Steve Pond's Blog, page 2002
January 25, 2020
‘Klaus’ and Netflix Dominate at the Annie Awards
The Netflix film “Klaus” dominated the film categories at Saturday night’s Annie Awards, the main awards show devoted strictly to animation. The film, made by Spanish animator Sergio Pablos, was a surprise winner of seven awards in the 13 feature-film categories, including Best Animated Feature, along with prizes for directing, character animation, character de-sign, production design, storyboarding and editorial.
While Disney’s “Frozen II” and Laika’s “Missing Link” led all films with eight nominations each, “Frozen” had to settle for wins in the animated effects and voice acting categories (for Josh Gad), while “Missing Link” was shut out completely.
Other top nominees that went unrewarded included DreamWorks Animation’s “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” and Pixar’s “Toy Story 4.”
Also Read: 'Klaus' Film Review: Animated Santa Claus Origin Story Nails the Magic Better than the Comedy
The animated feature that finished with the second-most wins was another Netflix film, the hand-drawn French film “I Lost My Body,” which won in the Best Animated Feature – Independent category, as well as for music and writing.
Netflix releases also did well in the television categories, giving the streaming service the kind of dominant showing at the Annies that DreamWorks used to have, until Disney withdrew its support for a couple of years and the Annies changed its voting procedures.
“Avengers: Endgame” won for character animation in a live-action production. In the television categories, “Love, Death and Robots” (on Netflix, of course) won four awards, while “Disney Mickey Mouse” and “Carmen Sandiego” each won two.
Also Read: Oscar Nominations 2020: 14 Biggest Snubs and Surprises, From Greta Gerwig to 'Klaus' (Photos)
In the 18 years that the Oscars have been handing out an award for Best Animated Feature, the Annie winner has gone on to collect the Oscar 13 times, including the last four years in a row.
The ceremony took place at Royce Hall on the UCLA campus, part of an unprecedented night of five awards shows in Los Angeles.
The winners:
Best Animated Feature: “Klaus”
Netflix Presents A Production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine
Best Animated Feature-Independent: “I Lost My Body”
Xilam for Netflix
Best Animated Special Production: “How to Train Your Dragon Homecoming”
DreamWorks Animation
Best Animated Short Subject: “Uncle Thomas: Accounting for the Days”
Ciclope Filmes, National Film Board of Canada, Les Armateurs
Best Virtual Reality Production: “Bonfire”
Baobab Studios
Best Animated Television/Media Commercial: “The Mystical Journey of Jimmy Page’s ’59 Telecaster”
Nexus Studios
Best Animated Television/Media Production for Preschool Children: “Ask the Storybots”
Episode: “Why Do We Have to Recycle?”
JibJab Bros. Studios for Netflix
Best Animated Television/Media Production for Children: “Disney Mickey Mouse”
Episode: “Carried Away”
Disney TV Animation/Disney Channel
Best General Audience Animated Television/Media Production: “BoJack Horseman”
Episode: “The New Client”
Tornante Productions, LLC for Netflix
Best Student Film: “The Fox & The Pigeon”
Michelle Chua, Sheridan College
Animated Effects in an Animated Television/Media Production: “Love, Death & Robots”
Viktor Németh, Szabolcs Illés, Ádám Sipos, Vladimir Zhovna
Episode: “The Secret War”
Blur for Netflix
Animated Effects in an Animated Feature Production: “Frozen 2”
Benjamin Fiske, Alex Moaveni, Jesse Erickson, Dimitre Berberov, Kee Nam Suong
Walt Disney Animation Studios
Character Animation in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production: “His Dark Materials”
Aulo Licinio (Character: lorek)
Episode 7
BBC Studios
Character Animation in an Animated Feature Production: “Klaus”
Sergio Martins (Character: Alva)
Netflix Presents A Production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine
Character Animation in a Live-Action Production: “Avengers: Endgame”
Sidney Kombo-Kintombo, Sam Sharplin, Keven Norris, Tim Teramoto, Jacob Luamanuvae-Su’a
Weta Digital
Character Animation in a Video Game: “Unruly Heroes”
Sebastien Parodi (Characters: Heroes Kid version, Underworld NPC,
Nicolas Leger (Characters: Wukong, Kihong, Sandmonk, Sanzang, Enemies and cinematics)
Magic Design Studios
Character Design in an Animated Television/Media Production: “Carmen Sandiego”
Keiko Murayama
Episode: “The Chasing Paper Caper”
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing and DHX Media for Netflix
Character Design in an Animated Feature Production: “Klaus”
Torsten Schrank
Netflix Presents a Production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine=
Directing in an Animated Television/Media Production: “Disney Mickey Mouse”
Alonso Ramirez Ramos
Episode: “For Whom the Booth Tolls”
Disney TV Animation/Disney Channel
Directing in an Animated Feature Production: “Klaus”
Sergio Pablos
