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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Myst: Creators Rand and Robyn Miller Unlock the Secrets of the PC Classic

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In 1991, two brothers—Rand and Robyn Miller—along with a handful of artists and engineers, set out to create a game unlike anything that had come before it, harnessing powerful new PC technology to immerse players in a fantastical island world inside a book. The game was called Myst, a point-and-click adventure full of infuriatingly difficult puzzles and driven by a twisted, fantastical story about a tragically dysfunctional family

Released in 1993, the game was lauded by fans and critics alike, became a killer app for CD-ROM drives, and went on to become the best selling PC game ever (over 6.3 million copies sold by 2000) until The Sims dethroned it in 2002. More than two decades after its release, there are even plans to turn the game into a movie and TV series. Myst is one of the most unlikely commercial success stories in gaming history, particularly due to the fact that the game was so strange, so notoriously difficult, and was made by such a small team (Cyan Worlds, founded by the Miller brothers in 1987).

“I was more of a gamer than Robyn, but both of us settled with Myst on the idea that, well let’s not have people die and start over, because that irritated both of us. We felt like we were building a real world, and in a real world, you don’t just die and start over every five minutes.” Rand says of the initial conceit that led to the creation of the game. “We wanted to add friction that would slow you down but we didn’t think that there were rules to video games necessarily, so we’ll pull out the dying and see if we could do it without that.”

Indeed, there’s no dying in Myst, a revolutionary idea at a time when “Game Over”s were a staple in virtually every game on the market. Instead, Myst tasked players with exploring its world and decrypting its story, eschewing combat for puzzles that challenged and engaged you but weren’t life-or-death ordeals.

“I’d love to tell you we knew exactly what we were doing, but we didn’t,” Rand says. “It was just another experiment along the scale of how to make things a little more sophisticated, and even within the game itself, you can see how we were expanding and building more cohesiveness into the worlds as we went.”

Despite its humble origins, Myst was a huge deal for a lot of people in the ‘90s, including me. I remember the thrill of watching it run on the new PC my parents bought for me and my brothers in the mid-90s, marveling at the FMV elements combined with the detailed pre-rendered environments.

“For me, Myst was for games what Star Wars was for movies,” explains Philip Shane, a filmmaker who’s launched a Kickstarter for a documentary about the making of the PC classic. Shane previously co-wrote the Sundance Special Jury Prize-winning documentary Being Elmo (2011). “I was 10 years old when Star Wars came out and, in my mind, I was the same age when I played Myst. Just like with Star Wars today, when you look back on Myst, it was the first time you ever saw something with that level of detail. It was an odd game, but for me it was huge.”

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Myst is responsible for a wave of cinematic, immersive games with rich storytelling that are as popular in 2020 as they ever were. Games like The Witness, Outer Wilds, and Quern draw inspiration from Myst’s original puzzle-adventure formula, while Dear Esther, Gone Home, and The Stanley Parable are heavily influenced by the world-building and environmental storytelling Myst pioneered.

“I think in our minds, it does feel like we’re building worlds and not necessarily games,” says Rand of Cyan’s approach to making games. “We try so hard to create this consistent flow in our worlds. It’s not easy. It takes a lot of effort to tie the environment with the story and the puzzles. It’s not always perfect. But we make that attempt to make it seem viable as far as worlds go.”

“And so we started coming up with [Myst’s] backstory,” Robyn adds. “And it helped to give us a better understanding of the entire world and maybe a better understanding of where the world should move onto for where we were going with it. We filled out the details, the empty spaces in our minds.”

Rand says that The Lord of the Rings books by J.R.R. Tolkien were a particular inspiration when building the world of Myst.

“[The Lord of the Rings] felt like you’re just reading one of the books, but the world was much bigger than that. It felt like you had a window. You were just experiencing a small window into a much larger world. And for some reason, that really resonated with us.” Rand explains. “That made those worlds seem so much more real to us. And so, when it came time to do our worlds, that’s naturally where we land. We build backstory and wrapped stuff around the family and what had happened. Stuff that didn’t even need to be told in the little window of the Myst game. But in our world, it gave it weight and I love that.”

The brothers also credit Alice in Wonderland, Tintin comics, and Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island as major influences on Myst.

“We had a couple of months to design the thing, and so it was more of a regurgitation of everything we had collectively in our psyches and aesthetic selves and whatever those influences were,” Robyn says. “Tonally it created something that was mysterious and weird, but it was all these things pressed together into this weirdness.”

Myst’s central tale, of Atrus and his warring sons Achenar and Sirrus, stretches far beyond the original game, to tie-in novels and its four sequels (one of which was developed by Ubisoft independently). Due to budgetary restrictions, Rand and Robyn were forced to act in the game themselves, with Rand playing Atrus and Achenar, and Robyn playing Sirrus (Rand continued to play Atrus in the game’s sequels).

“I would not call it acting,” Robyn says. “The fact that we got anything that looked good out of what we did is a miracle. It was just me and Rand really, and the thing I remember most is that we were laughing hysterically through it.”

“Like Robyn said, it’s a wonder we got anything out of us,” Rand says. “Looking back, in spite of the fact that we would not have cast ourselves had we had a real budget and to do things the way we wanted to, it’s cool again that we as brothers got to play those brothers and look back and laugh at it. I’ve got tapes.”

Though he was a longtime fan of Myst, Shane had never thought to make a documentary about the game until he met with the Miller brothers at a games convention in 2016, where they were presenting a keynote. At an after party, he approached them as a fan, without an inkling that the ensuing conversation would launch him into the next stage of his career.

“I was terrified,” Shane recalls of meeting the Millers. “I went up to them and immediately I thought, ‘Surely someone has made a documentary about Myst.’ So I said, ‘Has anyone ever made a documentary about Myst? And they were like, ‘No.’ And so I was like, ‘Could I?’ And they were like, ‘Really? Yeah.’ In spite of the making of Myst being a 25-year-long story, this was the fastest I’ve ever gone from conception of a documentary idea to green light. It was as fast as the neurons of three people could go. Just a couple of weeks later, my camera person, my cinematographer Kyle Kelly, and I flew out to Spokane and started filming.”

Spokane is the home of Cyan Worlds and the birthplace of Myst, its sequel Riven (1997), spiritual successor Obduction (2016), and the forthcoming Firmament, the studio’s first major VR release. Shane remembers watching a short, grainy documentary clip of the brothers talking about the making of Myst on a disc included with the original game’s release. “There were these two guys making the game at home,” he recalls. “At one point, the camera pans away and you see all these trees. I was like, ‘Those are the trees from Myst.’ It was like they lived in the game.”

With his documentary, Shane endeavoured to delve into the lives of the Miller brothers on a personal level, which meant spending a lot of time talking to them and picking their brains. Looking back on the making of Myst over a quarter of a century after its release has been an unexpectedly profound experience for Robyn in particular, who hasn’t been involved in making video games hands-on for decades now. Robyn left the company after the release of Riven in 1997 while Rand stayed on as CEO of Cyan Worlds.

“Well, I’d forgotten about Myst,” Robyn says of revisiting the game almost 30 years later. “If I play Myst today, it’s like I’m actually playing Myst [for the first time] and I have to remember things. It’s weird. I haven’t worked on any of that stuff in such a long time, so it’s fun to talk about Myst now.”

Shane says he has every intention of going through the brothers’ archive of tapes but that the success of the Kickstarter will largely determine how much he’ll be able to comb through for the documentary. “Research for a documentary is more time-intensive and expensive than people might know,” he explains. “And a big part of it is time. The more successful we are with the Kickstarter, the deeper I’m going to be able to go [into the archives]. I can’t promise anything, but I want to get that stuff. Rand has a ton of home movies. They both have a lot of stuff that they’ve saved up.”

Currently, Cyan is hard at work on its forthcoming puzzle-adventure game, Firmament. The studio is deep into development, and while Cyan originally targeted a July 2020 release date, the COVID-19 pandemic caused the team to push the release back, announcing in a recent Kickstarter backers’ update that the game likely wouldn’t be finished until 2022. But the team is still working hard on the game from home, and according to Rand, they were largely prepared to work remotely and continue development.

“Firmament‘s probably one of the best storylines we’ve done in a game since I’ve been doing this. It’s really cool,” Rand says. “Whether we can pull it off, I think, Robyn and I talked about this so many years ago is, even for Myst and Riven: you can have big plans for a story, but at some level, it’s about being able to communicate it. Sometimes you just have to simplify it so that it’s satisfying and people get it. So we’ll see what we can do with Firmament, but it’s a great, great storyline.”

When it does arrive, Firmament will be the latest in a long line of memorable experiences from Cyan Worlds. But Myst will always be their crowning achievement, a game that continues to impact its players today. The Miller brothers admit that Myst grew beyond anything they could have possibly imagined.

Robyn puts the enduring legacy of this game best: “We made Myst and we never expected it to continue on this many years later especially. Now it’s so much larger than Myst. It’s got a life of its own. There are so many people who are involved in — whether it’s creating, writing their own stories about it, or painting pictures, or having guilds, or the Mysterium [an annual celebration of the game] getting together every year. It just goes on and on and on, it’s this world that exists out there. This massive thing that is much larger than the Myst games. We feel privileged and humbled to be a part of that, privileged and humbled to have been there at the beginning.” Shane’s The Myst Documentary is currently in pre-production and will cover both the origin of Myst as well as the current work being done at Cyan Worlds. The project has more than 2,000 backers as of this writing. Check out the Kickstarter here.

The post Myst: Creators Rand and Robyn Miller Unlock the Secrets of the PC Classic appeared first on Den of Geek.

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ryanjdonovan · 4 years

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Donovan's Oscar Prognostication 2020

Pablo Picasso said, "The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls." I'm sure all of this year's Academy Award nominees believe he was talking about them specifically. The same cannot be said, however, of this excruciatingly long and dull article. It'll put that dust right back all over your soul. So sit back, relax, pop some trucker pills, and prepared to be bored stiff with my 21st annual Oscar predictions.

BEST PICTURE:

SHOULD WIN: 1917 WILL WIN: 1917 GLORIOUSLY OMITTED: Downton Abbey INGLORIOUSLY SNUBBED: Knives Out

In a year when all the acting races were decided before New Year's, the Best Picture category may have one of the few chances for a surprise. At least three movies (or five, depending on who you ask) have a shot to win: 1917, Parasite, and Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood (plus The Irishman and Joker). But if you like to bet, the odds of 1917 taking the big prize are getting better by the day. It was in good position already, but its recent Producers Guild victory (which foretold somewhat-surprising Best Picture winners Green Book and The Shape Of Water) puts it over the top. 1917's chances are further buoyed by the preferential voting system in this category, which favors movies that are universally liked over movies that are loved by some and disliked by others. (This is how many pundits explain Green Book's surprise victory last year, which nobody seemed ecstatic about. And if you want to know the details on how the voting system works, buy me a beer sometime and I'll bore you to tears.) Oh, and 1917 may also win because it's an absolute masterpiece. So then, why might it lose? History, for one: No movie has ever won this award without having at least an acting OR editing nomination -- and 1917 has neither. Secondly, critic reviews like the one from the New Yorker: "1917, a film of patriotic bombast, has an imagination-free script filled with melodramatic coincidences that trivialize the life-and-death action by reducing it to sentiment." Wow, I bet he's a lot of fun at parties. And finally, the reason I've been hearing most often: It's a simple story of good old-fashioned bravery and triumph of the will, and in these sardonic times, people don't wanna hear that rah-rah sh#t. But ultimately, you can likely count on optimism prevailing and carrying the film to victory.

