It’s grilling season, and I—along with my fellow BBQ Dads (a genderless title)—are ready to grill for you. Gathering people to the yard so they may gaze upon expertly smoked meats is our favorite past time and, though we aren’t in it for the host gifts (we’re in it for the glory), it’s still a nice move to show up to…
As part of this morning's Nintendo Direct presentation, it was announced that the iconic, smash-hit puzzle platformers Portal and Portal 2 are hitting the Switch platform in the form of Portal: Companion Collection. Even better news, the irreverent, brain-teasing title will land on the eShop today!
https://youtu.be/wMQASUA_1Do
Portal Companion Collection compiles 2007 hit Portal along with its 2011 follow-up — the two classics are freshly repackaged for their release on Nintendo's hybrid console. Return to the terrifying Aperture Science Enrichment Center and utilize the power of physics, gravity, and portals to guide our hero out of her cell, out of the system, and out of the hazardous clutches of the scarily sentient overseer, GLaDOS.
Combining dark humor, genuine pathos, and some fantastic lateral thinking shenanigans, the Portal games became instant classics upon release and have only welcomed more disciples into their twisted coven in the ensuing 15 years. Already available on practically every platform under the sun, this new compilation of two of gaming's finest and most beloved puzzlers will allow Switch players to set their heads fizzing and spinning whilst in bed, on a commute, or simply out and about. Just watch your step.
Portal: Companion Collection launches on the Nintendo eShop today for $19.99.
The post Break out the cake: Portal Companion Collection hits Switch today appeared first on Destructoid.
Soldering is an indispensable skill for electronics repair, which often involves replacing faulty PCB components. This makes desoldering the first order of business that precedes soldering. For the vast majority of makers, the solder sucker (or the desoldering pump) is the weapon of choice for this important task.
A stone-cold classic of dystopian gaming is headed to Switch this year — as revealed during this morning's Nintendo Direct, Square Enix's apocalyptic and dramatic action adventure NieR: Automata will bring its wistful storytelling and dark, indelible worlds to the Switch platform this fall.
NieR: Automata: The End of YorHa Edition will see the award-winning 2017 release faithfully recreated for the Switch platform, bundled alongside all previously released content including DLC expansions, additional modes, and a fully-stocked wardrobe of snazzy duds for automated heroes 2B, 9S, and, A2. In addition, the Switch port will feature its own range of console exclusive skins, so you can ensure 2B is rocking all of her fineries as she picks her way through our miserable, dilapidated planet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGAmLykQsck
Originally developed by PlatinumGames, Nier: Automata sees an Earth lying in devastation, with mankind locked in a brutal proxy war against a seemingly insurmountable army of alien-created machines. In response, humanity builds its own automated protection in the form of sentient androids, who do battle with the machines in a never-ending war of attrition for control of the planet. NieR: Automata tells the story of three such androids and their dramatic, emotive, and often heart-breaking existence as pawns in a galactic battle for world domination.
NieR: Automata: End of YorHa Edition launches October 6 on Nintendo Switch. Pre-orders for the physical release are now live at the official Square Enix store and include a pretty rad-looking shirt.
The post NieR: Automata is coming to Nintendo Switch this fall appeared first on Destructoid.
A few months ago, Valve announced that both of its excellent Portal games were coming to the Nintendo Switch, but we didn't know when. Today's Nintendo Direct presentation cleared that up. Portal Companion Collection will arrive on the Switch later today for $19.99. The collection includes both the original Portal from 2007 as well as the more expansive, story-driven Portal 2 from 2011. Whether you missed these games the first time out or just want to replay a pair of classics, this collection sounds like a good way to return to one of the most intriguing worlds Valve ever created.
While the original Portal was strictly a single-player experience, Portal 2 has a split-screen co-op experience; you can also pay this mode with a friend online as well. And while these games originated on the PC, Valve also released Portal 2 for the PlayStation 3 — and if I recall, the game's controls mapped to a controller very well. Given that the Portal series is more puzzle-based than traditional first-person games, you shouldn't have any problems navigating the world with a pair of Joy-Con controllers.
When I was very (very) young, I ate an entire box of crayons in the hope of having multi-colored poop. It did not work, but it did cause my mother a few hours of mild distress as she worried what might happen to me. The answer (disappointingly) was nothing. I didn’t extrude a rainbow, nor did I die horribly from…
SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service sent out an email to users earlier today asking them for help in its fight to preserve the 12GHz spectrum for satellite internet use. Starlink lets its users connect to the Internet through user terminals that transfer data to and from satellites orbiting the Earth in low Earth orbit (LEO). These terminals use the 12GHz spectrum to connect with the satellites, and this spectrum is also used by multichannel video and data distribution services (MVDDS) providers and DISH - both of which have had rights to the spectrum for decades.
The 12GHz spectrum has been a point of contention at the FCC for quite a while now, and things heated up when SpaceX started to rapidly launch satellites, provided users with equipment and opened its network to the public. Now, it wants its users to help it end what it calls a 'lobbying campaign' which according to Starlink will spell the end of the service in America.
Today's email, shared by several users on the social media platform Reddit, follows the aggressive approach that Starlink has taken to the issue that is crucial to its survival. The 12GHz band, or 500Mhz of it to be precise, are a hot point of contention between the satellite and terrestrial internet providers, and Starlink has long argued that it and other non-geostationary fixed-satellite service (NGSO FSS) providers should retain access to it since all others granted the right of development have failed to meet their commitments to the FCC.
DISH and Starlink use the same frequency for their user terminals, and despite the fact that their satellites are vastly different, this opens up the scenario for significant interference between the two. This interference itself has been controversial, with the ongoing fight at the FCC seeing DISH and others initially argue that NGSO FSS companies cannot co-exist in the same spectrum, but then submitting more studies later on that showed that coexistence is possible.
After more than a year, Starlink countered with a study of its own earlier this month which raised shocking concerns about its operations. It is now using this study as part of an email that asks users in America to connect to their leaders in the House of Representatives and share with them the benefits of using Starlink.
A copy of the email, seen by Wccftech (present here), reads as follows:
Today we ask for your support in ending a lobbying campaign that threatens to make Starlink unusable for you and the vast majority of our American customers.
As recently reported, DISH Network has been hoarding spectrum for years as a strategy for preventing open and fair competition.
More recently, DISH has been attempting to claim new rights to the 12GHz band, which is the spectrum you currently use to download content with Starlink. Despite technical studies dating back as far as 2016 that refute the basis of their claims, DISH has employed paid lobbyists who are attempting to mislead the FCC with faulty analysis in hopes of obscuring the truth.
In reality, if DISH gets their way, Starlink customers will experience harmful interference more than 77% of the time and total outage of service 74% of the time, rendering Starlink unusable for most Americans.
The email then proceeds to share a link to SpaceX's latest study and to a website where users can share their views with government officials.
Here's everything you need to know about the 12GHz fight:
The post Starlink Will Effectively Be Shut Down If DISH Wins Warns SpaceX To Users by Ramish Zafar appeared first on Wccftech.
Apple's latest 13-inch MacBook Pro features the new M2 chip with enhanced performance capabilities. It was previously reported that the 256GB M2 MacBook Pro features a slower SSD performance compared to the M1 MacBook Pro with 256GB storage. It was discovered that the M2 model featured a single NAND storage chip, while the older M1 model was equipped with two NAND chips. In a real-world speed test comparison, the M1 MacBook Pro beats the M2 variant. Scroll down to read more details on the subject.
The M1 and M2 MacBook Pro models part of the test are both 256GB variants. The M2 MacBook Pro with a higher storage configuration would perform differently. However, if you are looking to buy the base model of the M2 new MacBook Pro, check out the real-world speed test below.
It was discovered that the M2 MacBook Pro with 256GB of SSD storage and 8GB of RAM was slower compared to the M1 model with 256GB storage and 8GB RAM. The performance comparison has been conducted by the YouTube channel Max Tech with multiple usage tests that include Lightroom, Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, file transfers, and multitasking.
In the multitasking RAM test, the M1 chip easily beats the M2 MacBook Pro with faster app launch times and content loading speed. The older chip was again faster in the image export test in Lightroom while apps were running in the background. The M1 variant took 3 minutes and 36 seconds to export 50 images while the M2 MacBook Pro took 4 minutes and 12 seconds. You can check out the M2 MacBook Pro speed test comparison against M1 MacBook Pro below for more details.
The built-in 8GB of unified memory of the M2 MacBook Pro is being used simultaneously for several processes. On the other hand, the notebook is using SSD for virtual memory. Due to the virtual memory swapping, the M2 MacBook Pro loses to the M1 variant in the speed test comparison.
At this point, Apple has not shared its side of the story of why it opted for a different NAND chip in the M2 MacBook Pro. We will wait for more tests to determine if the performance is indeed related to the NAND chips. This is all for now, folks. Share your views with us in the comments section below.
The post M2 MacBook Pro Speed Test Comparison Shows it is Slower Than M1 MacBook Pro – Video by Ali Salman appeared first on Wccftech.
You don’t need to intervene if you find a baby bird. Truly, fledglings don’t need your help. But an injured bird is another matter. If one flies into your streak-free window, for instance, and is now lying on your deck, it only makes sense that you’d want to help out your tiny, feathered friend. You can do that, but…
Every high-profile actor has their own unique process for what roles they pick and why. Some embrace the challenge of doing something new and outside of their comfort zone, getting a crash course in new skills, and flexing different performing muscles that they might not have had a chance to do previously. Others relish the opportunity to work with the best and brightest in the business, becoming a particular filmmaker's "muse" of sorts and trusting them to bring out the absolute most in them with each and every role.
And then there are those who can afford (literally and otherwise) to just tune out everyone else and listen to the opinion of one specific demographic: their kids!
Christian Bale would hardly be in rare territory by prioritizing his parental instincts first and taking his cues from his children — Viggo Mortensen famously joined "The Lord of the Rings" at the last minute upon the urging of his J.R.R. Tolkien-obsessed son, for instance. But for those of us who wondered why exactly a thespian like Bale, a veteran of serious-minded movies such as "American Psycho," "The Machinist," and "The Fighter," would end up circling back to the superhero scene after seemingly getting that out of his system with Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" trilogy? Wonder no more!
Ahead of the release of "Thor: Love and Thunder," which is scheduled for July 8, 2022, Bale sat down for an interview and opened up about what drew him to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Was the character of Gorr the God Butcher just that compelling? Could he simply not pass up the chance to work under director Taika Waititi? Are his children just big ol' nerds? The answer, by his own account, would be "all of the above."
We've heard a lot about how Gorr the God Butcher is apparently a villain like no other and how the prospect of living it up as the antagonist role appealed to Christian Bale more than playing the hero. But the real reason(s) for joining "Thor: Love and Thunder" proved to be a combination of several factors — though perhaps none more important than the input from his family.
In an interview with Screen Rant, Bale commented on the various reasons that appealed to him about his role in the "Thor" sequel. As you'd imagine for an actor who has worked with so many acclaimed filmmakers over the years, Taika Waititi's talent was simply too much to ignore.
"For me, it was Taika. I loved 'Thor: Ragnarok,' as did my family. We also all loved 'Jojo Rabbit,' and then I had worked with Natalie [Portman, on Terrence Malick's 'Knight of Cups'] and wanted to work with Tessa [Thompson] and with Chris [Hemsworth]. It comes down to that, really. I just went, 'Great!' Loved the script, loved Taika's description of the villain. 'Let's go do this.'"
But even with so many compelling reasons to come aboard, the dreaded specter of scheduling conflicts almost prevented this collaboration from ever happening. The difference-maker at this critical juncture, as it turns out, happened to be some well-timed input from Bale's children.
"There were some potential scheduling conflicts. I said to my family, 'I don't think it's going to work out,' and they went, 'No, you make it work out. You're doing this, Dad.' They gave me my marching orders, and I dutifully obeyed."
We have Waititi, a particularly well-written villain, and Bale's family to thank for seeing the actor dressed up like a goth on a subpar makeup day.
Read this next: /Film's Top 10 Movies Of 2021
The post Christian Bale Took His Thor: Love and Thunder Role Because His Kids Forced Him to appeared first on /Film.
42 years ago, Robin Williams was not at the top of anyone's list to bring E.C. Segar's one-eyed comic strip sailor to life. Though "Mork and Mindy" had turned the stand-up comic into a major television star, he had yet to prove himself as a big-screen draw. Producer Robert Evans initially wanted Dustin Hoffman to top-line his live-action adaptation, but when the temperamental actor dropped out after clashing with screenwriter Jules Feiffer, he took a risk on the up-and-coming funnyman.
Williams' whirling-dervish energy wasn't entirely compatible with director Robert Altman's penchant for long, laid-back takes sprinkled with overlapping dialogue. Whereas characters tend to drift in and out of scenes in an Altman movie, Williams draws focus with his constant ad-libbing. If he couldn't disappear into the sea of eccentrics that populate the fictional village of Sweethaven, Altman's immersive aesthetic would be completely ruined.
Then again, if no one could understand a word stumbling out of Williams' mouth, this problem would be completely moot.
Though Evans wanted Segar's comic strip to be the film's stylistic template, audiences would be expecting Popeye to sound exactly like Jack Mercer's Popeye from the popular, long-syndicated Fleischer Studios cartoons -- i.e. a little bit mumbly (as expected for a man who speaks with a corn cob pipe stuck in his mouth), but always decipherable. Williams failed miserably on his first pass.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, the actor confessed, "I had to dub that movie over twice... because people couldn't understand what I was saying. I sounded like a killer whale farting in a wind tunnel." He nailed it the second time through, to the point where you wonder how much of the character's tossed-off witticisms were improvised. While the Popeye of the comics and cartoons favored bad puns and groaner jokes, there's a wryness to Williams' dialogue that's new to the character. He's a little too sharp at times.
Altman's "Popeye" was a modest box-office hit when it hit theaters in December 1980. Though Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert came through with a pair of upturned thumbs, the majority of critics were mixed-to-negative. Williams fared well with most reviewers, but his performance was completely overwhelmed by Shelley Duvall's uncanny embodiment of the lovably lanky Olive Oyl. While "Popeye" didn't help or hurt Williams' nascent movie career, he wouldn't become a bankable superstar until 1987's "Good Morning, Vietnam," where his stream-of-consciousness riffing was actually integral to the plot. If audiences missed any dialogue in that movie, it's because they were laughing too hard.
