SUMMER INDOORS, NOT OUTDOORS.
SUMMER INDOORS, NOT OUTDOORS.
As summer draws near, I thought I would use the season as inspiration for the blog. I’ve picked out a selection of films I think are good viewing, and not typically summer fare. Therefore, the films make for a more rewarding watch. Of the selection some are classics, a few are independent, some have been critically disliked, and others are in a league of their own. But they all take place during the Summer, with the season having a direct effect on the context of the events in the films.
Anyway, let’s look at movies.
MIDSOMMAR (2019)
Midsommar is the new film from visionary film-maker Ari Aster, who is best known for his excellent debut Hereditary.
The films story is threadbare and follows troubled student Dani Ardor (Florence Pugh), who happens to be traumatized after the death of her parents and sister, as she joins her friends for a trip to an obscure festival in Sweden which occurs every ninety years.
Little does she know the festival is really a twisted cult which practices ritualistic slaughter, burnings, and orgies.
Midsommar has shades of traditional slasher horror with an art-house twist. The film is visually stunning, atmospheric, and is overall very powerful. Unfortunately, the films narrative is a little distant and the tone of the film slightly unsteady in places; the film is equal parts stunning and repulsive. There is some unnecessary toilet humour in places, some particularly disturbing sequences which I personally felt were done in poor taste, and the whole film has a trippy drug induced feel to it.
The films visual power, the direction and particularly the score are spot on however the film does lack narrative drive, however.
Many critics have compared the film to 'The Wicker Man'. I never made this comparison in the way they did. The setting and visual motifs are certainly similar to 'The Wicker Man' but we are talking apples and oranges in terms of the two films structurally. The character of Dani and the nature of her character and the sexual dynamics/tension between herself and her boyfriend do evoke similarities to themes shared in 'The Wicker Man'. In the sense, the characters in both films sort of pay the ultimate price for their repressed feelings, and are lured astray due in part to such repressed feelings, but in Midsommar these dynamics are turned completely around with the female character given a degree of empowerment and ultimately releasing her repressed anger in the form of revenge on her boyfriend in the films conclusion. He is burnt alive, and she is the may queen. However; there is an element of justification for her feelings; she is a woman scorned and he is the cause.
But the film is smarter than that, and Dani's situation feels ultimately like a violence fuelled cathartic release, and a necessary solution to her internal pain. Her parents and sister are involved in a brutal suicide in the films opening segment, so in many ways such a hideous situation would require an equally unpleasant substitute. There is just no escaping this aspect to human psychology and the film plays loosely on these truths.
The fact that these events take place outside of her home country further suggest she is seeking a solution that fundamentally could never occur at home: Troubled young women can't burn men alive here, unfortunately.
The location supposedly somewhere in Sweden (Budapest for shooting) isn't relevant. This is a cathartic journey for Dani and the location is dreamy and surreal.
All this being said, the film does buckle under the weight of its own concept, but only just. It needed to have tighter narrative, and the tone is unbalanced in places. The film succeeds when it is focusing on the character of Dani and her plight, but often shifts focus to the commune/sect, and these characters are underwritten and dull.
There is sequence early on in the film involving two elderly members of the cult, and I found it somewhat distasteful and it made me feel sick. This film thematically felt very similar to Hereditary; the films set design, disturbing tone, off-beat undercurrent, and its particularly cold and unpleasant ending felt like a repeat of the themes present in Hereditary. Obviously, a director’s style is often unmistakable, but this wasn’t as original as Hereditary but equally as powerful.
The film is a good 2 hours and half, and there is some unnecessary exposition in the screenplay.
The films greatest strengths lie in its visual power, but even this is questionable in the film’s latter half. For instance, There is a visually unappealing sex scene that features lots of unattractive obese naked women, and a man's naked penis, plus an accidentally funny sequence where a character is placed inside bear carcass and burnt alive. I came out of the film feeling queasy, so it is a powerful work.
Midsommar started life as a typical slasher movie before it was optioned to director Ari Aster who shifted the focus of the story onto the tension/problems between Dani and her boyfriend. It is in this latter capacity that the film does evoke 1974's The Wicker Man, though in spirit only. Right from the offset Dani is considered a girlfriend who doesn't like sex by her peers, and these relationship dynamics serve as a toxic catalyst for what will follow when they arrive at the cult. Ari Aster has such a distinct visual style, almost so much that it overpowers the narrative, which is essentially giving me a different message to that which he is supposedly trying to convey.
