And for all of us who never saw a man in the moon, but a hare (or rabbit).
There are eight more wonderful, well worth seeing Indigenous shorts to see here.
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
And for all of us who never saw a man in the moon, but a hare (or rabbit).
There are eight more wonderful, well worth seeing Indigenous shorts to see here.
After years of chasing a laugh track on How I Met Your Mother, the actor is following roles in Gone Girl and American Horror Story with Netflix’s new Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, based on the classic children’s books. In the new super-stylized series, Harris stars as the villainous Olaf, who becomes the guardian of three orphans solely to abscond with their fortune.
“I’m drawn to puzzles and darkness,” says Harris. “The Alfred Hitchcock–y vibe is something I’ve been into since I was kid, and I loved Gene Wilder’s take on Willy Wonka and Bridge to Terabithia.”
Aside from being just plain rotten, Harris’s alter ego is also a rotten aspiring musical-theater actor — basically, a much crappier, much uglier version of himself.
“Playing someone so miserable makes things hard to complain about,” says Harris, who spends two and a half hours having prosthetics applied for the role. “I can ingest my annoyances and use them.”
Going by the trailer, Harris also infuses the role of Count Olaf with humor. A performance to look forward to, along with the rest of the cast.
Via Out.
Our Flix are here, among them, Goksung (The Wailing), and I’ve been really looking forward to this one, too. It’s a long one, too, almost 3 hours, so I’m off for the day.
ABC News.
Meryl Streep delivered one hell of a takedown on Trump without ever mentioning him. Naturally, the thin-skinned narcissist hasn’t been able to cope, blurting out nastiness all over twitter while his henchperson tells people to “look in his heart”. I don’t want to look at Donny’s heart, it’s 70 years old and no doubt not terribly pretty. Oh wait…yeah, I don’t want to look at that heart either. It’s a chaotic, malice filled nest of narcissism.
Receiving a lifetime achievement award Sunday night at the Golden Globes, actress Meryl Streep expressed her concern about President-elect Donald Trump, focusing in on the moment during the campaign in which he mocked a reporter’s disability. Doing damage control Monday morning, Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway pleaded that people ignore Trump’s words and the video of Trump obviously mocking the reporter, and instead look at “his heart.”
“You can’t give him the benefit of the doubt on this and he’s telling you what was in his heart?” Conway asked CNN’s Chris Cuomo. “You always want to go by what’s come out of his mouth rather than look at what’s in his heart.”
Generally speaking, Ms. Conway, going by what people say is the standard by which we judge. Perhaps you should work a bit harder on shutting Donny up, because so far, all his words, they reflect what’s in his “heart”, and it’s an ugly landscape.
Just an hour earlier, Conway had been on Fox and Friends, attacking Meryl Streep for “inciting people’s worst instincts.” Streep gave an eloquent speech about rejecting bullying and encouraged everyone to feel empathy for others.
That sounds about right. Every single person who has compassion, we’re operating on our worst instincts. That definitely fits in with Donny’s reality. (There’s video of this at the link.)
…Conway’s argument is that no matter what Trump might do or say that is actually wrong or objectionable, it doesn’t matter so long as people believe he meant well. Streep, on the other hand, must be held accountable for promoting division by not standing by the President-elect.
Ah, intentions. I don’t believe Trump meant well, I don’t think he ever means well. What’s that old saying about good intentions?
In The Little Deputy, the Canadian director Trevor Anderson revisits a memory from a rare father-son outing in 1986, when a shopping mall photographer at a Wild West-themed photo booth handed him a sparkly red dress. It’s uncertain whether the photographer really mistook the boy for a girl, or instead sensed something about him that no one else quite realised. But, even then, Trevor knew that as an adult he would want to have that picture of himself in the dress. He didn’t dare, though, so years later, he finds a way to fulfill that wish.
Inventive, moving and darkly funny, Anderson’s short film about being gay but not quite out was a festival favourite in 2015, appearing at the Sundance Film Festival and AFI Fest, among many others.
Via Aeon.
Carrie Fisher (Wikimedia Commons).
Actress Carrie Fisher has passed away following a massive heart attack she suffered on a flight from London to Los Angeles, People is reporting. Fisher was 60 years old.
“It is with a very deep sadness that Billie Lourd confirms that her beloved mother Carrie Fisher passed away at 8:55 this morning,” family spokesman Simon Halls said in a statement. “She was loved by the world and she will be missed profoundly. Our entire family thanks you for your thoughts and prayers.”