Read this next: 14 Sequels That Truly Didn't Need To Happen
The post Robin Williams Had Some Regrets About His Popeye Performance appeared first on /Film.
"Apocalypse Now" is widely considered to be one of the definitive war movies, and for a lot of good reasons. Not only is it a disturbing look at the physical horrors of the Vietnam War, but the mental ones as well. After all, Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) didn't just suddenly become the cultish military leader he is out of the blue. This is a film that shows how the U.S. military was thrown, ill-prepared, into a war they didn't belong in, resulting in the deaths of thousands of soldiers and the emotional scarring of many more. This is not even taking into account the trauma left on Vietnamese civilians, who dealt with the brunt of the warfare -- hundreds of thousands of lives were lost.
Among those thrust into the war were young men, since the minimum age for enlistment was only 17 years old, although many recruits were actually younger. If "Apocalypse Now" serves as a portrait of the American military during the Vietnam War, then the character of Tyrone "Mr. Clean" Miller (Laurence Fishburne) represents the naive young men who went to great lengths to fight in a war largely considered meaningless. In a strange way, Fishburne's story of getting cast in the movie is not that dissimilar to these young men, which brings their stories into a much more terrifying perspective.
In a 2013 interview on "George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight," Fishburne explained that he had auditioned for the role of Mr. Clean claiming to be 16 years old, a year younger than the character's age. However, there was just one problem with this -- he was actually just 14 years old.
"I think they knew," he joked. "I don't think I was fooling anybody, you know?"
He especially wasn't fooling producer Fred Roos, who Fishburne says knew him from a project he did when he was younger. Needless to say, the casting team wasn't entirely sure if he looked as old as he claimed to be, so they needed an extra set of eyes. It was this outsider's opinion that ended up changing Fishburne's entire life.
"A young woman who was working in the offices, a secretary, got up and walked through," he said, "and as she was walking, Francis [Ford Coppola, the director of "Apocalypse Now"] finally spoke up and he just looked at her and said, 'excuse me, you think this kid could be 18? And whoever this young woman was, she turned around, looked at me, and went, 'yeah.'"
With the validation of an unaffiliated third party, Fishburne got the part. Although he was 14 when shooting began, he was 18 years old by the time the movie was finally released in theaters.
Of course, Fishburne was able to get away with his casting because, at the end of the day, it was just a movie. A movie that would become a nightmare to make, but a critically acclaimed one nonetheless. The same cannot be said for the young men who lied about their age in order to serve their country in the Vietnam War. It's currently unclear just how many teenagers did this during the war, which makes the casualties and trauma even more tragic.
One tragic example is that of Dan Bullock, a U.S. Marine that was killed in combat at only 15 years old. He was enlisted because he had lied about his age, pretending to be 18. The New York Times reported in 2019 that he had been one of four Marines killed at the An Hòa Combat Base in June 1969, one of nearly 60,000 American deaths in the war.
It is stories like Bullock's that make the character of Mr. Clean, as well as the story behind Fishburne's casting, so poignant. Although the young actor in a movie about the Vietnam War would eventually go on to have a lengthy career, the young kids that died in the actual war didn't. Don't be surprised if this hangs over you the next time you watch "Apocalypse Now."
Read this next: The 20 Greatest War Films Of All Time
The post The Lie That Got Laurence Fishburne His Role In Apocalypse Now appeared first on /Film.
I am rolling a joint, then I will pour enough whiskey into my coffee that it becomes mostly whiskey, and I will settle in to watch the first episode of 'Star Wars: LARRY.' I have eagerly awaited the tale of Obi-Wan Ben Larry "Steve" Kenobi after the fall of the Republic, and the Jedi had totally run out of midichlorians to snort. — Read the rest
This will contain spoilers for "Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith."
"Shadow of the Sith" is the first "Star Wars" novel released by Adam Christopher. Christopher had been announced to be writing a book set in the time and place of "The Mandalorian," but when it was unceremoniously canceled, this book was what he eventually produced. It takes place in the time between "Return of the Jedi" and "The Force Awakens," documenting events we learned about in "The Rise of Skywalker." Lando Calrissian, still hurting over the loss of his daughter years before and looking to do something, stumbles upon a plot by Ochi of Bestoon to kidnap a young girl from a family. Lando does not know this young girl is Rey and that her parents, Miramir and Dathan, are fugitives from the Sith, but the old scoundrel takes it upon himself to save them. Knowing the Sith are somehow involved, Lando goes to Luke Skywalker for help.
Luke, however, was already on the trail of some dark shadow that filled his dreams. The place he saw? Exegol, the place where Darth Sidious as the Sith Eternal gathered his strength to once again attack the galaxy. When these two paths collide, Luke and Lando hunt to save Rey and her family from the Sith assassin pursuing them and put an end to the threat of the Sith once and for all.
The book takes all of the questions about the consistency of some of the storytelling in "The Rise of Skywalker" and re-contextualizes many of the things that had fans scratching their heads so they make sense.
One of the biggest questions coming out of "The Rise of Skywalker" had a lot to do with Rey and where her parents came from. If Palpatine was truly her grandfather and the blood of the Sith truly ran through her veins, how did that happen? Over the course of the last few years, some of the media has made hints about what really happened. Rae Carson's adaptation of "The Rise of Skywalker" confirmed that Dathan was a clone of Palpatine, but didn't offer his name or elaborate on him much further than that.
"Shadow of the Sith" delves deep into where Palpatine's "son" Dathan grew up, how he escaped, and how he fell in love with his wife, Miramir. The entire story plays like a tragedy, a train you know is going to crash. We saw Ochi of Bestoon — hunting for Rey herself — kill Rey's parents with the Sith dagger and we saw Ochi's ship leave her on Jakku. How could these two things be true? Christopher weaves a tale that makes sense of these disparities and shows us the sacrifices Rey's parents made for her and why she'd think they were nothing more than junk dealers on Jakku for the majority of her life.
You can't help but turn the pages without wanting to look away, hoping they can pull it off, but knowing they absolutely can't. Some would argue this robs the book of suspense, but it's utterly thrilling to see how close they came and how corrupting the influence of the Sith is in foiling their own plans.
One of the most interesting things explored in this book are the artifacts of the Sith and how they can influence their bearers. The two chief objects whose power the book explores are the Sith Dagger we saw in "The Rise of Skywalker" and wielded by Ochi of Bestoon, and the mask of Viceroy Exim Panshard.
The dagger Ochi wields is the key to finding the Sith Wayfinder, though Ochi doesn't know it as he stabs his way through the story. The dagger itself is bloodthirsty, demanding more and more as the story progresses. The influence of the knife dims Ochi's ability to think straight and, by the end, almost damns him to his fate beneath the sinking fields of Pasaana. In fact, Ochi dying in the way he does, under the influence of the Sith Dagger, evokes the death of Isildur and the loss of the ring of power in the Disaster at Gladden Fields in "The Lord of the Rings." It feels as though dagger wanted to be where it was and betrayed Ochi, just as the ring betrayed Isildur. This was how the Sith Eternal put the pieces together for the potential to resurrect himself to his former glory, the same as Sauron.
As far as the mask of the Sith used in this story, it has an interesting history. Over the course of the new canon, objects have been imbued with the spirit of the Sith. In their quest for everlasting life, they looked for cheats to preserve their spirits. One recent instance that Lando references in the book is the mask of Darth Momin. Momin was able to put his spirit in the mask that was ultimately retrieved by Darth Sidious and given to Darth Vader as he set out to build his castle on Mustafar. Momin inhabited an Imperial officer and then a Mustafarian as his spirit worked to build Vader's castle. Eventually, Lando would have a run-in with Momin's work in Charles Soule's first "Star Wars" comic. This mask of Viceroy Exim Panshard works similarly through Kiza, an Acolyte of the Beyond. She was first introduced as a member of this Sith worshipping cult in Chuck Wendig's "Aftermath." She obtained the mask of Panshard and he took over her body, working to find their way to Exegol and reunite with the Sith Eternal. The voices she hears, though, feel as though they could be all the Sith, or Palpatine, or just Panshard. It's unclear, but feels implied that Palpatine is pulling the strings, even at this point in the timeline.
Fortunately, Luke Skywalker was on the case to face her and take the mask.
Ben Solo appears as a Padawan briefly in the book, an astute student of Luke and an eager teacher of the younglings. Fans of the character will be grateful to see him, however briefly, but these Sith artifacts create a compelling case for how Palpatine was able to get some of his hooks into the young Solo.
The mask of Exim Panshard ends up being taken to Luke Skywalker's Jedi temple on Ossus, still humming with the forces of the Dark Side and the voices of the Sith. Although the book doesn't get into it, it creates a compelling scenario where this could have been the thing Palpatine needed to further corrupt Ben. Snoke certainly got to him, as well as another puppet of Sheev Palpatine, but this mask could have easily aided in the corruption.
When Palaptine says in "The Rise of Skywalker" that he is every voice that Ben has ever heard inside his head and transforms his voice to match Snoke and Darth Vader, it makes sense that he could do it with Exim Panshard as well. Especially given his lines later in the movie about how he is all of the Sith.
It really feels like they might be heading toward stories that offer deeper explanations of Ben's corruption to the dark side and are putting the pieces that make it happen on the table.
There are a lot of really cool details and Easter eggs Adam Christopher laced into the narrative, and fans of other parts of the saga and the Legends universe will be very happy.
First, from the "Battlefront" games we have an artifact that Luke retrieved with Del Meeko on Pilio: a Jedi star compass. This piece features in the book and was made real for shots in "The Last Jedi" as well. This compass is the Jedi equivalent of a Sith Wayfinder.
Another character that appears in "Battlefront II" is Shriv Suurgav, a Duros with an attitude and friend to Lando Calrissian. He quickly became a fan favorite in that game and has no problem stealing scenes in "Shadow of the Sith."
Dominic Monaghan's character from "The Rise of Skywalker," the archeologist Beaumont Kin, makes an appearance as well as a much younger man before joining the Resistance on an archeological dig of interest to Luke Skywalker and Lor San Tekka.
At one point, Ochi of Bestoon thinks back on his time in the Clone Wars and before, making references to Mace Windu and his apprentice Depa Billaba in a way that evokes some of the imagery of one of the best "Star Wars" novels, "Shatterpoint" by Matthew Stover.
"Star Wars" author Michael A. Stackpole gets his due and proper in two ways. The first is the canonization of the Errant Venture, a ship he first mentioned in one of his X-Wing books. In the Legends universe, it was a massive Star Destroyer painted red and run by the smuggler and scoundrel Booster Terrik. Lando's mention of it implies that he ran with Booster and he's running around the galaxy somewhere. The second is a little more obscure. At one point in the narrative, Luke and Lando need speeders to chase down Ochi of Bestoon and his thugs. Lando happens to have a couple of classic speeders in The Lady Luck. They're Stacker Polaris Stormwolfs. One of them is a '57. Stacker Polaris is a nice nod to Stackpole, but his longtime website is www.stormwolf.com. Stackpole also happens to have been born in 1957.
Another deep cut reference comes in the form of the CAP-2. The CAP-2 Captivator was a tool used by the Empire and bounty hunters to capture people, and it has its roots in a toy that Kenner put out for "The Empire Strikes Back." It was nothing that appeared in the films, but designed exclusively for the toy line. The bounty hunter Bossk appeared on the packaging, using a CAP-2 to deliver a rebel to Darth Vader.
Lando Calrissian drops another deep cut comes when he looks back at his Calrissian Chronicles, reprising their function from "Solo: A Star Wars Story." He mentions an adventure on planet Lahsbane, which is a reference to an original 1983 issue of a Marvel "Star Wars" comic where Lando Calrissian joins Luke, Leia, Artoo, and Threepio to planet Lahsbane to retrieve datatapes vital to the Rebellion.
Maybe the deepest cut, though, might be the reference to Bria LaVorgna. LaVorgna is a Star Wars writer and, alongside myself, contributed essays to the back of the "Age of..." Star Wars comics. She's also written about Star Wars in other places, including StarWars.com. As Lando looks at some games to play, "LaVorgna's Age of Dragons" jumps out at him, referencing Bria's overriding love of the "Dragon Age" games.
Overall, Adam Christopher weaves a compelling tale that makes sense of some of the more glaring errors in "The Rise of Skywalker." One of the chief problems he solves is what I call the Anakin Skywalker problem. If Luke was searching for a Sith Wayfinder and one of them is in Vader's castle because it was in Vader's possession, why didn't he just ask the ghost of his father? Christopher is able to answer this question with a dramatic scene where Anakin's very spirit is in danger and he's doing his best to protect Luke from the dark forces approaching him.
Another he solves deftly is the confusing chain of events that allow Rey to be left on Jakku in Ochi's ship when Ochi is the one searching for her and can't find her and doesn't know where she is. Really, the book feels designed to fix this one confusing plot point, but never once does it feel like a chore. In fact, the entire book was nothing but a pleasure to read. As it filled in holes and expanded our knowledge of Luke Skywalker and his whereabouts in the time between "The Mandalorian" and "The Force Awakens", it gave us a thrilling adventure and suspense story.
The book also shed light on the undernourished and largely cut subplot about Lando's kidnapped daughter from "The Rise of Skywalker." The Lando in "Rise of Skywalker" now makes a lot more sense and Christopher is owed all the credit.
For fans of "Star Wars" hoping to fill in the gaps, this book is perfect. Fans looking for a fun read through a rollicking adventure will find a home in this book as well. Christopher writes Luke and Lando with a wry smile and gives us everything we'd need but didn't know we wanted.
"Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith" is available now at bookstores everywhere.
Read this next: Star Wars Plot Holes That Still Confuse Fans
The post Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith Rights Wrongs of the Rise of Skywalker appeared first on /Film.
In case you forgot, we're really going back to see the Sanderson Sisters once again. "Hocus Pocus 2," the sequel to the original sleeper hit Disney film, is still happening, and the new installment now has a teaser trailer to try to get us hyped up for the return to Salem.