There was mean spirited somewhat self-indulgent atmosphere created visually in some instances, which was occasionally tedious, and in some places just plain unpleasant. Yet in others it was stunningly beautiful and surreal.
Overall, it is a good film, often fascinating, unpleasant and very beautiful in equal measure, with a standout performance from actress Florence Pugh, but if you've not seen Hereditary, you need to watch it before you see Midsommar in my opinion.
Point Break (1991)
FBI agent Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) gets called on to a case involving bank robbers who are known as the dead presidents, known for wearing masks bearing the likenesses of former American presidents. After much investigation he has a theory that the bank robbers may or may not be surfers, prompting him to go undercover and find out more.
Point Break appeared in theatres in the early 1990’s introduced audiences to an intelligent action – drama, which combined an aestheticization of bank robberies and extreme sports. Point Break glamourized its characters in a blatant way. What film doesn't?
Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze were a handsome pairing and crucial to the film’s success, something the remake failed to understand: the film was unwatchable but by golly were the two leads visually unappealing.
Beneath the glamour of surfing and overtly masculine fetishization of the male surfers, there lies a story about two men. Men whose main drive in life is to push life to the limits. Johnny Utah finds something of a kindred spirit in Bodhi, played by the late Patrick Swayze. Both men are driven by the same impulses, but one of them is constrained by his role as an FBI agent, but the other doesn’t appear to have any constraints at all, and ultimately appears conflicted with his very existence.
Point Break isn't exactly about surfing at all, even though it has surfing in it.
The centre of the film is about identity and feeling conflicted with your identity. The nature of extreme sports in the film has a direct relationship with death in this instance, and Patrick Swayze’s character Bodhi is on a romanticized path of self-destruction.
The bank robberies are clearly being done for an adrenaline kick, not necessarily a cash incentive, and the film concludes with Bodhi disappearing into the stormy seas on his surfboard, rather than facing prison. So, it's a romanticized conclusion.
A remake arrived in recent years which exsanguinated all the subtext out of the original. Asking the question: What was the point?
The Talented Mr Ripley (1999)
The Talented Mr Ripley (1999) is a handsome and intelligent film based on the novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith.
It tells the story of Tom Ripley (Matt Damon), a psychotic but very deviant and intelligent man, who weaves his way into millionaire playboy Dickie Greenleaf’s (Jude Law) life, with some unpleasant repercussions.
Like most of Patricia Highsmith’s work, the story has some ambiguous homoerotic overtones and subtext.
This may or may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s set during the Summer and looks great, and the film is excellent. However, it is dark and disturbing, and the character of Tom Ripley, though charming, is quite unpleasant. Also, I’d recommend the film adaptation of ‘The Two Faces of January’ which is also based on a Patricia Highsmith novel, and reminds me stylistically of this film.
SUMMER OF SAM
‘Evil spelled backwards is Live.’ ~ Ritchie, Summer of Sam
Summer of Sam was made by Spike Lee and includes a starry cast including Adrien Brody, Mira Sorvino, John Leguizamo and John Turturro.
It’s a back-handed love letter to 1970’s Italian America set very loosely around the serial killer who called himself the ‘Son of Sam’ – despite the title. The ‘Son of Sam’ murders are used as a catalyst for the drama, which is slightly tongue in cheek, with a darkly comic tone.
The film is not making light of the Son of Sam murders, but, rather, it is highlighting the hysteria that takes places during so called 'serial-killer' rampages, something that still occurs in society right to present day.
Spike Lee is a very talented filmmaker. He is slightly hit & miss though, and sometimes he is so keen to put his personal message across that the initial message of the film can become clouded. But I'd sooner a filmmaker has something to say, than doesn't.
It doesn’t quite achieve what it sets out to, but it’s a respectable effort and deserves praise for trying something new.
Sleepaway Camp (1983)
Sleepaway Camp is a 1983 cult classic, carrying a respectable 80% on rotten tomatoes.
Young but traumatized teenager Angela Baker (Felissa Rose) is sent to a youth camp for the Summer, but doesn’t really fit in. Later, some deaths occur at the camp and Angela may, or may not be what she seems…
This is a great and nostalgic 1980’s camp horror film set during the Summer and contains one of the most politically incorrect endings – especially by today’s standards – in film history and it’s all the better for it.