So if 1917 doesn't win, what will? Well, what kind of person are you? The cynics are picking Parasite (and I'm a cynic, so it's weird that I'm not picking it). If you want to feel like you are personally responsible for every socioeconomic injustice on the planet and at least partly accountable for several socially-motivated murders in South Korea, then this is the movie for you. The obstacles for it to overcome to win Best Picture are tough: No foreign-language film has ever won (remember Roma last year?); voters will rationalize that it's assured to take home at least one trophy anyway, for Best International Film; and the same voters that are passionate about Parasite are also passionate about Once Upon A Time, so the vote will get split. But on the other hand, in its favor: Parasite is a huge international box-office success, which Roma was not; it isn't facing the "Netflix backlash" that we all underestimated last year (i.e., "streaming movies are TV movies and TV movies shouldn’t win Oscars"); the Academy has reportedly increased its international membership to 20%; and finally, movie people friggin' LOVE it. The industry, especially actors (the largest group of voters), love the movie, love the cast, love the director. They made a movie that makes everyone feel horrified and confused and upset and exasperated, and people go bananas for them at every award ceremony. The movie has captured something unique in the zeitgeist, and that's a factor that makes things almost impossible to predict. (As for me, I liked it, but I don't know what the hell it's about or what it means. More on that later.)

The West Coasters, the hippies, and the delusional are picking Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood. But wait, what about the modern film snobs? (Hey, I'm one of those too. Very weird.) They're Quentin Tarantino's bread and butter -- aren't they picking it too? Well, they're split (and very conflicted), because they've found Parasite, which has the same kind of edge and wit that Tarantino provides, but with much more incisiveness. They quite frankly don't know what to do. Here's a hint: Whichever film the snobs say they're picking, they're lying, and are actually picking the other one. The big backers for Once Upon A Time will be the old-school, long-time, insider-y insiders. Hollywood incarnate. The Hollywood that loves to reward itself. I mean, "Hollywood" is literally in the title of the movie. In theory, that should take it far with voters. But in the end, the rollicking, intoxicating, revisionist fairy tale will probably fall just short. It's clear the actors' support of Once Upon A Time is getting funneled toward Brad Pitt. Ultimately, that means it won't be #1 on enough ballots to win Best Picture.

The old school film buffs are picking The Irishman. If you don't think any good movies have been made in the last 25 years, then this is your movie. I was as excited as anyone when this came out, and really want to love it, but it's… in a word, underwhelming. As a theater purist, I can't believe I'm saying this, but: I should have watched it on Netflix on my TV. I proudly bought tickets for a film festival screening, before they announced the run time. Three-and-a-half hours is just a long damn time (without an intermission -- what happened to those??) to sit in an uncomfortable theater. It's a marathon, literally -- many people can run 26.2 miles in less time. At home, I could have taken a break, hydrated, stretched, changed compression socks, etc. It also looks like it was filmed for TV viewing, not cinema screens, despite the staggering budget and Martin Scorsese's assertions to the contrary. The de-aging of Robert De Niro, blown up on a big screen, looks downright silly: He has the shape and movement of a very old man, with patchy, digitally smoothed areas around his eyes and black shoe polish in his hair; and the fake blue eyes just look creepy. And the scenes where the actors are obviously green-screened onto a location background are jarring and look cheap. The net effect of all that is that it distracted me enough to take me out of the movie. Honestly, on Netflix, I think I would have enjoyed and appreciated it more, and could have gotten absorbed into the story.

And like everyone anticipating The Irishman, I was salivating about finally getting the Pacino/De Niro pairing that the world has been wishing for since 1974 (not counting two scenes in Heat), and it's… sort of satisfying, I guess? (But wait… can't Disney get the Russo Brothers to make a new Godfather trilogy, where Pacino and De Niro both appear as badass Force ghosts? I'm just saying, let's not dismiss the idea out of hand until we've seen a treatment.) More than definitive opinions on The Irishman, I'm left with what-ifs: What if the movie had been made 20 years ago? What if the script had been tightened up? What if the digital effects looked good? What if John Cazale was still alive and made an appearance? What if I could have paused the movie for 60 damn seconds to make a Pop-Tart? It could have been the greatest movie of all time.

The genre fanatics and fanboys/girls (other than the Marvel acolytes) are picking Joker. It's not the obvious choice, but having the most overall nominations automatically puts Joker in the Best Picture race. It doesn't pose a realistic threat to win, but the sheer popularity of it will garner some votes. Did the world really need yet another movie about the Joker and the death of Bruce Wayne's parents? Probably not. (With Jared Leto, definitely not.) The world didn't ask for it, but we got it anyway, and it turned out to be pretty incredible. And from the least likely source: Todd Phillips, the middle-to-low-brow filmmaker behind broad comedies like Old School (one of my all-time favorites) and The Hangover. And Phillips took the most obvious but least likely approach: to tell it as an serious, realistic, dramatic origin story of a man, comprehensible but not sympathetic, unable to fit in anywhere and disturbed beyond his breaking point, set in a superpower-less world, without even a mention of Batman. The Dark Knight this ain't. I'm completely on board, but have some issues with the third act; and beyond that, I can't even formulate an opinion about the confounding yet entrancing ending. Weirdly, the film doesn't quite deliver the promise of the trailer, which is a shame. I'm not giving my Best Picture vote to Joker, but I would probably vote for the trailer for Best Short Film.

The East Coast literati are picking Marriage Story. Both Marriage Story and The Irishman are long shots, but being Netflix films makes their odds even longer. The streamer tried more a palatable release strategy than it had for Roma; it gave these films month-long theatrical runs before putting them online. But we know from experience that the Academy is wary of crowning a Netflix film as Best Picture. Marriage Story is a fantastic, brainy, wrenching film, to be sure (sprinkled with lighter notes of life's absurd realities to keep the weight of it bearable), but I have a big issue with it: believability. Not that the couple is getting divorced, but that Scarlett Johansson would marry that clown Adam Driver to begin with.

And don't get me started with the kid in Marriage Story. I'm still waiting for the movie that shows a home that looks like children actually live there. If you've ever been to planet Earth, you know that homes with kids look like they've been taken over by raccoons… who are hoarders… with unlimited access to Amazon Prime. If movies were realistic, you wouldn't be able to see counter tops, rugs, tops of dining room tables, or clear paths to children's closets. The homes would basically all look like Grey Gardens. Where are the stalagmites of spilled cereal calcified to the floor? Where are the brand new books that already look like they've been attacked by hyenas? Where are the single, unmatched socks tossed in every conceivable location except a hamper? Where is the rotten food buried under piles of Legos? Where are the magic marker doodles on the screen of the iPad? Where is the foul diaper stench that is obvious to everyone except the parents? Where is the tinkle sprayed everywhere EXCEPT the inside of the toilet? Where is the pacifier stuck in the chandelier? Where are the footprints on the INSIDE of the roof of the car? Where are the crumpled up art projects from school that nobody gives a damn about? If most families' homes were ransacked by the Home Alone robbers, the parents literally wouldn't notice the difference.

And come to think of it… what kind of kid doesn't bite, scratch, talk back, throw food, scream for no reason, call anyone an a-hole, melt down over Minecraft, or tell his parents in a sweet voice, "You're not on the Naughty List… because you're on the Stupid List"? This boy in Marriage Story never even once tells his mom or dad that they are ruining his life (even though they kind of are). So, is there anything in the movie I could relate to? Well, maybe arguing with your child about Halloween costumes? I mean, you come up with an amazing group Halloween costume, and you've gotten explicit agreement from your children, and then the kids change their minds the day before and refuse to participate and want to wear something dumb instead and totally ruin the whole thing, ruin the whole holiday, hell, ruin the whole year. WHY CAN'T YOU JUST STICK TO MY AMAZING PLAN?? Nope, nothing I can relate to.

As for the remaining nominees… The book clubs are picking Little Women. The comedy fans and Hitler impersonators are picking Jojo Rabbit. Gearheads (especially Ferrari Club members that don't own Ferraris) are picking Ford V Ferrari. None stand a chance in this category.

Everybody else is picking 1917. Here are my estimations for each of the contenders winning Best Picture: 1917 - 60%, Parasite - 25%, Once Upon A Time - 11%, Irishman - 2%, Joker - 2%. Bet on it.

BEST ACTOR:

SHOULD WIN: Joaquin Phoenix (Joker) WILL WIN: Joaquin Phoenix (Joker) GLORIOUSLY OMITTED: Robert De Niro (The Irishman) INGLORIOUSLY SNUBBED: George MacKay (1917)

I'm sorry, I need to get this out of the way right off the bat: Adam Driver is a total waste of time, in Marriage Story or anything else.

Joaquin Phoenix is going to win the Oscar, and I couldn't be more conflicted. His support is strong with the Academy, but it's not without some trepidation. From a career perspective, he makes a lot of sense for voters: With his fourth nomination (plus a couple of narrow misses), people feel he's due; it's one of Phoenix's most transformative and immersive roles; with the boffo box office and impact on popular culture (and potential sequels), it will remain in the consciousness for years; Leonardo DiCaprio already has an Oscar; and the other nominees are de facto also-rans. As much as it pains me to say it, Phoenix deserves it. With films like this, Walk The Line, and Her, I begrudgingly admit that he can be, on occasion, phenomenal; and other times, he makes I'm Still Here. As for his secretive process for the Joker, he dropped a big hint when he said, "My significant other right now is myself, which is what happens when you suffer from multiple personality disorder and self-obsession." That would do it.

And of course, there is the inevitable Heath Ledger vs. Joaquin Phoenix debate, which will annoyingly factor into voting. When Phoenix matches Ledger with an Oscar victory, what happens to the argument? It's an unsolvable puzzle that the Joker himself would love. Here's the real question: What if their situations were reversed? If Phoenix's performance was first and had died right after, while Ledger's portrayal came along 10 years later and he was still living? It's easy: Phoenix's performance would be considered superior, hands down. And I'm not so sure Ledger would have won the Oscar. (Cue the readership rage.)

It's a meme come true! The internet got its wish when Jonathan Pryce was cast as his papal doppelganger, Pope Francis, in The Two Popes. (Look up the comparisons from when Francis was elected in 2013.) He's the least likely nominee to win, but I was close to choosing him as my personal pick. He's mesmerizing as a soft-spoken yet opinionated cardinal (not yet the pope) at odds with Anthony Hopkins' Pope Benedict XVI, in the days leading up to Benedict's resignation. He's a man dealing with internal and external crises of character and church, but to his credit, Pryce does not externalize it into an emotional performance. It's measured, and funny, and feels real. (The Welshman's Argentinian accent, however, is… rough. And while he tried to learn some Spanish for the role, most of his Spanish dialogue was dubbed by a native speaker, and it's glaringly obvious.) After spending most of his career playing a slight variation on the same meek everyman (which made him the least-threatening Bond villain of all time), his roles recently have been the best, juiciest, and most versatile of his career. (By the way, how did I miss the fact that Phoenix played Jesus Christ in a movie in 2018? Get these Best Actor nominees together, and the casting for the inevitable Two Popes sequel is already done.)

Pryce and Antonio Banderas are two of the nicest surprises of the awards season. They're both a couple of prolific, reliable vets who have never really been Oscar-fare guys, and aren't exactly drawing the attention they once were. It's really refreshing to see them both get some career-validating recognition with their first nominations. Heading into nomination day, I assumed only one (or neither) would get nominated, so I was thrilled to see them both chosen over more conventional (and more decorated) nominees. (And, it freed up my Snubbed award.) Banderas's character in Pain And Glory is an understated, nuanced performance, as his recent Spanish roles tend to be, but not typical compared to the more bombastic roles we're used to seeing him play in the U.S. It's perfect for the film, itself an introspective, personal story from Pedro Almodóvar, uncharacteristically simpler than the films he's most known for. Decades after he should have racked up all the awards for the brilliant Desperado, Banderas is finally going to the Oscars. And Antonio… bring your guitar.