The sneak peek was released on Disney's YouTube channel, and the teaser sums up what to expect quite nicely. In the nearly minute-and-a-half long clip, the new story is set up to focus on three teenagers in modern day, played by "Gossip Girl" star Whitney Peak, "Total Eclipse" star Lilia Buckingham, and "American Horror Story" star Belissa Escobedo. After attempting to access their own potential powers, the girls seemingly summon the most famous witches of all time, the Sanderson Sisters, and are subsequently forced to stop Winnifred (Bette Middler), Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker), and Mary (Kathy Najimy) after they have once again been brought back to the land of the living.
A teaser poster was also released for the film, which features silhouettes of the three iconic witches in each of their signature colors — purple for Sarah, red for Mary, and green for Winnie — alongside the tagline, "We're back, witches," and the movie's title.
The movie will also star Sam Richardson, Tony Hale, and Doug Jones, who will reprise his role as the beloved Billy Butcherson.
This movie already has a lot riding on its shoulders, and we're still a few months off from its release. The original 1993 film, directed by Kenny Ortega and written by Mick Garris and Neil Cuthbert, wasn't actually a smash hit when it was released, but that doesn't mean the film hasn't found its dedicated audience since then. In fact, one could definitely argue that the movie is one of the most important Halloween stories in modern culture. It has become such an expected and relied-upon part of the zeitgeist; It's always on every Halloween movie line-up, you will always win at least third place in any group costume contest you enter with your friends while dressed up as the Sandersons.
Sure, there is a bit of nostalgia clouding my outlook on this new sequel, but despite my love of Whitney Peak (she's a very strong actor), I'm not convinced this new story of Sanderson proportions is going to live up to the heartfelt rollercoaster ride that was given to me in my childhood by the original film. I'm willing to light the black flame candle once again and give this a shot, but if it turns out to be an uninspired attempt to revive a classic that should've, like the Sandersons, stayed dead, I reserve permission to throw a 24-hour "Hocus Pocus" movie marathon once a week for the entirety of October for the rest of forever. Your invites will be in the mail.
This new installment, which was directed by Anne Fletcher and written by Jen D'Angelo, will premiere on Disney+ on September 30, 2022.
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The James Bond franchise was in dire need of a reboot after the creative failure of 2002's "Die Another Day." Pierce Brosnan's fourth go-round as 007 was a box-office hit, but the silly, gadget-happy formula he'd inherited from Roger Moore's iteration of the character had hit a nadir with the introduction of an invisible car. Was it more ridiculous than much of "Moonraker" or "A View to a Kill?" Perhaps not. But the series' unrelenting disconnect from reality and anything approaching genuine human emotion had left the character with nowhere to go but bust.
Hardcore Bond fans were enthusiastic about returning 007 to his remorseless, Ian Fleming roots (something Timothy Dalton's late-'80s run had half-heartedly attempted), but, on the surface, it appeared that "Casino Royale" director Martin Campbell's big idea was to embrace the parkour foot chases of Pierre Morel's cult action sensation, "District 13." This smacked of desperation. If Campbell, who'd kicked off the Brosnan era with "Goldeneye," was resorting to gimmickry rather than going back to the character's cold-hearted basics, maybe it was best to let Bond go altogether. It had been a mostly sweet 44-year run. The future belonged to the frenetic, hand-held set pieces of Paul Greengrass's "Bourne" movies.
"Casino Royale" hooked moviegoers with a dazzlingly deluxe parkour pursuit led by French freerunner Sébastian Foucan, but the true triumph of the film is that, for the first time since "License to Kill," people bought into Bond as more than a debonair superspy. Craig's 007 comes on as a straight-up killer, but as his mission to smoke out criminal banker Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) goes sideways, he finds himself falling hard for his contact, Vesper Lynd (Eva Green). Unlike most Bond movies, this isn't a frivolous case of intermingling business with pleasure. Bond goes from needing Lynd's assistance to caring about her mental well-being. They're kindred, messed-up spirits, and their relationship reaches a deeply moving climax when Bond finds a traumatized, fully-clothed Lynd balled up in her hotel shower. It's an unusually affecting sequence for James Bond movie, and it only went before cameras because Daniel Craig insisted on it.
According to producer Barbara Broccoli in the retrospective documentary "Being James Bond," the shower scene was supposed to be a stereotypically sexy sequence featuring Lynd and 007 hooking up in the shower in their underwear. Per Broccoli, "Daniel said, 'No, they don't get undressed. They are in their clothes.'" Producer Michael G. Wilson adds:
"[I]t was just sort of hinted at in the script. I was about this thing that if we're going to go with the violence, if we're going to go with the reality of it... it's still a James Bond movie. But I wanted to see what happens. I wanted to see the effect it has on people. She's in shock, so she's sitting in the shower in her clothes. It made complete sense to me."
This is a shockingly tender scene for a Bond movie, harkening back to the vulnerability of George Lazenby and Diana Rigg in another atypical 007 adventure, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." As Broccoli notes, it's the moment Lynd and Bond fall in love. It's why audiences reinvested in the character, and basically set the stage for the five-film arc that brought us to the heartbreaking, if controversial, conclusion of "No Time to Die."
The path to this final film was anything but direct and often unsatisfying ("Quantum of Solace" plays like a protracted denouement to "Casino Royale," while "Spectre" is bizarrely misconceived on just about every level), yet the series acquired a narrative velocity that had never been present in previous entries. None of this would've happened without Craig's sensitivity to the needs of his co-star. This scene changed the James Bond franchise forever. Whether they'll continue to follow Craig's lead going forward remains to be seen.
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Uttering the television series title "The Twilight Zone" usually conjures up imagery of its most serious episodes; classic episodes like "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" were spirited call-outs on man's embarrassing ability to fail themselves and each other, over and over again. While series creator Rod Serling tapped into his hallowed influences from Edgar Allen Poe to Ray Bradbury for his monochrome anthology show, his comedic flare-up episodes didn't land as well as the stranger genre trips he was known for (wrongfully, says this writer). Two goofy episodes in particular originally had aims for their own series.
"The Twilight Zone" had paid off for Serling, who had earned an Emmy for writing the series by the conclusion of season one's production in the spring of 1960 (his fourth such award to date). Racism, xenophobia, and hubris were all made digestible through aliens, sentient machines, and anything the fifth dimension could summon. Marty McGee and Don Presnell's reference work "A Critical History of Television's The Twilight Zone, 1959-1964" reveals the proposed pilots that eventually spawned a loose pair of mid-tier series episodes:
"'Cavender Is Coming' was the second of two series pilots — the first was 'Mr. Bevis' that Serling was contractually bound to create for CBS. The proposed title of this second series was 'The Side of the Angels.' Whereas The 'Mr. Bevis' series would have dealt with the same recurring title character and his guardian angel, 'The Side of the Angels' would have followed Cavender's misadventures and predicaments with different persons each week. CBS didn't care for either 'Bevis' or 'Cavender,' and neither left the ground as a series."
Chronologically, "Mr. Bevis" was the first. It aired amid instability on June 3, 1960, two days after the Lake Bodom murders and nearly two weeks removed from any resolution on an eight-month Writers Guild of America strike. Its director was William Asher, helmsman of several AIP beach party pictures of the decade. The show didn't feature Annette Funicello traveling through dimensions, but "Mr. Bevis" did have a triviality to it that made for a strange contrast with the rest of the series. Serling's spoken intro reveres his goofy star:
"But this can be said of our Mr. Bevis: Without him, without his warmth, without his kindness, the world would be a considerably poorer place, albeit perhaps a little saner ... should it not be obvious by now, James B.W. Bevis is a fixture in his own, private, optimistic, hopeful little world, a world which has long ceased being surprised by him."
Amid the aforementioned instability, and with Sen. Joseph McCarthy's Red Scare still visible in the rearview mirror, Serling felt that true individuality came at a premium, and sometimes it could redeem you entirely. Bevis, played by aw-shucks Orson Bean, is assigned a guardian angel, one J. Hardy Hempstead (Henry Jones). All the money in the world can't give Bevis true happiness if he loses the oddball energy that endears his entire community to him. Bean's character is corny, but the episode stands as a nice counterweight to all the show's self-destruction episodes ("What You Need," "The Fever"). "Mr. Bevis" proves that it's not all doom and gloom beyond the boundaries of imagination. You can turn your whole franchise around if you just shut up and read the room — evergreen advice, especially in times like these.
Given a series as Rod Serling wanted, "Mr. Bevis" would have dealt with the same title character every week and his misadventures with his guardian angel. Marc Scott Zicree's "Twilight Zone Companion" book pulls the curtain back more:
"Originally, Serling intended 'Mr. Bevis' as a pilot for a series starring Burgess Meredith, wherein each week the angel would get Bevis out of yet another scrape. But Meredith was unwilling to commit to a series, and turned the offer down."
Meredith was already a beacon of the series, having had four "Twilight Zone" appearances, including the unfair top 10 episode "Time Enough At Last" (his character's name? Henry Bemis). Going back to humor, Serling's "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" sees Meredith as a hapless vacuum salesman who finds his 15 minutes of fame when gifted superstrength by big-brained aliens. Peering through the episode's Looney Tunes physics and Don Rickles' delightful humiliation, Meredith's range comes into focus; he's a real smug weenie when empowered, flashing the kind of disaffected puffed-up grin, one that earns a swift swirlie in some regions.
Luther Dingle's inverse, bookworm Bemis of "Time Enough At Last," lets the vulnerability seep out of his bottle-thick eyeglasses — an exposure that weeps just under the husky grump and gruff of Meredith's Micky Goldmill in "Rocky." Daydreaming about it all, a "Mr. Bemis" series episode would have been as sentimental as the "Twilight Zone" episode. Dreaming a little deeper, Meredith would have married that Bemis tenderness to Dingle's grin to emerge in a prototype of William H. Macy's Frank Gallagher, the colossal screw-up of "Shameless." If greed screed "A Most Unusual Camera" or "What You Need" are any clues, it's a safe bet Serling isn't scared to make his characters self-destruct.
"Cavender is Coming" was the latter of the comedic series pilots Rod Serling drafted. It came near the end of season three, when the "Twilight Zone" fanbase had grown and Serling had picked up another Emmy for penning the bulk of the episodes. A lot weighed on Serling, whose plate was full with what would end up being 37 episodes, and who would begin recycling concepts like the guardian-angel conceit.
A surprise self-parodying appearance on "The Garry Moore Show" had Serling not only acknowledging his stardom — his face as recognizable as Alfred Hitchcock's silhouette by this time — but linking up with comedian Carol Burnett, who played opposite Serling in the segment. Gordon F. Sanders' book "Serling: The Rise and Twilight of TV's Last Angry Man" chronicles the collaboration as it grew, in which Burnett recalls Serling asking her, over burgers, to do a guest appearance on his show:
"After we taped Garry's show, went out and got a burger and went bowling, I think. Then Rod asked if I would do a guest appearance on his show. Of course, I was delighted to do it."
Serling's teleplay is directed by Chris Nyby (the director behind Quentin Tarantino's favorite "The Thing from Another World"), resurrecting the highlights of the "Mr. Bevis" pilot-turned-episode with a gender-flipped protagonist. Burnett stars as the unemployed Agnes Grep, a fixer-upper case for one Harmon Cavender (Jesse White), an apprentice angel who must earn his wings by shepherding the clumsy woman (Burnett also happened to work as an usherette at a miserable job, the "Serling" book reveals). Unlike the "Mr. Bemis" series and its proposed casting of Meredith in the lead, "Cavender Is Coming" didn't get that far into planning when the studio nixed it. Would Burnett have been up for it?
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If you had asked me in 1997 if I thought "South Park" was going to still be on the air when I reached an age to actually write about it for an online publication, I'd have asked you what "online" meant because I was in the first grade and it was 1997. As I made public knowledge (much to my mother's dismay) in my assessment of the "South Park" Paramount+ movie "The Streaming Wars," I've been watching "South Park" from the very beginning, and have spent way, way too much time analyzing this show's impact on pop culture. As genuine creative provocateurs are continually flushed out of the public eye, it's hard to not want "South Park" to live on, continuing the grand tradition of satire through the lens of offensive and bad taste.
It doesn't seem like "South Park" will be vacating the cultural conversation anytime soon, fortunately, as the show signed a massive $900 million deal with Paramount+ for five new seasons and 14 made-for-streaming movies, bringing the show into its third decade of programming. The show absolutely misses the mark from time to time and crosses the line from provoking to problematic with fervent frequency, but despite the seemingly "stupid" humor of their show, Trey Parker and Matt Stone are easily two of the smartest creators in the industry. Not only is the show's longevity and popularity a sign that they've tapped into something special, their decisions to embrace the evolution of how audiences consume entertainment have kept them ahead of the curve.
In an interview with Bloomberg, co-creator Matt Stone talked a bit about he and Parker's massive deal with Paramount+, and why he believes they were able to secure the deal in the first place. What many may not know, is that in addition to the episodes streaming on HBO Max and the movies on Paramount+, a variety of their "South Park" episodes across all seasons are available for free online through South Park Studios. "We said, 'Let's put the show online and build that audience,'" Stone said. "If we can own half that, let's just do that." This made fans felt seen, and felt like the creators of their favorite show genuinely wanted to provide for them.
Stone and Parker also knew that much of the "South Park" target audience are the kind of folks who would pirate their show if it wasn't easily accessible, so they made the decision to put the episodes online so there would be no need for piracy. "We built an online audience that was complementary," he continued.
Well, the strategy absolutely worked, because "South Park" is still as profitable as ever. A quick search of "South Park" on Twitter results in an excess of fanart and fanmade gifs, proving the "South Park" fandom isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
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The jokes and wacky characters of "I Think You Should Leave" find unconventional ways to nudge a laugh out of you. Whether it's via a washed-up Santa Claus dropping F-bombs or an alumni dinner that goes awry when a former professor gets envious enough of someone's burger to brazenly eat it. A lot of this is owed to the characters of Tim Robinson's zany sketches: people who end up in socially awkward situations who react either by doubling down against logic and reason or who rage in self-righteous indignation. The feelings of secondhand embarrassment, the cringe, and the shock that often follows are all indispensable to the comedy of "I Think You Should Leave."