It is films of this ilk that got me interested in cinema to begin with. These 1980’s well crafted, stylistically formulaic, and politically incorrect, tongue-in-cheek horror films set at Summer Camps.
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
1997 was a great year for film, and a great year in time. I Know What You Did Last Summer tells the story of four friends involved in a tragic car accident, who then embark on covering it up, only to be stalked by a man wielding a large hook.
The film features actresses Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), a young Ryan Phillipe and Freddie Prinze Jnr.
I Know What You Did Last Summer, was written by Kevin Williamson, who was very prolific in the late 1990’s and had a particular style and ability to craft horror films which estheticized youth whilst simultaneously offering a very subtle- post-modernist – tongue in cheek edge.
Kevin Williamson came straight off the back of Dawson’s Creek success with film credits including; Scream, Scream 2 and Halloween H20. They are all self-referential horror films- especially the Scream series. A year after Scream he penned ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’, which was based on a novel by Lois Duncan. It’s cut from the same cloth as Scream in its style, but it’s nowhere near as intelligent, almost deliberately so.
I Know What You Did Last Summer is a fun, popcorn flick, that moves along smoothly, but loses its way in the last half hour. That being said, it is very stylish, and is certainly not to be overlooked in the league of great 1990's horror films.
Horror cinema gives people the opportunity to explore their subconscious fears and insecurities over life and death, in safe way. It does this by taking in the themes present in such creations as the original Halloween, and the subsequent films that have borrowed from it or indeed, been inspired by it. A new Halloween film is set for release on October 19, 2018 which will ignore all the sequels and pick up some 40 years later from the original.
THE LAST SONG
The Last Song features actress and singer Miley Cyrus as troubled teenager Ronnie, who re-establishes a relationship with her musician father after a period of estrangement
The film is based on the novel of the same name by Nicolas Sparks, and has his style all over it.
This film is severely underrated, with Miley Cyrus doing an excellent job. Casting a real musician was a smart move that added layers to the film and its authenticity.
It’s unfortunate she’s not returned to drama, as I feel the negative press attention at the time was inaccurate in judgement of her performance as an actress and, indeed, the quality of this film.
As of this month, Miley Cyrus will appear in the new 5th series of Black Mirror.
The Last Song is a melodrama with a bittersweet ending and tone – Nicolas Sparks signature style – and the film delivers what it sets out too.
The soundtrack includes the excellent Miley Cyrus song 'When I Look at You'.
LOLITA (1997/1962)
Lolita was made by director Adrian Lyne, and starred actor Jeremy Irons as Professor Humbert Humbert and actress Dominique Swain as Dolores Haze, known as Lolita.
It is based on the novel by Vladimir Nabokov – a much loved and respected work which is culturally regarded as one of the most important and powerful novels ever written.
1997’s Lolita is an interesting film, especially when compared to its predecessor, as it received a theatrical adaptation in 1962 starring actress Sue Lyon, which was masterfully directed by Stanley Kubrick, and had a screenplay written by Vladimir Nabokov himself.
Yet the two films could not be more different. Why?
I think director Stanley Kubrick got lucky with the casting of actress Sue Lyon who just epitomised the role of Lolita, and the chemistry between herself and actor James Mason, who played Humbert Humbert, just isn’t matched here.
The 1997 film feels distant and is emotionally uninvolved. I personally think the Stanley Kubrick version is the better of the two, and an important work of cinema in itself, but Adrian Lyne's version has a lot going for it, not least some breath-taking sun-lit cinematography from Howard Atherton and a score by Ennio Morricone.
The novel and indeed the character of Lolita have more in common with male insecurities, disillusionment and unorthodox desires, with the character of Lolita just playing on this and taking the very educated and intelligent professor to the cleaners, not least with help from equally devious, and twisted character of Clare Quilty.
Adrian Lyne’s version tries to be more faithful to the novel, but just doesn’t capture the chemistry between the lead actors which was present in Kubrick’s version, and this is a death knell for any adaptation of Lolita.
Vladimir Nabokov's screenplay is a much thinner, loose adaptation of his own novel. Despite being one of the greatest writers of all time, his screenplay isn't particularly sharp. Like with all Stanley Kubrick films, Stanley Kubrick puts his own spin on the material visually with his own trademark style. Director Adrian Lyne has tried to be more faithful to the original book, but he too has his own inescapable style, and his style ultimately gets the better of him, as he slowly lets Vladimir Nabokov's characters slip into the background, whilst his own style takes centre stage.