I'm getting soft. I'm becoming numb to my dislike of Leonardo DiCaprio. He almost doesn't single-handedly ruin movies for me anymore. He's been in enough great movies (and actually been decent in a few of them), that I hardly even roll my eyes in annoyance at the mere sight of him at this point. Case in point: Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood. He's there. He's fine. He has two commendable scenes, and several other dynamic ones with the rest of the cast. That's it. The movie is good, but I can't help but feel it would be better with someone else. (Ditto Brad Pitt.)

As blasphemous as it sounds, I'm going to say it: I think Robert De Niro needs to hang it up. It's almost getting too painful to watch. Between The Irishman and Joker, he managed to sweep my Gloriously Omitted awards this year, which is no easy feat. He just looks so inert in damn near every scene in The Irishman. He's misguidedly supposed to play a much younger man through most of the movie, and you want to picture Johnny Boy or Jake La Motta or even Jimmy Conway, but instead you're seeing… Abe Vigoda. I’m putting him in the same Time To Retire category as Harrison Ford (I mean, in his upcoming movie The Call Of The Wild, it looks like the only co-star they could get for Ford is a badly-CGI'd dog). I would have also put Nick Nolte in this category, but he's redeemed himself with The Mandalorian. I have spoken.

There are a lot of actors in the running for my Snubbed pick this year: Eddie Murphy in Dolemite Is My Name, Roman Griffin Davis in Jojo Rabbit, Himesh Patel in Yesterday, Paul Walter Hauser in Richard Jewell. But ultimately, I'm going with George MacKay in 1917. For all the talk of technical and directorial accomplishments, MacKay carries the film on his shoulders. The movie simply doesn't work if he's not fantastic.

BEST ACTRESS:

SHOULD WIN: Renée Zellweger (Judy) WILL WIN: Renée Zellweger (Judy) GLORIOUSLY OMITTED: Taylor Swift (Cats) INGLORIOUSLY SNUBBED: Awkwafina (The Farewell)

Somewhere over the rainbow, Judy Davis is unimpressed… but Renée Zellweger is going to skip away with the Oscar for Judy. Every so often, a role comes along where the performer is so spot-on that they win the Oscar based on the movie's preview alone, before the movie even comes out, months before award season (like Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln, Helen Mirren in The Queen, Mo'Nique in Precious, Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour, or Jamie Foxx in Ray). When the Judy trailer debuted, everyone who matters (myself included) watched her clang-clang-clang with tipsy grandeur in a gilded pantsuit and half-inch eyelashes -- the Judy-est damned Judy Garland you ever saw -- and instantly said, "Yep, that's it." Throw in the fact that it's an emotional story about a beloved and tragic Hollywood icon, plus Zellweger's overexaggerated-yet-oddly-appealing comeback narrative, and the race was over before it began. The real question is whether it will break the record for Most Oscar Votes Submitted By People Who Didn't Even Watch The Movie. (The current record-holder is Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady.) In fact, I think the only Academy member who's actually watched the film is Liza Minnelli.

The only contender here that's going to pull any votes from Zellweger is Charlize Theron, for her universally lauded role in the divisively polarizing film Bombshell. Theron is riding a late-breaking wave of acclaim, has consistently matched Zellweger nomination-for-nomination, and has many critics trumpeting this as her best work. Further helping her cause, Zellweger already has an Oscar (for Cold Mountain), so she's not getting any lifetime-achievement votes. If Theron herself had not already won (for Monster), she might actually be in the running. But let's face it, even in her best hair and heels, Megyn Kelly just isn't going to compete with Judy Garland, whether it's on the screen, in a drag show, or at the Oscars.

It's almost a shame that Zellweger has been such a wire-to-wire favorite, because Scarlett Johansson is absolutely remarkable in Marriage Story. If I had a seat in the Academy, I would know that intellectually I needed to vote for Zellweger… but I would probably vote for Johansson anyway. I've never seen her so grounded, endearing, and, frankly, repellent. Her task is daunting: Beyond playing a woman slowly being torn apart at the seams during a divorce, she has to be flawed, supportive, tough, loving, conniving, sympathetic, perplexed, hurt, supportive, lovely, guarded, longing, angry, nurturing, vicious, unglamorous… and most of all, able to elicit empathy from the audience -- all without smiling, AND with shorter hair than Adam Driver. Johansson has long been considered a talented and strong screen presence, but as recently as Avengers last summer, nobody was touting her as an Oscar-caliber actress. And of course, now she has not one but two nominations (with her supporting turn in Jojo Rabbit). It's a nice payoff on the promise we saw early in her adult career, before the rom-coms and superhero flicks, boasting films like Ghost World, Lost In Translation, and Girl With A Pearl Earring. So, she won't win here, but there's always next year… Is it too much to hope that her upcoming Black Widow origin story, besides ass-kicking and acrobatics, includes a messy divorce, a nasty custody battle, World War II drama, and maybe even an imaginary Nazi?

I was glad to see Cynthia Erivo nominated for her titular role in Harriet, but I honestly thought she'd be more of a threat here. When this project about legendary heroine Harriet Tubman was announced, starring a Broadway headliner, it figured to be a favorite for Best Picture and a shoo-in for Best Actress. I penciled her in for my Nomination Locks immediately. The film debuted to strong buzz, but as the season went on, and other films and performances dominated the scene, the buzz quieted. The film missed out on most accolades, and while Erivo managed some key nominations, she missed out on a few others, casting her Oscar nomination in doubt. A lesser prognosticator may have been surprised when her name was called on Nomination Morn, but I never wavered. Am I just as confident that she will prevail at the ceremony? Well… If she does in fact win (for Actress or Original Song), the erstwhile Color Purple star will make some interesting history: the youngest person to achieve an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony), and in the shortest amount of time (five years). And if she doesn't win, is it too soon to hope for another Harriet Tubman movie, based on the 30 Rock episode, directed by Tracy Morgan, starring a completely crazy Octavia Spencer?

Probably the least surprising name in the mix this year (or any year) is the one almost no Americans can pronounce: Saoirse Ronan. With her fourth nomination at the ripe old age of 25, we can pretty much count on an awards contender (or a Timothée Chalamet collaboration, or both) pretty much every year for the foreseeable future. Her nomination for Little Women seemed inevitable, even when she missed out on a Screen Actors Guild nod. This isn't her year, but when she hits nomination number five, it's going to start getting really hard not to give it to her… at the washed-up lifetime-achievement age of, you know, 26.

Awkwafina is my clear pick for Ingloriously Snubbed this year, for her surprising, powerful, and grounded turn in The Farewell. Other welcome inclusions would have been Lupita Nyong'o in Us, Alfre Woodard in Clemency, and Ana de Armas in Knives Out.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

SHOULD WIN: Anthony Hopkins (The Two Popes) WILL WIN: Brad Pitt (Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood) GLORIOUSLY OMITTED: Robert De Niro (Joker) INGLORIOUSLY SNUBBED: Willem Dafoe (The Lighthouse)

Well, my #AnybodyButBrad campaign is not going well. This is a category of absolute legends, and Brad Pitt is who we're picking?? It's frankly insulting. And you people (yes, you all!) are enabling this. I'm sorry, smiling is not acting. He had two good (okay, fantastic) scenes in Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood. But that was all. And we can agree, he's been a lot better in a lot of other movies. Part of the push is that he's the only nominee who hasn't won an Oscar for acting, so… we should reward him for being the least talented actor in the group? (By the way, he actually does have an Oscar, for producing 12 Years A Slave; but let's be honest, all he probably did was lend his name to secure meetings and woo financiers.) It's clear to me now that everyone is insane except me. You can make any argument you want for Once Upon A Time, but for me it comes down to this: I don't want to live in a world where Brad Pitt can beat up Bruce Lee.

The statistics and history with this group of nominated actors are fascinating (to me, but probably nobody else). The group (Tom Hanks, Anthony Hopkins, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Pitt) collectively boasts 30 nominations and six wins. Aside from Pitt, the last time any of these heavyweights was nominated was 2001, and the last victory was Hanks in Forrest Gump a quarter of a century ago. (As I'm typing this, I’m painfully realizing that some younger readers have probably never heard of these actors.) Pacino achieved his ninth nomination this year (his first in 27 years), putting him in third place for most male acting nominations; only Jack Nicholson (12) and Laurence Olivier (10) scored more. And if he wins, he'll have won in both Lead and Supporting Actor categories, joining a short list of nobodies with names like Lemmon, Washington, Hackman, and De Niro. (And it's worth nothing, lest any of these young whippersnappers get too impressed with their haul of nominations, that 87-year-old composer John Williams has almost double the nominations that the group has combined, having notched his 52nd nomination -- the most for any living person -- for scoring the latest Star Wars movie.)

I'm casting my dissenting vote for Anthony Hopkins, the longest odds to actually win. We take his thespian prowess for granted, and as a result I think we forget how amazing he actually is. In The Two Popes, as Pope Benedict XVI, he's unequivocally at the top of his game. His accent is iffy, but his characterization and physicality are remarkable. And his papal odd-couple pairing with Jonathan Pryce is a match made in… well, you know. Their scenes together are absolutely electric, especially their initial sit-down scene in the garden. Ostensibly, it's just two old men talking, but really, it's so much more; we SEE them quarrelling, debating, poking, out-witting, insulting, joking, and one-upping, but we FEEL them jousting, swiping, dancing, circling, assessing, piercing, and wounding. It's an exhausting prize fight, and they literally never touch. Maybe it's because he knows he has no shot at winning, but Hopkins isn't exactly wooing voters by demystifying his acting technique: "I don't research. It wasn’t difficult for me to play old because I am old. Acting for me has become dead easy. It’s not brain surgery." Tips from the master.

My favorite nomination here belongs to Joe Pesci for The Irishman. Considering he came out of a 20-year retirement to do the film, and totally nails the character, it's a wonderful capper to his career. It's intriguing to look back at his career with some perspective. He became kind of ubiquitous for being Joe Pesci (or for the public's perception of Joe Pesci), but he was actually in a remarkably small number of movies. And despite his career not taking off until he was in his late 40s, he became one of the most impressive actors of his generation. Even if you discount Raging Bull in 1981, he had an astonishing run of movies from 1989 to 1995, which included: Lethal Weapon 2, Goodfellas, Home Alone, JFK, My Cousin Vinny, A Bronx Tale, and Casino. He literally made a classic every year. And Goodfellas and Home Alone, two of the most iconic films of all time, were released a mere month apart in 1990. Then, only nine years into his hot streak, after Lethal Weapon 4 in 1998, he retired. (Though honestly, EVERYONE involved in Lethal Weapon 4 probably should have retired.) It's nice to see him one more time, reunited with a legendary director, putting a new twist on the old Joe. The things you do for money (and Scorsese).

Al Pacino is nominated for playing Jimmy Hoffa in The Irishman, and for being Al Pacino. I wouldn't pick him to win, but I’m on board with the nomination. Given his age, he should be playing Hoffa's father, but at least he, unlike Robert De Niro, looks like he's having fun in the movie. For my money, Nicholson was more convincing in looks and demeanor in his (nomination-less) portrayal of the legendary teamster boss in the 1992 film Hoffa, but Pacino makes up for it in charisma. Though I suppose it could have used at least one "Hoo-AAAAH!"

Tom Hanks is back in the mix for A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood, now that he only portrays real-life celebrities in movies. After playing Captain Sully and Walt Disney, I guess the only sunnier and squeakier role left was Mr. Rogers. I realize he's getting loads of acclaim for this part, but I have a hard time buying him in these non-fiction roles. He's become a person so famous for disappearing into characters that he can no longer disappear into the character of a famous person. I don’t know who he can possibly play after this; unless they make a movie about Tom Hanks, he might be forced to retire.