Flipping the script appears to be the spirit in which Robinson guides the surrealist comedy of the show. But one area he is less cavalier about is the script, which he develops with co-creator and fellow former "Saturday Night Live" writer Zach Kanin. As a result, none of the blustering monologues or dialogues in the show are improvised. The rule applies even to the show's growing list of guest stars, which has included Steven Yeun, Will Forte, and Tim Heidecker. Yet at least one person was immune to such constraints: Bob Odenkirk, who started riffing off the script while shooting his season two scene.
The scene in question opens innocently enough: A father (Tim Robinson) enlists a lonely, slightly sleazy stranger (Bob Odenkirk) in a white lie about ice-cream machines to his daughter. But when the stranger starts to imagine for himself a fantasy life as a rich car collector, the absurdity becomes disconcertingly tangible. Speaking with the Los Angeles Times, Robinson heaped nothing but praise atop Odenkirk's performance and even revealed the actor left the script behind at one point:
"Bob did improvise a bunch at the end of that sketch, it was all really funny, and I feel like it elevated the sketch off of what was on the page a lot."
Odenkirk's decision to improvise lends a lot to his character's manic creation of new lies about his fake life. But it's also hard to tell when he starts going off script. Maybe it's during his hilarious contemplation over which cars he has doubles/triples of — "If I don't have triples, that other stuff's not true," he quips matter of factly. Or is it his constant urgings for Robinson to repeat the lies to his daughter? Especially during his rant over his beautiful, but dying model wife: "She's sick, but she's hanging in there. Tell her."
Long before he was Saul Goodman, Odenkirk was a sketch comedy pioneer in his own right. Alongside David Cross, he debuted "Mr. Show with Bob and David," and its offbeat, oddball humor became an unsurprising inspiration for Robinson when creating "I Think You Should Leave." Maybe it's because of that veneration that he was given such comedic latitude during his skit. Clearly when you let Odenkirk do Odenkirk, you get comedy gold.
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Actors often do a lot for their craft, and sometimes that puts them in harm's way. Such is the case for Viggo Mortensen, who stars in Ron Howard's upcoming film "Thirteen Lives," which recounts the events of the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue in the Chiang Rai Province of Thailand. Mortensen will play Richard Stanton, a central figure in the rescue and an accomplished cave diver, and discussed the lengths he went to learn the practice in a recent virtual press conference.
"One thing Rick [one of the divers training the cast for the film] kept talking about was, 'Remember to just breath calmly. Control your breathing," explained Mortensen. "The more nervous you are and you're breathing shallow, you're using up all your air."
Unfortunately for him, there was one moment on set where he was doing just that, leading to a harrowing experience that could've ended horribly if not for the trained professionals on set:
"I managed to get through this tight spot, but I really had a moment there where I started to breathe fast, and I was like [imitates trying to breathe], and there was nothing."
Part of Mortensen's training involved diving and swimming in very cramped spaces in order to simulate the rescue's actual conditions. Thankfully, these conditions were simulated with professionals, but there were times that it felt all too real:
"There were a lot of places that were so narrow that you had to just wiggle through. Sometimes you had to take your tank...off, while you were underwater, without disconnecting from the air — then go through this wiggle area, [and] put the tank on. Do this all calmly. We had two tanks. If something went wrong with one, just be calm. Don't freak out, because you can drown in a few seconds. Once you freak out and you swallow a little water, you're done. Even though it's a movie ... nobody can get to you fast enough, and so forth."
This led to a moment, Mortensen explained, where he accidentally rolled onto one of his oxygen tanks, turning it off in the process. He explained that he tried to remain calm and eventually was able to revert to his other tank, but there was a moment that felt like nothing he'd ever felt before. While he was thankfully able to get things back under control, this incident serves as another reminder of just how important proper safety protocols and training are on film sets. Without the expertise of the real-life divers, things could have gone much differently.
"Thirteen Lives" will premiere on Prime Video in August 2022.
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The post Viggo Mortensen Stared Death in the Face While Making Thirteen Lives appeared first on /Film.
You might be surprised that a man named Robert Bartleh Cummings might be into vintage horror films and TV shows. A guy with that name is probably sitting on a yacht, reading the financial section of the Times as his butler brings out caviar and Cuban cigars on a silver platter. But if I told you that man is better known as Rob Zombie, then the surprise factor is out the window. The man's chosen stage name is "Zombie," for God's sake. Of course he loves horror.
Rob Zombie and horror imagery go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Genre has been part of his identity even before he became a horror filmmaker himself.
Mr. Zombie is wrapping up work on a new version of "The Munsters," a feature film adaptation of the classic lighthearted monster show. While it is a departure from his other feature film output in that it is happily rated PG instead of the hard R or even Unrated content of his past features, Zombie is pulling from the same love of genre as he has from the beginning of his career.
Robert Zombie was born in 1965, which puts him in the golden era of TV, pre-VCR and cable TV revolution, where shows like "The Twilight Zone," "The Addams Family," and, of course, "The Munsters" were found on the few channels that existed.
Zombie cited those three shows in particular in a 2014 interview about growing up in a small, Sleepy Hollow-ish New England town where the easiest place to find monster stuff was on the boob tube, from the family monster shows to broadcasts of black and white horror classics.
So that might give you an early indicator as to why the dude behind such in-your-race gruesome horror movies as "The Devil's Rejects" and "House of A Thousand Corpses" is so gung-ho about his PG remake of "The Munsters." Yes, the man loves extreme horror, but he was brought up in an era of family-friendly spook stories. In fact, Zombie turned to "The Twilight Zone" right at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, posting to social media that he was rewatching the show and asking for his follower's favorite episodes.
Given his music and the vast majority of his film output, you'd think the more extreme horror would be what Zombie cites as his inspiration. But when asked in interviews about his favorites, he tends to focus on classic films, with a particular fondness for pre-Code horror.
Pre-Code means before the Hays Code, the very first and very strict morality guideline implemented by the studio system before the MPAA ratings we have today. This is the reason you didn't see things like married couples sharing a bed or open mouth kisses in a lot of older Hollywood films. The Hays Code was established in 1934 and lasted until 1968, so when Zombie praises pre-Code horror, he's talking about some very early horror movies.
Tod Browning's "Freaks" (1932) is a favorite of Mister Zombie. This horror classic, set at a carnival with a cast of real disabled performers, wouldn't cause modern audiences to bat an eye, but at the time, it was flat-out scandalous. People fainted, vomited, and one woman threatened to sue the studio, MGM, because she blamed the film for causing her to miscarry, as reported in Angela Smith's book "Hideous Progeny: Disability, Eugenics, and Classic Horror Cinema."
It makes a lot of sense that a critically reviled and extreme (for its time) horror movie like "Freaks" took up so much headspace for young Master Zombie. Also not surprising is his love of the classic Universal monsters.
Director Tod Browning is the connective tissue here. He directed "Freaks" and also directed a little movie called "Dracula" starring Bela Lugosi. You might have heard of it. When it comes to the classic Universal monsters, it seems their brevity is what really appealed to the musician:
"I love the Universal stuff 'cause a lot of it is 69, 70 minutes. Get to the point, boom, body out of the grave, let's build a monster! After 90 minutes, I get a little squirrely in the feet. Especially if you're seeing simple things, like I don't want a two and a half hour superhero movie. Cut out an hour of that."
Other pre-Code favorites of Zombie's include a trio of 1932 spook-a-blasts: "Island of Lost Souls," "Murders in the Rue Morgue," and "White Zombie."
"White Zombie" should ring some bells for fans of the musician, since he named his band after this Bela Lugosi shocker, which is often credited as being the origin of zombies on screen. However, it should be noted that this is the pre-George Romero definition of zombie, one that requires a witch doctor to use magic to turn dead people into mindless automatons.
Creeping into the 1950s, Rob Zombie continues his Universal streak with "The Creature from the Black Lagoon." Zombie has spoken openly about his love of the design of the Gill-Man monster, and he even got caught up in the remake rumor mill because he once stated that "Creature" is good material for a modern remake. He since had to make sure everyone knew he wasn't planning on actually remaking it, but the point stands.
The 1960s saw many influential films for Mr. Zombie, but there are two that seem to stand above the others. One is the artsy, dreamlike "Carnival of Souls" from 1962, which Zombie ended up naming his 2002 album after. It should be noted that this is the album that gave us "Dragula," and we've been digging through the ditches and burning through the witches ever since.
The other major '60s title that captured Rob Zombie's imagination was George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead," released in 1968, the same year the Hays Code ended and our more modern rating system was implemented. It makes sense that Romero's first "Dead" movie was a favorite of Zombie's. It's a spunky, short game-changer that really annoyed off the squares with its in-your-face violence and on-its-sleeve social politics.
Zombie's love of Romero doesn't end with "Night of the Living Dead." In fact, that movie tees up 1978's "Dawn of the Dead," which Zombie calls "The movie I love the most, and watched the most." Sounds an awful lot like he's saying "Dawn of the Dead" is his favorite movie there, doesn't it? He continues:
"It became one of those things where I had it on VHS and I'd watch it every single day. Even if I wasn't paying attention to it, the sound in the background was soothing."
That also explains why he has gone out of his way to cast "Dawn of the Dead" star Ken Foree in his films.
And that leaves a film which Zombie said changed his life: 1974's "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre." In a piece for Rolling Stone, Zombie shared his experience seeing the trailer for the first time on TV at the tender age of nine and how entranced he was by it. He also had a friend over who was so scared by the trailer that his mom had to come over and pick him up. Different strokes, different folks, etc.
It took Zombie seven more years to finally see the movie. Remember, this was back in the day before video stores existed, let alone having every movie in the world available to stream or rent at a moment's notice. So Zombie had built "Chain Saw" up in his mind, becoming obsessed over the TV spots that ran in his childhood and whatever stills he could dig up in magazines.
When he finally saw it, it was everything he hoped it would be and more: "It was a genuine American nightmare caught on film for all the world to see."
Over the years, many of Zombie's fans (and harsh critics, for that matter) have pointed out the influence "Chain Saw" had on his films. "The Devil's Rejects" in particular feels like it's cut from that same sweaty, real southern nightmare cloth as Tobe Hooper's classic. It's also been noted that Zombie's version of Michael Myers in his "Halloween" films resembles Leatherface more than John Carpenter's original version of The Shape.
As a fan of all horror eras, there are countless more titles that Zombie champions, from "The Shining" to "Let the Right One In." But the titles mentioned here are clearly what shaped and formed the gleefully disturbed psyche of one of the top figures in the genre. Maybe it's time for a marathon?
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The post The Movies and Shows That Kickstarted Rob Zombie's Love of the Horror Genre appeared first on /Film.
"Thor: Love and Thunder" hits theaters soon, and we're getting a new MCU villain in Christian Bale. He plays Gorr the God Butcher, a character who, in the comics, loses his wife and child. He prayed to the gods of his people to save them, but they didn't. After, he vows to destroy the gods, and gains the Necrosword to do it with. That's an oversimplification, but for our purposes, it explains who Gorr is.
Gorr first appeared in Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic's run with "Thor: God of Thunder" #1 in 2013. He has quite the look in the comics, all black and white, as the best of the extremists are. In the upcoming film, as you can see from the trailers, he's chalk white with black eyes and lots of icky black goo coming out of his mouth. He wears a white robe, and sucks the color out of places he fights. In fact, in one of the trailers, you can see the entire world go black, white, and grey, with our heroes' weapons the only spot of color in the scene.
Bale has mentioned a lot of things about his character, including the fact that there was almost a dance to a Kate Bush song, and that the video for Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy" was a visual reference he used for inspiration. First, I need to see that dance, and second, that video will haunt me for the next few weeks. Bale also said that there was a part of his costume that made him feel "pathetic," in an interview with Deadline.
As you can see from the picture above, there is something you don't usually see on Christian Bale. It's the nails. He said on the carpet, "It rendered me completely incapable of everything. I was pathetic. I found myself thinking things like, 'I don't think I can walk because I've got long nails.' It affected my brain. I was like, 'I can't eat, I've got long nails.' I was trying to type. I couldn't do anything."
I mean, I get it. I can't do anything with long nails either. I am endlessly fascinated by people who can type text messages on their phones with long nails. The ones he has in this film are really long, and frankly, I also don't know how he doesn't break them off when he goes a-sword-slashing. I can't keep my nails from breaking when I make the bed. Perhaps it's a bonus benefit from the Necrosword's magic? Nails (the part you see) are dead cells, from what I remember from biology class. Necro ... dead cells ... yeah, I'm reaching, but it does make sense.
Having interviewed actors who have to wear claws as part of costumes, walking and typing weren't the activities they spoke about having issues with. It was using the restroom. You know what? Let's not think about that.
"Thor: Love and Thunder" will hit theaters on July 8, 2022.
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Fans of both horror comedies and Amy Adams have been buzzing around her upcoming performance in "Nightbitch," the Marielle Heller-directed feature based on Rachel Yoder's book of the same name. If Amy Adams doing a horror comedy wasn't enough to generate a whole mess of interest, the evocative title and compelling premise is sure to do the trick. "Nightbitch" is about a suburban stay-at-home mom who is exhausted due to raising a hyperactive child on her own due to her husband's constant traveling for work, and she begins to transform into a dog at night as a means to cope. Esquire called Yoder's story "an outrageous Kafkaesque parable about the mundanity and monstrosity of early motherhood," and the story's film rights were sought after before the novel even hit bookstore shelves.
Yoder told Esquire the inspiration for "Nightbitch" came from the book "Dept. of Speculation" by Jenny Offill, when the narrator says, "It was never my plan to get married. I wanted to become an art monster instead." Yoder said it was that theme of a mother whose ambitions were viewed as monstrous that struck a chord with her and motivated her to write the book. Additionally, Yoder says "Nightbitch" is also an incredibly personal work, with her own frustrations and challenges during her early years of motherhood reflected within the book's protagonist. It's an interesting way to process the feelings we often have as women existing in the world, and similarly, werewolf movies have frequently served as metaphors for those feelings ... but "Nightbitch" sounds almost identical to the 2017 indie film "Bitch" from Marianna Palka.
