Movie News and Discussion

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/1442655

Sequels are practically the lifeblood of Hollywood. Still, greenlighting a sequel to a four-decade-old movie is extraordinary. So when the legendary Mel Brooks reached out to Nick Kroll about fashioning a long-awaited “Part II” to the cult 1981 comedy “History of the World, Part I,” the “Big Mouth” creator was admittedly taken aback.

“It’s probably one of the most surreal things that’s ever happened not only in my career but in my life because he’s truly my hero and my biggest comedy influence,” Kroll says. “So if it had just been the call, it would’ve been a career highlight. But then, actually getting to work with him and make this show alongside him was just beyond anything I could have imagined.”

The original 20th Century Fox release featured story lines set during the Stone Age, the Roman Empire and the French Revolution, among other eras, with additional comedic bits (and musical numbers) thrown in for good measure. Fast-forward to 2020 and it’s clear the film’s narrative format was perfectly suited for the style of a contemporary sketch comedy television show — something right up Kroll’s alley after the success of 2013-15’s “The Kroll Show.”

But Kroll knew he’d need collaborators to cover a much wider canvas than what his Comedy Central series entailed. He first approached Wanda Sykes, who, as a lifelong Brooks fan, was a very fast yes. Screenwriters and comedians Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen came on board soon after for not only their on-screen talents but, notably, having a ton of experience with writers rooms.

“It was definitely the hardest thing we’d ever embarked on,” Barinholtz notes. “It had been a hot minute since I had been writing sketches. It had been pretty much since ‘Mad TV.’ And then you fall in love with the sketch world all over again.” A group of dancers in red, white and blue, 1970s disco era coordinated costumes.

Wanda Sykes as Shirley Chisholm in “History of the World Part 2” on Hulu.

( Tyler Golden / Hulu)

The writing process was spread out over three or four months of Zoom calls with a huge staff trying to figure out what worked, what didn’t and what could fit their production budget.

“We each had pet projects or pet story lines that we knew we wanted,” Kroll says. “I was interested in something around the Russian Revolution, Ike and Dave were interested in the Civil War, and Wanda was interested in Shirley Chisholm. And then, we thought the story of Jesus and Mary would be a great other big, tent-pole story, and then we would build out the rest from there.”

Once he signed off on the structure, Brooks started pitching jokes he had been sitting on for “literally decades.” For instance, Barinholtz knew he wanted to do a segment in which he’d play Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. He recalls, “We kind of said [to Brooks], ‘Yeah, well we have this Grant Civil War piece.’ And he goes, ‘Perfect. When Lee signs the treaty, he’ll turn over and his saber will hit all of his men in the nuts.’ And it’s just like, boom, there you go. That is in the show. He’s 96, but he’s still spry. You could pitch him something and he can think about it for a second and give you a really smart insight on that pitch.”

Sykes concurs, saying that keeping the show in Brooks’ comedic spirit was paramount. She notes, “We had to have his blessing and his approval, or we would’ve been idiots, really, and very arrogant and full of ourselves to think that, ‘Oh, we got this.’ No, no, no. I would always ask, ‘What did Mel say?’ This is his baby, and we would just all feel so honored to be that next generation to keep it going. I hope he’s still around and we can do some more.”

This was also a major opportunity for Sykes to play Chisholm, the first woman to run for a major party’s nomination for president of the United States, a moment the show captures by having Chisholm’s life play out as though it’s in the context of a Norman Lear ’70s sitcom. It was something the comedian had been trying to get off the ground for years.

“I’ve always wanted to do something about Shirley Chisholm, and my producing partner, Page Hurwitz, and I, we’ve always laughed about that,” Sykes says. “Because whatever we were talking about, I would say, ‘Yeah, and then I can play Shirley Chisholm.’ And she was like, ‘Wanda, really? Come on. It’s a cooking show.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, then I’ll do Shirley Chisholm’s favorite dishes.’ We got a kick out of that.”

Still, Sykes says the hardest nut to crack for any of their ideas was: “How do you make it Mel? How do you Mel it up?” One thing Kroll realized is that Brooks’ movies are funny first and foremost. While he’s engaged in social satire, he’s not terribly political and he was invariably silly. Kroll notes, “That became the guiding light for us as we figured out tonally what we wanted to do, and it really became always going back to that.”

Not only was Brooks involved creatively, but he also narrates the show. For Kroll, directing Brooks led to a number of “nerve-racking and titillating” sessions. Kroll recalls, “Him either being like, ‘Oh, that’s funny’ or, ‘No, no, that’s stupid’; either way you’re living on a razor’s edge. Or pitching him a joke. Truly the idea that I would ever pitch a joke to Mel Brooks and watch his head go back with a laugh is crazy to me.” As if posed at a conference, men in military and formal civilian costumes salute.

Even world leaders are not safe from satire in “History of the World, Part II.”

(Aaron Epstein /Hulu)

When it came to casting the approximately 300 roles for the series, the producers soon discovered they would have no problem recruiting familiar faces to take part. A who’s who of comedic talents including Quinta Brunson, Jack Black, Pamela Adlon, Josh Gad, Emily Ratajkowski, Seth Rogen and Kumail Nanjiani, to name just a few, stepped up for the chance to work in a Mel Brooks production.

