Victoria Fox's Blog, page 206
July 15, 2023
Matt Damon recalls wife’s advice after he ‘fell into a depression’ over movie he knew was a ‘losing effort’
Matt Damon opened up about how his wife Luciana Barroso helped him when he “fell into a depression” on the set of a movie.
During an interview on “Jake’s Takes,” the 52-year-old actor was asked about the best professional advice that he had ever received from a significant other.
“I think, without naming any particular movies, that sometimes you find yourself in a movie that you know perhaps might not be what you had hoped it would be, and you’re still making it,” the “Oppenheimer” star said.
Matt Damon recalled how his wife Luciana Barroso encouraged him after he “fell into a depression” on set while filming a movie. (Arturo Holmes/Getty Image)
He continued, “Halfway through production and you’ve still got months to go, and you’ve taken your family somewhere, and you’ve inconvenienced them.”
MATT DAMON MAKES RARE APPEARANCE WITH DAUGHTERS AS BEN AFFLECK, JENNIFER LOPEZ HEAT UP ‘AIR’ PREMIERE
“And I remember my wife pulling me up because I fell into a depression about, like, what have I done?”
“And she just said, ‘We’re here now,’” Damon recalled. “I do pride myself, in a large part because of her, at being a professional actor. And what being a professional actor means is you go and you do the 15-hour day and give it absolutely everything, even in what you know is going to be a losing effort.”
Damon and Barroso met while he was in Miami Beach filming his 2003 comedy “Stuck on You.” After a day of shooting, a few of the film’s crew members persuaded a reluctant Damon to go out to the bars with them. The group ended up at the nightclub Crobar, where Barroso was working as a bartender.
The couple tied the knot in 2005 and are parents to daughters Isabella, 16, Gia, 14, and Stella, 12. The Oscar winner is also stepfather to Barroso’s daughter Alexia, 24, from a previous relationship. (Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)
“I literally saw her across a crowded room, literally,” Damon recalled during a 2011 appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.” “Eight years and four kids later, that’s my life. I don’t know how else our paths would’ve crossed if that didn’t happen.”
The couple tied the knot in 2005 and are parents to daughters Isabella, 16, Gia, 14, and Stella, 12. The Oscar winner is also stepfather to Barroso’s daughter Alexia, 24, from a previous relationship.
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Though Damon didn’t name the movie that led to his “depression,” he has previously spoken out about filming a movie that he realized was a “turkey” during production.
Though Damon didn’t name the movie, he has previously spoken out about realizing that his 2016 movie “The Great Wall” was a “turkey” during production. (Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic)
During a 2021 appearance on the “WTF” podcast, Damon reflected on shooting his 2016 monster movie “The Great Wall.” The film was a box-office bomb that grossed less than $50 million at the U.S. box office and sits at a dismal 35% on Rotten Tomatoes.
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“I was like, this is exactly how disasters happen,” Damon told host Marc Maron. “It doesn’t cohere. It doesn’t work as a movie.”
“I came to consider that the definition of a professional actor; knowing you’re in a turkey and going, ‘OK, I’ve got four more months,” he remembered. “It’s the up at dawn siege on Hamburger Hill. I am definitely going to die here, but I’m doing it.’ That’s as s—-y as you can feel creatively, I think. I hope to never have that feeling again,”
Ashley Hume is an entertainment writer for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to ashley.hume@fox.com and on Twitter: @ashleyhume
What Sets The Witcher Apart From House Of The Dragon For Dijkstra Actor Graham McTavish
Dijkstra, while a scheming mastermind, also finds himself in embarrassing situations in the Netflix show, especially after his plans are foiled unexpectedly. The books describe him as a spy for King Vizimir II, and the show highlights the everyday awkwardness Dijkstra has to experience while dealing with the foolish, bumbling king. This provides an interesting contrast to his more serious, cunning nature, such as when he kills Vizimir’s wife in cold blood and orchestrates events to rile the king up against Nilfgaard. McTavish spoke to GamesRadar+ about this fun duality, and how the show allows Dijkstra to embrace humorous, laid-back moments:
“One of the things I really appreciate about The Witcher is the humor, actually. The humor of all the characters, Dijkstra being one of them. Everybody has humorous interchanges, and I think that personally distinguishes the shows.”
