this, a smart director like Richard Donner, a simply astonishing score by Jerry Goldsmith, some diabolical camera trickery and editing, wonderful practical effects (Lee Remick’s fall from the balcony kept me going for years), and a story about a smiling, (mostly cheerful 3-year-old Son of Satan wandering around England leaving a trail of beheadings, impaled priests, seriously pissed off baboons and hanged nannies in his wake, how can you go wrong? Even if the script itself is absurdly silly.

In an interesting postscript, like so many other child actors deeply associated with high-profile horror films of the era—think Danny Lloyd from The Shining—Harvey Stephens (who as Damien spoke, what, five words onscreen?) would not appear in another film for the next four decades. And even then he hasn’t been in much, though he did have a cameo as a reporter in the remake of, yes, The Omen a few years back.

Alice Sweet Alice (1976)

I dare you to show me one worthwhile horror film about Presbyterians. No, as far as religious sects go, Catholics have it all over everyone when it comes to horror. You got your robes, your chanting, your weird rituals, your transmutation, your Inquisition, your fetishism, your magic relics, your ghostly visions, oh, it just goes on and on. The Catholic Church is just one big horror show, top to bottom. As a result, Catholicism lay at the heart of countless horror films, and Alice, Sweet Alice is among the best.

The tagline read, “If you survive this night, nothing will ever scare you again,” which may or may not have been a reference to the fact this was Brooke Shields’ film debut. Shields plays 10-year—old Karen, the cute, quiet, polite and well-dressed younger sister of that moody, smart-mouthed and generally ornery Alice (Paula Sheppard), who likes to pull nasty pranks and doesn’t dress nearly as well as her sister. Everyone from the neighbors to their own parents to the local priest adores Karen and showers her with gifts, while they just wish Alice would go away. She clearly needs to see a shrink or something. So when Karen is brutally stabbed to death outside the church on the morning of her first communion and Alice is found with Karen’s veil in her pocket, well, there you go. And then when a whole bunch of other people around town somehow connected with Alice end up all stabbed to death as well, well, there you go again. I mean, she just looks like someone who could do something like that, right?

Alice, Sweet Alice is an American Giallo, so the less said about the story the better. For having such a tiny budget, the visuals are rich and gorgeous, filled with Catholic imagery and ritual throughout, featuring a cast of wholly unlikable characters you honestly don’t mind seeing stabbed to death (especially that Little Miss Perfect Karen). The one standout is Alphonso DeNoble as the crass, sleazy, filthy and morbidly obese landlord Mr. Alphonso. DeNoble has a terrifying charisma, which may have come from being a bouncer at a gay nightclub in Jersey in real life.

Yes, the film owes quite a bit, and blatantly so, to Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, but aimed at a more lowbrow mainstream audience. It’s a bloody, nasty little shocker still held dear by thousands of disaffected girls who survived Catholic school.

The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976)

1976 was not only a busy year for Killer Kid films, it was also the busiest year of Jodie Foster’s career, during which she appeared in half a dozen films ranging from Taxi Driver to, well, this, a film she and other cast and crew members would bad mouth down the line. In retrospect, it’s not really as bad as all that.

A 13-year-old Foster plays 13-year-old Rynn Jacobs, a precocious girl who may or may not be living alone in a rented house in a secluded section of a small, affluent seaside town. Her rich, nosy and suspicious landlady keeps barging in uninvited to ask too many questions, the landlady’s perv of a son (Martin Sheen) keeps putting the moves on her, a local cop is endlessly curious but nice enough, and a gimpy teenage magician from the area knows the score. But Rynn is self-sufficient and smart beyond her years. Enough so anyway to dispatch with all those nosy yokels who’d try and pry into her business.

It’s less a horror film than an atmospheric mystery that ties up all the loose ends by the three-quarters mark. Based on a 1974 novel, the claustrophobic stagebound film is mostly forgotten today, but back in ’76 the poster creeped the hell out of me. Certainly more than the film did.

The Children (1980)

Although “creepy bloodthirsty children” seems to be a simple, straightforward notion just bursting with possible storylines, 1980 marked the point at which screenwriters and filmmakers everywhere seemed to run out of ideas, so simply began rehashing those earlier, better films. Case in point is this slight variation on Village of the Damned.

This time around, instead of mysterious alien impregnation, a school bus full of perfectly normal kids drives through a cloud of yellow radioactive fog released from a nearby nuclear power plant. The radiation, it seems, turns all the tykes into shambling, emotionless and murderous zombies. Instead of glowing eyes, the infected kids have black fingernails (which was easier on the fx budget), and instead of psychically driving adults to kill themselves, the mere touch of these evil zombie children can fry any adult to a crisp. With little else to do, the radioactive zombie kids lay siege to their small town as the adults try to figure out just how to handle this. I mean, it was already hard enough trying to get them to go to bed on time.

Oh, derivative as it is, the film does have it’s moments. In fact it includes one scene I must admit I’ve never seen repeated in any other Killer Kid film, in which a group of well-armed adults barricaded inside a house open fire on the army of evil radioactive curtain climbers massing in the front yard. And when the adults finally do figure out how to dispatch the little monsters, well, let’s just say it was unexpectedly gruesome.

The Godsend (1980)

Given the year had already provided a Village of the Damned knockoff, it was apparently time for a Bad Seed knockoff, and an obvious one at that.

A pleasant and kindly British couple, the Marlowes (Malcolm Stoddard and Cyd Hayman) decide to take in a young unmarried pregnant woman even though they already have six kids of their own, telling her she can stay with them until she has the baby. What nice people those Marlowes are! But wouldn’t you know it? As soon as the ungrateful wench spits out the baby she vanishes without a word, leaving them with a seventh mouth to feed.

Being pleasant people they don’t complain too much, and over time the child grows into a polite and lovely little girl named Bonnie (Wilhelmina Green).

Well, sure enough before you know it all the other Marlowe kids start dropping like flies, and the parents take their own sweet time connecting the dots. I mean, come now people! We all know what happens to the youngest kid in a large family.

Itself based on a less-than-original novel, director Gabrielle Beaumont’s low-budget film plays like a TV movie, and lacks pretty much everything that made The Bad Seed so effective.

Bloody Birthday (1981)

On June 9th, 1970, three women in a small California town give birth during a total solar eclipse (uh-oh!). The resulting three kids—Debbie (Elizabeth Hoy), Curtis (Billy Jacoby) and Steven (Andy Freeman)—understandably share a tight bond, and as their tenth birthday approaches in 1980, plans are underway for a big bash pretty much everyone in town is expected to attend.