I'm sorry, how is Willem Dafoe not winning his first Oscar for his totally bonkers role in The Lighthouse? How is he not even nominated? He's crazy, the premise is crazy, the camerawork is crazy, the, uh, mermaid parts are crazy, the whole movie's crazy, you're crazy, I'm crazy, the entire world is crazy. A couple other roles I was cheering for (which were a lot less likely, but not much less crazy): Wesley Snipes for Dolemite Is My Name and Ray Liotta for Marriage Story. Both of them were borderline certifiable, and pretty much exactly how I would hope they would be in real life.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

SHOULD WIN: Kathy Bates (Richard Jewell) WILL WIN: Laura Dern (Marriage Story) GLORIOUSLY OMITTED: Anna Paquin (The Irishman) INGLORIOUSLY SNUBBED: Jennifer Lopez (Hustlers)

After sweeping the awards circuit, it's clear that Laura Dern will win by a landslide for her role in Marriage Story… but I'm still trying to figure out exactly why. There's no denying she's great -- it's a fun, sharp, duplicitous turn. Her character is a viper in stilettos, and she leans into it. But she just seemed like Laura Dern, if Laura Dern had a penchant for using legal jargon, manipulating old men, and putting the screws to soon-to-be-unmarried fathers. Basically, divorce lawyer Laura Dern looks and sounds a lot like talk-show guest Laura Dern. In her defense, I will say she complemented the other actors, and led a cast of spectacularly over-the-top supporting players, including Julie Hagerty, Merritt Wever, Alan Alda, Martha Kelly, and Ray Liotta. It helps that she's on a hot streak of prestige TV shows, Little Women, an upcoming return to the Jurassic Park franchise, and of course, Star Wars (I still don't understand why a droid couldn't have piloted her suicide mission; I mean, C-3PO was standing right there until he quietly backed away, but whatever). The only Oscar justification I've heard from insiders is, "It's her time." Compelling. But I guess this year that's good enough.

Why not Kathy Bates, for her role in Richard Jewell? It's possibly her best deep-south, wigged-out, overprotective mama bear role since The Waterboy. On second thought… can we just give her an honorary Oscar for The Waterboy?

While I’m stumping for Scarlett Johansson in Marriage Story, I'm not quite as high on her nomination for Jojo Rabbit. It's a refreshing characterization to be sure, veering opposite the obvious saccharine choices she could have made for the role, portraying a mother trying to raise her son and make some sense (and jokes) out of life in wartime Nazi Germany. However, I can confidently say that her nomination is more for the pivotal impact her character has on the movie, rather than the performance itself. But all things considered, with two nominations, the highest grossing movie of all time, a Captain Marvel cameo, a trailer for her own superhero movie, and (yet another) engagement, she's had quite a year.

I thought Margot Robbie might have a tough time scoring a nomination this year; it seemed like strong campaigns for Bombshell and Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood might cannibalize each other and cancel each other out. (She actually managed to score BAFTA nominations for both, but Oscar rules preclude actors from being nominated multiple times in the same category.) The meatier role in Bombshell won out, but any role would lose to Dern overall.

You had to figure someone from the supporting cast of Little Women would get a nomination here, whether it was Florence Pugh, Emma Watson, or Meryl What's-her-face. Meryl never stood a chance.

The person I would probably vote for is the one person everyone expected to be here and is also the one person who isn't here. I am personally bummed for Jennifer Lopez. I think it's easy to forget what a fantastic, dynamic actress Lopez was, early in her career, before J.Lo and Jenny From The Block and celebrity marriages and pop-stardom and brutal rom-coms and Super Bowl halftime shows and all the Razzies (so many Razzie nominations - 10 of them!). Back in films like Selena and Out Of Sight, she was the real deal. And even through the Razzie years, she has always been a smart actress with abundant charisma. So a nomination for Hustlers would have been nice validation for a long, productive, far-from-dull (and far-from-over) career. And, by the way, she's outstanding in the film. It's exactly the right role (acting and producing) at the right time in her career (and it also helps that she's effectively ageless). The film was a bit of a gamble: a "gangster" film about female strippers that has more in common with Goodfellas than Showgirls. The film basically dares audiences to root for the "bad guys" when they are women, and dares critics to praise a movie as "cool" when it's driven by women committing crimes and manipulating people. (A quick scan of the 'greatest films of all time' reminds us that we've been doing both for men for a century.) And of course, the gamble paid off in spades. A nomination would have been icing on the cake. My gut tells me conspiracy… How many of her exes are voting members of the Academy, anyway? (Looking at you, Ben.)

Honorable mentions for the Snubbed Choice: Annette Bening for The Report and Lily James for Yesterday. I really thought Bening would challenge for the prize, which would have been her (overdue) first, but her campaign never really caught on. And James de-glammed (slightly) to play the heart (to Himesh Patel's soul) in the Beatles love letter.

BEST DIRECTOR:

SHOULD WIN: Sam Mendes (1917) WILL WIN: Sam Mendes (1917) GLORIOUSLY OMITTED: Tom Hooper (Cats) INGLORIOUSLY SNUBBED: Rian Johnson (Knives Out)

This category could be ripe for an upset… by pretty much anyone. All indictors point to Sam Mendes being a lock for 1917: He won the Director's Guild Award (the most accurate predictor of any award in any category), he also won all the other lead-up awards, and everyone pretty much agrees his film was the most technically challenging of the bunch. And I've got to say, the praise is warranted. It's an emotional, visceral, non-stop assault, in the best possible way. Of course, much of the credit goes to cinematographer Roger Deakins. But Mendes's meticulous planning of every single camera move and unbroken continuity thrusts the viewer, almost unwillingly, into the dizzying melee, physically and mentally. The Oscar is rightfully his. But still, there is some doubt. He's already got an Oscar (for American Beauty), and this is only his second directing nomination. Given the company in this category, is it right that he go two-for-two? Is he as great as Martin Scorsese or as influential as Quentin Tarantino? And he's only directed eight feature-length films in his entire career, so isn't he just plain lazy? On top of all that, he got to direct the James Bond films that Tarantino always wanted to. I mean, is any of that fair?

I think Bong Joon Ho stands the best chance of pulling off an upset, especially if there's a Picture/Director split. He was a long-shot early in the race, but he's quickly gaining ground, and there's an X-factor here that can't be quantified: He seems to have tapped into something that people keep talking about (the film shot up IMDB's all-time Top Rated Movies list almost instantly), his film is becoming more of a global phenomenon by the day, he and his cast have charmed at all the festivals and award shows, and people in the industry are flat-out rooting for him. And while Mendes, Tarantino, and Martin Scorsese already have Oscars, he's a first-time nominee who has been adored by critics for years (I mean, who doesn't love a good sledgehammer-shattering-a-frozen-arm scene?). But the big thing that will thwart his bid is the splitting of the "cool" vote: Many of the people that want to vote for Bong also want to vote for….

…Quentin Tarantino, who also has a real shot with Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood, and it has more to do with legacy than his film. He has two Oscars, but they're both for screenwriting (and he may have a third before the night is over); he does not have a statuette for directing. The big question in everyone's mind is: Will history look favorably on the Academy if Tarantino -- thought by many to be one of the most influential (if not one of the flat-out greatest) directors of his generation -- never wins a Best Director Oscar? Tarantino has shrewdly said that he's only planning to make one more movie before he retires (and it may be a Star Trek flick). To voters, that means: The clock is ticking, and this might be the last chance to bestow the honor. While I don't think that sentiment will carry a victory, it will undoubtedly be a factor. For my personal choice, as is often the case, this comes down to Who Do I Think DESERVES To Win vs. Who Do I WANT To Win? No question, I think Mendes deserves to win… buuuuut, I'm rooting for Tarantino. If he had simply won for Pulp Fiction (which will likely hold up as his most revered film 50 years from now), we wouldn't be in this mess.

You also can't quite count out Martin Scorsese, for The Irishman. His ninth Best Director nomination pushes him past Billy Wilder for second-most all time (William Wyler leads with 12). A win would be shocking, but then again, if you took a poll of cinephiles and asked who is more deserving of two career Oscars, Scorsese or Mendes, the vote would probably be unanimous for Scorsese. Early on, it looked like the race was his to lose, when his film debuted for a short theatrical run, and critics and devotees rhapsodized about a definitive masterwork (well, those who stayed awake, anyway). But once the film hit the masses on Netflix, and every-day account leeches were less enthusiastic, Scorsese slipped back into the middle of the pack.

I can't help but wonder, will Scorsese's "controversial" comments about superhero movies not being cinema cost him votes? I mean, people really freaked out about that, and both the internet and legitimate Hollywood players clapped back loudly. Give me a break. I don't necessarily agree with him, but let the man talk. He was off-handedly asked his opinion about Marvel movies in an interview (along with a lot of other topics), and he simply replied. And people went bananas. It's not like he's out on Twitter trolling people or inserting his opinion where it's not invited. He is unquestionably one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, and also one of the greatest film historians of all time. I'd be willing to say that no single person on the planet knows cinema better than he does, and perhaps nobody alive has left a bigger imprint on cinema than he has. I think the man has earned the right to have an opinion on the subject. If Scorsese wants to tell me that home videos of my kids on my phone lack substance, stakes, and three-dimensional characters, I'd say he's well within his right. So before writing an aggrieved blog post attacking him, I would think twice about whether I was even qualified to make the argument. (But since I'm ALSO one of the preeminent minds on cinema, I am certainly qualified to shout my opinion and slam anyone I want online. Oh, hey, look, I just wrote an article doing exactly that.)

And as far-fetched as it seems, Todd Phillips is also in the mix, for Joker. The film surprisingly has the most nominations, with 11. That momentum often carries over into unexpected categories. I never really thought of Phillips as a visual storyteller or a master of tone, but with Joker he's a revelation. In a year where the Joker is the hero, I guess anything is possible.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:

SHOULD WIN: Rian Johnson (Knives Out) WILL WIN: Quentin Tarantino (Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood) GLORIOUSLY OMITTED: Julian Fellowes (Downton Abbey) INGLORIOUSLY SNUBBED: M. Night Shyamalan (Glass)

Might we see a tie for Original Screenplay? It looks like a dead heat between Quentin Tarantino (Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood) and Bong Joon Ho and Jin Won Han (Parasite). And we don't have the benefit of the Writers Guild Award to tip us off: Parasite won the trophy, but Tarantino famously does not belong to the WGA, and therefore is not eligible for their prize. In the last couple days, most of the respected pundits have switched their prediction to Parasite, but this disrespected pundit is sticking to Once Upon A Time. (And I already have a bad feeling about it.)

We're all in this together, and we're all screwed: That's what Parasite is saying. At least, that's what I think it's saying. Or could be saying. Or maybe, isn't saying. Okay, I have no idea. And anybody that says they know exactly what Parasite is about is lying. Nobody knows. I'm telling you, you don't know! And I think that may be part of the point, from the little I've been able to cobble together from writer/director Bong and co-writer Jin. What can we even call this thing that they have created? A parable? Metaphor? Satire? Allegory? All of the above? If there's a lesson, I have no idea what it is, and I'm not sure there is one. Bong gives us a hint in the final, pessimistic shot; but he's also said, somewhat paradoxically, that he prefers action to inaction. At face value, I think Bong is articulating in the film: I see difficult things in society, in the world, between people, and this story is figuratively how awful they make me feel -- the visual embodiment of the pathos. To me that's valid (if the story is not taken literally), and potentially powerful. The film certainly gives me anxiety, and makes me more anxious the more I think about it, especially because most of it could have been easily avoided by characters making different decisions. (In fact, I'm getting anxious right now just writing about it.) I'm also bothered by the fact that it's easier to point out problems than offer realistic solutions, and other than violence (which I don't think Bong is endorsing), there are no readily-identifiable solutions. Something I keep coming back to: The film seems to dare you to find guilt or choose a side, and by doing so, it seems you might actually be tricked into endorsing a guilty party and condemning yourself. If that's the case, what is this thing they've created? A trap.