The original 1962 Stanley Kubrick film was a big deal upon release, and the poster ran on the tagline 'Could they ever make a film of Lolita'. Truth be told, I don't think they can. Both of these films, in my opinion, say more about Kubrick and Adrian Lyne than they do Vladimir Nabokov.
There are nuances of the book in both films and, of course, the basic story structure is there, but there is something absent in both adaptations. There is a lack of raw intensity and emotion that is present in the source material. Either way, these are fun movies, and the Kubrick version is just as iconic today as on its 1962 release. It has become a sort of snap-shot of 1960's Americana and it's one my personal favourites.
Furthermore, Dolores Haze or Lolita is the character with the power & influence, and Humbert Humbert is the vulnerable subordinate character in the story.
I think those unfamiliar with Lolita tend to assume it is the reverse or have a mind set in general that such fictional stories represent a vulnerable character in Lolita. The key thing here is Lolita's age. People assume that because Lolita is quite young, and Humbert Humbert is old, that she is more vulnerable, and not without her own choices.
Societally, the world tends to reflect this notion, but in reality, if anything, you're much sharper biologically and quick off the mark when you're younger in terms of emotional decisions. As we get older, we become wiser and more knowledgeable, but in youth are reactions are quicker organically.
I respect the 1997 attempt to bring Lolita to the big screen. It's a tough work to bring the cinema and it was an admirable attempt. I still think the best adaptation is yet to be made.
The source material, despite being considered amongst best novels ever written and or the most important, was and still is somewhat controversial.
The subject matter herein is something society wrestles with; just the notion of a middle-aged man giving way to a teenage girl and following his impulses has become or is unorthodox. In the novel and clearly in the film Lolita is particularly attractive. I put to you the idea that if the character of Lolita was grotesquely ugly and deformed yet still a teenage girl if the moral conduct would still be deemed unacceptable and or be recognised so vehemently as such. In the story of Lolita, Lolita is a male fantasy and within the context of the fiction she is the embodiment of middle-aged insecurity. In the sense, the ageing Humbert Humbert clearly finds some kind of solace in the company of somebody considerably younger and not somebody considerably older. She represents youth in and of itself, and this concept of yearning to be young again when you are old is rooted in the human condition. We by our very nature seek out that which we want ourselves to be, and in the later stages of life, most of humanity wishes to be young. This is a just a fact, not an opinion. Nobody wants to keep getting older and older, but we do. We essentially gradually decompose, but society calls this ageing, in order to sell face creams.
Unfortunately, and bizarrely, this has become unorthodox to speak about. This is because it is an ugly unpleasant reality that we grow old and die, and to speak of it this way goes against the romanticised doctrine that we must grow old gracefully and there is grace and dignity in a life well lived and eventually death. But there isn’t really at all. Is there? A good lesson to learn in life is that if you ever do anything or say anything that creates negative attention, you are usually breaking down a societal norm or convention, and throughout history dispelling conventions has allowed us to move forward as a society. In other words, if you get bad feedback, your doing something right. They only praise you if you are subordinate and follow the status quo.
Some may interpret expects to the story of Lolita and the film as exploitative, but this is the problem in and of itself. It is something societally that has been labelled as it were, and labels are hard to shift. I can't make a judgement on peoples choices and especially people I do not know. I can't begin to get inside somebody else's motivations or mind.
Incidentally, the promotional photographs taken by Marilyn Monroe photographer Bert Stern are highly sort after and some of the original photographs went up for auction recently, along with the Marilyn Monroe sets.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/jun/30/bert-stern
The Florida Project (2017)
The Florida Project came courtesy of American director Sean Baker, and starred new actress Bria Vinaite. It tells the story of a struggling single mother who stays with her 6-year-old daughter, Moonee (Brooklyn Kimberly Prince), in a motel in Kissimmee, Florida.
This film was the best film of 2017 and should have won Best Picture at the 2018 Oscars, but unfortunately wasn’t nominated in this category. Although actor Willem Dafoe was nominated for Best Supporting actor for his role as motel manager Bobby Hicks.
There is a natural understanding of cinema present here, and the film captures that all important, and extremely difficult to capture sense of reality. You know you’re watching a good film, when the dialogue flows naturally and the script doesn’t enter your mind.
The narrative present in The Florida Project doesn’t really leave the confines of the motel setting, nor does it need to. The film covers issues surrounding poverty, inequality, vicious circles, and indeed over-inflated living costs, which are more than enough food for thought.