“There were definitely people like Johnny Knoxville who called Nick the day it was announced and was, ‘Literally anything, whatever you are doing.’ Then there were so many people who we called, and it was just such an easy yes,” Barinholtz says. “Anyone who was available and in town said yes.”

After all the blood, sweat and laughs, critical approval was one thing, but viewers tuning in to such an old-school property was something else. In a pleasant surprise, “History of the World, Part II” was a hit for Hulu cracking the top 10 of Nielsen’s original programs streaming chart for the week of March 6. Barinholtz, in particular, did not expect a decidedly new fan base to materialize.

“I knew that guys my age were going to watch it, but the other night at this party, my friend’s daughter’s friend came up,” Barinholtz recalls. “She’s, like, a 19-year-old woman, and she was like, ‘I’m a huge fan.’ I thought she was going to say of ‘The Mindy Project’ and she says ‘History of the World, Part II.’ And I was like, ‘Wow.’ I think it’s one of those things where it’s been so long since the first one came out, people just can’t wait to tell me what they think.”

Anyone else seen it yet? I’m a fan of Bert - but not a die hard by any means. I was hoping it would just be entertaining, but it was awesome!!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/1430902

More than half a year before the release of the upcoming movie “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One,” Paramount Pictures made sure audiences got to see Tom Cruise once again risking his life.

Cruise’s mind-blowing stunts have become a signature of “Mission: Impossible” films, each one seemingly topping the next. The key stunt in the franchise’s seventh installment involves Cruise driving a motorcycle off the edge of a cliff, dismounting and parachuting into a Norwegian valley. With the drop of its behind-the-scenes footage in December, the studio billed it as “the biggest stunt in cinema history.”

Though the moment has already been watched on YouTube more than 13 million times, and 30 million more times in the film’s trailers, it’s among the film’s most anticipated scenes. After all, we still don’t know how the stunt fits within the plot — What could be so dire that agent Ethan Hunt must jump off a cliff?

In a recent interview with “Entertainment Tonight,” Cruise said they started with the scene, in part, to allow the cast and crew to see whether he would be able to star in the $290-million film. After all, he could either get injured or die — or both.

“Well, we know we’re either going to continue with the film or not,” Cruise said, letting out a laugh. “Let’s know Day 1, what is gonna happen: Do we all continue, or is it a major re-run?”

Cruise added that he wanted to make sure his mind was clear enough to focus solely on the stunt.

“You have to be razor sharp for something like that; I don’t want to drop that and shoot other things and have my mind somewhere else,” Cruise said. “You don’t want to be waking up in the middle of the night, ‘It’s still, I still, I still,’ and it has that effect.”

Cruise is no stranger to aerial stunts with a high probability of death. The “Top Gun” actor said preparing for the recent stunt “was years of planning,” a culmination of all the training he’s done with motorcycles, cars and aerobatics.

In the franchise’s last film, “Mission: Impossible — Fallout” (2018), Cruise jumped into a helicopter in midflight, taking the controls to chase another helicopter. In the same movie, he parachuted from a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III from 25,000 feet, close to five miles up, becoming “the first actor” to do so in a major motion picture, according to Paramount (most skydiving attempts occur at 10,000 feet).

In 2011 for “Ghost Protocol,” the “Jerry McGuire” actor climbed along the exposed walls of the world’s largest building, the Burj Khalifa of Dubai. And in 2015 for “Rogue Nation,” Cruise hung off the side of an Airbus A400M Atlas as it was taking off, a stunt that veteran stunt coordinator and frequent Cruise collaborator Wade Eastwood called “a stressful experience.”

The recent motorcycle stunt, which Cruise had apparently repeated six times, was no exception. Though the film’s computer-generated images make Cruise appear to be jumping off the rocky surface of the cliff, the scene required a large ramp to be built.

While Cruise is seen atop the motorcycle in the behind-the-scenes video, accelerating off the ramp, a helicopter and drone fly overhead to gather footage. The film’s crew, including director Christopher McQuarrie, are huddled in a nearby tent, faces glued to a set of monitors. After he abandons the bike and hangs in the open air, Cruise releases his parachute and the crew erupts in cheers.

“The only thing you have to avoid when doing a stunt like this are serious injury or death,” Eastwood, who has managed stunts for the last three “Mission Impossible” films, said in the BTS video. “You’re falling. If you don’t get a clean exit from the bike and you get tangled up with it, if you don’t open your parachute, you’re not gonna make it.”

The scene wasn’t the only stressful one to shoot: Cruise said he also worried about a car chase that involved him handcuffed to a small car, steering with one hand while drifting along the cobblestone streets of Rome, with his co-star Hayley Atwell in the passenger seat.

“It’s plenty of challenges,” Cruise said with a wide grin, laughing once again.

