Welcome to "Atlanta"

by Kieran Scarlett

The city of Atlanta, for as richly vibrant and complicated as it is, for how many different television shows and movies are shot there has surprisingly never been rendered on screen in a wholly honest way.  It could be the zombie apocalypse laden landscape of “The Walking Dead,” where the embellishments are forgiven given the subject matter. Then there’s the curiously all-white fantasy in Mother’s Day, a movie that hardly needed to take place in Atlanta making it all the more galling. And of course there’s the glossy, sitcom nightmare-scape version of Atlanta as told by Tyler Perry, where the villains are dark-skinned businessmen and the heroes are light-skinned blue collars with rippling muscles and bad lace-front cornrow wigs.

It’s a much more complicated city, a blue dot in a red state. It's also one of the blackest cities in America (RIP Garry Marshall but you knew you were wrong for that) replete with its own internal conflicts of race, class art and culture. It’s viewed as a sort of Southern Mecca for young black artists—a burdensome reputation for a city to carry where dreams and aspirations can fizzle just as easily, if not more so than they can flourish. In just two half-hour episodes, Donald Glover’s “Atlanta,” which premiered on FX earlier this week actually comes the closest to capturing a recognizably authentic Atlanta, clearly birthed by his own experience living in the city...

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TIFF: "Apprentice," a Painful Executioner's Song

Nathaniel R reporting from the Toronto International Film Festival

 Fine movies nearly always have a specific point of view, whether that's through a polished screenplay, unusually commanding performance, or auteurial voice. In the case of Apprentice, a new drama set almost entirely in a maximum security prison, that POV is subjective, even literal on occasion. We're experiencing the story through the eyes and feelings, however repressed, of a young Malay corrections officer named Aiman (Fir Rahman). Aiman has started a new position in the rehab unit of the prison before drifting, from what seems like instinctual curiousity, towards the jail's hangman Rahim (Wan Hanafi Su), who seems from a distance callous about his job, deploying gallows humor at lunch. Rahim takes a liking to the young oddly serious man and soon he's teaching him the literal ropes -- hanging being the method of execution in Singapore. Naturally it's more complicated that that as the hangman requests a transfer for the young man to become his apprentice and as we get closer to Aiman, we're forced to rethink our first impressions of him.

His interest in the executioner is less a curiousity than an inexorable pull from his own painful past... 

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First Clip for Pablo Larraín's "Jackie" Shows A Woman Under Her Own Influence

Any fears that Pablo Larraín would smooth over the poised spikiness of his Chilean features in order to make a more palatable English language debut were put to rest this week with a rapturous Venice reception for his Jackie, with reviews especially singling out Natalie Portman’s performance as the eponymous First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. For those salivating to see Portman in mid-Atlantic action ahead of the film’s as yet undecided release date, the first clip from the film surfaced quickly thereafter. Jackie follows its heroine through the immediate wake of her husband’s assassination and, in this clip, she slyly pulls the rug out from under LBJ liason Jack Valenti (yes, that Jack Valenti of MPAA fame) in regards to her public role in JFK's funeral arrangements.

One of my favorite aspects of Larraín’s filmmaking is the thick coat of unsaid tension he can paint across a dialogue scene through precisely punctuated edits between polite adversaries – think of the moral ignitions within the living room interviews in The Club – and this scene exhibits that skill in spades. His eye for period detail and hazy texture translate beautifully; there’s a plywood stuffiness to the yesteryear political interiors of No’s production design that appear in this White House, as well. And as for Portman? She reminds us that Jackie’s purr didn’t just belong to a docile house cat but a ferocious lion that knows right when to corner and pounce. Make her my ringtone.

What do you make of this first look at Natalie Portman’s Jackie Kennedy? 

Reasons Why Rachel Weisz is in "The Light Between Oceans"

by Murtada

Mild Spoilers, proceed with caution.

The Light Between Oceans opened this past weekend to OK reviews (including a positive one from Nathaniel). But as I sat watching Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander fall in love, I was waiting for Rachel Weisz. And I kept waiting. She appears very late in the film and even then her character is still secondary to the main narrative. So I tried to imagine why would Weisz take this part. Why would she play second fiddle to an up-and-comer (Vikander wasn’t well known when this was shot almost 2 years ago).

And actually there a few good reasons: 

• Shooting in gorgeous New Zealand. Besides the knitwear, the locations are the most breathtakingly beautiful thing in Light. Weisz never actually makes it to the lighthouse, but the quaint town where her character is ensconced has beauty to spare.

• Deepening her relationship with Derek Cianfrance. Apparently an early iteration of Blue Valentine (2010) was supposed to star Weisz and Jeremy Renner. It fell through because of financing woes.

• Sharing scenes with Michael Fassbender. What an actor, what a man. Maybe Weisz was shown pictures of him in period undershirts - his best look in the movie - and that's why she signed on. 

Three very good reasons (besides liking the story and the part). Have you seen Light yet? And could you imagine Blue Valentine without Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling? 

5 Wishes for the Production Design Emmys

By Daniel Walber.

The Emmys can be, for lack of a better word, boring. Television is in a "Golden Age," or so everyone says, but its Academy has a tendency to reward the same shows every year. This phenomenon doesn’t only happen at the top of the ticket, either. Game of Thrones has been as much of a mainstay in tech categories as Modern Family was in Best Comedy Series.

And so, rather than fully handicapping the five production design races, I’d like to share some more modest hopes for this year’s winners. Here are some selections from my favorite work in the category, regardless of the odds.

Outstanding Production Design for a Narrative Contemporary or Fantasy Program (One Hour or More)

This is the Game of Thrones category, and it’ll probably stay that way. That said, I find the work on Penny Dreadful a lot more intriguing, at least for this season. 

 In just one episode, “Evil Spirits in Heavenly Places,” there are at least three sets worthy of recognition. The work so lavish that one wonders if it was canceled because it was too expensive...

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