Netflix Presents a Production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine
Music in an Animated Television/Media Production: “Love, Death & Robots”
Rob Cairns
Episode: “Sonnie’s Edge”
Blur for Netflix
Music in an Animated Feature Production: “I Lost My Body”
Dan Levy
Xilam for Netflix
Production Design in an Animated Television/Media Production: “Love, Death & Robots”
Alberto Mielgo
Episode: “The Witness”
Blur for Netflix
Production Design in an Animated Feature Production: “Klaus”
Szymon Biernacki, Marcin Jakubowski
Netflix Presents A Production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine
Storyboarding in an AnimatedTelevision/Media Production: “Carmen Sandiego”
Kenny Park
Episode: “Becoming Carmen Sandiego, Part 1”
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing and DHX Media for Netflix
Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production: “Klaus”
Sergio Pablos
Netflix Presents A Production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine
Voice Acting in an Animated Television/Media Production: “Bob’s Burgers”
H. Jon Benjamin (Character: Bob)
Episode: “Roamin’ Bob-iday”
20th Century FOX / Bento Box Entertainment
Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production: “Frozen 2”
Josh Gad (Character: Olaf)
Walt Disney Animation Studios
Writing in an Animated Television/Media Production: “Tuca & Bertie”
Shauna McGarry
Episode: “The Jelly Lakes”
Tornante Productions, LLC for Netflix
Writing in an Animated Feature Production: “I Lost My Body”
Jérémy Clapin, Guillaume Laurant
Xilam for Netflix
Editorial in an Animated Television/Media Production: “Love, Death & Robots”
Bo Juhl, Stacy Auckland, Valerian Zamel
Episode: “Alternate Histories”
Blur for Netflix
Editorial in an Animated Feature Production: “Klaus”
Pablo García Revert
Netflix Presents A Production of The Spa Studios and Atresmedia Cine
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‘Little Women’ Wins Scripter Award for Adapted Screenplay
Greta Gerwig has won the Scripter Award for the best book-to-screen adaptation of 2019 for “Little Women,” an honor she shares with author Louisa May Alcott, who died in 1888, almost half a century before Hollywood ever thought about giving out awards.
The Scripter Award, which is handed out by USC Libraries, goes both to the original author of a work and to the screenwriter who adapted it, making Gerwig and Alcott co-winners of the prize.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge won the TV award for the first episode of “Fleabag.” The show was based on her one-woman play of the same name, which means she doesn’t have to share the Scripter with any other authors, living or dead.
Also Read: How Greta Gerwig Found Inspiration Revisiting Alcott's 'Little Women' Novel as an Adult
The winners were chosen by a selection committee of critics, authors, screenwriters, producers and academics chaired by USC professor and former WGA, West president Howard Rodman.
Although the Scripter Award was launched in 1988 as a somewhat idiosyncratic award with a literary bent, it had become one of the most reliable Oscar predictors over the last 13 years, when 11 of its winners — including eight in a row — went on to win the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. (Before that, in the first 19 years of Scripter’s existence, the winners only matched four times.)
That eight-year Scripter streak of predicting the Oscar winner came to an end last year, when “Leave No Trace” won the Scripter but was not nominated by the Academy. Four of this year’s Scripter nominees — “The Irishman,” “Jojo Rabbit,” “Little Women” and “The Two Popes” — were also nominated for Oscars, with the fifth slot going to “Dark Waters” at the Scripters and “Joker” at the Oscars.
The ceremony took place in the Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library on the USC campus.
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‘Possessor’ Film Review: Brandon Cronenberg’s Thriller Offers Lots of Body Horror but Nobody to Care About
What better title for Brandon Cronenberg’s initially intriguing second feature than “Possessor”? For one thing, his techno-thriller stars Andrea Riseborough (“The Death of Stalin”), whose chameleonic gifts are as impressive as they remain underappreciated. This, of course, makes her an ideal choice to play a virtually anonymous woman whose career involves burrowing into other people’s brains.
But there’s a bit of defiance in that name, too. When your dad is most famous for expanding the concept of body horror, and you make movies about the very same thing, you can either chafe at inevitable comparisons or go out of your way to acknowledge them.
So does Cronenberg possess the talent of his genre-defining father, David? Well, despite the titular provocation — and openly clear influences — that’s not really a fair question. What’s more pressing is this one: Does he possess the talent to make movies we’ll want to watch?