I am in no way accusing Rachel Yoder or Marielle Heller of plagiarizing Marianna Palka's work and truly believe this is an instance where two creatives had a similar idea. I am, however, using this opportunity to talk about Palka's "Bitch," a criminally underseen indie feature that wound up on two of our writers' Best of Sundance lists back in 2017. Palka wrote, directed, and starred in "Bitch," the story of a stay-at-home mom named Jill who is at her wits' end from stress. Her husband, Bill (the always perfectly cast Jason Ritter), isn't doing his share of the household chores and cheats on his wife while away for work. Jill feels like she's reached the end and attempts to take her own life by hanging herself with a dog leash.
Fortunately, Jill survives the attempt, but unfortunately, she endures a nervous breakdown and disappears, leaving Bill alone to take care of the home and their four children. The children are convinced their mother has been kidnapped, but one day after school they discover her hiding out in the basement, behaving like a dog. Bill decides to pretend everything is normal and keep Jill's behavior a secret, ignoring the request of his sister-in-law to get her the help she so clearly needs. Jill's breakdown forces Bill to completely change the course of his life, and their family is weirdly better for it. "Bitch" is a fantastic feminist satire and features phenomenal performances from Palka, Ritter, and Jaime King as Jill's sister, Beth, but it was unceremoniously released on VOD. To make matters even stranger, "Bitch" isn't even the first "stressed out mom turns into dog" film, either.
Fifteen years before "Bitch" and two full decades before "Nightbitch," Kasia Adamik directed an indie drama called "Bark!" Heather Morgan stars as a dog walker named Lucy who slowly begins to assume the identity of a dog. Where it differs from both "Bitch" and "Nightbitch" is Lucy doesn't have the extreme stress of motherhood and a husband who weaponizes his incompetence to motivate her disconnect, just a general dislike of the normalized rudeness and abject cruelty present in the world at large. The film was based off a 90-second sketch comedy bit, and based on the 14% the film currently boasts on Rotten Tomatoes, it definitely shows. (To be fair, stars Heather Morgan, Lisa Kudrow, Lee Tergesen, Vincent D'Onofrio, Hank Azaria, and Mary Jo Deschanel are all an absolute delight.)
Rather than throw accusations of who copied whom, it's infinitely more interesting to see that three separate creative women across a 20-year span have all felt drawn to stories where women disassociate and turn into a dog as a means to deal with the world around them. When Roe v. Wade was overturned, I joked that I was "finally entering my feral era," because I was filled with so much anger and rage the only thing that felt worthy of my energy was ripping something to shreds with my teeth or pissing on the lawn of six Supreme Court justices. People have been calling women "bitches" to demean us for years, but maybe this cinematic hat trick is a way to say embracing our literal inner bitch doesn't have to be a bad thing after all.
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Warning: The following contains spoilers for "The Umbrella Academy" season 3.
The "Umbrella Academy" season 3 finale feels like an ending. The latest batch of episodes sees the Hargreeves siblings endure a true apocalypse for the first time, but they also make it out of the Hotel Oblivion after hitting a reset button that sends them to a new version of their reality. Only, in this world, the Hargreeves siblings don't have superpowers.
"Oblivion" ends with Viktor, Diego, Allison, Luther, Klaus, and Five parting ways to try to live normal, apocalypse-free lives for once. It's not exactly closure, but it's a surprise ending that seems to take away the central conceit for the series entirely, leaving fans to wonder where the show could possibly go next. According to showrunner Steve Blackman, the series has at least one more season worth of familial dysfunction to explore.
Blackman told The Wrap that he has had a four-season plan for the series for a while now, and that if the show gets another season (it's not yet renewed), it could be its last. "I think inevitably if we got a season 4, it's going towards an endgame," Blackman said. He continued:
"I think at a certain point, I'm not sure where we'd go after season 4. We have to be careful. My plan for next year is not to continually tread on the same ground we have before. It's a challenge to come up with a new way to subvert this storyline, and I think we have an idea how to do that."
The filmmaker says that the team's ideas for season 4 "would be a great ending for the run of the show," which seems like a pretty definitive clue that the series aims to wrap up after four seasons. Yet, the fourth season still has to be ordered by the streamer, which has very publicly been changing strategies and axing programming lately. Netflix typically doesn't renew series immediately after they air, so it may be a while until we hear more about the status of season four.
The series based on Gerard Way's comic books has reinvented itself with each new batch of episodes, beginning in the present day before time travelling back to the 1960s. The latest season saw the Hargreeves return to a version of the present-day that was fundamentally changed by their timeline meddling, so that the Umbrella Academy as they knew it never existed.
The show also introduced The Sparrows, an alternate timeline version of the Hargreeves that seemingly functioned as a much more well-oiled machine than their counterparts. By the season's end, The Sparrows seem to have vanished, while the Hargreeves are back to their pre-apocalypse selves — albeit without their powers. The show is also neck and neck with Way's comic series now, as its third arc was published in 2019.
Blackman doesn't sound entirely opposed to continuing "Umbrella Academy" beyond its initial four-season plan, but for now, one more season seems to be the goal. "I'm not saying I couldn't do more, but you know," he says, but "I think that would be very satisfying for the audience, four seasons."
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Since the debut of "South Park" 25 years ago, the mother of the series' greatest villain, Eric Cartman, has existed without any real arc that didn't come at the expense of her own humanity. Liane Cartman is notably one of the only single parents in the town of South Park, Colorado, consistently doting on her sociopathic, bigoted child, and bending to his any and every desire. In the early seasons, Liane Cartman was portrayed as (and mocked) for being extremely sexually active, having appeared in "Crack Whore Magazine" and pornographic German scheisse films. The season 1 finale was titled "Cartman's Mom is a Dirty Slut," where the entire story centers on trying to figure out who Cartman's biological father is, but it's difficult to determine because it's implied she slept with every eligible male in town and the entire Denver Broncos football team.
The season 2 episode "Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut" revealed she was intersex, making her Eric's mother and father. This belief was held for years, until the 14th season, when it was shown the Liane Cartman is a cisgender woman and the lie was part of a scheme to protect the Denver Broncos. Cartman's real father was former player Jack Tenorman, who Cartman had previously arranged to be killed, made into chili, and fed to his son Scott. Throughout it all, Liane has been shown to be a pushover, constantly controlled by her child regardless of his atrocious schemes. Cartman treats Liane like absolute garbage, verbally assaults her, manipulates her, and she's always just taken the abuse as if she deserved it.
Until now.
When Liane Cartman was first created, she was apparently named after the ex-fiance of show creator Trey Parker, who had apparently cheated on him in their personal relationship. This is why the earlier seasons show Liane Cartman in such a demeaning manner. As the years have gone on, Liane's more maternal side has been shown, which is apparently inspired by Parker's own mother. Liane and Eric Cartman have had a sordid relationship to say the least, and this isn't to say she hasn't tried to combat his horrific personality.
In the season 10 episode "Tsst," Liane finally admits that Cartman is out of control and seeks the help of reality TV nannies, but the only person who actually makes any impact is Cesar Millan, "The Dog Whisperer." Unfortunately, after it seems like Cartman has changed for good, Liane immediately bends to his wants and desires when she realizes Cesar doesn't actually want to be her friend, he was just doing a job by training her child.
Due to her negative reputation in the community, and the fact her son is consistently the most hated person in the town, Liane Cartman doesn't have a lot of friends. She has developed a codependent relationship with her son, and she lets him get away with everything (including literal murder) because she's clearly terrified of being alone. Cartman is all she has, and she's willing to endure his endless barrage of mistreatment if it means someone, anyone in her life, loves her. But after 25 years of his crap, she's done. Everyone has their limit, and Liane has finally found hers.
In "The Streaming Wars," the latest "South Park" movie for Paramount+, Liane has hit her breaking point. In the current season, Liane Cartman decided to pursue a career in the real estate business. For the first time in years, she's finally found a job that brings her joy, financial stability, and a sense of independence. Cartman hates that his mom has something to take her attention away from him, so he decides to break the real estate market. He founds his own company and makes flashy videos of the properties he's trying to sell, and Liane eventually quits her job because Eric wants her to. Unfortunately, this means they can no longer afford their home, and are forced to move into a hot dog shaped hot dog stand.
This is the start of Liane's acceptance that her coddling of Eric has gone too far. Eric whines and cries about living in the hot dog stand, and he demands that Liane get their home back, refusing to understand that the only reason they're in this mess is because he begged for her to quit her job. At the start of "The Streaming Wars," Eric sings a "Somewhere That's Green"-inspired song about wanting to leave the hot dog, and rather than bend over backward for him, Liane snaps at him, screaming about how she doesn't want to live there either. But it's all they could afford after Eric pushed her out of her career. Of course, Eric continues to make the situation about himself and completely disregards his mother's feelings, demanding that she get breast implants so she can attract a rich husband and become a trophy wife.
Liane establishes early on that she has no intention of getting breast implants, expressing that she's happy with her body. Even if she wanted them, they have no way to afford the surgery. Cartman then lies to his friends Stan, Kyle, Butters, Kenny, and Tolkien, who have developed their own money-making "streaming service," in the hopes they'll share their profits with him because "his mom has breast cancer and needs surgery." When the boys rally together and raise the funds, Eric blindfolds Liane and surprises her with a trip to the plastic surgeon. Liane puts her foot down and says she's not getting the implants, so Cartman threatens to get them himself, convinced that Liane will then buckle and do as he asks.
"I've given in to you too many times Eric," she says. "It stops now."
Cartman continues calling his mother's bluff, going so far as to actually get the implants himself. When Liane shows up to visit him after his surgery, he's shocked to discover she didn't actually stop the procedure, and instead let Eric go through with it. He now has the largest possible size breasts surgically implanted into his body. For the first time in 25 years, the most underutilized and one-note, major character on the show is getting a legitimate story arc. She's breaking the codependent cycle she's developed with her atrocious son, and she's finally taking control of her own life.
Given the knowledge that Liane Cartman is based on a real person in Trey Parker's life, he and Matt Stone sort of wrote themselves into a corner with her character. Back in 1997 and throughout the aughts, it was commonplace for unsavory female characters to be written as "sluts and whores," and no one was really going to check them on it. That's not the case anymore. They already started weaning out her hypersexuality, as we've evolved to a place culturally where this blatant objectification and slut-shaming is understood as being disrespectful. But Liane's growth is proof that "South Park" is capable of growing and maybe even maturing.
Eric Cartman is more than overdue to be held accountable for his numerous crimes against humanity, and the absolute sweetest and most poetic justice would be if he finally got his comeuppance at the hands of his mother, who created and enabled this big-boned, absolute terrorist. Of course, because it is still "South Park" at the end of the day, that justice is served on a platter of saline implants the size of his head. We know after the finale of the "Post Covid" film, Cartman is in store for a grim future unless he can get it together. Now that Liane isn't going to let him push her around anymore, this might be the start of his inevitable (and deserving) downfall.
Good for you, Liane. We're all proud of you.
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The femme fatale is one of the most classic (and best) tropes in cinema. Although they existed in movies made before 1940, the character type was solidified during the noir boom of that decade. Birthed out of the pulpy detective novels of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and James M. Cain, the femme fatale was beautiful, duplicitous, dangerous, and would frequently cause the downfall of some poor dope who became entangled in her web.
The fatale could be fatal in the deadly sense, of course, but also would frequently be the protagonist's fatal flaw, sometimes unwittingly; obsession is certainly a huge factor in the trope. The stereotype could often be portrayed in more nuanced ways than what was on the glacial surface, with layers of vulnerability and tragedy underneath. After a fallow period in the '50s to the '70s, the '80s and '90s brought the femme fatale back with a vengeance. Directors such as Adrian Lyne, Paul Verhoeven, and Brian De Palma ushered in the age of the erotic thriller, which undoubtedly feature some of the best femme fatales.
The defining characteristic of the femme fatale is that she will stop at nothing to get what she wants (usually money and freedom), and will use everything in her power (usually sex) to manipulate others into achieving her ends. While she will sometimes get her own hands bloody, it's far better to find someone else to do the dirty work. Here are the best femme fatales in movie history.
Femme fatales generally fall into two categories as far as looks go. You'll see those with black hair and black outfits (what you would typically expect from the black widow type), or the icy blond who wears white (see: "Body Heat" and "Basic Instinct"). Perhaps the prototype of the latter category is Barbara Stanwyck as Phyllis Dietrichson. Director Billy Wilder and co-screenwriter Raymond Chandler adapting James M. Cain's novel make a good case for the best film noir of all time. Stanwyck was coming off of the screwball rom-coms "The Lady Eve" and "Ball of Fire" (both released in 1941) before delivering one of the best femme fatale performances in history.
Fred MacMurray plays the patsy, pretty much defining this character type, who becomes embroiled in Phyllis' devious scheme to kill her husband for the insurance money. Stanwyck makes an all-time-great entrance, completely upending Walter Neff's life from the get-go. One of the biggest pleasures of watching a femme fatale is knowing that the male protagonist is doomed the moment he meets her; there is no escape from her clutches. Stanwyck also brings her customary wry humor to the role, meeting Neff in a grocery store wearing conspicuous sunglasses, and Wilder makes great use of the huge height difference between them. All femme fatales since have been in the shadow of Phyllis Dietrichson.
In terms of the brunette leading ladies of the '40s, the two most beautiful were probably Ava Gardner and Gene Tierney, and both effectively weaponized their beauty as femme fatales. Having starred in "Laura" the year before, Tierney returned to the psychological thriller with "Leave Her to Heaven," an unusual noir for several reasons, not least that it's in technicolor. Tierney's Ellen is also a rare femme fatale in that her motivations are not financial. Instead, it is obsession and possessiveness that she transfers from her father to her husband. She is pathologically jealous of anyone who competes for his attention; she must consume him whole.
In this, "Leave Her to Heaven" is at the Gothic melodrama end of the noir spectrum, but Ellen's magnificent fashion and her cold-blooded, ruthless side place her firmly in the fatale camp. Ellen has what would be considered traditional male qualities in that time period: ambition, drive, competitiveness, making the first move with the person she desires and even being the one to propose. She is also disgusted when she falls pregnant; she wants no part of the traditional nuclear family and doesn't want to share her man with anyone, including her own child. Ellen is another murderous femme fatale that also earns our sympathy because she refuses to conform to the pressures and expectations of women at the time, making for a fantastic character.