The brutality inherent in Dijkstra is never compromised, but he is also allowed a few human moments where he’s not just rubbing his hands together and hatching evil schemes. There’s tenderness in the relationship he shares with Philippa, even though their bond has a bit of an edge, and this to-and-fro allows him to assume some sort of dimensionality in a show with innumerable characters who can be rather difficult to keep track of.
McTavish also goes on to talk about the many facets of Dijkstra that still remain under wraps, calling him “very kind, very thoughtful,” on choice occasions that are rare to witness. McTavish also references certain character quirks in the books, stating that Dijkstra’s “obsession with macrame and knitting are really very well known in Redania” but we just don’t get to see those aspects at this juncture.
How Billie Eilish Indirectly Influenced Jujutsu Kaisen’s Anime Adaptation
It makes complete sense Akutami would be a fan of Billie Eilish and would be inspired to include her style in the anime adaptation of “Jujutsu Kaisen.” This is an anime full of pop culture references, specifically 2000s and 2010s references. A big part of a character dynamic in the first season (also present in the manga) is a character saying he likes Jennifer Lawrence. There’s a scene where protagonist Yuji Itadori watches “Lord of the Rings” in order to train his powers, and fan-favorite Satoru Gojo explains the plot of an episode using “Digimon.” Given Eilish’s style is already rather similar to the goth-pop tone of “Jujutsu Kaisen,” it makes sense her music would influence the sound of the show.
Even if we don’t actually have any Billie Eilish music in “Jujutsu Kaisen,” the anime does have an eclectic music style that’s unusual for anime because of how international it is. The soundtrack includes international artists, like UK rapper Che Lingo, Haitian American Paranom, Boston-born Aztech, Japanese rapper RIN, and more. Given the modern setting of the story, having rap featured heavily in the soundtrack fits thematically, and having an international star like Billie Eilish influence the music of the anime adaptation shows why “Jujutsu Kaisen” is so special and different from its contemporaries.
Stan Lee’s Guardians Of The Galaxy 3 Cameo Would Have Been A High Evolutionary Experiment
According to the commentary, James Gunn knew Stan Lee was getting older and wanted to give him an easy cameo:
“I originally wrote Lambshank, the character that I played, for Stan Lee. […] I knew he was also getting much older, and it’d be harder to bring him to Atlanta to shoot, so I did a character that I could just animate and then have him do the voice and have a little Stan Lee-like face on that character. But unfortunately, Stan passed, who I really enjoyed working with and directing so many times through these movies.”
That character? It was Lambshank, one of the High Evolutionary’s (Chukwudi Iwuji) hybrid creations. If you recall, late in the film, Mantis (Pom Klementieff) is horrified by the twisted creature but tries to tell him it’s because he looks so cool. Lee would have been able to record the cameo from somewhere else. Gunn ended up doing the role instead.
On a personal note, I used to co-host a web series called “Cocktails with Stan” where he and I would interview celebrities. One thing Stan always spoke about was how much he loved doing cameos. I joked about doing a historical film once backstage once, and he immediately said, “Ooh, what cameo can I do?” He was so excited about his cameo in the TV series “Agent Carter” that he broke the news to me and told me to write it up at the time. He would have loved this one.