He certainly has the skill. Like Cronenberg’s debut feature, “Antiviral,” this effort is gorgeous to look at it. In fact, it’s so well crafted that it’s likely to make a lot of other Sundance films feel relatively amateurish. But as both writer and director, Cronenberg focuses so intently on the surface that he neglects to include enough substance.
He doesn’t, for example, give us any background to his high-concept story: In an inexplicably sterile lab, a supervisor named Girder (Jennifer Jason Leigh) oversees the latest assignment for her star employee, Tasya (Riseborough). It’s Tasya’s job to remotely implant her thoughts into someone else’s body and then guide them to commit murder for Girder’s mysterious company.
Right now, she’s required to “inhabit” Colin (Christopher Abbott), a handsome grifter who dates Ava (Tuppence Middleton), the daughter of an evil millionaire named John (Sean Bean). John is the target, but for some reason Tasya is having a hard time with her latest task. Perhaps all the killings have caught up with her soul, or maybe the ignorance of her kind husband (Rossif Sutherland, “Catastrophe”) and young son (Gage Graham-Arbuthnot) are weighing on her conscience. Then again, it could just be that the technology, or the technicians applying it, are letting her down.
Regardless, it’s safe to say that things are going dangerously awry. But a high-stakes plot requires emotional investment, of which little is ever generated either onscreen or off.
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Cronenberg has worked overtime on the things that interest him, which is to say the violence and visuals. As a result, the many scenes of macabre aggression push well past bloody into brazenly grotesque, and each one lasts long enough to make audiences squirm — some out of discomfort, but others, especially as the body count grows, from impatience.
He’s most in his comfort zone when nudging us out of ours, so scattered amid Karim Hussain’s slick cinematography are plenty of well-designed, deftly disorienting visual effects and images. What’s missing, though, is a single character to care about, or even a moderately convincing explanation for this dystopic fantasy.
Why would a woman who appears to love her perfectly normal family lead a double life in which her purpose is to kill strangers? How is it possible that her husband has never noticed anything odd about her jolting absences? And why does Cronenberg replace Riseborough so early, to follow Colin’s POV through Abbott while Tasya lies inert in the brain-swapping device?
While Abbott does fare a little better with his expanded role, Leigh does not appear to have been given any motivation whatsoever. We never learn why Girder behaves in such an amoral fashion, what is driving her work, or why, for that matter, her personality consists of little beyond Leigh’s carefully presented bundle of mannerisms.
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This being the case, solemn dialogue about “minor artefacting,” “synch loss” and “pulse analysis” feels like playacting, rather than the language of a thoughtfully-created world. When one endangered character flatly says, “Get out before I call the police,” and the other responds, “Why don’t you make me?” it’s easy to feel a filmmaker is simply connecting the dots until he can arrive at his grisly, and altogether unearned, endpoint.
Jim Williams’ febrile horror score adds to the increasingly dispiriting sense that Cronenberg is less interested in complexity than in ostentatious jolts. The biggest surprise, though, isn’t found in the squishy mutilation or emotional decay. It’s in the fact that he’s blessed with a brilliant actor who allows each of her roles to possess her, and he chooses to hide her away in a lab machine.
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‘SNL': Jon Lovitz as Alan Dershowitz Joins Adam Driver’s Jeffrey Epstein on Satan’s Podcast
On the first new episode of “SNL of 2020, the cold open laid into Republicans hard for how the party is handling Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate, with help from special guest and “SNL” alum Jon Lovitz as Trump attorney Alan Dershowitz.
The sketch began with Beck Bennet and Cecily Strong as Sens. Mitch McConnell and Susan Collins, discussing in transparently bad faith how they intend to handle the defense portion of Trump’s trial next week. Strong’s Collins pretended she was offended by Adam Schiff’s closing statements on Friday, while McConnell gloated that they would give Trump a “fair trial. No witnesses, no evidence. That way we can focus on the real crimes — teenagers on marijuana.”
That’s when they summoned Lovitz’s Alan Dershowitz, who had a serious problem favorably comparing his other clients, Jeffrey Epstein, Claus von Bülow and OJ Simpson, to Trump. That’s when all of a sudden, the scene changed and Dershowitz found himself in fell and facing Satan, played by Kate McKinnon.
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Satan assured Lovitz’s “Dersh” that he wasn’t dead or going to hell, telling him, “honestly I just wanted to meet you.”
“You’re the GOAT,” Satan told him. “I should know, that’s what my legs are made of.”
Then Satan invited Dershowitz on her podcast, which she claims to have invented. Satan then brought out several podcast guests from among those sentenced to an eternity in hell, including Adam Driver as Jeffrey Epstein, John Mulaney as Mr. Peanut, who is damned because of all the children who died from peanut allergies, and Bowen Yang as the guy who wrote “Baby Shark Dance.”