The two youngest femme fatales on this list — the teenage Veda and Kathryn in "Cruel Intentions" — are arguably the evilest. Veda is an unusual femme fatale, as her prime victim isn't a man, but her own mother. Poor Mildred (Joan Crawford) sacrifices her own happiness and centers her life around aiding her daughter's ruthless ambitions, which is to social climb her way to a lavish lifestyle. All the men in the movie, including Bert, Monte, and Wally, are of varying degrees of being useless and selfish, but none are as wicked as Veda.
Veda lies about being pregnant, blackmails, brings shame to her family by becoming a scantily-clad entertainer, and even has an affair with her mother's husband. She uses the fact that her mother will do anything for her to her advantage, including coercing her mother into covering up a murder and pinning it on Wally. Even when Veda is eventually caught, Mildred still tries to apologize to her, and is rebuffed; the ultimate tragic ending for Mildred. "Mildred Pierce" is unusual in that the protagonist, who becomes the patsy of the femme fatale, is a woman. While it's largely a domestic melodrama, the framing device (Mildred is interrogated by the police, with the story told in flashbacks) and the murder plot, especially the way it's shot with the dramatic use of light and shadows, places it firmly within the noir genre.
Many of the best noirs are adaptations of equally brilliant books, and 1946's "The Killers" is no exception. The movie is based on a story by Ernest Hemingway, and was one of the few adaptations that he didn't despise. An important element of a great femme fatale is a great name, and Kitty Collins could be a Bond girl name — it's that good. Like all the best noirs, the minute the protagonist (Burt Lancaster, in his first film role, playing The Swede) meets the femme fatale, he is doomed. He will do anything for her, including going to prison for a crime he didn't commit.
Ava Gardner has an iconic look as Kitty that was used in some of the hottest publicity stills of all time: a black sleeveless dress with a swathe of fabric that crosses her neck like a hangman's noose. Kitty is the ultimate self-centered femme fatale, who only cares about saving her own skin, and doesn't mind who gets sacrificed along the way. The Swede is the tragic hero; he can see the whole path laid before him, he knows who Kitty is, but is powerless to stop the inevitable events from unfolding. He resignedly accepts his own death, while Kitty desperately refuses to accept that her goose is cooked in the movie's perfect closing minutes. Gardner's beauty, combined with a fantastically-written character, makes for one of the best femme fatales in cinema.
A femme fatale needs to make a great entrance, often one that seals the fate of the protagonist. Once Lana Turner emerges through a doorway dressed from head-to-toe in white, in an outfit that shows plenty of leg, it's curtains for poor John Garfield. She continues to wear white throughout the film (apart from a couple of rare uses of black at key moments), which is a veneer of purity that belies her rotten core. Like many femme fatales, Turner's Cora is trapped in a life she doesn't want and desperate for a way out. She entices Garfield's Frank into a classic "kill the husband" murder plot, but the story goes through many unpredictable twists and turns.
The pallor of inevitability hangs over the couple and no matter what they do, things keep going awry, sealing their fate. Turner is great at communicating barely-concealed panic behind an icy exterior. One of the highlights is the interrogation and confession scene, with the two lawyers rising up as the best characters in the movie. Turner became so iconic that she's even referenced in 1997's "LA Confidential" when Ed Exley utters the immortal line, "A hooker cut to look like Lana Turner is still a hooker." Along with Ava Gardner, Turner's Cora helped define the look of the femme fatale and her white outfits would become the blueprint when the character trope returned in the '80s and '90s.
While Jane Greer isn't as well-known as some of the other stars who played iconic femme fatales during their 1940s heyday, her beauty still makes her a memorable one. Plus, it helps that she was in one of the all-time great noirs. Robert Mitchum plays the perfect protagonist, who has tried to escape a life of crime, but it comes knocking at his door. "Out of the Past" contains the homespun girl Mitchum is trying to build a new life with, contrasted with Greer's beautifully dangerous Kathie. It's funny that the name Mitchum chooses in his new small-town life is Jeff Bailey, as he has a lot in common with George Bailey of "It's a Wonderful Life."
Kathie runs through the entire femme fatale playbook: seduction, blackmail, murder, double-crossing, and framing her patsy. Jeff tries to escape her clutches but keeps getting drawn back to her. Greer's performance is so good that despite all of the despicable acts that Kathie commits, we can never be completely sure that she doesn't love Jeff or genuinely care about him. "Out of the Past" has a wonderful framing device and another all-time-great ending, employing an unusual noir character — the deaf-mute Kid. This noir embodies the post-war concerns of a glamorous criminal life posing a threat to small-town America. But it isn't money that is the pull for Jeff, it's Kathie, embodied by a magnetic Jane Greer.
A bag full of cash mysteriously lands in the car of Jane and her husband, and Jane spends the rest of the movie doing anything to hold onto it. The simplest noir plots are often the best, and "Too Late for Tears" has a classic one. Lizabeth Scott's Jane is bored of her small, humdrum life and is desperate for more, so when the cash lands in her lap, she wastes no time in buying furs and other luxuries. Her husband is much more suspicious and cautious about where the money has come from, so he has to go.
The man who is the source of the money, Danny (Dan Duryea), quickly tracks them down and Jane just as quickly enters into cahoots with him. Scott's husky voice is perfect for a femme fatale who spends an entire movie lying and manipulating. Her poor sister-in-law Kathy becomes suspicious about where her brother is, and Jane must keep her various stories straight — with the police, with Danny, and with Don Blake, a mysterious stranger who also comes looking for her husband. Like all the best noirs, "Too Late for Tears" has a stupendously melodramatic ending, with Jane getting her just desserts in spectacular fashion. Noirs where the femme fatale is the main character are few and far between, and this is a great example of one.
A list of femme fatales wouldn't be complete without Alfred Hitchcock, and his twisted version of the trope. Hitchcock's blonds were frequently cold and calculating, but also subject to the foibles of the male characters. Maybe Hitchcock's most psychologically complex film is 1958's "Vertigo," in which James Stewart's Scottie becomes obsessed first with the mysterious Madeleine, then with Judy (both played by Kim Novak), who he models in her image. While Judy has some classic traits of the femme fatale (deception and duplicity for monetary gain), she is also a tragic figure, wracked by guilt. Whether she's good or evil is greatly complicated by Scottie's actions, as he doesn't view Judy as a human being, but as a cipher for the ghosts of Madeleine and her ancestor Carlotta. Possession from essentially being haunted and also by Scottie's ownership is at the center of "Vertigo."
As with all Hitchcock tales, there's nothing simple about Novak's femme fatale, but she's perhaps the ultimate expression of the trope. Scottie molds Judy, dying her hair and putting her in the right suits, into the perfectly constructed Hitchcock blond. She doesn't exist unless she is being perceived by Scottie, by Hitchcock, and by the audience. "Vertigo" is a reminder that the femme fatale is one of the most cinematic tropes as she is made to be immortalized and worshipped on the silver screen.
Across 25 James Bond films, there were many memorable femme fatales (not least of which was Xenia Onatopp of 1995's "GoldenEye") who usually double-crossed Bond. A frequent plot point is also that a woman working for, or in a relationship with the villain, would end up falling for James and aiding him in bringing down the baddy. That is the case in one of the most classic and best of all Bond films: 1964's "Goldfinger," featuring the undisputed best Bond girl name, Pussy Galore.
Honor Blackman had a lot to live up to playing a character with that name, but she rose to the challenge. In Ian Fleming's novel, Galore is a lesbian and she leads a criminal organization of cat burglars; this becomes Pussy Galore's Flying Circus in the movie. Galore starts off working for Goldfinger and uses a judo attack on Bond, but later Bond seduces her and turns her against Goldfinger. Galore is not the only femme fatale with a redemption arc, but it is an evolution from the more fatalistic, downbeat noirs of the '40s that usually ended up with the protagonist dead or in jail and the femme fatale often having the same fate. The trope almost disappeared in the cinema of the '50s to the '70s, but the Bond girl is one area that kept the femme fatale alive.
After appearing in some of the best noirs of the 1940s and 1950s, Robert Mitchum returned to the genre decades later by playing the famous noir detective, Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, in 1975's "Farewell, My Lovely" and in 1978's "The Big Sleep." Thank goodness that neo-noirs exist, because some women were born to play femme fatales, and Charlotte Rampling is absolutely one of them. When Marlowe visits the Grayle mansion in the course of his missing-person investigation to find a woman named Velma, he meets Judge Grayle (played by crime novelist Jim Thompson) and his much younger, beautiful wife, who immediately sets about flirting the pants off him.
While she initially appears to be a fairly incidental side character, it is gradually revealed that Mrs. Grayle is pulling the strings behind the whole operation and is actually the woman that Marlowe has been seeking. She has been killing off anyone who suspects her true identity. Rampling appears in two main ensembles — a red dress with a green jade necklace in her initial meeting with Marlowe, then a beautiful white silk dress with pearls during the big reveal scene (accessorized with a revolver, of course). Her brunette hair and piercing eyes make for a dangerously beautiful femme fatale. These two '70s Marlowe movies are an interesting variation on the noir before the genre was fully embraced once more in the '80s.
A direct descendent of both Barbara Stanwyck's Phyllis Dietrichson and Lana Turner's Cora Smith (including being clad in white silk for most of the movie), Kathleen Turner's Matty Walker is easily one of the best femme fatales of all time. "Body Heat" helped usher in the erotic thriller boom of the '80s and early '90s. Her initial meeting with the patsy Ned (William Hurt) is full of flirty banter, with remarks like, "You're not too smart, are you? I like that in a man." The heat of the title has different meanings in this movie. It's set during a Florida heat wave, everyone is constantly sweating, and then the steamy sex scenes only increase the temperature.
The conniving Matty dupes Ned into killing her husband, then does a disappearing act for almost half of the movie. She's such "big-time, major league trouble" that she leaves Ned to clear up the mess she's got him into. While '40s noirs usually had to show the femme fatale getting her comeuppance, the '80s were free to show her getting away with murder. Kathleen Turner would of course go on to play the misunderstood Jessica Rabbit in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (who looks like a femme fatale, but has a heart of gold), proving that one of her greatest assets is her husky voice. Turner is an all-time great screen siren and Matty Walker is a character for the ages.
Before Jessica Rabbit, there was Rachael, who is "not bad, just made that way." In maybe the best neo-noir of all time, Sean Young's Rachael is given the ultimate 1940s femme fatale look: black hair, almost-black eyes, red lips, white fur coat and shrouded in cigarette smoke. Like many Bond girls, she works for the villain (in this case, the evil Tyrell Corporation), and she is a replicant. Therefore, she is supposed to be the enemy and target of the protagonist, the hard-boiled Detective Deckard.
However, Rachael is revealed to be the ultimate victim, who has had no control over her life since "birth." She is Tyrell's experiment, a replicant who believes she's human and who has had false memories implanted in her brain. Not that she needs redeeming, but she also saves Deckard's life and he cannot help but be drawn to something he's spent his life despising. Young's performance is extraordinary, a preternatural blank slate on the surface, but one who elicits huge sympathy from the audience as one of the most tragic film characters in science fiction. 2017's "Blade Runner 2049" only deepens her sad story, as she dies giving birth to Deckard's child, something not thought possible in replicants. Many femme fatales are revealed to be more vulnerable once you break through their glossy exteriors, but none more so than Rachael.
Catherine Deneuve plays the stunningly beautiful Miriam, a rich New Yorker, and has the classic femme fatale look: black or white suits, red lips, black hats, sunglasses, and gloves, all enveloped in curls of cigarette smoke. But there is more to this woman than just the usual seduction for money — she is a vampire. Miriam turns people into long-lasting companions, and they, including John (David Bowie), usually willingly comply, believing they will achieve eternal youth. There's a twist, though, in that they will eventually rapidly age and deteriorate, but be unable to die.
Sarah (Susan Sarandon) becomes ensnared in Miriam's web, and like many of the best neo-noirs, an obsessive but dangerous attraction between two women is really at the heart of this film. Vampire movies are obviously the best genre for featuring all-consuming love because it can last centuries. Vampires are both blessed and cursed with immortality, and Miriam's eventual downfall comes when she meets the same fate as John. It is very easy to understand why anyone (even those with their own sexual potencies, such as Bowie and Sarandon) would become undone when faced with a woman such as Deneuve's Miriam. She renders mere mortals helpless before her, and they would sacrifice anything to be with her. Tony Scott's "The Hunger" is a brilliant erotic thriller, with a vampiric twist centered around three of the sexiest central stars of all time.
The first time we see Theresa Russell's titular black widow, she couldn't fulfill expectations anymore with a black fur coat, and huge sunglasses set against a bob of blond hair. As the film progresses, she gradually looks and becomes more human. Catharine adopts many identities throughout the movie, making herself "appealing" to different types of men, who all have only one thing in common: wealth. But the most interesting relationship in Bob Rafelson's "Black Widow" isn't with any of the men that Catharine weds-then-sheds. It's with Debra Winger's Alex, who starts to have a "Killing Eve" type of obsession over the woman she's hunting, determined to prove that a series of mysterious deaths in different states are connected. Alex ends up befriending Catharine in Hawaii (both of them going by different names, of course), and they even share the same man for a while.
Catharine remains enigmatic throughout the film. We're never clear why she continues killing when she has more money than she could possibly need. While she seems bored with men and views them as obstacles to be overcome, it's clear that Alex excites her and presents a challenge. Manipulating Alex is the only time Catharine is engaged and motivated; she wants to win this particular game of cat-and-mouse. "Black Widow" is a rare example of a femme fatale with a woman as a foil, and therefore should be more widely seen.
Glenn Close's Alex is a descendent of Gene Tierney's Ellen in "Leave Her to Heaven," in that her motives are an obsessive need to wholly possess the man of her desires, rather than attain money, power, or freedom. Unfortunately, the phrase "bunny boiler" has now become synonymous with any woman acting in a way that a man might find distasteful, and it's not the most progressive depiction of someone who clearly has mental health issues. "Fatal Attraction" is very much of its time, and along with "Basic Instinct" helped define the era. They were both hugely successful, with each grossing over $300 million worldwide. "Fatal Attraction" was the second highest-grossing film of 1987, something that is hard to imagine happening today.