Almost no readers get this far in my article, so I'm not too worried about giving away spoilers. But if by the grace of god you are still reading, and you haven't seen 1917, SPOILERS AHEAD: SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH. Screenplay is widely considered the weakest element of 1917, and is the one award that the film definitely won't win. Its script is seen by many as a mere blueprint for the mechanics of the camera, and undoubtedly tells a simple story, but I honestly don't think Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns get enough credit for it. I can't help but wonder, is the story any better if my theory on the ending is correct? SPOILER: First of all, my theory is totally wrong. I've found absolutely no evidence supporting it online, from critics, or from people who have seen the movie, and my tweets to Mendes have gone sadly unanswered and un-re-tweeted. But I'm sticking to it! In the final shot, the soldier walks away from the army hospital, and sits down at a tree; the camera pans around 180 degrees to show his face and what's behind him… which is nothing. No army hospital anymore. Just an empty field. So… is he really there? Is he dead? Does he die when he encounters the sniper and the screen goes black, and never awakens from unconsciousness? Are all the remaining characters, who appear in a foggy, dream-like nightscape, just projections as he journeys to the afterlife? Are his wife and child also already dead? Is that what her inscription, "Come back to us," really suggests? Yes? Yes? No?? Ah, the hell with you people.

The script for Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story (a totally fictional "personal" story focused on a New York writer that is totally not at all based, like, at all, on his totally-coincidental divorce from actress Jennifer Jason Leigh; again, no parallels whatsoever) is somewhat about the end of a marriage, but mostly about dialogue. The ostentatious wordiness is what makes it endearing and scathing and clever, but is at times also a hinderance and a little too clever. It's no surprise; after all, Baumbach is a graduate of the esteemed Wes Anderson School Of Stylized Dialogue. Don't writers know that writers don't talk the way they write? Half of it feels real, and the other half feels cutesy and New York writer-y. (I prefer Midwestern writer-y, where they take ten times as long as necessary to make a simple point. In other words, they make the same point again and again without adding anything valuable. Multiple times.)

It's hard not to watch Marriage Story without thinking Adam Driver is Kylo Ren without a helmet (he was just as whiny, self-absorbed, and immature as his Star Wars counterpart). Come to think of it, I think I'd rather see this movie with Driver as Kylo Ren and Scarlett Johansson as her Avengers character Black Widow. That dude would never stand a chance. Imagine it…

STAR WARS: EPISODE X - MARRIAGE ENDGAME Kylo Ren is sulking on a Star Destroyer, considering ending his marriage. The Avengers helicarrier lands. Black Widow jumps out. KYLO REN (tears in eyes): I know what I have to do, but I don't know if I have the strength to do it. Black Widow unsheathes a katana sword and swiftly cuts off Ren's head. She licks the blade. BLACK WIDOW: Consider that a divorce. FADE OUT.

(If you like that, you'll love my other Star Wars script, Millennial Falcon: It's the story of a spaceship that doesn't want to jump to hyperspace because that's not really its passion, expects to be able to make the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs without any hard work, and prefers to be called just "Falcon" because it doesn't believe in labels. "May the Force be with you." "Okay, boomer.")

Rian Johnson's Knives Out is the least likely to win, but is my personal favorite. Incredible movie, incredible cast, incredible direction, incredible cinematography… but most of all, incredible script. It's cool to see the accolades for Johnson after making slick, underappreciated films like Brick and Looper. (And it almost makes me want to forgive him for his mess of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Almost.)

With my snubbed choice, I'm going with a curveball… Glass, from M. Night Shyamalan. The capper in the Unbreakable Trilogy, the film is a lot better than the critical reviews and January dumping-ground release date would lead you to believe. It's a fascinating, slick, melancholy resolution to a film series that was ahead of its time. (Go back and watch Unbreakable, and see how much of the "reality-based" comic-book/superhero craze it presaged.) As smart as it is, it unfortunately lacks charisma and fun, so it's probably too heavy for what audiences expected from a PG-13 superhero flick. But I'm sticking up for it, all the way to the Oscars. (Other worthy original scripts include The Farewell by Lulu Wang, Us by Jordan Peele, and Yesterday by Jack Bart and Richard Curtis.)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:

SHOULD WIN: Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit) WILL WIN: Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit) GLORIOUSLY OMITTED: Jeff Nathanson (The Lion King) INGLORIOUSLY SNUBBED: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely (Avengers: Endgame)

With the top three candidates for Picture and Director duking it out in the Original Screenplay category, Adapted Screenplay is open for someone else to pick up a prize. But who? It's going to be close between Taika Waititi for Jojo Rabbit and Greta Gerwig for Little Women. Waititi's win at the Writers Guild Awards would seem to tip the scales heavily in his favor. However, the WGA was just voting on screenplay, while the Academy is notorious for compensating across categories, and will give Gerwig plenty of votes for her Best Director snub. A week ago, I would have predicted a win for Gerwig. But in a tight race like this, history tells us to follow the guilds. So I'll go with Waititi by a (Hitler) mustache.

And in case you hadn't noticed, Waititi is everywhere. Besides being a quadruple threat (writing, directing, co-starring, producing) for Jojo Rabbit, in the past year he directed and did a voice for Star Wars: The Mandalorian (which was arguably better than the actual Star Wars movie that came out), wrote/directed/produced the cult hit show What We Do In The Shadows, and was a significant contributor to a little movie called Avengers: Endgame. In his spare time, he's lined up creative roles in more Marvel movies and TV shows, the DC Universe, a new Time Bandits, and (if the rumors are to be believed) a new Star Wars movie. Oh, and he was nominated for a couple Oscars. (Fun fact: These are not his first; he was previously nominated for a short film called Two Cars, One Night in 2005.) He's got my vote for Adapted Screenplay for Jojo Rabbit. Gerwig deserves the praise for her updated take on Little Women, but that film has been re-made over a dozen times (as recently as 2018), so I'm going with Waititi's irreverently fresh, fun, gut-wrenching, and hopeful take on World War II.

Gerwig is in a long-term relationship with fellow nominee Noah Baumbach (Marriage Story) -- and of course, their relationship is also totally not at all an inspiration for his film. They are the latest in a surprisingly long list of couples who have both been nominated in the same year (names like Taylor & Burton, Hepburn & Tracy, Woodward & Newman, and Jolie & Pitt). In the cases where one of them won an Oscar, almost every time, it was a woman. If Baumbach values his career, he'll break up the night before the ceremony. Just imagine if they'd both been nominated for Best Director…

Only an a##hole would relentlessly compare The Irishman to Goodfellas. So here I go… Martin Scorsese (and co-writer Nicholas Pileggi) crafted a perfect ending (and one of the greatest movies of all time) with Goodfellas. Ray Liotta's character escapes with his life, only to spend the rest of it trapped in suburban purgatory, exiled into anonymity, powerless and castrated, complaining to an imaginary audience. The denouement is short, but his anguish is palpable. With The Irishman, Scorsese (and writer Steven Zaillian) unmoor us, letting the audience drift along for the listless (and seemingly endless) conclusion. Compounding that feeling is the fact that Robert De Niro's character is mostly passive throughout the film, so we're sort of forced along on the ride by other characters. Ultimately, we don't really know any more about him at the end than we did at the beginning. Maybe that's the point, but it doesn't really work for me. Overall, the script has a lot to offer, but it felt too loose to be compelling or poignant.

So, they make a movie called The Two Popes, and neither of them was John Paul II? JP2? The Deuce? Papa Due? The guy was a marketing monster in his day. He was so popular, they kept putting him on the Popener years after he died, because Benedict was so dull and not pulling in the sales. (And if you don't know what a Popener is, you need to stop reading this article right now, go to Rome, and buy a bottle opener and with the pope's face on it.) Aside from that transgression, the script by Anthony McCarten is a fantastic, crackling, metaphorical, even funny, piece of work. As a result, the film is engrossing, considering most of it is just two old men talking. You don't even need to know much about Catholicism to enjoy the sparring between these two headstrong leaders debating their ideals while trying to find forgiveness and peace. My one disappointment? No argument over who has the better Popener.

Todd Phillips and Scott Silver's script for Joker is hypnotic in a dread-inducing kind of way, and in the theater caused at least one grown man to grab my leg in fright (you know who you are). But I feel like the last act unraveled a little bit, and the ending, I mean, who the hell knows? Even now, I don't quite know what to make of the film or what it's trying to say. Maybe Charlie Chaplin captured it best, long before the Joker existed: "Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in a long-shot."

#oscars #oscarpredictions #oscarpredictions2020 #oscarprognostication2020 #donovansoscarprognostication2020 #oscars2020 #academyawards #academyaward

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weatherfsd23-blog · 5 years

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“Don’t Act Like You Didn’t Want This”

I’ve never written this story or even spoke it from start to finish, but I think now it’s time I do it. If you’re reading this, you should know that it will leave you feeling disgusted, hurt, angry, or even lost. There is no happy ending. There is only a happy beginning that took a turn for the worst. This story is about a naive girl learning what the world really is. This is my story....

When Tinder first came out, it was a fad I didn’t really get into. I remembered all the warnings my parents had preached over and over about meeting up with strangers and being careful of who you associate yourself with. But as it became more and more popular, and my friends spoke more and more about it, I thought, “Why not?” So I bought into the ‘swipe right, swipe left’ dating app that was mainly used for random hookups. In days I had an overwhelming amount of matches and only a few of them did I even continue a conversation with outside of the app. Nothing seemed to work out for me, whether it be because of distance or upon closer inspection realizing the compatibility just wasn’t there. I was about to delete the app when HE showed up across my screen..

Ryan..

I had actually met him my freshman year of high school at the SFA track. I was running my timed mile for cheerleading while he was on the track for practice. When I finished my run and began stretching, he jogged over and introduced himself. He was charming and easy to talk to. He pointed out that I was a natural runner and very fit. Told me that he was on the SFA track team and always finds it attractive when a cute girl cares about fitness. He noticed my army medic necklace and shared that he too was in the army and was now at SFA for school. I was hooked before I even gave him my phone number, and as he jogged away, I wondered if he’d ever actually text me. Two hours later, I got this text:

“Hey cutie from the track. It was really cool to meet u today. Lets hang out!”

So the texting began but we never met. Apparently when I told him I was a Freshman, he though I meant college, not high school and me being 15 and him being 22 just wasn’t a thing that could happen. Understandable, but still disappointing, but it wasn’t too long after that I forgot I had even met him. Fast forward to 3ish years later and there he was, on my screen again.

“Maybe this is fate, playing her fiddle,” I thought. So I matched him and messaged him first say,

“Hey! So super weird..but I met you like 3 years ago on the SFA track and we kinda hit it off but I was totally 15 so it was not an option back then.”

Him: “Hahaha! I remember that, vaguely, but it’s there. How old are you now, Cutie From the Track?”

Me: “18 this time around! A freshman in COLLEGE now!”

Him: “Perfect. I guess I owe you a date then since I couldn’t take you out back then.”