In the week before the party, maybe just to trim that guest list down a bit, the trio of little scamps undertakes a killing spree. They bludgeon and strangle a couple of stereotypical slasher film teens making out in a graveyard, beat Debbie’s dad (the local sheriff) to death with a baseball bat, shoot a teacher, and attempt to lock a classmate in a refrigerator in a junkyard. No one suspects them, of course, because they’re freaking nine years old. Nowadays we know better. While you’d expect the big party to be the film’s climactic scene, it just comes and goes without much happening, and those darn kids keep killing.

Around the halfway point, a teenaged amateur astrologer offers up the closest thing we get to an explanation for such naughty behavior. During that eclipse, see, both the sun and moon were blocking Saturn. Since Saturn controls the emotions, these kids were born with no conscience. Okay, so you come to accept a lot on faith in these things. Ultimately, though there are hits of both Village of the Damned and Bad Seed here, the picture owes much more to Devil Times Five.

Director Ed Hunt had made a handful of genre cheapies prior to this, but today Bloody Birthday remains his most memorable film. The dialogue is often painful, the soundtrack is comprised of library music from TV movies, and it’s not nearly as gory as would become standard for slasher films, but his three little killers all exude a believable David Berkowitz vibe, and the film contains enough boobs to earn an R rating. In an irrelevant sidenote, it remains one of the very few entries here in which the kids use guns, and, I think, the only one in which they use a bow and arrow.

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

Writer/director Robert Hiltzik’s weirdie is a delightfully oddball number not only within the Killer Kid subgenre, but also among slasher films, which is doubly surprising considering when it was released.

Although the film at the outset has all the standard earmarks of a cookie-cutter post-friday the 13th slasher film (a bunch of youngsters at summer camp, and endless supply of sharp implements, a fast-rising body count), careful viewers will note a few unsettling details. First, apart from the counselors, most of the campers (and victims) are pre-adolescent, and all the males, young and old alike, wear shorts that are just a little too short and a little too snug. Hmm.

Anyway, Angela (Felissa Rose), has been sent to summer camp against her will with her older brother. She’s pretty and nice and shy, but has clearly been damaged in some way. She adamantly refuses to go swimming or play games ore shower wit the other kids, despite repeated (and usually understanding) pleas from the counselors. She prefers to be alone, and isn’t much interested in making new friends. I know the feeling. I was sent to summer camp once, and after a lummox named Trent got to go home because he got a fish hook in the eye, I considered bribing those kids with the fishing poles to do the same to me.

Anyway, if you haven’t seen it, the less said the better. Let’s just say it fits the category, but with a notorious twist, and remains near the top of the lists of many slasher film fanatics I know. I do wonder, though, given the age we’re living in, how this one would go over today. It also leaves me wondering what the deal is with that Robert Hiltzik.

Children of the Corn (1984)

Yes, it’s a stinker, but remains a memorable touchstone within the then exploding subgenre of Stephen King stinkers. I always find it funny that King continues to bitch about Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining, but never has a word to say about this, or The Mangler, or Silver Bullet, or Maximum Overdrive or…

But that’s beside the point. Given the subject at hand, both the original short story and Fritz Kiersch’s film adaptation are interesting in that they represent a genre-blending crossover between Killer Kid movies and Religious Zealot horror.

AS much as there is to chuckle at here—my goodness what an awful bit of filmmaking, from the script to the performances to the camera set-ups and fx—dammit I keep going back to it. I do enjoy that flashback in the diner, as well as the fact the initial slaughter of the adults is never clearly explained. Not really, anyway. And I do dig the amateurish overacting on the part of John Franklin as the crazy young preacher Isaac and Courtney Gains as his True Believer henchman Malachai. And I’ll watch that R.G. Armstrong in anything. Mostly, though, I think I keep going back time and again just to hear the line “He wants you, too…Malachai!,” which has been a catchphrase of mine for years now.

Firestarter (1984)

Amid the mid-‘80s flood of Stephen King quickies, at least director Mark L. Lester had a few more chops than most. He also had a much larger budget, which allowed him to sign a cast that included George C. Scott, Art Carney, Louise Fletcher, Martin Sheen and Heather Locklear (!).

So a young couple who met in college while volunteering as research guinea pigs in a secret government drug test later get married and have a daughter. As these things happen (see Blue Sunshine or Jacob’s Ladder), those secret government drug tests have a way of hanging around awhile, with some mighty unexpected side effects. In this case, their new daughter Charlie (Drew Barrymore, who was in a few King adaptations) was born with pyrokinetic powers, meaning she can set anyone or anything she doesn’t like ablaze, the lucky brat.

Well, a few years later when the secret government agency that ran the secret government drug test catches wind of what little Charlie can do, they decide they’d like to have a little chat with her, and maybe her dad too (the briefly popular David Keith), who himself might have psychic powers. Or maybe they’d like to have something more than a chat.

Less a horror movie than conspiracy thriller and chase picture, Firestarter remains an oddity here, as it’s one of the few Killer Kid films in which we’re asked to root for the Killer Kid, actually hoping the wee pyro in question, even though she’s cute and blond, will set a few of those icky, mean adults on fire.

It’s hardly on a par with The Shining, Carrie, or The Dead Zone, but at least it’s better than Night Shift, Sometimes They Come Back, Children of the Corn IV, Cat’s Eye, Maximum Overdrive…

The Omen IV: The Awakening (1991)

As would become standard for plenty of other franchises that had seemingly run their course, some bright TV executives thought there was still some money to be made with that whole Omen thing. A decade after the last and supposedly final entry came out, why not give it the TV movie treatment? And while we’re at it, why not give it a fresh twist by doing a little gender switcheroo, right? So this time around, why not make Damien a girl? That’d throw viewers for a loop, wouldn’t it?

(An Omen IV novel had actually been released shortly after The Final Conflict came out, but it had nothing to do with this.)

The events of the previous three films have long been forgotten by the time we get underway here, I mean, don’t we see the Second Coming of Christ at the end of Final Conflict? Okay, so I guess Jesus had gone on vacation or something by the time two young smug and wealthy lawyers (Michael Woods and Faye Grant) adopt a new daughter without asking too many questions.

Their daughter Delia (Asia Vieira) grows into a pretty, dark-haired young girl who is extremely unpleasant. Oooon, but she’s a bratty little smartass who could use a spanking. I always thought the Antichrist was supposed to be charming and charismatic, but I’ll let it slide. In any case her New Age hippie nanny starts to suspect something far more sinister than smug parents might be at the heart of Delia’s bad attitude. When all her magic crystals turn black in the little girl’s presence, she starts making frantic calls to her other New Agey friends.

I’m going to stop there. Hilariously awful film, save for one scene, And that one scene alone is reason enough to forgive the film’s countless other unforgivable flaws.

The nanny drags Delia to a New Age fair in a park in hopes of getting a snapshot of her aura, and let’s just say things don’t go well for much of anyone. In simple slapstick terms, it’s on a par with Final Conflict’s montage of baby murders.