To that end, his company Pow! Entertainment made a deal with Marvel, so his likeness and voice can be used (via THR) in future TV and film projects that work with “who he was.” He would have loved that as well, I think.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Knows That Vulcans Are Not Robots [Exclusive]
As it happens, transforming Spock into a full human only helps us understand Vulcans that much more. In his interview with “Strange New Worlds” director Jordan Canning, /Film’s Jacob Hall asked the filmmaker about the intricate balance involved in directing actors to embody the emotionally-suppressed subtleties necessary in bringing several different Vulcans to life. Canning, naturally, pointed to the central spectacle of seeing Spock wilting under the harsh gaze of T’Pring’s disapproving mother T’Pril (Ellora Patnaik) at the tense dinner:
“I think what was such a great example of that in this [episode] obviously is when you get all the Vulcans together for dinner and just how different they all are despite all being Vulcans. Spock is doing a bunch of different levels of suppressing different things. But you’ve got T’Pril, who is just such an intense presence and Vulcan or not, she would be intimidating. She walks into a room and just, she’s a Miranda Priestly kind of character. You’re like, ‘Oh my God, okay, I don’t want to get on this woman’s bad side.’
And then you have her husband [Sevet, played by Michael Benyaer] who is just this lovely beta guy who has found his place. He knows how to be around his wife and he knows how to not get in trouble with his wife, but he’s also sweet and he has just so many different … he’s such a different energy, obviously, than T’Pril. And then T’Pring is stuck in the middle — she’s been reduced down to her teenage version stuck between her parents and her boyfriend in this awkward dinner.”
Although Vulcans are commonly misattributed as being total blank slates, there’s a ton of emotionally fraught dynamics running throughout this one scene.
Quordle today – hints and answers for Sunday, July 16 (game #538)
It’s time for your daily dose of Quordle hints, plus the answers for both the main game and the Daily Sequence spin off.
Quordle is the only one of the many Wordle clones that I’m still playing now, around 18 months after the daily-word-game craze hit the internet, and with good reason: it’s good fun, but also difficult.
What’s more, its makers (now the online dictionary Merriam-Webster) are also keeping it fresh in the form of a new variant called the Daily Sequence, which sees you complete four puzzles consecutively, rather than concurrently.
But Quordle is tough, so if you already find yourself searching for Wordle hints, you’ll probably need some for this game too.
I’m a Quordle and Wordle fanatic who’s been playing since December 2021, so I can definitely help you solve Quordle today and improve your game for tomorrow. Read on for my Quordle hints to game #538 and the answers to the main game and Daily Sequence.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about Quordle today is below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to know the answers.
Your Quordle expert[image error]Your Quordle expertMarc McLarenUK Editor in ChiefMarc is TechRadar’s UK Editor in Chief and has been playing Wordle and Quordle for more than a year. He’s authored dozens of articles on the game for TechRadar and its sister site Tom’s Guide, including a detailed analysis of the most common letters in every position. His Wordle streak recently reached the 500 mark and he’ll be inconsolable if he loses it. Yes, he takes it all too seriously.
Quordle today (game #538) – hint #1 – VowelsHow many different vowels are in Quordle today?• The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 4*.
* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).
Quordle today (game #538) – hint #2 – total vowelsWhat is the total number of vowels in Quordle today?• The total number of vowels across today’s Quordle answers is 6.
Quordle today (game #538) – hint #3 – repeated lettersDo any of today’s Quordle answers contain repeated letters?• The number of Quordle answers containing a repeated letter today is 2.
Quordle today (game #538) – hint #4 – total lettersHow many different letters are used in Quordle today?• The total number of different letters used in Quordle today is 11.
Quordle today (game #538) – hint #5 – uncommon lettersDo the letters Q, Z, X or J appear in Quordle today?• No. None of Q, Z, X or J appear among today’s Quordle answers.
Quordle today (game #538) – hint #6 – starting letters (1)Do any of today’s Quordle puzzles start with the same letter?• The number of today’s Quordle answers starting with the same letter is 3.
If you just want to know the answers at this stage, simply scroll down. If you’re not ready yet then here’s one more clue to make things a lot easier:
Quordle today (game #538) – hint #7 – starting letters (2)What letters do today’s Quordle answers start with?• S
• S
• S
• T
Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THEM.
