Lunch with Amandla and Russell

by Murtada Elfadl

At a lunch to celebrate The Hate U Give at The Whitby Hotel in midtown New York, I got the chance to chat with the film’s stars Amandla Stenberg and Russell Hornsby about the film and their performances.

During the Q&A portion of the luncheon Amandla told the audience about how she read the book early on and pursued the project because it really spoke to her. So when I had a moment to speak to her later, I asked her what other ideas would she like to push forward with her upcoming projects. She informed me that she’s taking her time with a project she’s working on as a writer and director. However she also wanted to share the truth on screen:

I would love to be in a narrative that was not heteronormative where I don’t have to play straight where I could express myself  with authenticity.

As we discussed on a recent podcast, Russell Hornsby has the very difficult task of having to spell out the themes of The Hate U Give in a few speeches he gives to his onscreen children. In particular I asked him about the speech in which he tells his kids about how to behave if ever stopped by the police. Hornsby talked about doing research but then discarding it to be in the moment and finding the truth in the scene:

I looked at Amandla, I looked at those kids and in every turn I was talking to my kids. It wasn’t Maverick, it was Russell talking to his children. This is a passionate honest moment for me as a father, trying to hold my emotions at bay because it hurts so much that I have to do this.

The Hate U Give is still playing in a few screens nationwide so there’s still time to catch these two amazing performances! 

A Prayer For Alessandro

by Jason Adams

There's a scene set at the three-quarter mark of Sebastián Lelio's film Disobedience (which I reviewed right here) that shatters me into a million jagged little pieces every single time I watch it. Alessandro Nivola's Orthodox character Dovid has just had a heated argument with his wife Esti (a fabulously good Rachel McAdams) in which she's admitted she loves Ronit (the also fabulously good Rachel Weisz), the daughter of the just deceased Rabbi who's returned home after running away to New York. Dovid is a spiritual leader himself, on track to replace the Rabbi, and he has endless duties to attend to this week of Shiva, or mourning. 

And so Dovid goes to meet with some mourners who've just come in to town for the eulogy service (the Hesped) who it turns out are the choir who will perform at the ceremony. And they sing. The film cuts to a wide-shot - Dovid standing with his back turned to us in the center of the room, surrounded by mourners in black, all facing him. As Nivola turns towards the camera, slowly it moves forward in on him and trains in on his face as the singers crescendo - Nivola keeps everything in this moment internalized; his face hardly moves. 

And its devastating. It's the sort of acting moment that doesn't tear it up in Oscar clips, but it's all the more powerful for its restraint - typical of Nivola's gorgeously low-key approach whenever he goes to bat; think back on his singing scene in Junebug as well. And it's why I'm going to spend this whole awards season shouting his name in the middle of any Best Supporting Actor conversations I come across. 

I keep reading that the Supporting Actor contest seems thin at the moment, before the Awards Contenders all roll down upon us from Toronto and the like - so who are you rooting for Supporting-Actor-wise out of the films we've already seen in 2018?

FYC: Michael Stuhlbarg for "Call Me By Your Name"

by Chris Feil

It’s the final day of Oscar voting before the nominations are announced before the nominations are announced on Tuesday January 23! Who knows if most Oscar voters have their nomination ballots in or not, but that doesn’t stop the rest of us from screaming last moment FYC hosannas for the procrastinators that mights be listening. My last minute plea would be for one performance that I find shocking to have received so little traction over the season: Michael Stuhlbarg in Call Me By Your Name...

Click to read more ...

All the Plummer in the World

Chris here. While we've been waiting for reactions on the big late year arrivals and potential Oscar players The Post and Phantom Thread, don't forget that we have another film yet to be seen: Ridley Scott's All the Money in the World. Though admittedly what we're anticipating here is if the film will arrive on time at all or not.

The film famously went back into reshoots last month to replace Kevin Spacey after several sexual assault revelations came to light regarding the actor. Scott had originally wanted Christopher Plummer for the role of J. Paul Getty, and now he's getting his wish - and sans the unfortunate looking makeup that shrowded Spacey. But by all reports, Scott will achieve the difficult casting overhaul and the film will open on schedule on December 22.

Which means all eyes will be mostly on Plummer as Getty and the potential for him to be a last-minute player in the Best Supporting Actor race. By the looks of the first footage, Plummer is a more chilling and formiddable presence than the glimpses we saw from Spacey. From the new trailer, what do you think of Plummer's chances?

Review: "Creed"

Our newest team member Chris Feil saw the latest in a long dormant franchise early. Here's his review - Editor

Making good on his mainstream sensibilities post-Fruitvale Station, Ryan Coogler returns with Rocky reboot/sequel/spin-off Creed. Born after his legendary father Apollo's death after an affair, Adonis (Michael B. Jordan) attempts to forge his own boxing path without the Creed namesake, recruiting his father's notorious opponent and comrade Rocky Balboa. Similarly, the film tries to have it both ways, attempting to be a sideways stand-alone film while borrowing heavily on the iconography of the original. It is a bit of a left turn for cinema's current trend of cut-and-paste nostalgia, giving Coogler's film a much needed edge for a tired genre, but cursing it with enormous shoes it falls short of filling.

If Fruitvale showed us anything about Ryan Coogler's potential, it was that he could both emotionally invest the audience with a charismatic subject and that he knew how to structure a film's most intense scenes for their maximum dramatic effect. These skills make him the perfect candidate for a mainstream actioner that pulls on the heartstrings, and Creed provides a solid larger platform for him to deliver those goods. Unfortunately still present is his diminished sense of confidence and clarity of vision in extended dialogue scenes, lending to an overall flabby structure. He knows what we want as audience and how to give it to us, but here he has a tricky time transitioning between story beats.

more...

Click to read more ...