The Good Son (1993)

As he transitioned from the “dorky, buggy-eyed but still weirdly cute” kid in the Home Alone pictures into a “dorky, buggy-eyed and much less cute” adolescent, Macaulay Culkin decided to prove his range as an actor by playing against type in still another take on The Bad Seed.

Instead of telling the story through the mother’s eyes, in Joseph Ruben’s film we see things through the eyes of a nice, wholesome kid named Mark (a young Elijah Wood). After his mother dies, he’s sent to live with an aunt and uncle and two cousins. Not yet knowing he should avoid anyone named “Henry,” Mark and his cousin Henry (Culkin) become good friends. But after Henry is clearly delighted when one of his silly boyhood pranks triggers a deadly multi-car pileup, and after he shows off his homemade gun to Mark, and furthermore hints he once tried to kill his own brother, Mark starts to get the idea Henry might well be a psychopath with bigger diabolical schemes in mind.

Ruben’s picture is a slight cut above the likes of, say, The Godsend thanks to that change in perspective. Although Culkin makes for a believable psycho kid, it didn’t really do much to revamp his career and set him on that road to an Oscar. Thinking about it, though, Henry’s use of improvised and homemade weaponry wasn’t that big a step away from his Home Alone character, but with more fatalities and fewer cartoon sound effects..

Home Movie (2008)

The found footage/hand held video/POV horror film was pretty well dead and buried as a style by 2008, but that sure didn’t stop anyone. It was a cheap way to make a movie, after all. In this case, though, the story would have worked much better as a straight narrative, as the POV gimmick just gets in the way, leaving viewers (or maybe just me) repeatedly asking, “Why would anyone be filming this?”

Why, for instance, would an alcoholic Lutheran minister (Adrian Pasdar) choose to film an intimate argument with his psychiatrist wife (Cady McClain)? And why would a psychiatrist use the family video camera to record private patient notes, leaving them mixed in there with the Christmas and Easter home movies? Maybe writer/director Christopher Denham was trying to make a point about people so obsessed with living through screens that they can easily ignore the obvious and increasing threat posed by their clearly disturbed twin children, who mostly just lurk in the background as the parents focus on themselves. I doubt it though.

The creepy ten-year-olds Jack (Austin Williams) and Emily (Amber Joy Williams) were born on Halloween. While their parents try to desperately prove just how fun and cool and hip they are by setting up haunted houses in the basement and teaching their kids how to pick locks, Jack and Emily spend the first half of the film staring sullenly at the floor. Soon enough though, they begin killing goldfish, crushing toads in vices, crucifying the family cat, and attacking schoolmates, working their way up the evolutionary chain toward You Know Who.

Oh, I’m not giving a goddamn thing away here—the goddamn tagline gave it away! And even without the tagline if you couldn’t see exactly where this was headed with the first scene, maybe you need a nap or something.

To it’s credit, like Devil Times Five, Home Movie offers no explanation for why the kids are funny in the head. If you wanted to push it you could make something out of that Halloween birthday or the fact the family name is “Poe.” Myself, I just tend to accept that any kid unlucky enough to have a preacher or a shrink as a parent is fucked from the start.

Case 39 (2009)

Renee Zelwegger stars as a young sincere and overworked case worker at Children and Family Services. After the seemingly unbalanced parents of a shy, sweet and neglected girl on her case list try to cram the pre-adolescent into the oven (repeatedly!) one night, the parents are institutionalized and the social worker adopts the girl.

Okay, same as with Home Movie, if you can’t see where this one was headed ten minutes in, theres something wrong with you. Funny twist is, while I initially took it to be simply yet another Bad Seed knockoff (which it is) before deciding it was simply another Omen knockoff (which it is), by the half way point it finally became clear: what I was watching was in fact a knockoff of Omen IV: The Awakening. And that’s pretty bad. To make it all even sadder and more pointless, Case 39 is capped by a climax that makes absolutely no sense, if you think about it even for a little bit. Even the Omen IV had a better ending, and that’s saying something.

Considering all the above, the ultimate lesson to take away here is that, talk as we might about The Terrible Twos, it’s when the little monsters turn ten that you really need to watch out.

by Jim Knipfel

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raytorosaurus · 5 years

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ALRIGHT INITIAL TUATV THOUGHTS UNDER THE CUT NOW I’VE FINISHED BINGING (spoilers)

- BEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BABY BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - all the music? Wonderful. - i REALLY need a second series bc that ending? i'm guessing it'll be dallas-adjacent, but i'm interested to see where they go with it since they've used a lot of material from dallas already… will they do the vietnam storyline? is klaus gonna try to find dave again? - also i NEED to see more kid hargreeves interactions… i wanna know how each of their relationships with each other changed and developed over time, not just allison and luther's. i LOVED the sisterly allison and vanya we got, but i was a little sad at the lack of diego and vanya interaction,,, DID THEY HAVE A SHITTY PUNK BAND, NETFLIX?? SHOW ME THEIR SHITTY PUNK BAND. were klaus and ben already best friends before ben died?? was klaus still a sweet kid who got experimented on the most? it seems like five was closest with ben and vanya. how did they all react when he disappeared? when ben died??? none of this is criticism btw, i just can't wait to see more flashback scenes if we get another season. also i want flashbacks of them fighting weird campy supervillains like in the comics - speaking of allison and luther. hmm. in the comics it always seemed much clearer to me that it was a very unhealthy and ill-advised relationship based on a lot of trauma bonding and isolation, but in the show it was very. Romantic? it was uhhh, uncomfortable to see them flirt directly after luther called himself claire's uncle lmao. so i guess we'll see where that goes fjdkslf - so i would've liked to see more of diego and vanya but i LOVED everything they did with grace, and especially diego and grace. catch me forever emo about overlooked mother characters, and also robots. i know we're getting more of her in the comics now (can't wait for her to go apeshit) but i'm so glad we're seeing these themes explored from the start in the show - shoutout to david castañeda, tom hopper, and aidan gallagher for actually making me care about luther, diego, and five lmao - also that detective shouldn't have died. - vanya straight up fucking murdering all those nannies? holy shit girl fdsjfklds - so i was uhhh a bit disappointed with hazel and cha-cha tbh - they started out so great and mary j blige and cameron britton were amazing but I didn't really like where they went with hazel's storyline rip. i almost wish we'd gotten to see klaus do his thing and have them kill each other fjdklsf - but GOD BEN THOUGH. still a supportive brother even though the only person he's interacted with in like a decade is klaus, the poor guy. i need a second season solely so i can see more of my boy - i also Love that they're touching more on the implications of allison's power

god anyway i can't form a clear opinion after binging it all in two sittings but god. the cast were all so good.

#tuatv #tua spoilers #tua #tuatv spoilers #umbrella academy #umbrella academy spoilers #i hope i've covered all the spoiler tags fdjsklf #*#liveblog #i can't go through the tag rn bc i'm at a bday party but i can't wait

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sowhatisthisfor · 6 years

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Movies 2018

List of films I watched in 2018 from best to worst.