So... we made our plans for our first date.. It started out kind of odd. He wouldn’t tell me what we were doing so when I asked what I should dress for, he said to wear something comfortable. In my head that meant I should dress for something athletic. I was wrong, and he made fun of me for it, but not in a shaming kind of way. More like a flirty, teasing kind of way. He knew exactly how to speak to me and I was buying into it all. We got coffee to go at the local coffee shop , Jack Backers (side note: this was my favorite coffee shop, but I haven’t been there since), and then headed downtown to the red brick streets. He parked the car and we set out for a stroll. We talked the whole date and it felt natural, safe, and innocent. He held my hand, but never got too close as if to make sure I didn’t feel uncomfortable. When we got back to the car, he opened the door for me and I got in thinking, “What a gentleman this man is..” He drove me home, walked me to the door, and when I turned to say goodnight, he kissed me. It was gentle... sweet... the kind of kiss you thought about until you went to sleep that night.

After a few days of constant texting, he finally asked me on a second date. “This time I will dress really cute to make up for the last time,” I thought and then proceeded to put on a cute simple dress and some flashy sandals. But as fate would have it, Ryan had planned to ride bikes to nice ‘hole-in-the-wall’ restaurant downtown for dinner. He laughed again at my inappropriate attire but then we joked about how that would be our thing and just moved past it. We went to dinner and he jumped at the opportunity to pay the check. The conversations were light, and informative. He told me about his family and said he thought his mom would really like me. He talked about his brother and how he was so much to hang out. Essentially he had me believing that he had already made plans for us to be together. Again..I found myself feeding right into his hands. Again..I found myself drawn to him and unable to see the darkness that hid within him.

We drove back to his apartment and he asked if I’d like to come in for some champagne. Being 18, I hadn’t really ever had champagne so I agreed. I also knew his roommate was home so I found comfort in knowing that things would get too out of control. At this point in my life, I had only slept with three people in my life: 1) the guy who took my virginity, 2) my high school sweetheart, and 3) my boyfriend of 9 months that I had recently broken up with. Sleeping around wasn’t my thing and who I chose to have sex with was very particular, but that wouldn’t matter tonight. Tonight my choice didn’t matter...

We walked up the stairs and into the apartment. He went straight for the champagne and I wondered around looking at everything hanging on the wall, the books on the shelves, the air hockey table in the corner. To this day, I remember every little detail of that living room, from the small water mark left on the table from a perspiring glass to the unopened letter addressed to Ryan ________. When I turned back around, he was staring at me from across the room, almost as like he had been observing me, watching every move I made. He stalked over and handed me a glass. We ‘cheers’ed and I took a sip. He finished is glass in 3 gulps and then urged me to chug the rest of mine. Not wanting to disappoint him, I did. A few moments later, my head began to feel a bit fuzzy. Like I had already gotten drunk from just that one glass. He poured me another and handed it to me, urging me once more to drink it quickly. When I finished that glass, he took it from me, set it down very slowly and then pulled me in to kiss me. This kiss didn’t feel like the first one though. This one felt...foreign, haste even, like he was in a hurry for something. I pulled away in hesitation, but then he gabbed my hips and pulled me closer, setting me in place pressed against my body. The kisses were getting more intense, more aggressive and my head was getting fuzzier. I put my hands against his chest and pushed myself back so I could speak..

“Woah.. I think I may be a little drunk.”

Him: “Good, I was hoping you would be.”

And before I knew it he was kissing me again. He pushed me into the wall pinning me there with his body. His hands went from my hips to the bottom seam of my dress and he started pulling it up, slowly at first until he could feel the skin of my thighs on his hands and then he got more aggressive with it. Before I could really tell what was going on, his hands were on my thighs under my dress. I grabbed his wrist and tried to push them down, saying “slow down Ryan.” But it was more like I was talking to myself because my words didn’t even phase him. He grabbed my hand and pulled me along to his bedroom. My legs felt heavy. My steps were crooked. This was the moment I should have left...before we made it to the bedroom...before he shut the door behind us..before he locked me in. I should have left. But I didn’t.

The room was dark besides one small lamp in the corner. He grabbed me by my waist and leaned down so his lips were on my ear and said...

“I want you to sit on my face.”

Shocked by what he just said, I took a step back and saw the desire in his eyes, the evil that I never saw before until this moment and that was all I had to realize his intentions before everything began. Just a moment. He pushed me onto the bed kissed me aggressively on my lips, then my neck, then lower until he was at the top of my breasts.

“Ryan stop! I’m not comfortable with this” but he didn’t care. He wouldn’t care for the remainder of the night. He would ignore all my pleas...all my tears...all my screams. Before the drinks, I was already much weaker than him. He was 6,1″ and almost pure muscle, built from the military, whereas I was a lean 110 lbs 5′2″ female. But now, with the alcohol in my system and what I assume now was something else he slipped in my drink, I was no match for him.

One hand was now up my dress while the other one was entangled in my hair. I could feel his hard on pressed into me where he had positioned himself between my legs. As he kissed down my chest, his hand that was in my hair moved to my sternum so he could push me firmly into the bed. His other hand had pulled my dress up and he was now making his way to kissing my thighs. My head was fuzzy but I knew I needed to leave and this might be the only chance I got. When he got to his knees in front of me, the pressure from his hand on my chest lessened, so I grabbed it with one hand and pushed him far enough back to raise on my knees right up into his chin as hard as I possibly could at that point and then used my legs to push him until his back. I took off towards the front door, but it was locked and as I tried to unlock it he had caught up and grabbed me by my throat. I froze. And then I heard a click I didn't quick recognize. Again he whispered in my ear..

“You’re a fun one aren’t you. But see this”...he waved an open bladed pocket knife in front of me--that was the click I assumed...”This will hurt you if you try to hurt me again. I don’t like that.”

The first set of tears fell from my eyes before we made it back to the bedroom. Without letting go of me, he closed the door and locked it again. He walked me to the bed and turned me toward it, away from him. I stood there frozen wondering if he would really kill me if I fought back but then also wondered if I would recover from this if I didn’t.

He unzipped my dress and pulled it over my head leaving me exposed and halfway naked. He was no longer touching me, but I could still feel him standing near by behind me. I heard the sound of a belt loosening, then the zipper of his pants. I heard the clothes fall to the floor behind me and when he pressed his body into me again, he was completely naked. He unclasped my strapless bra and it fell to the ground. Then he told me to turn around and when I did he showed me the knife again before setting it on the bedside table.

“Remember what this can do to you, sweetheart,” he said as if I had forgotten. He eyed me up and down, really taking in my almost naked body, making me feel like a play thing for him and no longer a person. He put his hands on my shoulders and then ran them down to my boobs. He grabbed them firmly and squeezed my nipples. Then he ran in down my stomach, grabbing my waist again before throwing me onto the bed. I cried out in surprise and then my tears began again, harder, more pleading. He straddled over me and told me I looked stunning when I cried. He grabbed my wrists and pinned them beside me on the bed. I braced myself for what would come next, but I think he fed on my unwanted anticipation, so he teased me by kissing down my body, over my chest and stomach, over the top of my thighs and between them, all while still holding my wrists. I finally found my words and begged him to stop. I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone if he just let me leave now, but he found this humorous and laughed to himself. The kind of laugh that sent chills down my spine.

Very quickly he shifted his weight so he was laying beside me on one of my arms and pinning the other arm above my head with one of his hands. With the free hand he had, he pulled one of my legs down and wrapped his around it forcing my legs open. He then used that hand to pull my panties to the side so he could finally begin what he had set out to do. I felt the pressure of his fingers. A pressure I had felt before, but this time it was pleasurable. With every movement, I felt more and more pain. I think he knew this and started being much more aggressive with it. Faster and harder and when he the tears were falling from pain and no longer just fear, he pushed himself up so he could pull my panties completely off in preparation for what would come next.

I laid there in that moment, completely naked in a strangers bed, shaking with fear and decided I would fight one more time. When he went to insert himself, I pushed him back with the little strength I had left which forced him out of his position so he could fight my hands. This only pissed him off and did nothing for me but forced him to grabbed his knife again. He pressed it to the inside of my thigh and said,

“Now you can feel this too while I fuck you.” And with the knife held to my leg in one hand, he used the other hand to guide himself inside of my hard and with force. I cried out in pain and he smiled.. with every thrust, the knife dug deeper and deeper into my thigh, leaving a scar on my body I would see for the rest of my life. I have no idea how long it took, but it felt like I was there forever. Before he was done, the crying had stopped. The fear had stopped. The pain had stopped. There was only numbness and emptiness left. When he was finally done, he stood up and for a moment just stared at me there, bleeding. I wonder what he saw in that moment when he looked at me. I wonder if he knew he had shattered a part of my soul that would stay broken for the rest of my life. I wonder if he knew I wouldn’t sleep at all that night. I wonder if he knew I would never feel safe as long as he walked this same earth as I do. Then he said it. He said the thing that would echo in my head forever. He looked at me with a very smug, arrogant smile, and said,

“Don’t act like you didn’t want this.”

And when I didn’t think I could break anymore, I did right there in apartment 203. He walked off to the restroom and I grabbed my clothes. I used my panties to wrap up the profusely bleeding cut on my leg, slipped my dress back on and found my phone which was blown up with texts from my friends asking how my date had gone. As I was about to leave, his roommate walked out of his room and he just stopped and looked at me. He assessed how i looked. Smeared make up form tears, tasseled hair, and redness that would turn into bruised the next few days littered all over my body. He knew, but he wasn’t surprised. I walked past him and looked into Ryan’s room one last time where he was putting his shirt back on. Our eyes met, and he gave me one last smug, arrogant smile before I turned and left the apartment.

He had picked me up for our date, so at 1:24 AM, I walked home, across town, in the dark knowing that the same girl who entered apartment 203 was not the same girl who left it..

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themastercylinder · 6 years

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Clark was born in New Orleans in 1939.

“We moved to Birmingham, Alabama, we were lower middle class, but we actually had a maid. I used to go with the maid on weekends to what would have been called ” Colored Town” to play with the kids there, I loved them. When I moved to Fort Lauderdale in the 1950s, it was a restricted community, and I went to a segregated high school. There were ” No Jews Allowed” signs on the beach still, and I didn’t understand this, it shocked me. I lived on the west side of town, which was near ” Colored Town” then, as well as the Florida Braves baseball stadium. I was quite a savage little being, we were very poor, my father died, my mother was a barmaid, so I pretty much ran the streets. I used to climb up on the top of the fences of the baseball stadium, and run along, and the guards would chase me. The black kids called me ” Cheetah,” and they would meet me later, and say ” Hey, you’re Cheetah!”. I used to go to the theaters down on Las Olas Boulevard. I did like horror movies, but I liked all movies.

I had no intention as a youth of perusing a movie career, but I always wanted to be writer from the earliest time I could remember. It wasn’t until I got into college that I started to think about films seriously. I was a film buff, but not an addict if you know what I mean…I wasn’t crazy about films but I liked ’em. So I’d say it was probably at college, at the University of Miami where I started thinking about making films. It’s a long, long story but I got into films when I was an actor in the local Miami film industry of the mid sixties.

Las Olas Boulevard, Fort Lauderdale 1950’s

After college in 1964, Bob was directing a stage production of Arthur Miller’s “A View From a Bridge” in Miami when was approached by Charlie Brunn. Charlie was a cross-dresser, his wife was a very butch lady and they had three kids, it was a strange situation. He owned Lee High Acres, a manufactured community in the Everglades, and was bent on being a movie producer. “He came up to me and said “I’m doing a movie on Miami Beach and you’re going to direct it. At that point I knew nothing about film cutting, continuity, nothing. These people promised that they would teach me. When I got on the set they knew less than I did.”

The odd circumstances continued when he found out that this zero money production was to be called THE SHE MAN and starred a transvestite.