Either way, this is very eye-opening work, doesn’t have a pretentious bone in its body, and tells its story with respect, and style, and even manages to add a truly inspired ending involving Disney Land.
The Florida Project just told a believable story well, and I really enjoyed it.
HALLOWEEN H20
1998's Halloween H20 is set 20 years after the events of the first movie and ignores the continuity of the sequels, plus it's set in the Summer, in California.
Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is now a headmistress at a nice private school, Hillcrest Academy, in California. She has a son called John (Josh Harnett) who attends the school, along with his friends including Molly (played by Dawson Creek's Michelle Williams).
Rather than go on the Summer school trip to Yosemite with the rest of the students, John and his friends throw a party on campus, but, unbeknownst to them, Laurie's unstable brother, Michael, will be joining them.
Halloween H20 was directed by Steve Miner who had a background in horror movies, and it shows.
This is the strongest sequel to date, is littered with references to classic horror films and the original Halloween, and at the time, captured the spirit of those self-referential aesthetic driven 90's teen slasher movies that got started after Wes Craven's Scream.
Halloween H20 takes its time building up Laurie Strode's backstory and introduces its characters well. The cast look great and have strong chemistry.
Many of the film’s references are visual, and it’s a 90's version of a 1980's stalk and slash film. The film enters a formulaic form once Michael has entered the school, and it's all the better for it. This is the way it should be in these types of horror movies.
Halloween H20 is briskly paced, stylish, menacing, feels like it’s been made by someone who knows horror, and concludes nicely.
The film is not particularly gory at all, but the scenes involving Michael Myers are harrowing and stylishly executed, a sign of filmmakers who understand horror. The other sequels failed in many ways, but not least in the way they used cheap shock tactics to drag the story out using poorly executed gore scenes.
The sequels overlooked traditional slasher movie tropes and got bogged down in some truly dreary overly complicated melodrama. Halloween H20 builds on an awkward relationship Laurie Strode has formed with another middle-aged teacher, and then Michael Myers just shuts it straight down in the films third act. Despite the violence, you're relieved as it breaks the on-screen tension, and in a sick way this situation has some cathartic release for Laurie Strode. She's too damaged to form a relationship with a man. This is made quite obvious from the films first half.
Horror film fans would expect her boyfriend to go first as the horror film teaches us that extremes in fiction represent the only solution out of toxic human relations. In horror, this is represented as death or murder. Ultimately, Laurie Strode breaks the final tension, though with reluctance, by decapitating her brother with an axe. Her story line is concluded, and she can move on with her life.
Beautiful.
This isn't just a good story line for Halloween H20. This is traditional slasher horror, and made by somebody who respects it, and understands John Carpenter's original film.
Horror cinema, and particularly Halloween, deals with life and death, and beauty and death.
H20 is the strongest sequel since the original films release. It isn't a masterpiece, but it's a strong work of horror cinema, and more importantly, a strong franchise sequel, which is extremely rare occurrence in the course of a 100 years of horror cinema, where the genre follows the rules of diminishing returns.
Even the way Michael Myers is portrayed and the actor chosen are spot on. There was a very distinct quality drop in the fourth, fifth and sixth, and eighth instalments, in the way Michael Myers is portrayed. The physicality is missing in the aforementioned films and the mask looks like a piece of cheap rubber with scissor cut holes in it (I believe, but don't quote me, that this was in part due to rights issues held by John Carpenter; his original score certainly wasn't used, but I'm not sure about the reasoning surrounding the change of mask).
H20 just sticks to the originals roots, but borrows many themes and is clearly influenced by elements from Halloween 2, a film I think has little merit, but nonetheless has a few decent moments.
Horror cinema has always been very stylish going back to The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, to Nosferatu to Cat People to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, so in my opinion, style should come first, then script, and then delivery. Franchise sequels tend to undermine horror cinema by just crafting something as quick cash-in, and Halloween went from being amongst the most eye catching, iconic, and memorable horror films of the 1970's to leaving a by-the-numbers legacy of unremarkable movies. For franchise horror cinema to succeed, it must respect the original source film and horror movie law.
Not all horror film franchises suffer this fate, Ridley Scott's Alien did more than produce a string of decent sequels. It acted as a catalyst to change the way we viewed science fiction horror cinema.