Updated soon after I’ve seen them.

A Ghost Story [David Lowery, 2017, United States] No film has made me feel this melancholic ever. This is a film so profound, it examines existence in the simplest yet most esoteric way possible. It surely goes straight to the top of my all-time favourite list. 10/10

Burning (Boening) [Chang-dong Lee, 2018, South Korea] Shows the interrelation of hunger and class, the truths and the unknowns. Of how desires could either free you or cage you in unhappiness and despair. A mystery of misery that parallels its political viewpoint. 10/10

Roma [Alfonso Cuaron, 2018, Mexico] Its technical expertise in every element of every frame and composition is overwhelming. It's a movie about contrasts and how each opposite gives life balance, told with such authenticity, it's luxurious cinematic experience. 10/10

Women of the Weeping River [Dayoc, 2016, Philippines] A film about a generational blood feud, and also a metaphoric portrayal of the unending armed conflicts in Mindanao where the vulnerable is the most at risk, and the strong isn’t really unbreakable. 10/10

Kung Paano Hinihintay Ang Dapithapon [Carlo Catu, 2018, Philippines] a small film that tackles layers after layers of things too close to heart. Sincere and profound, definitely my favourite. 10/10

Loveless (Nelyubov) [Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2018, Russia] cold and chilling in all aspect from start to end. It has such great observation of the recognizable societal apathy. 10/10

Beats Per Minute (BPM) [Robin Campillo, 2017, France] Goosebumps. This is a film clear of its objective, it is exhilarating and exhausting in the good kind of way. 10/10

Cold War (Zimna Wojna) [Pawel Pawlikowski, 2018, Poland] Makes something despairing so beautiful with its artful composition, rightly-paced narrative transition, and cold but affecting character treatment. 10/10

Faces Places [JR, Agnès Varda, 2018, France] Wow. This is the film to watch when your soul is dying for art. Tears, I can't help them from falling. 10/10

Sid & Aya [Irene Villamor, 2018, Philippines] It’s too beautiful, I’m crying halfway through the film for how beautiful it is. You can watch this film without audio and understand it by its lighting, it’s that amazing. 10/10

Arrhythmia (Aritmiya) [Boris Khlebnikov, 2017, Russia] For a movie with characters of increasingly tenuous emotional bond, this is teeming with sensitivity and sensibility. It has so much love, neutrality, and longing, yet so cold and fleeting. Definitely, an emotional rollercoaster of my liking. 10/10

Shoplifters [Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2018, Japan] a film that questions if blood is thicker than the ties that bind us. Here’s Kore-eda capturing our hearts again with his gently-observed humanism. 10/10

Gusto Kita With All My Hypothalamus [Dwein Baltazar, 2018, Philippines] a genius anti-romance that plays along the lines of loving the thought of being in love and making yourself believe in your own ethereality. I love it. 10/10

Balangiga: Howling Wilderness [Khavn, 2017, Philippines] Disheartening and provocative in all its hypnagogia. 10/10

A Star is Born [Bardley Cooper, 2018, United States] If only for its music and its astounding performances, I'm already sold. 10/10

Oda sa Wala [Dwein Baltazar, 2018, Philippines] Is an ode to nothing, to the unseen, to the nobody, to the dead that's more alive than the living and to the living that's more dead than those who died. Baltazar has this gilt-edged technique that leaves its audience wretched yet buoyant. 10/10

The Shape of Water [Guillermo del Toro, 2017, United States] Elegant in its visuals, storytelling, and performances. It is del Toro’s best yet. 10/10

The Guilty (Den Skyldige) [Gustav Möller, 2018, Denmark] Is clever in its minimalism. A fast-paced action thriller and a psychological suspense, all shot entirely between four walls. 9.5/10

Hereditary [Ari Aster, 2018, United States] Unsettling down to the core with a convincing cast and a powerful storytelling. 9.5/10

Batch 81 [Mike de Leon, 1982, Philippines] In its subversiveness and its sardonic undertone is a remarkable spectacle of expertise, bravery, esoterica, and dynamism. 9.5/10

Dogman [Matteo Garrone, 2018, Italy] Examines a man's need to be recognized as a chihuahua in a shepherd's world. 9.5/10

BuyBust [Erik Matti, 2018, Philippines] a spectacular display of astounding filmmaking where every element is designed and choreographed fittingly well. Entertaining yet harrowing from start to finish, it's the kind of film that stays. 9.5/10

God’s Own Country [Francis Lee, 2017, United Kingdom] Features a kind of romance with such carefully-observed realism. It was very well portrayed. Very well. 9/10

Sunday's Illness (La Enfermedad del Doming) [Ramon Salazar, 2018, Spain] Scene after scene of mesmerizing mystery and such powerful attention to detail. 9/10

Annihilation [Alex Garland, 2018, United States] Though at times flawed, it ended with such thought-provoking, ambitious, and lasting impact. 9/10

Captain America: Civil War [Joe Russo, Anthony Russo, 2016, United States] it’s hard to point out which part of the film I didn’t like, that’s if I hated anything. 9/10

The Florida Project [Sean Baker, 2017, United States] Kids, no matter the social class, are still just kids in search for adventure, friendship, and love. This movie doesn't feel like a movie at all, it's brilliant. 9/10

Signal Rock [Chito Rono, 2018, Philippines] Very raw and phenomenal. Each character formidably plays an important role in characterizing a small town of heartwarming spirit. If not for its distracting bad CGI which I think is unnecessary, I’d give it a perfect 10. 9/10

Beti [P. Sheshadri, 2017, India] manages to oppose patriarchy in Indian culture in such an innocent yet intelligible perspective. 9/10

Train to Busan [Yeon Sang-ho, 2016, South Korea] When everyone's becoming a monster, humanity is the way to survive. Fast-paced. Thrilling. Heartfelt. I honestly feel like Train to Busan lacks a stronger female character, but it's interestingly very human that I'm completely captured by it. 9/10

ML [Benedict Mique, 2018, Philippines] teeming with ingenuity and masteful filmmaking, it’s a suspense too relevant for anyone to miss. 9/10

Liway [Kip Oebanda, 2018, Philippines] Is at most powerful when it exposes the correlation of facts and fiction. Doesn’t hit you right away but when it does, it hits hard. It hits still. 9/10

Sicilian Ghost Story [Fabio Grassadonia, Antonio Piazza, 2017, Italy, France, Switzerland] Cinematic and poetic. Beautiful in all its mythological symbolism. 9/10

Get Out [Jordan Peele, 2017, United States] a satire of utmost significance, it lives. 9/10

Si Chedeng at Si Apple [Rae Red, Fatrick Tabada, 2017, Philippines] Hilarious with punchlines, intelligent with comebacks. This is comedy with brain, soul, and heart. 9/10