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Quordle today (game #538) – the answers[image error]
(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)The answers to today’s Quordle, game #538, are…
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Daily Sequence today (game #538) – the answers[image error]
(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)The answers to today’s Quordle Daily Sequence, game #538, are…
SHAKEWRISTGLASSVOTERQuordle answers: The past 20Quordle #537, Saturday 15 July: CYCLE, FALSE, FRILL, HEAVYQuordle #536, Friday 14 July: LIBEL, CABLE, WREAK, SCOPEQuordle #535, Thursday 13 July: BASTE, QUERY, SNAIL, PEARLQuordle #534, Wednesday 12 July: VOICE, MANGA, FROTH, BLOATQuordle #533, Tuesday 11 July: MODEL, AISLE, LIMBO, TULLEQuordle #532, Monday 10 July: FILET, DULLY, IRATE, NOSEYQuordle #531, Sunday 9 July: AXION, OFFER, DREAD, SADLYQuordle #530, Saturday 8 July: BAGEL, SPITE, MAYBE, RADIOQuordle #529, Friday 7 July: CLOUT, SMEAR, GAILY, ANGRYQuordle #528, Thursday 6 July: HUNCH, LEFTY, ABBEY, RECURQuordle #527, Wednesday 5 July: HILLY, ALERT, SHEET, VODKAQuordle #526, Tuesday 4 July: GUMMY, SQUAT, SUSHI, GAUDYQuordle #525, Monday 3 July: DRUID, ENACT, APART, HEFTYQuordle #524, Sunday 2 July: AMISS, SHOWY, LURCH, SAUCYQuordle #523, Saturday 1 July: KNEAD, DALLY, AMAZE, IDEALQuordle #522, Friday 30 June: WOMAN, BAGEL, SUPER, ARISEQuordle #521, Thursday 29 June: ISSUE, MOUNT, OVOID, SANERQuordle #520, Wednesday 28 June: CEDAR, RUMBA, WIDOW, TITHEQuordle #519, Tuesday 27 June: STRAW, APPLY, MAGMA, CLUEDQuordle #518, Monday 26 June: SCARE, RIGHT, IRATE, ORBITQuordle FAQs: Everything you need to knowWhat is Quordle?Where Wordle challenges you to guess a new five-letter word each day, Quordle presents you with four puzzles to solve. And rather than complete them in turn, you do so simultaneously. You get nine guesses, rather than the six for Wordle, but the rules are otherwise very similar.
It’s played online via the Quordle website and you can also get to it via the Merriam-Webster site, after the dictionary purchased Quordle last year.
As with Wordle, the answers are the same for every player each day, meaning that you’re competing against the rest of the world. And also as with Wordle, the puzzle resets at midnight so you have a fresh challenge each day.
The website also includes a practice mode – which I definitely recommend using before attempting the game proper! – and there are daily stats including a streak count. You also get Quordle Achievements – specific badges for winning a game in a certain number of turns, playing lots of times, or guessing particularly hard words.
Oh, and it’s difficult. Really difficult.
What are the Quordle rules?The rules of Quordle are almost identical to those of Wordle.
1. Letters that are in the answer and in the right place turn green.
2. Letters that are in the answer but in the wrong place turn yellow.
3. Letters that are not in the answer turn gray…
4. …BUT the word you guess appears in all quadrants of the puzzle at the same time, so an A could turn green in one square, yellow in another and gray in the final two.
5. Answers are never plural.
6. Letters can appear more than once. So if your guess includes two of one letter, they may both turn yellow, both turn green, or one could be yellow and the other green.
7. Each guess must be a valid word in Quordle’s dictionary. You can’t guess ABCDE, for instance.
8. You do not have to include correct letters in subsequent guesses and there is no equivalent of Wordle’s Hard mode.
9. You have nine guesses to find the Quordle answers.
10. You must complete the daily Quordle before midnight in your timezone.
What is a good Quordle strategy?Quordle needs to be approached in a different way to Wordle. With four puzzles to solve in nine guesses, you can’t blindly throw letters at it and expect to win – you’ll stand a far better chance if you think strategically.
That’s the case in Wordle too, of course, but it’s even more important in Quordle.
There are two key things to remember.
1. Use several starting words
Firstly, you won’t want just a single starting word, but almost certainly two or three starting words.