Rather than just move forward from the original film, the sequels would contain the original film's DNA and would essentially evolve as they went along. Things got really interesting with prequel Prometheus, but this genius idea of a new series was short-lived with a dreary follow up Alien: Covenant, a film that essentially sacrifices all the ideas that its predecessor built on so well on.
As for Halloween, the most recent instalment Halloween (2018) is a step back in the right direction, but only just. I was disappointed with it. It was well shot, stylish, and the interpretation of Michael Myers was worthwhile, but the script and story was unremarkable and strained, and amongst the worst stories in the series save Rob Zombie's ego trips and the cheap, rushed, studio knock off Halloween: Resurrection.
That being said, it had provided a decent foundation for further sequels, which have potential with new script-writers, as the direction is fine, and take on Myer's is fine.
Halloween is a benchmark in horror genre, and it created a formula, a set of rules, that needs to be respected and understood. The first sequel, Halloween 2, just took the basic structure of Halloween and cut and pasted it together as a film. The following sequels tried to introduce a dire mythology and a tawdry dialogue heavy narrative. Halloween H20 went back to basics and made a great movie as a result.
The series is still going strong with the most recent aforementioned film released in 2018, but either way, the horror film genre succeeds when it goes back to its roots and franchise horror films need to take a note of this excellent sequel.
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SLASHER FILMS.
Midsommar started life as a traditional slasher horror film on paper, as a concept and initial screenplay, and it is not at all uncommon for slasher films to show a symbolic and metaphorical relationship concerning repressed feelings, in these instances they are usually sexual. We see this very clearly in John Carpenter's Halloween and the complex relationship between Michael Myers and Laurie Strode, and the uncomfortable brother/sister bond that results in any number of bodies piling up in suburbia, but she always seems get away. One is essentially being governed by the other, but neither fictional character is fully aware of it.
Wes Craven's Scream would take it full circle and introduce the real elephant in the room, which would be us - horror film fans. We are in and of ourselves viewing what we want to view...a masked man staking women and butchering them. Scream's characters would be horror film fans themselves, and they would essentially carry out or re-enact principle themes of a traditional slasher film, but everyone on the screen would be in denial as to why and who or most importantly why. It was a really smart idea that was nice whilst it lasted.
Midsommar is channelling themes present in 'The Wicker Man' but slasher horror is first and foremost in its DNA. It is because in spirit, like Hereditary, it stays true to horror film law whilst adding something completely original that it works. So many new horror films just ignore traditional horror or that which has come before it, and create something that just can't stand alone by itself. That would be a re-invention and we have yet to find a film-maker capable of that at this point in time.
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Conclusion
With exception of the ‘The Florida Project’, most of these films were released over a decade ago. But what makes them stand out? For me there are lots of reasons, but I think casting is extremely important.
Actors and actresses learn their craft and hope that they might have a sum of many qualities which will ultimately get them a role in a film. But I’ve noticed in recent years, too many new and young actors in box-office breaking films appear almost synthetic on the screen, and lacking charisma and natural acting talent.
In a quite disturbing sense, I think you could capture more emotion from a CGI human creation – the role is filled, but the on-screen presence isn’t. Good cinema is like mixing paint. You try lots of assorted colours until you get the right tone. But in this artificial sense the film or the paint is coming pre-packaged in one consumerist colour, and it has got to switch up.
Lower working-class actors and actresses are not getting into Hollywood without great hardship and this has to change. If we select actors based on who their parents are, their income level, or associations with Ivy League Universities alone we will have dead lifeless cinema for many generations to come.
You have to blend your cast, as you do any place of work or industry. Encouraging a diverse selection of people from all walks of life into any place of business creates a dynamic, healthy and diverse society that will prosper not fail.
The longer we close the doors. The longer society will break apart and look towards alternatives for a system that is failing them at every corner.
Anyway, recent blockbusters including some just this month have done quite poorly at the US box-office, and many of the mainstream media outlets have spoken of box-office fatigue. I think it’s a lack of substance in the films. People aren’t buying what they’re selling.
For film reviewers and people like myself who want to discuss film, how can you contextualise something if it’s destined to be moulded to fit the highest place on the box-office ladder, let alone review or discuss the film critically?
Final words of wisdom...
Make your film with passion and context and if it’s any good, it will find its audience – no doubt about it – and its actors and actresses will find their audiences too.
So, break down the tired convention of sunbathing or spending too much time in the Sun, which I believe is extremely unhealthy, dries you up inside and out, and watch a film indoors from this list, away from the sun's destructive rays.
