Blueprints: "Halloween (1978)"

This week Jorge goes back to Haddonfield in 1978 for the 40th anniversary of a horror classic to look at how the original film establishes its point of view.

Every script has a point of view. Even movies with multiple protagonists, or whose perspectives change from scene to scene, we are experiencing the events through someone’s lens at any given moment; even if that person is not a character, but someone behind the camera guiding us to what we’re supposed to perceive.

But there are movies with a more literal point of view, where what we are seeing is exactly what one of the characters is. A literal POV is used sparingly in movies, but it’s a great tool to get the audience in the mindset and subjective state of a film. The opening of the original Halloween is told entirely through a POV shot, and though it is abandoned quickly, this sets up the dangerous mood and tone of a franchise that's continued for generations...

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Review: 1985

by Murtada Elfadl

Do most people think of how their stories will be told? Probably when they are closer to the end. That’s the question at the heart of 1985. The greater question it poses is how does someone make sure they are are remembered as their whole self when society has conspired to muffle their voice?

The film tells the story of 20 something New Yorker returning home one last time to his small hometown in Texas before succumbing to death from AIDS. Adrian (Cory Michael Smith who's appeared in Carol and Wonderstruck) knows he’s dying so he tries to patch up things with his loving but disapproving religious parents (Virginia Madsen and Michael Chiklis), create memories and a connection with his preteen brother Andrew (Aidan Langford) and finally own up to a former girlfriend (Jamie Chung) who he’s never come out to...

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Festival Wrap - All The Reviews

We screened them at TIFF or NYFF or Middleburg but you also may have heard about them from Cannes or Venice media coverage. Now that the festivals are wrapped (only AFI remains and we're unable to make it this year *cries*) the rest of the year is all of these treasures and some of the duds hitting movie theaters (hopefully) near you. THEN, THE OSCARS. You know how it goes. It's our very very very favorite time of year. That sound you hear is the squealing of movie fans everywhere.

Nicole making the festival rounds in the fallHere's everything we reviewed from TIFF and NYFF or Middleburg in case you missed any of them...

• Ash Is Purest White (China) - Murtada at NYFF
• Border (Sweden) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Bulbul Can Sing (India) - Chris at TIFF
• Burning (South Korea) - Nathaniel at NYFF
• Can You Ever Forgive Me? (US) - Chris at TIF
• Climax  (France) - Chris at TIFF
• Cold War (Poland) - Jason at NYFF
• Destroyer (US) - Nathaniel at TIFF  
• Diamantino  (Portugal) - Chris at TIFF
• Duelle's / Mother's Instinct (Belgium) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• A Family Tour (China) - Murtada at NYFF
• The Favourite (UK) - Nathaniel at NYFF
• Fig Tree  (Israel/Ethiopia) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• First Man (US) -Nathaniel at TIFF 

• Giant Little Ones (Canada) - Chris at TIFF
• Gloria Bell (US) - Chris at TIFF
• Green Book (US) - Nathaniel at Middleburg
• Happy as Lazarro (Italy) - Jason at NYFF 
• Her Smell (US) - Jason at NYFF
• High Life (France) - Jason at NYFF
  
  
• If Beale Street Could Talk (US) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy (US) - Chris at TIFF
• The Kindergarten Teacher  (US) Nathaniel at TIFF
• Long Day's Journey Into Night  (China) - Jason at NYFF
• Museo (Mexico) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Non-Fiction (France) - Jason at NYFF
• The Old Man and the Gun (US) - Chris at TIFF
• The Quietude (Argentina) - Nathaniel at TIFF

• Rafiki (Kenya) -Chris at TIFF
• Ray & Liz (UK) - Murtada at NYFF
• The River (Kazakshtan) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Roma (Mexico) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Ruben Brandt Collector (Hungary) - Nathaniel at Middleburg
• Shadow  (Hong Kong) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Sorry Angel (France) - Jason at NYFF
• A Star is Born (US) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Tell it to the Bees  (UK) - Nathaniel at TIFF

• That Time of Year (Denmark) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Too Late To Die Young (Chile) - Murtada at NYFF
• Touch Me Not (Romania) - Chris at TIFF
• Transit (Germany) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Vita & Virginia  (UK) - Nathaniel at TIFF
• Widows (US) - Chris at TIFF
• Wildlife (US) - Chris at TIFF
• Woman at War (Iceland) - Nathaniel at TIFF

'extras'

• Venice winners - Murtada
• Venice fashion - the gowns -Nathaniel
• Venice thinks pink - Nathaniel
• The men of Venice - Nathaniel
• Toronto Fashion - Murtada
• Nicole in Toronto - Nathaniel
• Jury of One TIFF - Nathaniel's honors
• Best of NYFF Performances - Murtada's honors
• Yalitza Aparacio tribute - Nathaniel at Middleburg
• Diane Warren concert - Nathaniel at Middleburg

It's true we didn't review everything we saw at Festivals but the biggies we didn't get to --  Shoplifters, El Angel, Capernaum, and Boy Erased -- will be in theaters very soon so reviews are forthcoming.

Months of Meryl: The Iron Lady (2011)

John and Matthew are watching every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep. 

#43 —Margaret Thatcher, the polarizing British prime minister.

MATTHEW: After decades of heavy speculation about when, not if, Meryl Streep would finally win her third Academy Award, the most widely admired actress of all time picked up another trophy for a performance that may best be remembered as a textbook study in How to Win an Oscar. Despite stiff, down-to-the-wire competition from The Help’s eminently deserving Viola Davis, who transcended lackluster material in much the same way that Streep herself did in her most acclaimed tour de force, the actress sailed to victory after a season’s worth of ovations and exposure. The months preceding Streep’s first Oscar win in nearly 30 years found the acting legend accepting her eighth Golden Globe, her fourth New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress, her second BAFTA Film Award, her very first Vogue cover story, a Kennedy Center Honors lifetime achievement tribute, and endless publicity concerning one of the most challenging roles of her late career, that of Margaret Thatcher in what should rightfully be called Phyllida Lloyd’s The Iron Lady, but might just as suitably be described as Meryl Streep’s The Iron Lady. And when one truly considers the sheer size and notoriety of the role, who could have possibly topped Streep that year? Conversely, when truly considering the actual performance that returned Streep to Oscar glory, away from all the myth/history-making hubbub that surrounded it, one could be forgiven for wondering, Is that all there is?

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Showbiz History: Marsha marries Neil, Barbra is "Guilty," and Blue is the Warmest Color

7 random things that happened on this day (October 25th) in showbiz history

Neil Simon & Marsha Mason

1881 Pablo Picasso is born in Malaga Spain. He's been played onscreen by everyone from Antonio Banderas to Anthony Hopkins. Okay so just guys named Tony... never mind. 

1973 Legendary Playwright Neil Simon marries the then little-known actress Marsha Mason, who is acting in his Broadway production "The Good Doctor" just months after his first wife's death. Mason's screen career takes off the very next year with an Oscar nomination for Cinderella Liberty. Then she & Simon make films together that Oscar really loves for the next decade like Goodbye Girl, Only When I Laugh, and Chapter Two... 

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