The first of these should probably be one of the best Wordle starting words, because the same things that make them work well will apply here too. But after that, you should select another word or possibly two that use up lots more of the most common consonants and that include any remaining vowels.
For instance, I currently use STARE > DOILY > PUNCH. Between them, these three words use 15 of the 26 letters in the alphabet including all five vowels, Y, and nine of the most common consonants (S, T, R, D, L, P, N, C and H). There are plenty of other options – you might want to get an M, B, F or G in there instead of the H, maybe – but something like that should do the trick.
If all goes well, that will give you a good lead on what one or sometimes two of the answers might be. If not, well good luck!
2. Narrow things down
Secondly, if you’re faced with a word where the answer might easily be one of several options – for instance -ATCH, where it could be MATCH, BATCH, LATCH, CATCH, WATCH, HATCH or PATCH – you’ll definitely want to guess a word that would narrow down those options.
In Wordle, you can instead try several of those in succession and hope one is right, assuming you have enough guesses left. It’s risky, but will sometimes work. Plus, it’s the only option in Hard mode. But in Quordle, this will almost certainly result in a failure – you simply don’t have enough guesses.
In the scenario above, CLAMP would be a great guess, as it could point the way to four of the seven words in one go.
James Cameron denies ‘offensive rumors’ that he’s in talks for film about doomed OceanGate submersible
James Cameron unequivocally denied Saturday that he was in talks to make a film based on the doomed OceanGate submersible that imploded last month while diving toward the Titanic wreckage, killing all five on board.
“I don’t respond to offensive rumors in the media usually, but I need to now,” the “Titanic” director wrote on his Instagram Story. “I’m NOT in talks about an OceanGate film, nor will I ever be.”
The “Avatar” director, whose 1997 film about the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 won 11 Academy Awards, is a member of the deep submersion community and has dived to the wreckage 33 times himself — but never with OceanGate.
Following the “catastrophic implosion” that killed the OceanGate passengers bound for the Titanic on June 18, Cameron told media outlets he wishes he’d “spoken up” about his concerns over the experimental sub’s design, especially its controversial use of carbon fiber for the hull.
‘TITANIC’ DIRECTOR JAMES CAMERON BREAKS SILENCE ON OCEANGATE DISASTER
James Cameron unequivocally denied Saturday he is in “talks” to make a movie out of the deadly OceanGate sub implosion. (Getty)
“I thought it was a horrible idea,” Cameron told Reuters last month. “I wish I’d spoken up, but I assumed somebody was smarter than me, you know, because I never experimented with that technology, but it just sounded bad on its face.”
Cameron dived in submersibles that weren’t made with carbon fiber.
OCEANGATE SUSPENDS ALL EXPLORATION, COMMERCIAL OPERATIONS AFTER TITAN SUB IMPLOSION
Suleman Dawood, Shahzada Dawood, Stockton Rush; Paul-Henry Nargeolet and Hamish Harding were all killed aboard the OceanGate Titan submersible. (Engro Corp. | Reuters/Shannon Stapleton | @OceanGateExped/Twitter | Felix Kunze/Blue Origin via AP | Ocean Gate/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
He added that the industry standard is to make hulls out of contiguous materials such as titanium, steel, ceramic or acrylic and echoed concerns from critics that the materials used for the Titan’s hull would be susceptible to failure over time by way of delamination and water ingress, Reuters reports.
He also questioned the ethics of asking passengers to pay to ride when the company billed the sub as “experimental.”
Cameron called the rumors “offensive.” (James Cameron/Instagram/Getty)
“We celebrate innovation, right? But you shouldn’t be using an experimental vehicle for paying passengers that aren’t themselves deep ocean engineers,” he said.
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OceanGate’s Titan sub lost contact with its mothership less than two hours into its descent toward that Titanic, launching an international search that lasted until June 23 when authorities revealed a debris field had been found near the Titanic and that all five old board — OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, 61, Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, billionaire Hamish Harding, 58, businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son, Sulaiman Dawood, 19 — had died.
Cameron said he knew they had died the day after the sub went missing.
