Midnight Special Coda

Here's Murtada with a spoilery deconstruction of one scene in Midnight Special. 

The coda after the ending of Jeff Nichols’ Midnight Special is between two characters that are not the family at the center of this sci fi story. The interaction between Joel Edgerton and Adam Driver made me realize why the movie left me emotionally cold. I cared more about these peripheral characters than the main characters, or the story. At least for a minute or two...

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Posterized: Tom Hiddleston

Photography by Charlie GrayWelcome to Actors Month. We'll try to concentrate on the men for the next 30 days just for a change of pace. (Though obviously Actresses are never far from our hearts so we won't ignore them entirely).  So let's kick things off with Tom Hiddleston. I Saw the Light, a biopic of Hank Williams expands into over 700 theaters today. While I can't recommend the film which is DOA without any of its own energy or insight and contains every single rise and addictive fall trope from every music biopic ever produced.

BUT at least Tom gets to sing (every note in fact) and he has a fine voice so hopefully we'll hear it again in a future film?

The internet's ex-boyfriend (he's been replaced by Oscar Isaac we hear) has been famous for just five years now having risen to fame very quickly via Thor (2011) and his rendition of lying Loki. 

He has made 14 pictures. How many have you seen?

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Never felt so LIVE!

Filmed stage productions are becoming more and more common with The National Theatre in London finding great success streaming their high production shows across cinemas all over the world. Cinephiles and theatre goers are big overlap on the venn diagram. A live TV production seems like the next logical step. As recently reported, Aaron Sorkin’s play-turned-film A Few Good Men is getting the live TV treatment in 2017 on NBC. This follows in the successful footsteps of live musicals The Sound Of Music, Peter Pan, The Wiz and Grease but is certainly an ambitious task without the razzle dazzle of musicals or the tomfoolery of live comedy to smooth over the awkward edges live TV can contain.

Whilst these filmed non-musical stage productions have found success, particularly when big names are headlining, there is always something missing that makes in an incomparable experience to being in the theatre with them. By tailor making the work for at home audiences, this could be overcome. An Aaron Sorkin script seems the perfect vehicle. The pace of his scripts in the hands of a strong cast is edge of your seat viewing, and anyone familiar with his work on stage on screen will be excited by the prospect of seeing those character sparks fly live. There’s no word on cast yet, but so far NBC have (mostly) done a good job of casting their live productions, and have a particular knack for picking up and coming stars.

Should this prove fruitful, there’s an array of plays and films that could be all the more tantalising with the electricity of live performance. Let’s speculate after the jump on some other plays and even films that could make the transition after the jump...

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Too Spoilery, Too Soon?

How soon is too soon for spoilers?

It's hard to keep the lid on plot details of any film with instant reactions available on Twitter and spreading rapidly. You can try to avoid reading reviews and recaps, but what about the times that a film's marketing campaign gives away too much? It's frustrating to see any new trailer that foretells too much plot, but is it okay to be open with story beats if we've already had time to experience the film?

Recently, 10 Cloverfield Lane has been among the best at teasing us with what it had in store. It's very title alone suggests something more than meets the eye, but it's minimal trailers and posters never dipped more than a toe into the plot elements or scares in this pop-up mini-event movie. Announcing its presence a mere two months before release and never revealing much more was a bold and brave marketing risk that hopefully more studios will be willing to take in the future, for it paid off in spades for the viewing experience.

Less elusive, but still similarly slim on the plot, The Witch came out in February after a year on the festival circuit and a solid block of enticing pre-release materials. General audiences were only promised a chilling horror and remained unspoiled about how it would conclude. The film is getting another push this weekend (to 666 theatres) in the hopes of passing Ex Machina as distributor a24's highest grosser. If you haven't seen it yet, you're missing one of the best of the year thus far!

But to coincide with 10 Cloverfield Lane's international rollout and this final expansion for The Witch, there are a new poster and trailer that kick the bucket into full spoiler territory. If you haven't seen either yet and want to remain unspoiled, stop right here. MAJOR SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP...

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RPDR S8: Roller Boogie & The New Wave

Though we had planned to cover each episode of the constantly movie/pop culture referencing RuPaul's Drag Race it wasn't meant to be. We discussed episodes one and two of the eighth season and since we'll have to cover next week's Snatch Game challenge (mandatory) given both its celebrity impersonations AND the breaking news that it'll have a Madonna inspired runway (I died), let's catch up in brief...

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