Infinity Links... "a fun filled year of lensing"

Esquire cool interview with the director of John Wick: Chapter 2, a former stuntman
Stage Buddy on a new book about the immortal classic Casablanca
Vox an excellent piece on AMC's Humans and how it differs from HBO's similarly AI themed but wildly different Westworld  
NYT Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy to return to the stage 
Indie Wire Tulip Fever gets pushed back AGAIN even though it was supposed to open in less than two weeks
Silver Screening Room on the Adapted Screenplay race of 1976 for reasons I dont know but I enjoyed 

More after the jump including Avengers Infinity War...

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Nevertheless, She Tweeted

Happy weekend!

#BestActressEdition pic.twitter.com/15aff4kXcm

— Nathaniel Rogers (@nathanielr) February 8, 2017

It's not exactly surprising that The Film Experience would feel inspired by Best Actresses but that's just what happened with the latest meme. And a Best Actress nominee even retweeted it so we should all feel inspired to resist and persist together, onscreen and off. After the jump amusing inspiring or curious tweets of the week including tweets on Beauty and the Beast, Hidden Figures, La La Land, Elle and more...

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Tweetweek

It's time for a quick collection of amusing or interesting tweets of the week, some gallows humor too because that's how things are now. After the jump Kong Skull Island, Ashton Sanders from Moonlight, JK Rowling being the best, and more...

this picture of dev patel is so HD you can zoom in and literally see the flaws he doesn't have pic.twitter.com/i5q9VBIJMl

— loise (@mahershalaaIi) January 30, 2017

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Watching "The Man in The High Castle" As Democracy Crumbles

by Deborah Lipp

It’s possible that The Man in the High Castle was born to drive us all insane. It’s possible that Philip K. Dick dropped a lot of acid, looked into the future, saw our current political situation, and sent The Man in the High Castle to try to save us. It’s also possible I have been watching too much cable news. 

The Man in the High Castle is the second-best show on Amazon Prime. Based on the 1962 novel by renowned mind-bender (and acid-dropper) Philip K. Dick (who brought us Blade Runner and Total Recall), the show depicts an alternate history, in which Germany and Japan won World War II, and divided the US between themselves. Our characters take us inside both the Japanese and German regimes, as well as inside the resistance movement operating against each. 

I am watching a TV show about resistance movements. My Facebook feed says “resist”. The “RESIST” sign in Washington Square Park, protesting on behalf of Muslim immigrants, glowed in the dark. Resist...

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Farhadi Isn't Coming to the Oscars. Go See "The Salesman" in Solidarity

As we've previously noted briefly, the leading actress of The Salesman was not coming to the Oscars in protest of  T****'s unconstitutional and immoral ban on Muslims entering the US. Now the great Iranian director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation) will not be attending the Oscars either. The ban has created chaos around the world and the awards show plans of filmmakers is, of course, low on the totem pole of injustices. But still, this sucks. When I spoke with Farhadi about The Salesman in December, he spoke fondly of the Oscar experience and how international it felt, sharing the experience with the other nominees.

Farhadi released a beautifully articulate damning statement which reads in part:

Hardliners, despite their nationalities, political arguments and wars, regard and understand the world in very much the same way. In order to understand the world, they have no choice but to regard it via an “us and them” mentality, which they use to create a fearful image of “them” and inflict fear in the people of their own countries.

This is not just limited to the United States; in my country hardliners are the same. For years on both sides of the ocean, groups of hardliners have tried to present to their people unrealistic and fearful images of various nations and cultures in order to turn their differences into disagreements, their disagreements into enmities and their enmities into fears. Instilling fear in the people is an important tool used to justify extremist and fanatic behavior by narrow-minded individuals.

Speaking truth to power. Every word of that is exactly right.