Glenn Close delivers an extraordinary performance as Alex, and it makes a great contrast to the femme fatale she played the following year as the Marquise de Merteuil in "Dangerous Liaisons." Michael Douglas is also perfectly cast as Alex's "victim" Dan, and Anne Archer is just as important as his wife, Beth. "Fatal Attraction" has gone on to have a cultural impact beyond the film itself and taken on a life of its own. It's a great '80s psychological thriller, with a cathartic ending that preserves the American nuclear family. It is fun to watch a femme fatale with no motivation beyond an all-consuming love, as it makes a change from all the money-grabbers.
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Michelle Pfeiffer and Tim Burton's take on Catwoman has rightly become iconic, not least because of the look of the character, and her apartment. While Catwoman's catsuit and whip are famous, it's Pfeiffer's looks while in Selina Kyle mode that leave even more of a lasting impression. Her wild blond curls and dark eye makeup make her look suitably unhinged (but wildly sexy), once she has had a hit on the head that frees her from being a mousy spinster secretary. But nothing compares to her entrance at the party near the end of "Batman Returns," as a full-blown femme fatale. She's absolutely show-stopping with curls swept up but tumbling down her face, a bold red lip, and a sparkly backless little black dress.
In addition to looking perfect, Pfeiffer's performance rides the gamut from confidently flirting with Bruce Wayne, or staring vengeful daggers at her boss, Max (Christopher Walken), and plotting his demise, even to tearful desperation. She is scared and confused about the fact that her own mind has become a stranger to her. Her ending in which she says, "Bruce, I'd love to live with you in your castle forever ... I just couldn't live with myself," is actually pretty heartbreaking, given that this is a comic book villain. Pfeiffer's Catwoman is a legendary movie villain in the flavor of femme fatale, with some of the most striking looks of all time.
With its San Francisco setting, emphasis on voyeurism, and its femme fatale with swept-back blond hair and dark eyebrows, there is no doubting the influence of "Vertigo" on Paul Verhoeven's most successful erotic thriller. Sharon Stone's Catherine is a crime novelist, who commands such power in "Basic Instinct" it's as if she's writing the very script we're watching unfold. Catherine presents a threat on many fronts, not least her command of her sexuality and the fact that she doesn't need a man to be fulfilled.
Michael Douglas' booze-soaked cop is a classic noir protagonist, with the '80s element of cocaine added into the mix. He is pushed and pulled around by three femme fatales, including Catherine's lover Roxy (Leilani Seralle) and former lover Beth (Jeanne Tripplehorn), whose identities blur and merge at times. Elements of "Basic Instinct" have become as iconic as "Fatal Attraction," with the ice pick being as well-known as the boiled bunny. It's impossible to overstate the importance of Stone's look, surely influenced by Katherine Turner's look in "Body Heat" over a decade before. Verhoeven took the ingredients of noir, including light filtered through blinds and rain-soaked windows, and has enormous fun splashing around in the tropes. Stone's Catherine is an all-time great femme fatale who has become the stuff of legend, deservedly so.
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Loosely based on the true story of Pamela Smart, Nicole Kidman's Suzanne is an ambitious and ruthless femme fatale, who kills to achieve her 15 minutes of fame. After all, "You're not anybody in America unless you're on TV." With "The Real World" premiering in 1992, "To Die For" captured a moment in time when reality television was on the rise, and also when such events as the O.J. Simpson trial were must-see television. Matt Dillon plays the victim, Suzanne's husband Larry, and Joaquin Phoenix plays the teenage patsy who Suzanne seduces in order to get him to commit murder. Illeana Douglas delivers a delectable performance which she relishes in the small role of Larry's sister, Janice.
Kidman has furrowed a brilliant career peeling off the façade of the American dream in roles such as "The Stepford Wives" and "Stoker." Suzanne is one of her best-ever performances, as Suzanne herself is delivering a performance throughout the film. Each decade has provided its own brilliant twists on the femme fatale that gives them motivations that make sense for the time they are depicting. In the '40s, it was often about escaping a husband, but in the '80s and beyond, they're often ambitious career women (e.g. Sigourney Weaver in "Working Girl"). Kidman's Suzanne is a deliciously devilish example of the femme fatale as a professional woman who will do anything to climb the corporate ladder.
It should come as no surprise that one of the best femme fatales comes from an 18th-century French novel when it's one as rich as "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," and already had such a brilliant film adaptation in1988's "Dangerous Liaisons." While '90s movies like "Clueless" and "Ten Things I Hate About You" tend to be hailed as the best modern-day literary adaptations, "Cruel Intentions" can be overlooked; it's just as good, if not better. The Marquise de Merteuil becomes Sarah Michelle Gellar's Kathryn, and it's hard to overstate how shocking this performance was from Buffy Summers, even transforming into a brunette. Transporting the setting to an elite Manhattan prep school is a genius idea, and Kathryn is truly Machiavellian, manipulating everyone around her including ingenues Annette (Reese Witherspoon) and Cecile (Selma Blair), and most especially, her step-brother Sebastian (Ryan Phillippe).
Witnessing Kathryn's downfall is undoubtedly one of the great pleasures here and it leads to an iconic finale set to The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony." She has lied, blackmailed, and destroyed lives, all just as a distraction from being bored and while maintaining the veil of hypocrisy throughout, exemplified by her cocaine-filled crucifix. Her comeuppance is at the hands of Annette, Cecile, and Sebastian (from beyond the grave) and could not be any sweeter. A brilliant performance from Gellar as one of the evilest femme fatales ever.
Like "Black Widow," David Lynch's masterpiece pits two women as enemies, lovers, and more, rather than having the traditional male protagonist/patsy. The naive blond Betty (Naomi Watts) arrives in Tinseltown with stars in her eyes, only to collide with Laura Harring's beautiful, dark-haired Rita. Her identity (borrowed from Rita Hayworth) and motivations are opaque. Does she really have amnesia? Betty projects a lot onto the seemingly blank slate that is Rita, and she becomes the person that Betty wants to be, as well as love.
The final quarter of "Mulholland Drive" brings things into sharper relief, while also muddying the waters further. It is only really when Harring plays Camilla that she fulfills the femme fatale archetype, as she seems to enjoy making Diane (Watts again) squirm. The fact that Harring is clearly styled, with her black hair and red clothing, to be the femme fatale (in contrast to the innocent blond Betty) is interesting in itself, as for most of the film, she is anything but. Attempting to clearly define anything that happens in a Lynch project is a futile exercise, but he clearly relished using noir conventions as his playground. A film about the duplicity of Hollywood, the blurring of identities, and the dangers of pursuing dreams and fantasies — or is it? It doesn't really matter, just let its stunning imagery wash over you.
Brian De Palma is one of the great neo-noir directors, with "Dressed to Kill" and "Body Double" as examples. In the 2000s, he revisited the genre with "Femme Fatale" and "The Black Dahlia." It's impossible to have a list of the best femme fatales and not include this homage to the archetype. The opening sequence, set at the Cannes Film Festival, is phenomenal and pulls off a very Bond-like diamond heist, but with Rebecca Romjin seducing a female victim. A common feature of the femme fatale is assuming multiple identities, and Romjin is no exception here. It probably didn't help its critical or box office reception that it has several similarities to Lynch's "Mulholland Drive," released just the year before, including the "was it all a dream?" final act.
Like many erotic thrillers, "Femme Fatale" has had a critical reappraisal and is now considered a cult classic. Roger Ebert, as usual, was on the right side of history at the time of release. A film called "Femme Fatale" of course pays tribute to those that have gone before, such as Romjin's Laure watching "Double Indemnity" and the fact that she is very much an Alfred Hitchcock icy blond. Antonio Banderas makes a fantastic patsy, and the various twists and turns take the audience on a wild ride. De Palma is one of the best to ever do it, and this is a fantastic example of the genre.
While Rene Russo's TV station news director Nina is up against an arguably even more evil character (Lou Bloom), Nina is also self-serving and morally corrupt. In "Nightcrawler," (directed by Russo's husband, Dan Gilroy) power, status, and who's in possession of the upper hand frequently shifts between Lou and Nina. Initially, Lou is desperate to impress her with his footage of car accidents and crimes. Nina emphasizes that more graphic content is better, and if it's in affluent white neighborhoods, it's even more valuable.
Once Lou's footage is in-demand, he uses this as leverage to get Nina to sleep with him. Nina does ultimately use sex to get what she wants — the ultimate femme fatale power move. As Lou's footage becomes increasingly ethically dicey, and he commits crimes in order to capture it, Nina's admiration of him only grows. She has no qualms about withholding evidence from the police, manipulating her audience by cutting the footage, and withholding certain facts that aren't ratings-friendly. Nina is a very modern femme fatale, dealing in the TV news version of clickbait, a valuable commodity nowadays. Just as the fatales of 1940s noirs were in pursuit of money and power, Nina wants to be at the top of her professional game and doesn't care who gets hurt in the process. "Nightcrawler" is one of the best L.A. neo-noirs, and Russo's Nina demonstrates how the fatale trope has evolved over time.
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The post The 22 Greatest Femme Fatales In Movie History appeared first on /Film.
"RRR" is electrifying cinema. The film runs over three hours long and can barely contain the amount of extravagant, invigorating, and beautiful moments that make you remember why you love the medium of film in the first place. Director S.S. Rajamouli's ability to wow an audience within the context of a big-budget action film dwarfs just about everything being produced by the Hollywood machine. Even just the way he frames his two leading men, Ram Charan and N.T. Rama Rao Jr. (henceforth to be referred to as Jr NTR), gives them an iconographic status even the biggest movie stars are rarely afforded. So many images have been imprinted on my brain that I will never forget.
In celebration of this fantastic film that is doing so much to help expose so much of the world to the wonders of Indian, and especially Telugu-language, cinema, let's look at some of the best parts of "RRR." Instead of doing a boring ranking that counts down those moments by how great they are, let's take a bit of a swerve in how we look at them. "RRR" is filled with so many instances of the extreme, where what is happening on screen could never happen in real life. So, let's count down the film's best moments by how unbelievable they are, meaning that you literally cannot believe what is happening on the screen. Much of what happens in "RRR" would firmly classify as unbelievable and parsing the differences may be a little silly. But, hey ... "RRR" is a fun time, so why not have some fun when talking about it?
Oh, and there will be spoilers.
One of the most delightful moments of "RRR" is also one of its most believable. Ram Charan's Raju sees that Jr NTR's Bheem has a debilitating crush on Jenny (Olivia Morris), the kind British woman who lives in the Governor's estate. Bheem has absolutely no game, unwilling to even approach this woman. Raju, being the cool bro he is, decides to help his friend out. But this is "RRR." He cannot just tell Bheem to go up and talk to Jenny. Something elaborate has to happen. So, Raju grabs a handful of nails and screws and decides to flatten the tires of Jenny's car, which forces the two potential love birds to have a meet-cute.
In a movie filled with extremes, this is the smallest of its most major moments. The scene is designed for maximum charm, humor, and loveliness, and Jr NTR's comic chops of totally not understanding what Raju is doing at the moment really works. If a guy purposefully popped the tires of a woman's car in real life, it would be truly upsetting, but in the vibe of this movie, it's the only way this could have happened.
After the film's "InteRRRval," we are treated to a lengthy flashback about Raju's childhood. We learn about his father (Ajay Devgn) and how he abandoned the British forces and began a revolutionary army of his own. We learn how Raju was a natural with a rifle in his hands. Most importantly, we learn that he is not, in fact, working for the British out of loyalty but as a long con operation to provide anyone willing to fight back against the imperialists with a weapon, a lesson he learned from his father.
The moment that needs spotlighting acts as the emotional highpoint of the flashback sequence. Their camp has been sieged by British soldiers, Raju's brother and mother have been killed, and his father does not have much time left in this world. They devise a plan where Raju's father will appear to be giving himself up to the British forces, but in reality, he will be using himself as a bomb, wrapping himself in dynamite and having the young Raju shoot him to cause the explosion.
While it is an enormously extreme moment dramatically, in terms of believability, it makes all the sense in the world. Yes, it is a bit farfetched that a young boy could be such a crack shot with a rifle, but the revolutionary mindset here rings utterly true.
S.S. Rajamouli had a cameo for himself in "Bāhubali: The Beginning," the first entry in his two-part epic, as a seller of spirits that Prabhas' titular character procures as an elaborate distraction. It would make sense for him to show up in his next film as well, but you get to the point where the credits are rolling without ever seeing him. And then, during the anthemic final musical number "Etthara Jenda," the silver-haired Rajamouli pops into frame as two confetti cannons blast behind him. He does not even cameo as a character. He is just himself showing up in the celebratory closing moments of his film.
Look, it's just an absolute boss move to do this. He made this gigantic film that was the most expensive production in Indian film history. Why should he not get to join in on the musical number to cap off his achievement?
One of the most satisfying and rousing moments of "RRR" also happens to be one of its most predictable. The film has built to this epic battle between the Indian freedom fighters and the evil British colonialists, and the only proper satisfying conclusion to that struggle would be Bheem and Raju teaming up to put the nail in the coffin of the sneering Governor (Ray Stevenson). They do this by reciting back to him his belief that a bullet should not be wasted on the life of an Indian because they aren't worth it. Instead, a bullet must be reserved to take the life of an Englishman, which Bheem and Raju are more than happy to carry out.
The most unbelievable part of this moment is just that this same Englishman has been circling their lives so much that even Raju's long-dead father has heard this disgusting bullet speech. He is the figurehead for the entire British crown, when in reality there were a plethora of folks just like him. If he is the Governor, it does make sense that he would be in this area, but there is still quite a bit of coincidence that has to occur to bring them to this moment. However coincidental, it is still incredibly cathartic.
We have to chalk another piece of the film up to pure coincidence. After Bheem has rescued the little girl Malli (Twinkle Sharma) that has been his mission, the two have been maneuvering from town to town to avoid the British authorities. They find themselves in an inn in last town in the region to be checked. In that same inn, we see Sita (Alia Bhatt in her Telugu language debut), the woman set to marry Raju. When the inn gets raided by a group of soldiers, Sita recognizes that there are people in here who really do not want to be found, so she has the brilliant idea to say that there is a smallpox infestation among the people. This is before she has even spoken a word to Bheem and knows that he is Raju's best friend (despite some misunderstood betrayal).