James Cameron has dived to the Titanic 33 times himself. (Tim Brakemeier/picture alliance via Getty Images)
“We got confirmation within an hour that there had been a loud bang at the same time that the sub comms were lost,” he told Reuters. “A loud bang on the hydrophone. Loss of transponder. Loss of comms. I knew what happened. The sub imploded,” Cameron told Reuters, adding that he sent an email to colleagues Monday saying, “We’ve lost some friends” and “It’s on the bottom in pieces right now.”
Cameron also compared Rush’s actions to that of Titanic’s Captain Edward Smith.
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“I’m struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship, and yet, he steamed up full speed into an ice field on a moonless night,” Cameron said. “And many people died as a result and for us very similar tragedy where warnings went unheeded to take place at the same exact site.”
First Reactions to Hayao Miyazaki’s Final Film ‘The Boy and the Heron’ Begin to Emerge From Japan
Editor’s Note: Studio Ghibli took the unprecedented step of doing no marketing in Japan for Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron, releasing no trailers and no plot summary. Instead, the fabled studio invited fans to go see the movie with no preconceptions, with producer Toshio Suzuki saying, “Deep down, I think this is what moviegoers latently desire.” So, briefly consider your true filmgoing desires before reading this article!
Shrouded in mystery and anticipated by millions, anime legend Hayao Miyazaki’s first film in a decade, The Boy and the Heron, finally met a curious public in Japan Friday, as its local release got underway. So far, the collective reaction could best be summed up as a combination of slight bewilderment and deep appreciation.
Related StoriesJapanese news service Kyodo was on the scene Friday morning in Shinjuku, Tokyo’s largest business district, as dozens lined up outside a cinema for The Boy and the Heron‘s first screening. And as the crowd filed out of the theater after the film’s 124-minute runtime, a 27-year-old company employee described the film as the “culmination” of Miyazaki’s anime world, adding: “I can’t digest it by just watching it once and I feel like I want to watch it again immediately.”
Information about the movie prior to its release was deliberately scant. Ghibli had previously shared only that the film was very loosely inspired by Japanese author Genzaburo Yoshino’s 1937 philosophical children’s book, How Do You Live?, one of Miyazaki’s personal favorites. In a TV interview back in 2017, Ghibli co-founder Toshio Suzuki, considered Miyazaki’s righthand man, said that the great animator was making the movie for his grandson, as a way of saying, “Grandpa is moving onto the next world soon, but he is leaving this film behind.”
And the studio’s decision to do zero promotion for the movie — releasing no plot summary, voice cast, trailers, art or description — kept fans in a keen state of curiosity (while also leaving large portions of the Japanese public unaware that a new Miyazaki movie was even coming). Suzuki said he believed the opportunity to see the film completely afresh, with no preconceptions, is what the audience “latently desires.”
So, now that many in Japan have seen the film, what are they saying?
Early reviews and descriptions to emerge from Japan, in both English and Japanese, suggest a movie that’s visually stunning but somewhat darker and more enigmatic than much of the Ghibli catalog.
In a somewhat mixed but overall positive review, specialty outlet Anime News Network describes Miyazaki’s animation work within the film as “truly astounding.”
“Every frame of this film feels like a separate work of art — one that only becomes grander when put together as part of the greater whole,” the reviewer writes. “It’s a film you could watch a hundred times and still discover new things in the background of any given scene. It cannot be understated how the little visual details take the film from real to surreal — like a heron flashing a toothy grin or wooden dolls vibrating as if in sympathetic laughter. It’s an animation tour de force unlike anything seen in the past decade.”
“It is no exaggeration to say that this film is among the best of Ghibli’s works in terms of visuals and story,” Japanese film site Eiga Channel wrote. “On the other hand, those who are not Ghibli fans may be confused by the dizzying pace of scene development.”
It added: “Ghibli, which has produced fantasy works that are easily understandable by children, has finally released a work that requires time and consideration to understand, so it is natural that there will be reactions of confusion. And there must be many viewers who were simply overwhelmed by the visual beauty.”