Happy as Lazzaro (Lazzaro Felice) [Alice Rohrwacher, 2018, Italy] a charming small film with a subtext of such vivid social allegory. 9/10

I am Not a Witch [Rungano Nyoni, 2018, United Kingdom] For a debut film, this is quite a remarkable take on exploitation, abuse, and misogyny. 9/10

A Quiet Place [John Krasinski, 2018, United States] For a film that’s supposed to be silent, I find it quite overscored. Still a good watch though. 9/10

Ang Panahon ng Halimaw [Lav Diaz, 2018, Philippines] Sarcasm at its best. Quite fun. 9/10

L'amant Double [Francois Ozon, 2018, France] Wild and mindblowing, a film of endless curiosity. 9/10

Seklusyon [Erik Matti, 2016, Philippines] a thought-provoking jewel on the corruption of divinity and an examination of people’s inner evils. 9/10

BlackKKansman [Spike Lee, 2018, United States] Although satirically exaggerated, this film is teeming with entertainment and importance. 8.5/10

In This Corner of the World [Sunao Katabuchi, 2017, Japan] It stays. Films like this, they always do. 8.5/10

Euthanizer (Armomurhaaja} [Teemu Nikki, 2018, Finland] An examination of how suffering is commensurate with cruelty. For something so bleak, it is surprisingly a good exemplification of moral values. 8/10

Padman [R. Balki, 2018, India] Speaks volumes in a humorous way. Something enlightening and empowering, I love it. 8/10

Gutland [Govinda Van Maele, 2017, Luxembourg] For a debut feature, Van Maele is a master of slow-burn tension. 8/10

The Square [Ruben Ostland, 2017, Sweden, Denmark] An ironic and satiric take on elitism, privilege, and humanity. 8/10

A Prayer Before Dawn [Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, 2018, France, Thailand] For something that feels hesitant in showing violence, this is already quite a tough watch. 8/10

We Need to Talk About Kevin [Lynn Ramsey, 2012, United States]

A Taxi Driver [Hun Jang, 2017, South Korea] an entertaining yet affecting tribute to nameless heroes. 8/10

Memoir of War (La Douleur) [Emmanuel Finkiel, 2017, France] Sadly, its visual choices, experimental scoring, and drawn out structure don't match Marguerite Duras's poetic writing. 8/10

The Wound (Inxeba) [John Trengove, 2017, South Africa] More than the physical wound from a boy's transition to manhood, this movie tackles a deeper kind of pain, the kind that scars forever. 8/10

Pan de Salawal [Che Espiritu, 2018, Philippines] a hard-hitting reminder that the most painful challenges people overcome are also the most rewarding. Don’t be afraid to feel them all. 8/10

The Great Buddha+ [Hsin-yao Huang, 2018, Taiwan] Not sure if saying "this is my kind of humour" is something I should be proud of but damn this film is hilarious! Oh and really clever too. 8/10

Leave No Trace [Debra Ganik, 2018, United States] a small film of massive authenticity and warm touch. It will leave a trace. 8/10

Manila by Night [Ishmael Bernal, 1980, Philippines] a classic representation of the realities of how Manila is a witness to the city's moral lethargy. 8/10

Coco [Lee Unkrich, 2017, United States] Understands what La La Land doesn’t – relationships shouldn’t suffer when achieving our dreams. 8/10

Don’t Breathe [Fede Alvarez, 2016, United States] Alvarez has some serious skills to make this suspenseful with only a blind villain inside a small house. 8/10

The Other Side of the Wind [Orson Welles, 2018, United States] Not for a Welles beginner but is surely a completist's delight. 7.5/10

Felicite [Alain Gomis, 2017, Senegal, Congo, France] With such lyrical tone, its narrative was thinly sketched that some of its elements don't match. 7.5/10

Malila: The Farewell Flower [Anucha Boonyawatana, 2018, Thailand] A beguiling narration of existentialism, redemption, and the philosophy of Buddhism. All told in such calming gaze, it's actually hypnotic. 7.5/10

Revenge [Coralie Fargeat, 2018, France] Caution: explicit cursing while watching and cheering to this. 7.5/10

Aria [Carlo Catu, 2018, Philippines] Could have gone deeper and darker to make a more harrowing but lasting impact. It borders on the safe side, but still able to tell something important. 7.5/10

Billie & Emma [Samantha Lee, 2018, Philippines] There's magic in its production design and an amusing chemistry that would remind you of what it's like to fall in love the first time. It is everyone's teenage romance, the kind that buries heteronormativity. 7.5/10

Of Love & Law [Hikaru Toda, 2017, Japan] Questions the intricacies of Japanese culture through a collection of simple yet meaningful moments. 7.5/10

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom [JA Bayona, 2018, United States]

Saving Sally [Avid Liongoren, 2016, Philippines] Is the freshest and has the most creative visual style I’ve seen in a long long time. I want more of it. 7,5/10

One Week Friends [Masanori Murakami, 2017, Japan] There’s a good reason for my sunken eyes right now, right? 7.5/10

Room 8 [James Griffiths, 2013, United States] Unique and smart. Too amazed, I had to share it with everyone. 7.5/10

Isle of Dogs [Wes Anderson, 2018, United States] A quirky imagination of a simple narrative, told in a hyper-stylized artistry. 7.5/10

Black Panther [Ryan Coogler, 2018, United States]

Hintayan ng Langit [Villegas, 2018] I'm not completely sold on a couple of its elements but boy, Gina Pareño is a gem. A sparkling one. 7.5/10

Avengers: Infinity War [Anthony and Joe Russo, 2018, United States]

The Invitation [Karyn Kusama, 2016, United States] I know a psychological thriller like this is effective when I find myself so uncomfortable, wanting to leave, cautious of being brainwashed. 7.5/10

Ready Player One [Steven Spielberg, 2018, United States] Too amusing to the point of apathy. Still entertaining though. 7.5/10

Disobedience [Sebastian Lelio, 2018, Ireland] Depicts the beauty of internal turmoils and hidden desires, it’s gripping. 7.5/10

Apostasy [Daniel Kokotajlo, 2017, United Kingdom] the more it rolls, the more I loathe religion. 7.5/10

Wonder Woman [Patty Jenkins, 2017, United States] More than it being a feminist is it being human and that I think is more important. 7.5/10

Meet Me in St Gallen [Irene Villamor, 2018, Philippines]

Never Not Love You [Antoinette Jadaone, 2018, Philippines] Beautifully and realistically written. It’s just really hard for me to like Reid’s character. 7/10

Eight Grade [Bo Burnham, 2018, United States] One of the most important and most natural teen movies of the year. 7/10

Cam [Daniel Goldhaber, 2018, United States] Pushing its flaws aside, this is actually quite an accomplished thriller of a possible near future. It didn't end with an impactful resolution though. 7/10