It is an incredibly selfless act that Sita performs here, even getting kicked in the stomach by one of the officials. Seeing people do things just out of the good of their heart is a rarity, and in the world we live in today, it almost comes across as pure fantasy. Pair that with the fated meeting between the two loves of Raju's life, and you have something that is fairly unbelievable.
This moment makes me want to ask so many questions. For context, Bheem has been arrested by Raju and is now being publicly whipped. The goal of the Governor and his wife (Alison Doody) is to have Bheem fall to his knees in subjugation to the British crown. However, no matter how hard Raju whips Bheem, he will not kneel. Then ... Alison Doody pulls out this whip that is covered in spikes and throws it down to Raju.
I understand that there's another whip available to increase the pain of this torture. What I do not understand is why she has it. Does she just carry this whip around? Why isn't it already down on the block where the actual whipping is taking place? Her revealing this whip just exists to do two things: make the British look even more sadistic and amp up the stakes of the scene between these two men. On those two fronts, it completely works. The moment is completely convoluted, but in the heightened space that is "RRR," you just have to accept it.
What makes this moment stand out is not what happens but how it happens. On the drive to Bheem's hanging, the Governor discovers that Raju is planning to break Bheem out and escape. He has rigged a tree to fall down and crush the Governor's car, but the Governor notices this just in the nick of time. The tree falls onto the hood of the car, propelling him into the air. While in mid-air, the Governor grabs his rifle, aims, and shoots Raju's car. From just one shot, that car takes to the air, flipping several times over its side like it was on a ramp, and sends Raju and Malli flying, with Raju getting non-fatally impaled by a jutting tree stump.
While the car flipping could be the most exaggerated moment of the sequence, I want to focus on the Governor. Ray Stevenson's character essentially floats in the air for this moment to work as effectively as it does. All of the fanciful, slow-motion enhanced images of power have been exclusively reserved for Raju and Bheem. This is the one time the Governor gets in on the action, and it perfectly demonstrates what a formidable force he, and by proxy, the British imperialists, can be. With one blow, he can destroy everything they have worked for. The whipping scene is obviously more emotionally wrenching, but this moment is the one where you almost feel the most helpless, which is a wonderful dramatic choice by Rajamouli.
I don't know about you, but I don't like snakes. As far as I can get away from them, the better. I certainly would not be trying to lure an incredibly deadly snake towards me with a stick hoping to catch it with my hands tied around my back. Well, that is exactly what Bheem's compatriot Lachu (Rahul Ramakrishna) does in order to poison Raju, who is violently interrogating him about Bheem's whereabouts. But the man gets it done, leaving Raju to die, as there is no antidote.
Of course, Bheem figures out a way to keep his friend alive, because he is the best at everything. Why should he not be the only person to know how to counteract deadly venom?
Who doesn't love a good prison break? After Sita reveals Raju's true intentions, Bheem realizes he must go back and rescue his friend from prison before they execute him. Raju has been locked in an underground cell, and Bheem is unaware of which prison he's in. They obviously cannot make noise and yell for one another otherwise they will be found out. So, Bheem decides to use almost a form of sonar in order to find Raju. He starts to bang on the ground, and Raju senses this banging as his friend trying to find him. So, he bangs back. Bheem then uses the banging as an echolocation mechanism to find Raju.
I have absolutely no idea if this would actually work. My guess is that the ground is so thick that it would absorb the vibrations made by a fist rather easily to where they couldn't radiate out for dozens of yards, let alone let you be able to tell which direction they are coming from. However, you are on such an emotional high at the prospect of these friends reuniting for the same cause that you simply go along with what is pretty much nonsense.
While here in the United States "RRR" has been met with nothing short of adulation, the same cannot be said in India. Yes, it has received plenty of praise there as well, but it is not without its controversies. The film has a propagandistic nationalist streak to it that could be seen as leaning into the right-wing rise happening in India. It takes these two real-life revolutionary figures and tells a completely fictional story about them, which irks some people. Then, there is Raju's third act transformation, where he essentially dons the look of the Hindu deity Rama.
Using religious iconography, particularly when you are equating people with specific religious figures, is always going to rile people up. In the case of "RRR," it does it far more explicitly than just about any movie I have ever seen. Like, the scene in "Man of Steel" where Superman's face is framed alongside a stained glass painting of Jesus is downright subtle compared to this. Raju being a real person complicates the matter even further.
S.S. Rajamouli is interested in building his own mythology. He is not making a biopic of these men. He is making a fantasy action epic about brotherhood between two gods among men. In my opinion, utilizing this religious iconography comes with the territory for the story Rajamouli wants to tell. It is an incredibly bold way to go about doing it, but the tone of the picture warrants boldness. Everything else is bold. Why shouldn't this be too?
Male friendships — genuine, emotionally honest male friendships — are all too rare on screen. When one does occur, especially in a Hollywood film, there has to be some kind of joke to cut the love out from underneath it. Masculinity is so fragile that seeing that you care for and love another man cannot be tolerated. Audiences could not possibly handle a male bond. That would only cause utter pandemonium and the collapse of society, right? Just look at the trailer for "Thor: Love and Thunder" where Chris Pratt's Star-Lord jokingly undercuts a potential bond between him and Chris Hemsworth's Thor.
"RRR" throws all of that in the trash, having Raju and Bheem become the best friends that have ever existed in the history of man. The montage, set to the song "Dosti," takes what you think of as a bonding montage and ramps it up to new heights. They climb a human pyramid, have races with Raju on horseback and Bheem on a motorcycle, and even try sneakily stealing a farmer's goat for some reason. Of course, there is also the moment where Bheem does squats while Raju sits on his shoulders, a moment that seems a little silly in the moment and ends up having massive implications for what happens later (which we will get to).
This montage takes two men who just learned each other's names before it started and makes them closer than two people have ever been, without a speck of irony to any of it. Rajamouli simply lets these men platonically fall in love with another, and their bond is so powerful it can take down anything in their path.
We touched on this scene earlier with the surprise whip, but the scene in which Bheem sings the rallying, aptly titled anthem "Komuram Bheemudo" as he is being publicly whipped is one of the film's high points. Jr NTR and Ram Charan are operating at such high levels here, having to convey all the incredibly complex emotional dynamics at play in this act of betrayal. Kaala Bhairava provides the singing voice for Bheem in this scene, and his voice combined with Jr NTR intense yet vulnerable face do make you believe that this song could inspire an entire community to riot against this unjust oppression.
In concept, this scene is not totally unbelievable, if you take it the way it initially comes off. It uses the musical convention of having a song act as a nondiegetic emotional high point. But ... then you learn the song was actually diegetic. Bheem sang this song as he was being violently whipped. This was not symbolic. It was literal, making it an impressive feat of both improvisatory songwriting and vocal control under duress. Bhemm really can do it all.
"Naatu Naatu" has already become a phenomenon and for good reason. These two men, through the power of song and (most importantly) dance, battle with a legion of stiff upper lip Brits to show that Indian culture even more exciting than the British one deemed superior by their own pomposity. Jr NTR and Ram Charan perform this number with unyielding energy and execute incredibly complex dance moves with perfect synchronicity with one another. Even with all the wild action scenes "RRR" provides, it is difficult to not choose "Naatu Naatu" as the best scene of the film.
Like the whipping scene, what makes this moment so unique is that the dancing all takes place within the world of the film. Their dancing is so impressive and challenging that it causes every British person at this party to fall to the ground with leg pain, except our two heroes. They take down the imperialists, and Jenny becomes even further smitten with Bheem, thanks to a beautiful dance sacrifice of brotherhood from Raju. Everything about it just rules.
"RRR" features two of the craziest character introductions in the history of cinema. Deciding which one is more unbelievable was a real coin toss. We will start off with Bheem's, where he outruns and then successfully captures a tiger in a forest outside of Delhi. Both of the character introductions showcase three important things about these characters: their strength, resilience, and ingenuity. In Bheem's case, he is able to use his brute strength to withstand the power and sharpness of tiger claws while wrangling it within a net using just his arms and core.
Tigers can run upwards of 40 miles per hour and weigh hundreds of pounds. A human does not stand a chance, particularly when the tiger has been provoked. You need a challenge like that to show just how much of a badass Bheem is. The way S.S. Rajamouli's camera adores Jr NTR's body, especially in his opening shot that vertically rotates 180 degrees, perfectly captures this man's godliness and somehow lets you believe that something like this is at all possible. This comes after we have seen the introduction of Raju, and you need something this extreme to show how this will be a clash between an unstoppable force and an immovable object.
So, how could you possibly introduce a character that would outdo someone capturing a tiger? Well, instead of having a one-on-one battle, you have one man going against hundreds. This is how we are introduced to Ram Charan's Raju. A police precinct is being besieged by hundreds upon hundreds of (rightfully) furious protestors. One of them throws a rock at the building and breaks a framed photo of the office in charge, and is ordered to be arrested out of this massive crowd. Raju decides to take on the challenge, leaping into the air over the tall fence surrounding the building, and he proceeds to beat the ever-loving s**t out of everyone who comes into his path.
Raju emerges as if he were a cyborg devised by Cyberdine Systems. It does not matter that swarms of people try bringing him to the ground. His goal is to capture that rock thrower, and nothing is going to stand in his way. He will climb up a tower, fall down a giant rock, and bash every person's face in to do so. And he does.
We are also introduced to Raju's glorious mustache, which sadly does not spend a ton of time on his face throughout the film without an accompanying beard, but it makes for a hell of a first impression.
After meeting these characters in such grandiose ways, their eventual meeting not only needs to match the extremity of those scenes but surpass it. Well, they do it. An oil tanker on a train explodes on a bridge over where a little boy is fishing. Raju stands atop the bridge. Bheem stands on the dock along the river. They lock eyes and, without using words, know exactly how the two of them can save the boy in the fiery waters below. It involves a motorcycle, a horse, a rope, and a flag. Naturally. The scene is so exhilarating that their arm clasp that ends the sequence gives way to form the long-delayed title card 40 minutes into the movie.
While it is of course an outrageously ludicrous scene, it tells us so much about these two men and their desire for justice and to save people. We may think Raju is some heartless puppet of the British Empire, but in reality, he is just as much a freedom fighter as Bheem. This massive sequence is also what propels these two men to go from complete strangers to soulmates. In an instant of seeing each other from dozens of yards away, they sense a kindred spirit with whom they do not need words to communicate. That's how made for each other they are. It is bravura filmmaking.
Their coming together needs to be explosive, but their coming apart and betrayal needed to reach even greater heights. Leading into the intermission, Bheem reveals to Raju that he unknowingly is the man Raju has been on the hunt for the entire first half of the film. At the Governor's estate, the two have the fight to end all fights. They fly through the air. Single punches send the other flying twenty-five feet backwards. Raju harnesses the aura of fire and Bheem water to symbolize elemental forces colliding with one another.
Dramatically, a sequence like this was bound to happen. The second they become best friends you know there will be a falling out of some kind. It happens in every movie about a romance, which this ostensibly is. For a maximalist picture like "RRR," Rajamouli constructs the apex of what that scene could possibly be. So many things happen that could never occur in real life, but we are operating at such a heightened place that the superhero-esque battle feels utterly natural. It is the scene that is supposed to leave you speechless as you putter about for ten minutes in anticipation of the "InteRRRval" ending, and the only way to do that is to ramp things up farther than you could imagine.
Along with the fire and water motifs given to Raju and Bheem, respectively, each man receives a signature form of transportation. Raju often finds himself on horseback, whereas Bheem favors motorcycles. In the film's final battle, Bheem takes his connection to the bikes to a whole new level. His power has reached such a height that he can stop a motorcycle and flip it into the air with a stomp of his foot. Even more impressively, he can pick up the motorcycle over his head and swing around like a weapon fighting off soldiers. He even throws the bike at people trying to attack him.
We are nearing the end of the movie here, and everything has gone into complete fantasy land at this point. Bheem and Raju have reunited and are making their last stand against the evil Governor and his many cronies. Together, they have reached the ultimate power and can perform amazing feats of strength without so much as breaking a sweat. It is the point in the movie where everyone in the audience is hooting, hollering, cheering, screaming, and pumping their fists into the air. Bheem has earned the right to swing a motorcycle around like it's made of styrofoam.
"RRR" has two moments where something happens that you did not realize was set up in a previous scene. We previously talked about Bheem's introduction where he captures a tiger. In a movie like this, that moment could only exist simply to show Bheem's power. So many crazy things happen after that you nearly forget that Bheem has captured a tiger. You never even stop to think why he is capturing an animal in the first place.
As it turns out, he has not just captured this one tiger. Oh, no. He has captured an entire cavalry of wild animals, including wolves, leopards, and more, to be used as an invading force upon the Governor's estate in order to rescue Malli from their clutches. The scene where a tarp is ripped off of the back of a truck revealing all the animals lunging out to kill and maim so many party guests is a guaranteed cheer moment. For one, the image is just absolutely incredible. Second, every single person in the audience realizes at the exact same time that they all had completely missed that this could have been part of the plan. That collective rush of energy can only be surpassed by one other thing (which we will get to in a second).
What makes this scene even better is that you quickly realize that none of these animals have been trained in any way. They will gladly attack anything in their path, including Bheem, and it takes things like Bheem throwing a leopard at a British soldier to divert their attention. It's a beautifully bonkers moment.
In the aforementioned friendship montage, we get a shot of Bheem doing squats with Raju on his shoulders. Each one has a big smile on their face. We take this moment as a sign of their great affection for another, juxtaposed with many other moments doing the exact same thing. Little did we know, S.S. Rajamouli had planted a seed that would lead directly to the most fist-pumping moment of "RRR."
After Bheem has broken Raju out of his prison cell, Raju's physical state leaves him unable to run, let alone walk. Calling back to their piggyback days, Bheem puts him on his shoulders, and the two become a double-bodied super-soldier. The sharpshooting Raju can handle rifles in each hand, blowing soldiers away, and the brute strength of Bheem can knock anyone coming towards them out with a single strike, while he also reloads Raju's guns. They climb a tower, leap into the air, and do a flip. The only way they could become greater than they already were individually was to become one man. Coming together as one is how to take down those who oppress you. That is the mission statement of "RRR," and it delivers it in the most absurd and badass way you could possibly fathom.
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The post The 20 Best Moments in RRR, Ranked By How Much We Can't Believe What We Saw appeared first on /Film.
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