Satan said she was a huge fan of Dershowitz, especially his client roster. Asking him if there’s anyone he wouldn’t represent, Lovitz’s Dershowitz told Satan “as long as the client is famous enough to get on TV, it’s all good.” Satan said she agreed, which is why the only people she now allows into hell are “all influencers.”
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“Dersh” told Satan that “I always suspected you’re a woman,” and Satan explained that she appears different for everyone in hell. Epstein confirmed it, telling Dershowitz that ton him “the devil is a woman my own age.”
At that point, the sketch resumed laying into congressional Republicans, as Bennet’s McConnell showed up in hell where, we learn, he just likes to go there for a spa day. And at the end came the sudden appearance of Alex Moffat as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who assured everyone present that “I don’t endorse evil, I just help millions of people share it.”
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Directors Guild Awards 2020: Sam Mendes Wins Top Prize for ‘1917’
Sam Mendes has been named the best feature-film director of 2019 by the Directors Guild of America, which handed out its annual awards on Saturday at the Ritz-Carlton in Los Angeles.
The win makes the “1917” director a commanding frontrunner in the Oscar race for Best Directors — and coupled with his film’s victory at the Producers Guild Awards last week, makes the World War I drama the favorite to win Best Picture winner as well.
Mendes beat his fellow Oscar nominees Bong Joon Ho (“Parasite”), Quentin Tarantino (“Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood”) and Martin Scorsese (“The Irishman”), as well as “Jojo Rabbit” director Taika Waititi.
The DGA Award is one of the most reliable Oscar predictors, with the winner going on to win the Academy Award for Best Director for the last six years in a row, 15 times in the last 16 years and 62 times in 71 years.
In addition, the film whose director wins the DGA historically has a greater than 75 percent chance of winning the Best Picture Oscar, but that figure has been slipping lately. The two awards have coincided only twice in the last six years, with “The Shape of Water” last year and “Birdman” in 2014. The other three years, Alfonso Cuarón won the DGA and the Best Director awards for “Gravity,” Alejandro G. Iñárritu for “The Revenant,” Damien Chazelle for “La La Land” and Cuarón again for “Roma,” while the Best Picture Oscars went to “12 Years a Slave,” “Spotlight,” “Moonlight” and “Green Book,” respectively.
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Alma Har’el, one of three female directors in the first-time feature directing category, won for her work on “Honey Boy,” while Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert won the documentary award for “American Factory.”
Bill Hader won the comedy-series award for the “ronny/lily” episode of his TV series “Barry.” The drama-series award went to Nicole Kassell, one of two directors nominated for different episodes of “Watchmen.” The television movie or limited series award went to Johan Renck for “Chernobyl.”
Don Roy King won an award for directing an episode of “Saturday Night Live” for the fourth consecutive year, while James Burrows and Andy Fisher won for “Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear’s ‘All in the Family’ and ‘The Jeffersons’.”
Also Read: Norman Lear Becomes Oldest Emmy Winner at 97
The DGA is the third of the four major Hollywood guilds to announce its awards. The Screen Actors Guild gave its ensemble-acting award to “Parasite,” while the Producers Guild chose “1917” as the best-produced film of 2019.
The last of the major guilds, the Writers Guild, will announce its awards on Feb. 1.
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Here is the complete list of Directors Guild Award nominees. Winners are indicated by **WINNER.
Feature Film
Bong Joon Ho, “Parasite”
Sam Mendes, “1917” **WINNER
Martin Scorsese, “The Irishman”
Quentin Tarantino, “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood”
Taika Waititi, “Jojo Rabbit”
First-Time Feature Film
Mati Diop, “Atlantics”
Alma Har’el, “Honey Boy” **WINNER
Melina Matsoukas, “Queen & Slim”
Tyler Nilson & Michael Schwartz, “The Peanut Butter Falcon”
Joe Talbot, “The Last Black Man in San Francisco”
Documentary Feature
Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, “American Factory” **WINNER
Feras Fayyad, “The Cave”
Alex Holmes, “Maiden”
Ljubomir Stefanov & Tamara Kotevska, “Honeyland”
Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang, “One Child Nation”
Dramatic Series
Nicole Kassell, “Watchmen,” “It’s Summer and We’re Running Out of Ice” **WINNER
Mark Mulod, “Succession,” “This Is Not For Tears”
David Nutter, “Game of Thrones,” “The Last of the Starks”
Miguel Sapochnik, “Game of Thrones,” “The Long Night”
Stephen Williams, “Watchmen,” “This Extraordinary Being”
Comedy Series
Dan Attias, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “It’s the Sixties, Man!”