The Miseducation of Cameron Post [Desiree Akhavan, 2018, United States] Provocatively presents how emotionally abusing conversion therapy could be. 7/10

Crazy Rich Asians [Jon Chu, 2018, United States] Important and feel-good, but that's just it for me. 7/10

Distance [Perci Intalan, 2018, Philippines] a tender family drama with powerful performances of characters who choose to love no matter how wrong or right. 7/10

Showroom [Fernando Molnar, 2014, Argentina] is a showroom of how beautiful and luxurious an artificial world could be. 7/10

Contagion [Steven Soderbergh, 2011, United States] Believable but somehow lacking in its scare tactic. 7/10

Zodiac [David Fincher, 2007, United States] Intelligent drama, boring thriller. Not a fan. 7/10

The Greatest Showman [Michael Gracey, 2018, United States]

Smaller and Smaller Circles [Raya Martin, 2017, Philippines] Suspense done right but there's something about its exchanges that seems unnatural. 7/10

Pop Aye [Kirsten Tan, 2018, Thailand, Singapore] Is as slow but as heavy as its lead. 7/10

The Day After Valentine’s [Jason Paul Laxamana, 2018, Philippines] Brilliant in its canny use of language to illustrate people's tendency to miscommunicate emotions. 7/10

Thoroughbreds [Cory Finley, 2018, United States] The kind of film that doesn't lead to what you think. It's black comedy of my liking. 7/10

Nearest and Dearest [Kseniya Zueva, 2017, Russia] displays the weakening social and moral values in contemporary Russian society. 6.5/10

Hearts Beat Loud [Brett Haley, 2018, United States] Magical in its little ways. 6.5/10

Me Casé Con Un Boludo [Juan Taratuto, 2016, Argentina] Nothing much in here but laughter after laughter. 6.5/10

Delinquent [Kieran Valla, 2016, United States] a small-town thriller with a set location that breathes on its own. 6.5/10

Ang Babaeng Allergic sa Wifi [Jun Lana, 2018, Philippines] I thought it was just a cutesy take on appreciating moments and living life in the present, but heck no, prepare to find your tears falling. 6.5/10

Bakwit Boys [Jason Paul Laxamana, 2018, Philippines] a warm and light-hearted family drama with beautiful original songs to brag about. 6.5/10

Musmos Na Sumibol sa Gubat ng Digma [Iar Arondaing, 2018, Philippines] At times, it feels like it's trying too hard both to make a point and to sound subtle to a point that it feels a bit disconnected. 6.5 /10

What If It Works [Romi Trower, 2018, Australia] Delightfully charming amidst the chaos of mental disorders. Works quite well. 6.5 /10

Eternity Between Seconds [Jan Alec Figuracion, 2018, Philippines] There’s comfort somewhere between the discomforts of bad acting here. 6.5 /10

Love, Simon [Greg Berlanti. 2018, United States] It’s a very familiar coming-of-age romance, but that familiarity is what made it stand out. 6.5 /10

Blockers [Kay Cannon, 2018, United States] Definitely my kind of humour. The sarcastic wit is overflowing. 6.5 /10

Alex Strangelove [CraigJohnson, 2018, United States] Nothing too new but isn't short of likeable. 6.5/10

Lobster Cop [Li Xinyun, 2018, China] Hilarious. I’d like it to be more brutal with its action scenes but it’s already otherwise quite entertaining. 6.5/10

Ant-man and the Wasp [Peyton Reed, 2018, United States] Funny as always, but I'm in love with Paul Rudd so I must be biased. 6.5/10

Kuya Wes [James Mayo, 2018, Philippines] explores the fundamental need of being appreciated in a light yet stinging narrative. I don't like a number of things, but the soundtrack works well, it's satiating. 6.5/10

To All the Boys I've Loved Before [Susan Johnson, 2018, United States] There's substance in its shallowness, it's charming. 6.5/10

The Snow White Murder Case [Yoshihiro Nakamura, 2014, Japan] It’s a little too long to keep it entirely interesting. 6.5/10

Cardinals [Grayson Moore, Aidan Shipley, 2018, Canada] It was burning slowly until it was shot to the head. Could have been more painful if not for its loose ending. 6.5/10

Unli Life [Miko Livelo, 2018, Philippines] Not a fan of its comedic banters but I find its rare seriousness quite a gem. 6.5/10

The Cured [David Freyne, 2018, United Kingdom]

Sympathy for Mr Vengeance [Park Chan-wook, 2002, South Korea]

Berlin Syndrome [Cate Shortland, 2017, Australia, Germany] Cold and riveting with a third act that would push you to the edge. 6.5/10

Wonder [Stephen Chbosky, 2018, United States]

12 Strong [Nicolai Fuglsig, 2018, United States] All that technical expertise and still end up saying nothing. 6/10

Goodbye, Grandpa [Yukihiro Morigaki, 2017, Japan] depicts the kind of mourning we tend to overlook and is only intensified by the bonding of family. 6/10

Deadpool 2 [David Leitch, 2018, United States] Started off fun, ended up exhausting. 6/10

Bird Box [Susanne Bier, 2018, United States] a film with no emotional connection, no proper climax, and therefore no sensical resolution. 6/10

Madilim Ang Gabi [Adolf Alix, 2018, Philippines] seems like a show-off of stars after stars after stars playing bit roles to the point that it already feels unauthentic. 6/10

Call Her Ganda [PJ Raval, 2018, Canada, Philippines] I'm not convinced of its storytelling, still an important one to watch though. 6/10

A Million Happy Nows [Albert Alarr, 2017, United States] Despite the smallness of this film, it actually hits big. 6/10

Bomba [Ralston Jover, 2017, Philippines] is brave in its defiance, bold in its commentary but it somehow failed to deliver. 6/10

Oceans 8 [Gary Ross, 2018, United States] Slow and mediocre, quite a waste of powerhouse cast. 6/10

Koxa [Ekrem Engizek, 2018, Turkey, Germany] Uninteresting for the kind of fact it exposes. 6/10

2 Cool 2 be Forgotten [Petersen Vargas, 2017, Philippines]

Beastmode [Manuel Mesina III, 2018, Philippines] ingenious and inventive but it’s not the kind I enjoy. 6/10

Dedma Walking [Julius Alfonso, 2017, Philippines]

Can We Still Be Friends [Prime Cruz, 2017, Philippines]

The Belko Experiment [Greg McLean, 2017, United States] The experiment and the film are both pointless, but pointless sometimes is entertaining. 6/10

Hooked [Max Emerson, 2018, United States]

Sierra Burgess is a Loser [Ian Samuels, 2018, United States] I was enjoying it until its last act which felt rushed and unnatural. 5/10

Skyscraper [Rawson Marshall Thurber, 2018, United States] Plot after plot of action-packed impossibilities. 5/10