Fisher, the daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds, burst to fame as Princess Leia in the popular ‘Star Wars’ films .
According to CNN, Fisher’s flight was on approach to Los Angeles when the 60-year-old actress became ill, with passengers reportedly rushing to her aid.
Goodbye, Ms. Fisher, and thank you for so many wonderful moments. My favourite movie turn was Ms. Fisher playing the sardonic and cynical Bianca in Scream 3.
Via Raw Story.
Altogether now, aaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwww.
Via Out.
deepbaltic.com
Much fun here, thanks to rq!
One of the more interesting and unusual Baltic-related sites of recent years has been Imaginary Latvians, started in 2014, a Medium-based project to compile as many references to Latvians in literature and film as possible, and which now has dozens of entries from all over the world. Examples range from imaginary “beautiful, proud and pitiless” witches to imaginary itinerant old men who give out cheques for thousands of dollars, to imaginary mice in Disney films.
Latvian-American Rihards Kalniņš, the chief seeker of imaginary Latvians, recently spoke to Deep Baltic about what he has learnt from the project.
The interview is here, and you can do much reading at Imaginary Latvians.
Scott Lively.
Time for word salad with Scott Lively, the rabid bigot who managed to implement his evil in Uganda, and who is hopeful about implementation here, once Trump is in power. Lively believes that all queer people should be put to death, if they act on their orientation in any way. Just a small bit here:
If Trump had taken a strong pro-family stand on LGBT issues, he would have opened up a huge new battle-front in the war for the presidency with virtually no support from conservative GOP leaders (nearly all of whom have retreated from that fight due to the ferocity of the leftist cartel on “gay rights”). And he would have energized the Bernie Sanders bloc of the Democratic base, especially the young people, the most thoroughly brainwashed portion of the US electorate on LGBT issues due to nearly monopolistic “gay” influence in public education and the entertainment media.
However, by embracing renegade Thiel and saying Obergefell was settled law, Trump neutralized the “gay” card and kicked the can past the election. I didn’t support that tactic but I understood it. Now, while the leftist cartel is reeling from the Trump pummeling, Christian conservatives have perhaps their last opportunity to take back some ground on marriage and family values – irrespective of Mr. Trump’s personal views on the issue and the GOP’s willingness to throw the pro-family cause under the bus. The fact is that support for the sodomy lobby is driven almost entirely by fear of the Great and Powerful OZ of Political Correctness backed by media thuggery. But the curtain has been pulled back and guess what? The Wizard is as naked and impotent as the Emperor, so there is no good reason to let political correctness about homosexuality continue to trump family values in our public policy.
These bloodthirsty, thoroughly evil asses are the living embodiment of phallophobia. Speaking of bloodthirsty, evil asses, Kevin Swanson is having a fit over the movie Moonlight, which has garnered high praise from every corner. I’m really looking forward to seeing it.
A very happy 100th birthday to Issur Danielovitch Demsky, also known as Kirk Douglas! Mr. Douglas, as well as gifting the world with a wealth of wonderful movies and performances, is, along with his 97 year old wife Anne, a noted humanitarian and philanthropist. They have given a great deal to the world, and continue to do so.
There’s a lovely article up at Raw Story, and if you’re unfamiliar with Mr. Douglas’s work, get acquainted!
Star Wars Rogue One movie cast. Lucasfilm promotional pic.
As I’ve said before, I’m not a Star Wars fan. I am married to one, who doesn’t expect me to watch the seemingly endless parade of movies, thankfully. I did read with interest that a woman was the lead in the recent flicks, and not in a love interest, uppity princess in a bikini role. Progress! Well, you’d think anyway. The white supremacist bros are all upsetty. Looking at the image above, I count 7 men and one woman. Okay, that’s not an overwhelming amount of women, so why are they whining now? It’s not just that there’s a woman protagonist, but all those dudes, they aren’t whitey-white! Let the whining commence.
White supremacists are continuing their call for a boycott of upcoming Star Wars film Rogue One, accusing the film’s producers of promoting multiculturalism and an “anti-white” agenda, forward.com reports.
“(((Star Wars))) Is Anti-White Social Engineering,” reads a Reddit post by GenFrancoPepe on the subreddit r/altright, including a gif showing the cast from the movie; according to the image, predominantly white characters fight with the oppressive Empire while an array of multicultural characters support the rebel fighters.