“The ‘She Man’ script idea was about a Korean war veteran who was a deserter and the way he hid out was to disguise himself as a woman. It wasn’t a comedy either, it tried to be a serious spy thriller.” Local townspeople were recruited as actors and filming commenced in the hydroponic greenhouse and funeral parlor of Lee High Acres, which served as soundstages. “It was a remarkably surreal experience, and the results, as you might expect under the circumstance, were incomprehensible. John Carradine was in it and Lila Lee, the silent film star, and it was an education. My editors name was Hack… get it? He was a local editor out of Fort Meyers. Nobody knew anything about filmmaking. My cinematographer was an ex-newsreel cameraman, nice guy. Nobody knew anything.

Next came The Emperor’s New Clothes.

CLARK: That one I’m willing to mention! I think it’s lost, but it wasn’t too bad. I got to work with John Carradine, Lila Lee and a great singing group. After I did She-Man, I asked Charlie, “Can I do this one?” I did ’em back-to-back.

What was Carradine like?

CLARK: John was a nice man. He was a severe alcoholic, fought the problem all his life, but he was there to work; he was a pro. When I did my first movie, I told Charlie, “I don’t know anything about movies.” And he said, “Oh, we got that covered with your cameraman and editor.” The cameraman [Gerhard Maser] was a WWII Nazi field cameraman and had never shot a feature. So I did She-Man with the famous book The Five C’s of Cinematography in my hand, figuring how to do continuity, etc. But by the time we did Emperor, I was kind of halfway there to understanding the difference between a movie and a play.

Another film was made back to back with THE SHE MAN called THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES, an original comedy script by Bob based on the Hans Christian Andersen tale, set in modern times. Starring John Carradine in the title spot, and featuring 60s pop group Spanky & Our Gang (“Lazy Day”) as “roving musical troubadours,” it seems quite a promising step up but seemingly does not exist for us to judge. “The soundtrack got lost when we ran into problems with the backers. I don’t think the film does exist.” This back to back baptism by fire set the spark though, and theatrical aspirations were abandoned.

“For the next five years, I decided that film was what I wanted to do with my life. So I did any job in the industry imaginable.” Florida was one of the most active hubs of low budget filmmaking around, making a steady stream of horror/rock n’ roll/biker/mondo drive-in fare and Bob worked steadily on more films than he can remember including some K. Gordon Murray films, including a stint as assistant director on Murray’s SHANTY TRAMP, the exploitation interracial romance drama that was “quite the shocker” at its time of release.

So I figured at that point what I would do was become an AD. That’s a nice position to be in to learn how everything works… it was interesting. But it was another four years when I started thinking with my friend Alan Ormsby that the next thing we were gonna do was a horror film first. That was just short of pornography to get a break in.

So, my first movie was Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things. My brothers and the Gotch family put up $40,000, and we made the movie. Ted V. Mikels agreed to distribute it in the States, but somehow it got to Canada and to Peter James, John Trent and David Perlmutter at Quadrant. They bought the film and distributed it, and it did very well in Canada.

CHILDREN SHOULDN’T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS

SUMMARY

The story focuses on a theatre troupe, led by Alan (Alan Ormsby). He is a mean-spirited director, who travels with the others by boat to a small island that is mainly used as a cemetery for deranged criminals, to have a night of fun and games. Once on the island Alan tells his group, which he refers to as his “children”— numerous stories relating to the island’s history and buried inhabitants. he leads them to a cottage where they are supposed to spend the night. He then opens a chest they had brought with them, puts on a mystical robe and says that they are to prepare for the summation at midnight. Alan takes sheer delight in torturing his cast with threats of firing them if they do not do as he pleases which always makes them go along with his plan. At midnight using a grimoire, Alan begins a séance to raise the dead after digging up the body of a man named Orville Dunworth (Seth Sklarey). Though the original intent of the ritual may have been solely as a joke, Alan appears disappointed that nothing happens.

Afterwards the party continues and Alan goes to extremes to degrade the actors, using the corpse of Orville for his own sick jokes. Then, however, animated by the fell ritual, the dead return to life and force the troupe to take refuge in the old house. Unfortunately for the group, the dead get their revenge, and in the movie’s closing credits we see the group of corpses boarding Alan’s boat with the lights of Miami in the background.

“I learned the whole business waiting until I could make the first film I had any control of, which was CHILDREN SHOULDN’T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS.”

Shot in 35mm for $50,000 in 5 days and 11 nights at the Miami Dade County Nursery in 1970, CHILDREN, besides having one of the coolest titles for a horror movie, is one of the most enjoyable of the no-budget early 70s horror fare released in the wake of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD’s success. Co-screenwriter/ makeup artist Alan Ormsby does triple duty in the starring role (in an amazing pair of vertically striped bell-bottom pants) as a overbearing, patronizing theater director taking his troupe out to an island graveyard for some black magic “games,” including attempts to revive the dead. While the horror PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS comedy mix is stagy at times, the script is obviously not by the usual cheapo movie bozos and the theater people archetypes (the joking fat guy, the emotional wreck, the flamers, the cynic, the stud, etc.) are fresh.

David Trimble and Forrest Carpenter designed and built the graveyard set.

CHILDREN was very much a homegrown project. The cast is made up largely of friends and students of my brother who was a professor at the University of Miami. The zombies are made up from doctors, lawyers and dentists from the area. We had the most elite group of cannibals of any film, I think. We were obviously inspired by NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD but we thought our comic approach was unique. The performances are a little amateurish but it holds up. In retrospect I think I learned more on that movie than I would off on three conventional movies.”

Informality led cast members in CHILDREN to refer to each other by their real names in the film. Contrary to what you might have read, Ted V. Mikels had nothing to do with the film’s making, but eventually did wind up distributing it through his Geneni company, and possibly receiving parts of the film’s generous box office that Clark and Ormsby did not. At the time Bob was in the Screen Actors Guild as Benjamin Clark to avoid confusion with another actor with his name, and kept the pseudonym for his director credit.

When did you meet Alan Ormsby?

CLARK: At the University of Miami. We were at the Rink Theater together. Both of us had an interest in writing and film, and the same sort of bizarre sense of humor. He eventually became the star of Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things. He also did all the make-up effects.

How did that film come about?

CLARK: It was done with private money, about $50,000, near Coral Gables, Florida. Again, it was done entirely with amateur actors. All those people crawling out of the ground at the end were college professors, wives and city councilmen.

Valerie Mamches getting ready for a scene (also pictured assistant cameraman John MacGowan)

The combination of slapstick humor and graphic violence was an odd mix.

CLARK: I felt it was original. But, let’s face it, it took a lot of inspiration from Night Of The Living Dead. I saw it for the first time a couple of years ago. Now I think some of the humor is a little heavy-handed, but the whole film holds up really well.

Did the low budget present any problems?

CLARK: We’d shoot all night and spend the day guarding the set from kids who’d get in and vandalize it. The film was shot over 11 nights. It would rain all day until 6 pm, when we’d start shooting. And it would start raining again at 6 am, when we’d stop. The film was touched by fate.

With the bad luck you’d had on the first two films, did you think this film would make any money?

CLARK: We were very naive. We figured we would make a lot of money–we didn’t, of course. But somebody got rich on it. It’s done quite well on cable and it’s had a good video life.

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To what extent would you say that Children was influenced by Night of the Living Dead?

CLARK: I had seen Night of the Living Dead and admired it immensely, and indeed we based Children on it. We didn’t want to copy it, though. We saw Children as a satirical version of Night of the Living Dead. We wanted to have fun with the idea of it.

It certainly has a different look than George A. Romero’s film.

CLARK: We purposely tried to bring a look that was a bit different than Night of the Living Dead. Alan Ormsby would come to the set a few hours early to do the makeup effects, even though neither he nor or his assistant had any schooling about makeup other than teaching themselves. After Alan finished with makeup on the other actors he would come to the set and get ready to act in the film.

Interview with Alan Ormsby Exploited VHS (1999)

It had a much lower budget than Night’s $714,000 price tag, correct?

CLARK: We had so little money to make it. The truly independent film has the incredible problem of shortness of cash. When we started, it was nearly impossible to make an independent film. Nowadays it’s much easier; this is proven when you see how many independent films get slid into the realm of the major studios. We had $60,000 and we stole and cheated everything we could in gear and equipment. We only had eleven nights to shoot the whole film in Coral Gables, Florida, and it was not a short film.

How did you pull it off?

CLARK: I planned out every aspect of the film in great detail. I didn’t do storyboards, but I had [index cards of every part of the film, as well as schematics. If we were supposed to do seventeen shots in one day, we did seventeen shots.

You must’ve had a very dedicated crew.

CLARK: I am a great believer in the co-operative nature of film art. I believe it is a very wise and important thing to work with and listen to your crew and to hear their ideas. From the lighting people to the actors, I always take note of good suggestions.

It must have been a challenge shooting on location at night.

CLARK: Yeah, it was, but we were disciplined, we were determined. It was an adventure, to say the least. The night was a break in a way, because at least we were out. The gardens were a little bit isolated, so we didn’t have sound problems. But everybody was so committed. Those ghouls you see running around included an assistant dean of the University of Miami, a couple of professors, a very famous Miami Beach doctor…there are some pretty elegant people among the ghouls! They all wanted to have fun. And Ormsby did too; here he was, the lead actor, who did all that makeup. It’s not the best makeup ever in the history of ghoul movies, but pretty damn good considering that he had to do it all, every extra, everybody.

How did Children launch your career making features in Canada?

CLARK: When the film was first finished, horror schlockmeister Ted V. Mikels [director of Astro Zombies, The Corpse Grinders and The Doll Squad was just starting a small distribution company in the United States. They didn’t put much money behind the film when it came out and it didn’t do too well. Later, the film was bought by Quadrant Films in Canada and they put some substantial money behind the marketing and promotion of the piece, and the film was a moderate to large success in Canada and that’s where everything started. Quadrant later gave me money to finance my next picture, DeathDream.

INTERVIEW WITH SETH SKLAREY

Seth Sklarey played Orville, the abused corpse and later vengeful zombie, in “Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things.” The undead makeup job was augmented by Mr. Sklarey’s natural physical attributes (he appears to be both tall and lean). The result is a zombie you would definitely not want to be locked in a room with.

How did you come into the part of Orville? Did the person making the casting decisions already know you and think you were right for the part?

SKLAREY: A girlfriend of mine at the time bicycled up to me and said, “They are casting a horror movie and they described the look they wanted for the lead and it fits your description.” She took me to Bob Clark and he signed me on the spot for $350 up front and $350 at the end. I never saw the second $350.

What was it like, making the movie?

SKLAREY: You will be happy to know that Alan Ormsby was an obnoxious asshole when the camera was off as well. I don’t think it was acting.

So Alan was just playing himself, not acting at all.

SKLAREY: You got it. Bob Clark, who is a great director, purposely shot me slightly out of focus, because he thought I would move. I didn’t. Not one reviewer has taken into consideration the “acting” and control of playing dead. Some horror film fans and directors have complimented me on my “performance” and said it was the best they had seen. It took a great deal of control to keep from strangling Alan throughout the movie. The mosquitoes in the “graveyard” were horrendous. The only way I could keep myself free from them was to close the lid on the coffin and doze off between scenes. Some wise guys started to fill in the grave during one of my naps and I gave them a demonstration of what Orville would have done had he been real. They knew it was me but THEY soiled their pants.

Did you know when you were cast that you were going to be the lead zombie?

SKLAREY: No, it was all in the script but I wasn’t given too much access to the script. [Alan] Ormsby probably made half of it up as he went along too but there was a script. I had no lines so I guess they figured there really wasn’t any reason to give me a script. I never knew what was going on!

How long did it take you to put on the makeup?

SKLAREY: It used to take three hours at night to put it on and two hours in the morning to get it off. A guy named Gary and a girl, whose name I don’t remember, maybe Ann Farmer, did my makeup. They put it on but I usually took it off myself once I got home. It was latex pieces that they would put on and then paint over. Then they dried it all with hair dryers. The hair was my own but they put some stuff in it to make it look white.