Glorious [Connie Macatuno, 2018, Philippines] Watching it is like riding a taxi cab with a clutch driver, it’s making me dizzy. 5/10

Rampage [Brad Peyton, 2018, United States] Feels like a bargain with nothing much to offer but cool CGI. 5/10

Je Ne Suis Pas Un Homme Facile [Eleonore Pourriat, 2018, France]

Mga Mister Ni Rosario [Alpha Habon, 2018, Philippines] Entertaining but also miserably problematic. 5/10

Carrie [Kimberly Peirce, 2014, United States] Is quite an urban myth version of a school shooting. 5/10

Rough Night [Lucia Aniello, 2017, United States] Watched it on a plane, not sure if it's as fun if landed. 5/10

Bomba [Rolston Jover, 2017, Philippines] is brave in its defiance, bold in its commentary but it somehow failed to deliver. 5/10

Avengers: Age of Ultron [Joss Whedon, 2015, United States] Boring with a capital B. 5/10

The Meg [Jon Turteltaub, 2018, United States] Mediocre. Very mediocre. 5/10

Final Score [Scott Mann, 2018, United States] It has potential but didn't quite scored a goal. 5/10

Uncle Drew [Charles Stone III, 2018, United States] I can't force myself to get comfortable watching this. 5/10

A Piece of Paradise [Patrick Alcedo, 2017, Canada, Philippines] It’s okay but there’s nothing much in there. 5/10

Happy Death Day [Christopher Landon, 2018, United States]

The Flu [Kim Sung-soo, 2013, South Korea] Stupid but fun. It's the kind of silly you enjoy. 5/10

Ali and Nino [Asif Kapadia, 2017, Azerbaijan, Georgia] Badly-acted, badly-designed production. Offers nothing much of excitement. 4/10

Unexpectedly Yours [Cathy Garcia-Molina, Philippines, 2017] Fun at times. Corny at most. 4/10

Forget About Nick [Margarethe von Trotta, 2017, Germany] is as if made as an example of movies that failed the Bechdel test from supposed to be feminist directors. 4/10

I Love You, Hater [Giselle Andres, 2018, Philippines] I find its main plot gender insensitive so it’s a nope nope for me. 4/10

The Mumbai Siege: 4 Days of Terror (One Less God) [Lliam Worthington, 2018, Australia, India] That’s an annoying take on a siege that marked world history. 4/10

Life is What You Make It [Jhett Tolentino, 2018, United States, Philippines] For some reasons, I’m not sold on how it tries to inspire. 4/10

We Will Not Die Tonight [Richard Somes, 2018, Philippines] If you're looking for brutal action and relentless stabbing where blood and sweat are like fireworks, go see it. If you're looking for sense or better fight choreographies, go somewhere else. 3/10

Bleeding Steel [Leo Zhang, 2018, Hong Kong] Feels like switching between channels. 3/10

Citizen Jake [Mike de Leon, 2018, Philippines] Is like a collection of everything de Leon wants to try. Not effective at that. 3/10

On Again Off Again [Arsalan Shirazi, 2017, Canada, India] Undesirable characters in undesirable performances. 3/10

Jigsaw [Spirieg brothers, 2017, United States]

Tomb Raider [Roar Uthaug, 2018, United States] Impossible but fun. 3/10

Insidious (The Last Key) [Adam Robitel, 2018, United States]

Pitch Perfect 3: Last Call Pitches [Trish Sie, 2018, United States] The worst of them all pitches. 3/10

When We First Met [Ari Sandel, 2018, United States]

Attack on Titan: Part 1 [Shinji Higuchi, 2015, Japan] Lacks character development, lacks plot continuity, it’s the movie adaptation disappointment of the decade. 3/10

Alright Now [Jamie Adams, 2018, United States] is said to be a feel-good movie but more like a feel-regretful for the time wasted watching this. 3/10

Hostel [Eli Roth, 2006, United States] Nothing here is pleasing. Not its concept, not its execution, and not even its gore. Down to the trash bin. 3/10

One More Chance [Cathy Garcia-Molina, 2007, Philippines] I’m sorry, I really can’t stand this movie. 3/10

Slumber [Jonathan Hopkins, 2018, United States] Is a snoozefest as simple as that. 3/10

In Un Giorno La Fine (The End?) [Daniele Misischia, 2018, Italy] Is funny in a bad way. 3/10

Peter Rabbit [Will Gluck, 2018, United States] RBF the entire freaking time. 3/10

You, Me and Him [ Daisy Aitkens, 2018, United Kingdom] Just one of those films that pass you by. 3/10

The Dawnseeker [Justin Price, 2018, United States] With that kind of premise, I honestly wanted it to be at least a decent watch. It isn’t. 2/10

Mara [Clive Tonge, 2018, United States] Generic. Mediocre. Forgettable. 2/10

Office Uprising [Lin Oeding, 2018, United States] Dumb. 2/10

School Service [Louie Ignacio, 2018, Phiippines] the intention is there but the concept isn’t concrete enough to be decently executed. 2/10

The Strangers: Prey at Night [Johannes Roberts, 2018, United States] What a freaking stupid family that was. I could go on and on and on with my disgust towards this movie, but the bacon is cooked and bacon is more important. 1/10

The Matchmaker's Playbook [Tosca Musk, 2018, United States] a misogynist piece of bullcrap. 1/10

The Do-Over [Steven Brill, 2016, United States] Wow. That was boring. 1/10

Aswang [Michael Laurin, 2018, United States] a film perfect for when you can’t sleep. 1/10

The Lookout [Afi Africa, 2018, Philippines] is a joke after joke after joke, so unfunny, it deserves a laugh. 1/10

#movies

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popradar · 5 years

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2019 Film Independent Spirit Awards Nominees and Winners

The quiet before the storm in the Spirit Awards pressroom.

Pop Radar LA is stationed at the beach in Santa Monica, Calif., today for the 2019 Independent Spirit Awards, honoring some of the best films of the year. It’s being hosted by actress-comedian Aubrey Plaza.

We’ve posted the entire list of nominees and will be updating the list when the winners are announced.

BEST FEATURE

Award given to the producer. Executive Producers are not awarded.

