Short film Thirstygirl at Sundance

A few years ago I went to a conference, QCon, in London, where among the speakers, there was one who told her personal story of how she wasn’t taken serious in the tech field, until she cut her hair. That was my first encounter with Alexandra Qin.

Since hearing her talk, I’ve followed her work. She founded Emergent Works (as Code Cooperative) in 2016 and ran it until 2021. Emergent Works is a NYC based organization which does amazing work helping formerly incarcerated people, through training and mentorship. I highly recommend supporting them, if you have time and/or funds to spare.

From being the CEO of Emergent Works,  Alexandra Qin went on to write a short film, and raise money for it through Kickstarter. It was Thirstygirl, which was funded and made.

After it was produced, the short has been shown at a few film festivals. I went to a screening at the Aesthetica Short Film Festival in York, UK, where I also got the chance to say hi to Alexandra Qin.

Currently, the short film is being screened at the Sundance Festival, which obviously is fantastic. To read about how Alexandra Qin felt when she heard about the selection and to hear more about the background of the film, go read Unpacking sex addiction: Director Alexandra Qin talks about her deeply personal Sundance short film

Disclaimer: I have helped support Emergent Works financially, and I was one of the backers of Thirstygirl on Kickstarter.

Movie recommendation: April and the Extraordinary World Official Trailer

Yesterday I watched the steampunk cartoon April and the Extraordinary World Official Trailer, which I didn’t know anything about, except for the briefest description (approximately the same as the trailer shows). It was a great movie, which not only had an interesting plot and universe, but also didn’t spoon-feed you the plot, but instead trusted you to draw the relevant connections.

One interesting fact about the movie, is that the art-style is based on Jacques Tardi, who is a brilliant artist, but whose style tend to turn me off when it comes to graphic novels. This wasn’t the case for this movie, however – perhaps because the lines are more clean that if they had actually been drawn by Tardi.

Year in movies

I just took a look at the feature films released in 2018 and ranked by popularity according to IMDb. It is an interesting list, in that it shows that superhero movies are still very dominant, and that there are a lot of releases that I have never heard about.

I have looked at the top-100 movies, and marked the list with following:
Normal text – movie I have heard about, and which I haven’t watched, but might watch
Blod text – movie I have watched (‘-‘ after the movie indicates I didn’t like it, ‘+’ indicates I liked it)
Italic text – movie I haven’t heard about
Strikethrough – movies I don’t want to watch
A * after a title indicates that I plan on watching that movie.

1. Aquaman (-)
2. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse *
3. Bumblebee
4. Bird Box
5. Mary Poppins Returns
6. Roma
7. Mortal Engines *
8. Creed II
9. The Mule
10. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

I have only seen one movie in the top 10, and didn’t like it. The rest of the movies I either plan on watching, or are fine with watching. The ones I am least interested in watching are Creed II and the Mule (which i just read about on IMDb).

11. Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle
12. Venom *
13. Welcome to Marwen
14. Zero (III)
15. Bohemian Rhapsody *
16. A Simple Favor
17. Vice (I)
18. The House That Jack Built
19. Dumplin’
20. Bad Times at the El Royale
21. Grinchen
22. The Favourite
23. The Christmas Chronicles
24. Ralph Breaks the Internet *
25. Mary Queen of Scots

I am doing decidedly worse on the next 15. Here there were quite a few I hadn’t even heard about, and when looking at them, I have absolutely no interest in seeing them. I guess that the algorithms that pushes movies on me must be working.

26. The Predator *
27. Avengers: Infinity War (+)
28. A Star Is Born
29. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
30. Hunter Killer
31. Robin Hood (I)
32. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
33. White Boy Rick
34. First Man
35. Deadpool 2 (+)
36. Ready Player One (-)
37. Peppermint
38. Smallfoot
39. Crazy Rich Asians
40. Widows
41. The Sisters Brothers
42. Green Book
43. Holmes & Watson
44. The House with a Clock in Its Walls
45. Second Act
46. The Equalizer 2
47. Halloween (I)
48. The Meg
49. Blockers
50. Backtrace

There are a lot of movies in place 26 to 50 that I hadn’t heard about, and a lot of movies that I don’t particularly care to see, and a few that I actively don’t want to see. I will say that the only movie on the list that makes me angry is Blockers, which I hadn’t heard about before looking at this list. It is a movie about 3 fathers trying to block their daughters from loosing their viginity on prom night. There are so many things problematic with this premise, that I am not going into it, but it definitely makes for a movie that I won’t watch.

I have indicated that I don’t want to see The Meg, but I might do it as part of a bad movie night.

51. Andhadhun
52. BlacKkKlansman
53. Incredibles 2
54. Black Panther (+)
55. Cold War
56. Dragon Ball Super: Broly
57. A Quiet Place (+)
58. The Little Mermaid
59. The Nun
60. Instant Family
61. Ant-Man and the Wasp *
62. Under the Silver Lake
63. Destroyer
64. Hereditary
65. Mile 22
66. Outlaw King
67. Night School
68. Searching (III)
69. Vox Lux
70. Overlord
71. Solo: A Star Wars Story *
72. Tomb Raider (+)
73. Assassination Nation *
74. The Happytime Murders
75. The Guilty
76. Suspiria (I)
77. Johnny English Strikes Again
78. Ben Is Back
79. Ocean’s Eight
80. On the Basis of Sex *
81. Annihilation *
82. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (-)
83. K.G.F: Chapter 1
84. If Beale Street Could Talk
85. Colette (I) *
86. Alpha
87. The Possession of Hannah Grace
88. Christopher Robin
89. The Nutcracker and the Four Realms *
90. 2.0 *
91. Life Itself
92. Mandy (I)
93. Rampage (-)
94. Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween
95. Beautiful Boy
96. The Princess Switch
97. Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again
98. Sorry to Bother You
99. Red Sparrow
100. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before

Looking at this list, it is surprising to me how many I hadn’t heard about before, but I guess this is due to using the internet as my newssource, including for stuff like movie trailers.

Can they really be this culture-less?

This is an actual headline from Fox News insider: NYC Play Appears to Depict Assassination of Trump

The play in question is a modern adaption of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar put up by Shakespeare in the Park.

The only place the article mention’s the play’s name is when quoting Delta Airlines saying “do not condone this interpretation of Julius Caesar.”

The Delta Airline quote was stated through twitter, and whomever wrote that tweet should be fired as a craven, uncultured fool.

The Fox article heavily quotes Guy Benson, who apparently is a Fox talking head on Fox and Friends.

Benson said it is “not a subtle statement” to portray the murder of a sitting U.S. president.

“This is so incredibly in poor taste that I’m surprised they haven’t cast Kathy Griffin in the production,” he said.

If Benson, or anyone else employed by Fox, knew any culture, they would know that the play is not endorsing the murder of Julius Caesar (no matter how much he looks like Trump). That is what the whole famous funeral speech by Mark Anthony is about.

Given how fragile Benson and the other Fox employees are, I tried to find a YouTube clip of the speech that they might find acceptable, and I think I found one – here Mark Anthony is played by Charles Heston.

Or if watching Heston causes them too much pain, perhaps Marlon Brando’s version works better

Both of those movie clips are of course from productions of Julius Caesar which stay true to the classic version of the play, but it is hardly a new thing that play instructors update the settings (see e.g. Romeo + Juliet from 1996) or the location (see e.g Kurosawa’s Ran from 1985 which was based on King Lear)