Bill Hader, “Barry,” “ronny/lily” **WINNER
David Mandel, “Veep,” “Veep”
Amy Sherman Palladino, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “It’s Comedy or Cabbage”
Dan Palladino, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, “Marvelous Radio”
Movies for Television and Limited Series
Ava DuVernay, “When They See Us”
Vince Gilligan, “El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie”
Thomas Kail, “Fosse/Verdon,” “Nowadays”
Johan Renck, “Chernobyl” **WINNER
Minkie Spiro, “Fosse/Verdon,” “All I Care About Is Love”
Jessica Yu, “Fosse/Verdon, “”Glory”
Variety/Talk/News/Sports – Regular Scheduled Programming
Paul G. Casey, “Real Time With Bill Maher,” “1730”
Nora S. Gerard, “CBS Sunday Morning,” “40th Anniversary”
Jim Hoskinson, “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” “A. Ocasio-Cortez; Incubus”
Don Roy King, “Saturday Night Live,” “E. Murphy; Lizzo” **WINNER
Paul Pennolino, Christopher Werner, “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” “SLAPP Suits”
Variety/Talk/News/Sports – Specials
James Burrows, Andy Fisher, “Live in Front of a Studio Audience Norman Lear’s ‘All in the Family’ and ‘The Jeffersons'” **WINNER
Spike Jonze, “Aziz Ansari: Right Now”
Stan Lathan, “Dave Chappelle: Sticks & Stones”
Linda Mendoza, “Wanda Sykes: Not Normal”
Glenn Weiss, “The 91st Annual Academy Awards
Reality Programs
Hisham Abed, “Queer Eye,” “Black Girl Magic”
Jason Cohen, “Encore!,” “Annie” **WINNER
Jon Favreau, “The Chef Show,” “Hog Island”
Ashley S. Gorman, “First Responders Live,” “103”
Patrick McManus, “American Ninja Warrior,” “1116 Las Vegas National Finals Night 4”
Children’s Programs
Dean Israelite, “Are You Afraid of the Dark?,” “Part One: Submitted for Your Approval”
Jack Jameson, “Sesame Street’s 50th Anniversary Special”
Luke Matheny, “Ghostwriter,” “Ghost in Wonderland, Part 1”
Amy Schatz, “Song of Parkland” **WINNER
Barry Sonnenfeld, “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” “Penultimate Peril: Part 1”
Commercials
Fredrik Bond (MJZ)
“Lighter Than Air,” HP Elite Dragonfly – Media Monks
“Take it Lightly,” Coca-Cola Light – Ingo
“Nap,” iPhone – Apple
Spike Jonze (MJZ) **WINNER
“Dream It,” Squarespace – Squarespace
“The New Normal,” Medmen – Mekanism
Mark Molloy (Smuggler)
“Underdogs,” Apple – Apple
Ridley Scott (RSA Films)
“The Seven Worlds,” Hennessy X.O. – DDB Paris
Dougal Wilson (Furlined)
“Train,” AT&T – BBDO NY
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GLAAD and the Black List Announce ‘Most Promising Unmade LGBTQ-Inclusive Film Scripts’
GLAAD and the Black List unveiled the second annual GLAAD List, full of “the most promising unmade LGBTQ-inclusive film scripts,” Saturday evening at the Sundance Film Festival.
The Black List is an annual survey of Hollywood executives’ favorite unproduced screenplays, while the GLAAD List operates differently: Instead of relying on a survey, it is curated by GLAAD, the world’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer media advocacy organization. The organization evaluates potential films based on a list of standards including whether they fairly and accurately portrays the LGBTQ community and what each film’s potential impact is.
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“GLAAD is thrilled to present this incredible list of unmade LGBTQ-inclusive scripts to the entertainment industry at large for a second year in a row,” Jeremy Blacklow, director of entertainment media at GLAAD, said. “We have read a lot of scripts this past year, in order to settle on these final ten. The diversity and incredible range of storytelling seen on the pages of these screenplays prove that there are so many important LGBTQ stories that are just waiting to be told.”
Kate Hagen, of the Black List, agreed: “Shining a spotlight on these incredible LGBTQ voices and stories allows us to highlight narratives that have too often been left out of traditional Hollywood storytelling, and being able to announce the list at the Sundance Film Festival, a longtime, inclusive home for diverse voices of all kinds, is a dream.”