Eighth Grade Producers: Eli Bush, Scott Rudin, Christopher Storer, Lila Yacoub

First Reformed Producers: Jack Binder, Greg Clark, Gary Hamilton, Victoria Hill, David Hinojosa, Frank Murray, Deepak Sikka, Christine Vachon

If Beale Street Could Talk — WINNER Producers: Dede Gardner, Barry Jenkins, Jeremy Kleiner, Sara Murphy, Adele Romanski

Leave No Trace Producers: Anne Harrison, Linda Reisman, Anne Rosellini

You Were Never Really Here Producers: Rosa Attab, Pascal Caucheteux, Rebecca O’Brien, Lynne Ramsay, James Wilson

BEST FIRST FEATURE

Award given to the director and producer

Hereditary Director: Ari Aster Producers: Kevin Frakes, Lars Knudsen, Buddy Patrick

Sorry to Bother You — WINNER Director: Boots Riley Producers: Nina Yang Bongiovi, Jonathan Duffy, Charles D. King, George Rush, Forest Whitaker, Kelly Williams

The Tale Director/Producer: Jennifer Fox Producers: Oren Moverman, Laura Rister, Mynette Louie, Simone Pero, Lawrence Inglee, Sol Bondy, Regina K. Scully, Lynda Weinman, Reka Posta

We the Animals Director: Jeremiah Zagar Producers: Andrew Goldman, Christina D. King, Paul Mezey, Jeremy Yaches

Wildlife Director/Producer: Paul Dano Producers: Andrew Duncan, Jake Gyllenhaal, Riva Marker, Oren Moverman, Ann Ruark, Alex Saks

JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD

Given to the best feature made for under $500,000 (Award given to the writer, director and producer. Executive Producers are not awarded.)

A Bread Factory Writer/Director/Producer: Patrick Wang Producers: Daryl Freimark, Matt Miller

En el Séptimo Día — WINNER Writer/Director/Producer: Jim McKay Producers: Alex Bach, Lindsey Cordero, Caroline Kaplan, Michael Stipe

Never Goin’ Back Writer/Director: Augustine Frizzell Producers: Liz Cardenas, Toby Halbrooks, James M. Johnston

Sócrates Writer/Director/Producer: Alex Moratto Writer: Thayná Mantesso Producers: Ramin Bahrani, Jefferson Paulino, Tammy Weiss

Thunder Road Writer/Director: Jim Cummings Producers: Natalie Metzger, Zack Parker, Benjamin Weissner

BEST DIRECTOR

Debra Granik Leave No Trace

Barry Jenkins — WINNER If Beale Street Could Talk

Tamara Jenkins Private Life

Lynne Ramsay You Were Never Really Here

Paul Schrader First Reformed

BEST SCREENPLAY

Richard Glatzer (Writer/Story By), Rebecca Lenkiewicz & Wash Westmoreland Colette

Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty — WINNER Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Tamara Jenkins Private Life

Boots Riley Sorry to Bother You

Paul Schrader First Reformed

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY

Bo Burnham - WINNER Eighth Grade

Christina Choe Nancy

Cory Finley Thoroughbreds

Jennifer Fox The Tale

Quinn Shephard (Writer/Story By), Laurie Shephard (Story By) Blame

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Ashley Connor Madeline’s Madeline

Diego Garcia Wildlife

Benjamin Loeb Mandy

Sayombhu Mukdeeprom — WINNER Suspiria

Zak Mulligan We the Animals

BEST EDITING

Joe Bini — WINNER You Were Never Really Here

Keiko Deguchi, Brian A. Kates, Jeremiah Zagar We the Animals

Luke Dunkley, Nick Fenton, Chris Gill, Julian Hart American Animals

Anne Fabini, Alex Hall, Gary Levy The Tale

Nick Houy Mid90s

BEST FEMALE LEAD

Glenn Close — WINNER The Wife

Toni Collette Hereditary

Elsie Fisher Eighth Grade

Regina Hall Support the Girls

Helena Howard Madeline’s Madeline

Carey Mulligan Wildlife

BEST MALE LEAD

John Cho Searching

Daveed Diggs Blindspotting

Ethan Hawke — WINNER First Reformed

Christian Malheiros Sócrates

Joaquin Phoenix You Were Never Really Here

BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE

Kayli Carter Private Life

Tyne Daly A Bread Factory

Regina King — WINNER If Beale Street Could Talk

Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie Leave No Trace

J. Smith-Cameron Nancy

BEST SUPPORTING MALE

Raúl Castillo We the Animals

Adam Driver BLACKkKLANSMAN

Richard E. Grant — WINNER Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Josh Hamilton Eighth Grade

John David Washington Monsters and Men

ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD

Given to one film’s director, casting director and ensemble cast

Suspiria Director: Luca Guadagnino Casting Directors: Avy Kaufman, Stella Savino Ensemble Cast: Malgosia Bela, Ingrid Caven, Lutz Ebersdorf, Elena Fouina, Mia Goth, Jessica Harper, Dakota Johnson, Gala Moody, Chloë Grace Moretz, Fabrizia Sacchi, Renée Soutendijk, Tilda Swinton, Sylvie Testud, Angela Winkler

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Award given to the director and producer

Hale County This Morning, This Evening Director/Producer: RaMell Ross Producers: Joslyn Barnes, Su Kim

Minding the Gap Director/Producer: Bing Liu Producer: Diane Quon

Of Fathers and Sons Director: Talal Derki Producers: Hans Robert Eisenhauer, Ansgar Frerich, Eva Kemme, Tobias N. Siebert

On Her Shoulders Director: Alexandria Bombach Producers: Hayley Pappas, Brock Williams

Shirkers Director/Producer: Sandi Tan Producers: Jessica Levin, Maya E. Rudolph

Won’t You Be My Neighbor? — WINNER Director/Producer: Morgan Neville Producers: Caryn Capotosto, Nicholas Ma

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM

Award given to the director

Burning South Korea Director: Lee Chang-Dong

The Favourite United Kingdom Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Happy as Lazzaro Italy Director: Alice Rohrwacher

Roma — WINNER Mexico Director: Alfonso Cuarón

Shoplifters Japan Director: Kore-eda Hirokazu

BONNIE AWARD

Bonnie Tiburzi Caputo joined American Airlines in 1973 at age 24, becoming the first female pilot to fly for a major U.S. airline. In her honor, the second Bonnie Award will recognize a mid-career female director with a $50,000 unrestricted grant, sponsored by American Airlines.

Debra Granik — WINNER

Tamara Jenkins

Karyn Kusama

PRODUCERS AWARD

The 22nd annual Producers Award honors emerging producers who, despite highly limited resources, demonstrate the creativity, tenacity and vision required to produce quality, independent films. The award includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant.

Jonathan Duffy and Kelly Williams

Gabrielle Nadig

Shrihari Sathe — WINNER

SOMEONE TO WATCH AWARD

The 25th annual Someone to Watch Award recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate recognition. The award includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant.

Alex Moratto — WINNER Director of Sócrates

Ioana Uricaru Director of Lemonade

Jeremiah Zagar Director of We the Animals

TRUER THAN FICTION AWARD

The 24th annual Truer Than Fiction Award is presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant recognition. The award includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant.

Alexandria Bombach Director of On Her Shoulders

Bing Liu — WINNER Director of Minding the Gap

RaMell Ross Director of Hale County This Morning, This Evening

#film awards #spirit awards #film #santa monica #film independent

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