Japanese film and culture magazine Cinemas+ similarly described the film as a “culmination” for Miyazaki, drawing on motifs and characters from across his filmography, but embedding them in a story that’s somewhat darker, more challenging, and more personal than many of his beloved children’s works.
“To understand the setting and story deeply, you need to commit to watching it repeatedly while ruminating on the various scenes — and analyzing Hayao Miyazaki as a person,” the outlet said while also noting similarities between The Boy and the Heron‘s story and Miyazaki’s own biography.
The film begins with an impressionistic depiction of the firebombing of Tokyo during World War II, with the story’s protagonist, a boy named Mahito, fleeing his home. His mother is lost in the conflagration and his father, who works in a factory producing warplanes, soon marries his late wife’s younger sister and moves the family to a grand traditional home in the countryside. Mahito, wracked by grief and filled with angst over his new circumstances, begrudgingly begins exploring his new surroundings. He meets a mischievous blue heron that speaks — and taunts him — and stumbles upon a mysterious abandoned tower in the nearby forests. When his new mother goes missing, Mahito follows the heron into the tower in pursuit of her — crossing over into a parallel world of dizzying fantasy and philosophical import.
Many Japanese reviewers have noted that Miyazaki’s own family escaped the bombing of Tokyo for the Japanese countryside and that his father worked during the war as an engineer in a fighter plane factory, just like Mahiko’s. Miyazaki also has spoken over the years about how an especially close relationship with his mother shaped him as a person and helped inspire the strong female protagonists that recur across his filmography.
So far, Miyazaki has given no interviews about The Boy and the Heron. Nonetheless, the best hints to emerge about his inspirations and intentions with the film come from the old animator himself — via the grandson of the man who wrote the book that inspired the film.
Taichiro Yoshino, grandson of Genzaburo Yoshino, author of How Do You Live in 1937, is today working as a journalist and editor in Tokyo. Taichiro published an article in Japanese Friday describing a private Ghibli preview screening of the new film he attended earlier this year, where Miyazaki shared some brief words about his final feature.
“The moment the end credits were over, the lights were turned on, and comments from Hayao Miyazaki were read out,” Yoshino says. The director’s statement for those in attendance was, simply: “Perhaps you didn’t understand it. I myself don’t understand it.”
“Light laughter emerged from the audience,” Yoshino says, adding that he was among those chuckling because he was “sitting there in a daze,” struggling to digest and understand the film’s messages.
Yoshino goes on to recount a meeting he attended at Ghibli’s offices in 2017 when Miyazaki explained his plan to make a film loosely inspired by Yoshino’s grandfather’s book. According to Yoshino, Miyazaki said he was coming back from retirement to approach a film from a new perspective.
“I’ve been avoiding it for a long time, but I have to make [a film] that’s more like me,” Miyazaki told him. “I made several works about boys who were cheerful, bright, and positive, but that’s not the way many boys really are. I myself was a person who was really hesitant, so I always thought that boys are actually less pure and swirling with all kinds of things.”
Miyazaki added: “Let’s be open about the fact that we live in conflict. So I thought I’d create a hero who is slow to run and has a lot of embarrassing things inside that he can’t share with others. When you overcome something with all of your strength, then you become the version of yourself who can accept such problems.”
Yoshino’s article goes on to become a moving meditation on the legacy of his grandfather’s book, and he describes how the themes in Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron inspired him to ask himself, “If I could have a direct conversation with my grandfather right now, what would I say to him?”
Near the end of the piece, he notes that The Boy and the Heron is “a separate work” from his grandfather’s How Do You Live, but that they perhaps share the same central theme — how to live with oneself and accept a world characterized by conflict and loss.
He concludes with a call to action: “For the time being, let’s go to the theater again in search of hints that I couldn’t collect by watching it just once. You may find a clue for a new ‘dialogue’ with your grandfather too.”
The Boy and the Heron will be released in North America by specialty distributor GKIDS sometime later this year.