Here is the full list:
“Before I Change My Mind” by Trevor Anderson and Fish Griwkowsky
“Colors of Ava” by Wayne Mahon
“Hit Me Harder” by Max Rissman
“In the City of Shy Hunters” by Sam McConnell
“Jesse Is a Friend” by Alyssa Lerner
“Like Family” by Brandi Sperry and Shauna Sperry
“Margo & Perry” by Becca Roth
“Sister” by Azia Squire
“The Cabin At the End of the World” by Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman
“Trapeze of the Flesh” by Damon Santostefano
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‘On the Record’ Film Review: Wrenching Documentary Offers Black Women a Voice in the #MeToo Movement
“When is the music industry finally going to have its #MeToo moment?” That’s been the question that people have been debating ever since Tarana Burke’s movement escalated just a few short years ago, although one could argue that white recording artists like Kesha and Taylor Shift have certainly put a spotlight on the issue. The film and TV industries have also received their reckoning, but that too has mostly centered on white survivors speaking out.
The question that an alarmingly fewer number of people seem to be asking right now is: How have black women in music been impacted by #MeToo? But as directors Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering’s searing documentary,”On the Record” explains, that answer is complicated and deeply rooted in black history.
The filmmakers take a rather unconventional approach to the more common #MeToo confessions we’ve seen before, choosing instead to open their narrative not with a sense of consternation but with an expression of cultural love, which is also consequently baked into the silencing of black women. Through voiceover and face-to-face interviews, we get the story of Drew Dixon, a music exec whose career catapulted with a job in the A&R department at Def Jam Records, Russell Simmons’ pride and joy.
Watch Video: Oprah Says Her Exit From #MeToo Doc Is Not a 'Victory Lap' for Russell Simmons
In her own words, Dixon begins her narrative with leaving her native Washington D.C. for New York City. She was a staunch black advocate whose passion for hip-hop started at a young age, strengthening as she immersed herself in the lyrics that reveal the rage, trauma and oppression of predominantly black men like Biggie Smalls, Public Enemy and NWA. It’s that sense of compassion that fueled her desire to embed herself in the world professionally and help uplift artists like Method Man, Mary J. Blige, Lauryn Hill and Junior M.A.F.I.A.
Dixon first ascended in the hip-hop ranks in the early ’90s, the era when the genre had reached its pinnacle, chart-wise, when everyone — no matter their age or race — was bumping its signature bass out of their sunroofs. It was also a time when misogyny came to the forefront of the verses, exacerbated by the birth of graphic music videos. But as the soundtrack of this period (impressively spliced together in the film by Mikki Itzigsohn and Willa Yudell) indicates, those themes that were laced with hatred and violence toward women were effortlessly masked by some electrifying beats.
Dick and Ziering impressively capture this sentiment, juxtaposing Dixon’s fond account with clips from the aforementioned videos and footage of her hobnobbing with music’s finest. The film’s natural, straightforward cinematography even illuminates Dixon’s face lighting up as she remembers these times and her own indisputable talent.
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“On the Record” masterfully shows how that same affection can easily be used as “catnip,” as Dixon herself describes at one horrifying point in the film, for men like Simmons, her superior at the time, who prey on “skinny, tall bitches” like her who have an undying commitment to their craft and race.
IItzigsohn and Yudell’s once jumping soundtrack gradually fuses into a frightening arrangement as Dixon shares, for the first time publicly in 20+ years (as also detailed in a 2017 New York Times article), her devastating account of when, she said, Simmons raped her in his bedroom. Through footage of the outside of the music master’s New York City apartment and darkly lit boudoir photography, we hear the gut-wrenching details of her accusation.
What’s especially visceral about Dick and Ziering’s film is how it embraces the ideology of black female degradation. Dixon, whose story grounds the film, even admits to how she participated in squelching her own truth: She wanted to uplift black men like Simmons, not tear them down, because of how much they’ve been through and are still experiencing in this broken world. She felt her story would be looked upon as her turning her back on her race, like how Anita Hill and Desiree Washington were treated when they came forward about Clarence Thomas and Mike Tyson, respectively. Footage of both women, two of the few black survivors who have publicly shared their stories, are featured in the film.
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Dixon was so disturbed by what she said happened to her that she later abandoned the music industry altogether — along with fellow Simmons-accusers, including Sil Lai Abrams and Jenny Lumet (also interviewed in the film) — and “On the Record” does more than help her reclaim her voice. It also brilliantly crystallizes how black women like Dixon, allies of black men and lovers of hip-hop, can so easily be taken advantaged of by the same people they passionately want to celebrate. “I loved hip-hop,” Dixon says, which hits like a ton of bricks. “I loved Russell Simmons.”
Simmons has denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex.