“So basically star wars was SJW propaganda from the beginning?” Another user, stanicpriest13 asked the forum. “Good now I don’t feel as bad about not watching the new films. The new films are going to flop big league anyway. You can push the female heroes as much as you like, but even most women don’t find it interesting.”
So basically star wars was SJW propaganda from the beginning? :falls over laughing: Oh, the stupid. Star Wars was a bog standard story, and I don’t think you could call it SJW propaganda in any way. Yes, it was a very stunning film in terms of special effects, and it was fun, and there were some very good bits in it, but it’s hardly what you could call social justice centered, even if it was based on the age old “band of rebels vs evil empire”, as that is a fair summation of 90% percent of every story ever told. As for female heroes, I quite like them. Big fan of the current Thor, frinst. A female hero in Star Wars is one thing which might actually make me watch one of the movies.
“This film should be boycotted. Episode 7 was bad enough featuring that retarded storm trooper Negro and another empowered White female in the lead roles,” InfoStormer wrote, later adding “It looks as if the Jew run company of Disney is going to pump out as many of these awful multicultural Star Wars films as possible.”
This bit ^ from the idiots at InfoStormer. I see they haven’t budged from that old, broken trope that all people of colour are less intelligent. I’ll bet they are seething that they can’t tack that onto the “empowered white female”.
In November, two Rogue One writers took up the cause of multiculturalism, digging at the alt-right calls for a boycott. “Please note that the Empire is a white supremacist (human) organization,” screenwriter Chris Weitz wrote in a tweet. Writer Gary Whitta retweeted his coworker’s statement, adding, “Opposed by a multi-cultural group led by brave women.”
I’d applaud this, loudly, if the writers hadn’t deleted their tweets. Hopefully, there are lots more people of colour and women than there are nazis running around, so have some courage, writers. Are white supremacist wannabe nazis staying at home sulking such a problem? After deleting their tweets, they went with this one:
Star Wars against hate. Spread it. pic.twitter.com/Dtf5uqpxba
— Chris Weitz (@chrisweitz) November 11, 2016
Here’s the propaganda! Wait, I mean trailer.
Via Raw Story.
Bujinga is a very specific Japanese art form that evolved in the Kamakura period. Bujin (武人) means warrior and ga (画) is painting. And so the bujinga portraits were depictions of samurai warriors intended to capture the legacy of the brave and pass them on to future generations. In a contemporary iteration, bujinga artist Masayuki Kojo captures characters from Star Wars, creating versions of Darth Vadar and the Storm Troopers like never seen before.
You can read and see more at Spoon & Tamago.
Emerald City/Facebook.
I have never liked The Wizard of Oz. I didn’t like the book, and I hated the movie. I’ve avoided it in all incarnations ever since having to watch that mess on television when I was a young sprog. I’ll probably give this, um, take on Oz a miss too. It will be a visual feast, no question about that, given direction by Tarsem Singh. (The Cell was one of the most visually beautiful movies ever, but boy, was it stupid. If you want visually stunning and a good story, watch The Fall.) Tarsem Singh knows how to bring the stunningly beautiful, but he needs to be reigned in a tad by a good story and by a specific sense and style. Else it’s just a free for all, and that’s what happens here, going by the trailer at least.
This looks enjoyable enough, in a popcorn way, but the trailer exposes a terrible mishmashmush of, well, damn near everything, and some glaring admissions of “hey, went with bog standard norm boring.” A serious plus is Vincent D’Onofrio, because when isn’t he a plus? But I found the trailer troubling, on many levels.
Dorothy isn’t white. Well, that’s a start, I guess. I was initially heartened by the pride rainbow in the Kansas farmhouse window, but that gets quickly blown away, along with Dorothy. Could have been exciting if Dorothy were genderqueer, or lesbian (there’s no reason the scarecrow love interest couldn’t have been genderqueer or lesbian, right? But no, standard uber-hunky white British dude.) Well, it is on network teevee, so it’s probably best not to expect too much. The munchkins are gone, replaced by what looks to be some sort of semi-primitive tribe of Indians. There’s progress for ya. The rest of it looks like they tried to steal from every fricking culture and era ever, a bit Chronicles of Narnia here, a bit Game of Thrones there, and probably a bit of The Holy Grail somewhere, too. What it doesn’t seem to have is its own distinct style, and that’s enough to keep me away, even if I do want to watch just for the eye candy, and boy, is there a lot of that.
https://youtu.be/WKeRnyFIHWs