I had not thought about the challenge of lying perfectly still before, but you are right. Being still is something that I could do, but, even with my eyelids closed, small eye movements would probably give me away. Is it (staying motionless) something you have always been able to do, or did you have to work out a technique?

SKLAREY: When I was a kid I was impressed by the Hindu fakirs and always practiced shallow breathing and trying to hold my breath under water for twenty minutes. I think my record was sixty-one seconds.

Did you ever fall asleep on the set while they were filming?

SKLAREY: Oh yes, a bunch of times. The movie was filmed at the county nursery and the mosquitoes were horrendous. I would go to sleep in the coffin because I could close the lid and shut the mosquitoes out. One time, I went to sleep in the coffin when it was in the grave and these wise asses started to shovel dirt in on top of me. I came flying out of that coffin in full costume and makeup and just scared the hell out of them. They knew I was in there and they knew I was an actor but they didn’t know what to think – they weren’t expecting that!

Were there any dangerous stunts in the movie?

SKLAREY: Probably the worst was exposing us to so many mosquito bites. We could have gotten malaria, yellow fever, or dengue fever. I would not have been surprised if there weren’t a few tsetse flies out there too. There were a few bats out at the graveyard, but they could not get them on camera. Of course, Anya was kind of batty, but that is a different story.

I hope they had a padded mat or something to take the hard knock out of your fall.

SKLAREY: It was a single mattress on the floor. It would knock the breath out of you to fall on it. Fortunately I had some judo training and could take a hard fall. I always fancied myself as a stuntman and loved watching Jock Mahoney, Sally Field’s father in the TV show “Yancy Derringer,” in which he did his own stunts. Again, I knew if I did anything to break my fall it would show as phony on the screen. So, I opted for reality for the sake of art and was sore for a week.

You mentioned that Children was filmed at a plant nursery, was it on an island?

SKLAREY: No, the island was a different location. It was the Dade County plant nursery. That was where most of it was shot. The house was in Coconut Grove. It was owned by a friend of mine, Tony Gulliver. He was the still photographer on the movie. He had an old house that was typical of the type in Coconut Grove and we filmed all the interiors there.

Is that house still standing?

SKLAREY: Yes, the house is still there. Someone bought it and fixed it up but it’s still an old house. We did one shot at the end on an island off the coast of Miami. That was with us [the ghouls] sailing off in the boat. The boat was called The Ram, it was owned by an old friend of mine, Harry Boehme, who is also in the movie. He was one of the ghouls. The “graveyard” was the old Dade County plant nursery in South Dade off Old Cutler Road. It was starting to become a very affluent neighborhood, but there was a large tract behind a County Park (Matheson Hammock) where they grew plants and trees for that and other parks. It was heavily wooded and, during the hot, wet summer months, was mosquito infested. The woods were dark, damp, and clammy – ideal for a horror movie.

Carl Zittrer – Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things

Bob Clark Director Profile Part One Clark was born in New Orleans in 1939. “We moved to Birmingham, Alabama, we were lower middle class, but we actually had a maid.

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politicaltheatre · 7 years

Text

It Is So, If You Think So

So, here we are. The administration that tried to sell the world on "alternative facts" has "acted quickly and decisively", launching a "proportional response" against those "responsible" for a "heinous act".

Were it not for the necessary quotation marks around "alternative facts" and the reason we need them, we would not, perhaps, need them around the rest of the words in that sentence. What the regime of Syria dictator Bashar al-Assad is believed to have done against its own people, yet again, was heinous and did require a response, perhaps even more than the "punitive" one launched last night.

The problem, one among many, is that while what the Assad regime has done - and has been doing to Syrians for six years of war and decades of comparative peace before it - has been heinous, this war is no mere war, anymore than Trump's decision last night was merely one of pure moral indignation. What we have in Syria is a proxy war, no different than the countless wars declared and undeclared during the decades long Cold War.

Syria's closest, and perhaps only, allies are Iran and Russia, both of them ideologically and, more important for Russia, economically opposed to the United States and the European Union. It should come as no surprise that anything done by the Assad regime would be condemned by the latter side and defended by the former. The challenge this week, and for at least the next 200, is American credibility.

When Trump, those representing him, and the Republican leadership in Congress choose to tell lies about what they want and what they are doing, and are seen to be doing so, they no longer have the ability to demand a higher standard from anyone else. Being honest isn’t a play for suckers, nor is it merely a matter of doing right by others. It's a political asset, one not to be squandered for short term gain.

Oh, well. We've all got to learn our lessons somehow. Odds are, Trump and friends won't learn that particular lesson anytime soon, but those who voted for them might. They'll certainly have an opportunity if things start blowing up, literally and figuratively, in our collective faces.

So, how then to remove those quotation marks and make those "facts" into facts? You'd think asking questions would help, but not so fast.

What do we know about what happened in Syria this week?

Going back to last Thursday, Trump's Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, stated that the "longer term status of President Assad will be decided by the Syrian people". We know that this was in line both with Trump's stated desire not to engage the United States in foreign wars and with his clear admiration for strongman-style leadership.

On Tuesday, in the town of Khan Sheikhoun within rebel-held territory, dozens of civilians including the elderly and children died from what appears to have been chlorine and sarin gasses, chemical weapons which have long been declared illegal by international law. This, too, we know. The evidence presented by aid workers on the ground is overwhelming.

Since then, everybody's been pushing their own version of the truth. The Assad regime, for example, denied that there had been a chemical attack, and even if there had been they denied being responsible for it. The Russians, in their official statements to the media, seemed happy to back up either denial, suggesting that Assad regime bombs might have blown up gas canisters already on site.

On Wednesday, the Trump administration joined countries around the world in condemnation of the attack and of the Assad regime. Despite this and Trump's claim that he had changed his mind about Assad, he and his staff all stuck to the party line that removing Assad from power was not on the table.

A day later, that resolve had given way to yet another alternative. Tillerson and Trump's possibly Bannon-less National Security Council suggested that Assad might have to go, after all. Maybe. If we can put a coalition together. In an ideal world.

Late last night Trump authorized an attack on the airbase suspected of launching the chemical weapons. According to the Pentagon, of the 59 Tomahawk missiles that were launched, 58 hit their target (no word on where that last one went). The Russians had the number at 23 hits. The Syrian dead may have been nine, or higher. Possibly lower. The Assad regime isn't exactly known for statistical accuracy on deaths.

Today, the United Nations Security Council had an emergency meeting at the request of Syria, which is not on the Council. Much was said, and much of it challenged credulity. That, for the UN Security Council, is nothing new.

There's always been something of the theater of the absurd about Security Council meetings. Whatever good the United Nations has done with its aid programs, the Security Council and the diplomatic doublespeak all too often on display in meetings demonstrate all too clearly why the UN as an organization has all too often failed in its primary mission.

The Permanent Members of the UN Security Council - the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, and China - were made so at the dawn of the Cold War, and given veto power over resolutions and even actual proposed action taken by the Council. Actions taken by any of those five countries or any of their proxy states have been effectively immune from anything more than a diplomatic slap on the wrist.

The result has been decades of occasionally flamboyant pageantry, not so veiled threats, and a paralytic inaction in the face of the very war and acts of inhumanity the United Nations was founded to prevent. Today, the pageantry, the threats, and the effective inaction were all on full display.

The Syrian Ambassador accused the United States not only of actively supporting the so-called Islamic State in Syria but Wahhabi Islamic ideology in general. Yep, that's right, the United States is now the primary backer of Islamic terrorism in the Middle East. Absurd? Yes. Surprising? No, but then these things are not mutually exclusive.

The Russian Ambassador, speaking before his Syrian counterpart in a sprawling, often incoherent rant, also accused the United States of supporting terrorism in the region, although he took great pains to allow that it could merely be American recklessness, racism, and the arrogance of Western-style Democracy itself that is to blame for the gas attack. After all, where does this chain of events really start? At one bizarre point, he actually asked if the United States had forgotten about the American principle of "innocent until proven guilty", as though those words coming from a member of the Putin regime make any sense at all.

Taken as a whole, the official Russian statement could be taken neither as a plea to the United Nations nor as a mere rebuke of the United States on behalf of a close ally, but as a pitch to Syria's neighbors. We the Russians, it seemed to say, should be your first call; the Americans just can't hack it anymore.

Of course, leave it to UN Ambassador Nikki Haley to make the Russian's performance sound as bloated and ridiculous as it was. In a brief yet powerful statement, she set herself and those supporting the attack on the air force base firmly on the moral high ground, a place she might have been able to hold had she not been doing so as a member of the fact-challenged Trump administration. Just days earlier she herself had suggested that ending the Assad regime shouldn’t be a priority. Haley put on a good show, but how could anyone listening trust it?

Back at Mar-A-Lago, questions of why Trump really pulled the trigger were already being asked before he took the stage. Was it really because of the terrible suffering of innocent women and children? Given the rest of his policies and, well, his life history, probably not. In announcing the attack, Trump had said it was, but that scary, bedtime story voice he uses when reading off the TelePompter wasn't all that convincing.

Might it have been about not looking weak? Possibly. This is the week Trump hosts the leader of China. An over the top show of strength does seem like an Art Of The Deal-style tactic. Trump had accused President Obama of weakness in dealing with Syria, so maybe he was worried about losing face. Of course, he had also warned Obama against unilaterally firing missiles at Syria without congressional approval, too, so there's that.

Then there's the Russia question. There's always a Russia question. There probably always be a Russia question. Today's question was this: Was Trump encouraged to attack Syria as a sign of independence from the Putin regime?

Even if it's true that Trump and those close to him aren't really under Putin's thumb, just the appearance of it has been crippling them. Having worked so hard to undermine the value of facts, few seem willing to give them the benefit of the doubt when they demand their many versions of the truth are true. So, what if, in the middle of the debate on moral obligation and proportional responses, somebody suggested that this was a perfect opportunity to take a very public stand against the Putin regime? Might that put whispers of collusion and corruption to rest?

There are no facts to back those last few questions up. They're the stuff of cynical conspiracy theories. Make it about a Democrat and they're the stuff of Breitbart. And yet - and yet - that the plausibility of that scenario is pretty high has to be troubling. This, too, is what you get when you attack the value of facts.

The war on facts is, not to harp on it, part of a larger war against accountability. If I have to accept facts, I have to be accountable to what those facts tell me. That means being accountable to the people those facts support.

Syria is denying chemical weapons not merely because it got caught using them but because it believes denying them allows them to use those weapons. Russia believes that accepting the fact of weapons is okay, but only because it serves as a means of painting the victims of the attack as villains, killed by weapons they hoped to use.

Trump may be telling us truth on this. He actually might. But think, for a moment, about his climate change denials. Scientists studying glaciers in Greenland this week reported that coastal ice melting is approaching a tipping point, beyond which they cannot be restored, with the inland ice sheet not far behind. If you live on a coast, that's a fact you need to know. Total loss of that ice sheet would raise our oceans by nearly 20 feet. Add in the water added by a simultaneous loss of ice in Antarctica and billions of humans would be displaced.

That is, if you believe the scientists. Trump and other climate change deniers choose to attack science because it means they must be accountable to all of those people. That Trump has chosen to lie so often and has chosen to attack facts because they demand he be accountable makes Trump hard to trust when it comes to why he attacked Syria.

What we must accept as a truth is this: if we - not as Americans or Russians or Syrians but as a species - cannot tell the difference between fact and fiction, or can but knowingly blur the lines for personal gain, we will not survive. Acknowledging that there are facts is an act of accountability to others and by virtue of that to ourselves.

- Daniel Ward

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