Dear Abby: My husband hijacked our daughter’s wedding
DEAR ABBY: My daughter, “Jessica,” is getting married. My husband offered to pay for most of the wedding. Jessica and her fiance happily accepted the offer. My husband is now insisting that all of HIS aunts, uncles and cousins be invited, which means that Jessica and her fiance will have to eliminate nearly all of their friends from the guest list. Note: None of my aunts, uncles or cousins are invited, but I am OK with that.
My husband is now threatening not to attend the wedding because Jessica won’t add four more people to the list. He said if those additional people don’t come, two of his aunts will be unable to be there due to driving issues.
Is it our responsibility to make travel accommodations for all of the guests? It would eliminate four more of our our daughter’s friends. It’s Jessica’s day, and I think it should involve people she would like to be there, not who her father wants there. We had our wedding — this should be about her and her fiance. I’m at my wits’ end. Please help. — WEDDING WOES IN PENNSYLVANIA
DEAR WEDDING WOES: Your husband is a handful. As it stands, he has hijacked your daughter’s wedding with his checkbook. Jessica and her fiance should thank her father for his generous offer and refuse it. If she doesn’t, the event will no longer be their wedding, but her father’s family reunion.
An overbearing father of the bride-to-be is looking to call the shots on his daughter’s big day. Getty Images/iStockphotoIf Dad refuses to go, you definitely should be there standing with the bridal couple. There are worse things than having a small wedding with just a few close friends. One of them is a father as controlling as your husband appears to be.
DEAR ABBY: A friend of many years, “Adam,” no longer speaks to me. We met in high school and were involved in band, debate club and other activities together. He recently discovered through a genealogy site that he was adopted and neither of his parents were his birth parents. The site led him to clues about other biological relatives, and he eventually reached his birth mother, who rejected his efforts to talk to her.
I recently learned about this from another high school friend. When I contacted Adam, he responded with hostility, stating that I am no longer his friend because I didn’t reach out when he was going through all this. But I didn’t know at the time. I cannot locate any voice messages, emails, texts, etc. showing that he shared with me the details of what happened.
I live in a different part of the country now. I have offered to travel to visit him. I also offered to talk on the phone, but I’ve received only aggressive and bitter responses. How can I show Adam I do care about him, and that had I known about his situation at the time it happened, I would have been there for him? — TRUE BLUE IN WASHINGTON
DEAR TRUE BLUE: Your friend is going through a lot right now, and is rightfully angry that his birth mother rejected his effort to connect. He is hurt and looking for somewhere to transfer his anger. You shouldn’t be blamed for not reacting to something you were in the dark about. But until Adam is ready to recognize that fact and patch things up, nothing you can do will fix this. My advice is to sit tight for now.
Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.
July 14, 2023
Killers Of The Flower Moon Star Doesn’t See Scorsese’s Movie As A Western
Calling “Killers of the Flower Moon” a Western isn’t just a reductive way of approaching the work Martin Scorsese put in to make the film, but it also treats a real-life time period as nothing more than genre fodder. “A lot of people are really wanting to call this ‘Martin Scorsese’s Western’,” Gladstone said, but her more accurate description is calling it “a great American tragedy.” All too often, stories of Indigenous history are disregarded and “othered” compared to other moments in U.S. history, despite the fact tribes like the Osage were here long before white people arrived. “With natives and Westerns, we are so dehumanized that it just kind of feels like we’re part of the landscape,” said Gladstone, “Instead of humans that are telling a story.”
There is a direct correlation between the popularity of Western films, TV series, and live Wild West shows and the general U.S. public’s stereotypical views of Native people. The offensive portrayals birthed an implicit, negative bias in America’s white supremacist society, and the overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens’ only knowledge of Indigenous people’s culture is from the entertainment industry. “Killers of the Flower Moon” doesn’t seem to be interested in fulfilling harmful genre tropes and is instead looking to tell a true historical story with accuracy, sensitivity, and an understanding of the importance of doing right by the Osage Nation.
There will be no Buffalo Bill Wild West show antics here, and certainly no John Wayne nonsense either.
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