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The filmmakers (with the help of Dixon) go back all the way to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, when black women were raped and impregnated in captivity. In doing so, they trace the history of black women being used as sexual objects, even as the black men they accused found platforms for themselves in music and other spaces.
Journalists like Bim Adewunmi and Kierna Mayo and cultural critics like Joan Morgan further contextualize how the hyper-sexualization of black women has also led to them being disbelieved and consequentially devalued, an important nuance that has not been interrogated enough in the #MeToo era that is dominated by white women.
“On the Record” is much more than an exposé on the alleged crimes of Simmons, lL.A. Reid, and so many other men in music whose accusers have yet to step forward. It does what so little of the dialogue has managed to do: implore audiences to embrace black female survivors and to understand the cultural and painful dilemmas they continue to endure along their avid fight to heal the wounds of the entire black race. Though it’s at times a gutting watch, it’s ultimately about hope and sisterhood.
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‘The 40-Year-Old Version’ Film Review: Radha Blank Hilariously Explores Creative Life on the Cusp of Aging
According to most platitudes, your 20s are for experimenting, you’re more grounded in your 30s, and by the time you hit 40, you’ve pretty much settled into who you are as a person. Maybe so many people scoff at these ubiquitous Instagram bromides because they often induce a sense of anxiety about where you should be in your life and when. That anxiety certainly fuels writer-director-producer-star Radha Blank’s delightfully earnest new film, “The 40-Year-Old Version.”
The filmmaker plays (presumably) a version of herself as she borrows her own name for the character, a playwright barreling toward age 40 and no closer to a successful career or a stable personal life than she was at 20. Known for once producing a play with modest acclaim back in the day, Radha now teaches a theater workshop for similarly adrift black and brown youth in Harlem. And like so many single women of the same age living in a 4×4 box of an apartment in the Big Apple must endure, everybody — from the homeless guy camped out across the street to the theater students to the bodega owner — has an opinion about her life.
Blank captures this sentiment with resonating ease, using editor Robert Grigsby Wilson’s cuts to the various mouthy interlopers on the sidewalk to underscore her own internal humiliation about the state of her life. She’s poking fun at herself and other women like her, which is as sincere and heartfelt as it is humorous.
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Unlike “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and other man-child films that thrive off the comedy of being immature and male, “The 40-Year-Old Version” attempts to delve more deeply into why much of Radha’s life has been a long exercise leading up to what seems to be, at least in Radha’s eyes, a failure to launch. She’s feeling the pressure from everywhere to succeed and even desperately tries her hand at rapping after a few legitimate rhymes about white men with black-girl butts pop into her head. But ultimately, the film is about a creative black woman struggling to find her own voice on the Great White Way.
In order to get that point across, you need an actress like Blank, whose performance carries the film and is identifiable not only to novice creators but also to pretty much anyone of color trying to find a way to leap across the hurdle of white gatekeepers in any industry. That said, you also need the allies, like Radha’s agent and best friend, Archie (Peter Y. Kim, who finally lands a role with fantastic depth 12 years after popping up as “Business Guy” in the “Sex and the City” movie), and the protectors of the white-and-right guard like producer Josh Whitman (Reed Birney, “House of Cards”), who hijacks Radha’s very black production about gentrification.
In other words, despite Radha being embedded in an industry of make-believe, Blank needed to make the story seem real. And she does.
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But the one risk of a film narrative that hinges on the shifting ambitions and general malaise of a central character is meandering cinematic direction, especially when it comes to a first-time feature writer-director like Blank. “The 40-Year-Old Version” is shot by cinematographer Eric Branco (“Clemency”) almost entirely on 35mm black-and-white film, which is a puzzling aesthetic decision considering the very contemporary narrative style. While Blank’s obvious affection toward Harlem in the film could be viewed as a love letter to the neighborhood, that’s not enough to shoot on black and white, which detracts from the spirit of the story.
And if there is a layer of Harlem romanticism, that’s just one more element added on to an already overpacked story that includes Radha’s artistic awakening, her situationship with love interest and beat master D (Oswin Benjamin), her cultural relationship with her head scarf, and emotions budding between the two fiery teenage girls in her class (Imani Lewis and Haskiri Velazquez). While some of these subplots are interesting, they’re ultimately unfulfilling, and they take away from the heart of the film: Radha’s relationship with herself.
In a way, it’s understandable that “The 40-Year-Old Version” is intentionally scattered, because it is about a woman grasping at straws in order to find her place in this very rigid space, both professionally and personally. But the film lacks the finesse to tell that story more cinematically, even running way longer than it should, as it roams towards a satisfying conclusion.
Still, when “The 40-Year-Old Version” is good, it’s great. Blank’s on-screen alter ego speaks to an audience that is also at a crossroads in their lives and struggling to make sense of it and find motivation to change direction. That’s where the film truly soars, not with the excess plotlines that only hold it back. Giving credit where credit is due, though, Blank’s filmmaking debut is a fresh, honest, entertaining, yet flawed look at a black artist — both Radha and Blank herself — in the process of defining herself. It’s invigorating to see.
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‘Rebuilding Paradise’ Director Ron Howard About Why He’s Spoken Up About Climate Change (Video)
Ron Howard said that making his new documentary “Rebuilding Paradise,” about the aftermath of the devastating 2018 Camp Fire in southern California, had emboldened him to speak out about climate change — even at the risk of severe blowback like he experienced on Twitter earlier this month.
“As a citizen, you recognize the challenges out there and you can’t just leave it to others to engage,” Howard told TheWrap founder Sharon Waxman in Sundance on Friday.
For one year, Howard and his film crews followed the residents of Paradise, Calif., in the Sierra Nevada foothills as they sought to recover from a wildfire that killed 85 people and destroyed 95% of the town.
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“One of the things I learned was that old adage, showing up is first and foremost in reinforcing the possibility of home,” he said. “People did take action from around their community. I’m not talk about protesting, I’m talking about trying to solve problems. It’s a lesson in getting things done, making things happen, making your voice heard.”
He added, “There’s something very powerful about seeing the way the community came together.”
The NatGeo production was produced by Howard, Brian Grazer, Xan Parker, Sara Bernstein and Justin Wilkes.
Watch the video above.
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January 24, 2020
‘Ironbark': Benedict Cumberbatch’s Timely Cold War Drama Brings Thrills, Unexpected Laughs to Sundance
Introducing “Ironbark” on Friday night at Sundance 2020, festival President John Cooper said the Cold War drama starring Benedict Cumberbatch was a “unique” choice for the annual event, which has only rarely featured period dramas.
Based on a true story most people have never heard of, the film from director Dominic Cooke tells the story of Greville Wynne (Cumberbatch), a British businessman recruited to travel to Moscow and acquire information about the Soviet Union’s missile plans from a Russian source, Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze). As tensions escalate into the Cuban Missile Crisis, they smuggle documents back to the west, with severe consequences for both men.
Cumberbatch is currently shooting Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog” in New Zealand and wasn’t able to attend the screening, but he did send a video message to audience members expressing his regret for not being there. Even so, excitement was high for an audience that filled literally every seat in the Eccles Theatre in Park City, Utah.
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Those expecting a straight drama were surprised by a script that also brought laughs both from its characters and apparent allusions to current events. For instance, one scene depicted Cumberbatch’s almost naive disbelief that he was “having lunch with spies” after he’s first introduced to the mission. Another provided a pithy punch line: asked whether he can hold his liquor, Wynne replies that that’s the “one gift” he has.
Particularly big laughter erupted when Ninidze’s Penkovsky talked about Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who he called “impulsive” and said “a man like that should not be in command.” One guess who the audience assumed that line referred to (Donald Trump).
And later still, the audience snickered when Penkovsy says he wants to move to Montana with his family because he’s seen photos and “it’s a beautiful place” — a line we suspect might have been a reference to another Cold War drama, 1990’s “The Hunt for Red October.”
The film is primarily focused on tensions between the USSR and USA, but it also looks at the power struggle between MI6 and the CIA, showing how both sides had different perspectives on how to handle the situation. Wynne is a British national and therefore, he falls under The Crown’s jurisdiction, but the CIA, namely the CIA agent Emily Donovan (Rachel Brosnahan) has other plans. Additionally, there are also power struggles in Wynne’s relationship with his wife — notably when he decides to put Penkovsky’s life first, which leads to turmoil in his relationship.
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After the credits rolled, director Dominic Cooke, producers Ben Pugh, Adam Ackland and Ben Browning, writer Tom O’Connor, Brosnahan and Ninidze came on stage for a Q&A.
“I do not like reading scripts, but this one [was exceptional],” Ninidze told the audience, adding that he was extremely nervous. “I told myself I’d do everything to get this part, and I did.”
O’Connor explained that Brosnahan’s character never actually existed but instead was composed of many men that had been part of the mission. He explained that they wanted to make it a female character because it added “new texture” to a movie that already had too many men.
Perhaps the biggest question on everyone’s minds after the film had ended was how on earth Cumberbatch had lost so much weight (just watch the movie, you’ll see what we mean). Cooke explained that they stopped shooting for three months so Cumberbatch could lose the weight — and “he worked hard” with a nutritionist to make sure it was safe.
Brian Welk contributed to this report.
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