“Dead Reckoning” had its world premiere Sunday at the Auditorium Conciliazione in Rome with Cruise and other cast members, including Atwell and Vanessa Kirby, in attendance. “Part Two” is expected to be released in June 2024. Filming wrapped in September for what has been rumored to be Cruise’s final appearance in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/198289

!cinematography@lemmy.world

lemmy.world/c/cinematography

Come join our Cinematography community if you're a cinematographer yourself, appreciator of film cinematography, have photos or knowledge to share or questions to ask about composition, lighting, color, or gear.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/577791

Return to BABYLON 5 as the epic interstellar saga continues with THE ROAD HOME. Travel across the galaxy with John Sheridan as he unexpectedly finds himself transported through multiple timelines and alternate realities in a quest to find his way back home. Along the way he reunites with some familiar faces, while discovering cosmic new revelations about the history, purpose, and meaning of the Universe.

Can't stand to run myself, but I love a good running scene in a movie, and I can't think of anyone who has more of them than Tom Cruise -- except for Buster Keaton. He's got such an incredible clumsy grace to him, if that makes any sense. Who's your favorite film runner or favorite running scene?

CG looks a little ropey but the powers will look cool

Ok, I just watched this movie without really knowing anything about it or even anything about Transformers beforehand, and I am left both angry and confused about their setting decisions.

Here's an extremely basic rundown of the plot, at least the relevant parts to this post: There's an ancient artifact called the Transwarp Key that a group of robot animals brought to Earth to keep it safe. But the bad guy robots find it and come to Earth and the heroes have to find the two halves of the key before the bad guys find it and use it to destroy the universe. Pretty simple plot for a kids movie, nothing too creative or thrilling but by itself it's perfectly harmless. Couldn't really keep my attention that well but I'm an adult, for a kids movie a plot like this is sufficient and it's not like it would be torture for a parent or guardian to watch alongside.

BUT this is where the not harmless stuff comes. Where are the key fragments hidden? Why, in a sacred Indigenous South American cultural site, of course! You know, one of those places that almost got destroyed by Europeans and are held in extremely high regard and worshipped by the Indigenous peoples in the region? Complete with using symbols from their language (which the Europeans also tried to destroy) as part of the riddle that must be solved to gain the secrets of the key.

Everyone is harping on Transformers for "cultural appropriation" because of this. Which, yeah that's totally unacceptable and I agree with those sentiments. They did engage in coloniamism and cultural appropriation, the latter I know has become a buzzword but this is like, dictionary definition for that term and is absolutely accurate to call it that.

But my question to the director is: Why? Why use Indigenous South American culture which people will rightfully accuse you of colonialism over? White people, why not incorporate your own culture into this? Then no one can say anything because it's your own culture, just like how we don't go around freaking out at Bollywood sci-fi movies when they incorporate Indian culture into their lore, or Chinese fantasy movies when they inject magic elements into a depiction of Ancient China.

You want a place to hide your space transwarp crystal in a way that incorporates humans? Instead of choosing an Indigenous holy site to set it in, choose the Vatican or something? In fact, your crystal was split into two halves and were hidden? How convenient! Christianity already has two separate holy items you can use, the Holy Lance and the Holy Grail, maybe use those? The whole reason those were lost could have been because the giant robot animals hid them away, or those weren't actually associated with Jesus but the Transwarp crystal, and the only reason those were associated with Jesus was due to the robots making that up as a cover story, maybe the actual cup and spear were the things that were used to control the crystal, hence their perceived power to the early Christians. Maybe you get into a conflict with the cardinals and they decide to help the villain because they see the good guys as the Antichrist trying to steal the holy treasures and bring about Armageddon. And that speech that the Transformers give about the only way to save the universe is to fight as one? That can be directed at the cardinals and convince them that the giant space ship trying to kill everything is in fact the bad guy. There, in two minutes and minimal literary effort I just worldbuilt something that would be less offensive and more interesting than what you came up with, considering you didn't even actually incorporate any South American folklore into your own plot (which I'm still thankful for btw, thank god they didn't try that shit unlike some other movies set in South America) and just used "oh shit it's in Peru" as an excuse to get your characters from New York to the plot. Just change it to "oh shit it's in Italy" then. At least I used my proposed setting to my story's advantage in some way.

Or you could have chosen Buckingham Palace. Or Notre Dame. Or the Roman Colosseum. Or for a more wilderness setting like what was in your movie, go to Scandinavia and say the Vikings guarded it or something, or the Alps, or the Neander Valley. Or literally any of the other historic Western European sites. Hell you could have even made up an European place like the Chapel of the First Order of the Knights of Transforminghamsire or something and no one would have batted an eye.

It would literally be the exact same movie if you changed the setting. You can keep every single one of your plotpoints and only the backdrop would be different.

It won't save the plot if it was bad to begin with, but at least you're not engaging in colonialism. Which will actually allow people to enjoy the movie instead of wondering why the fuck you had to bring Indigenous peoples into this and defile their sacred sites.

Gotta be "Withnail and I" for me.

oh oh, no

Wes Anderson has a new movie coming out soon. It looks pretty good (unless you don't like Wes Anderson movies).

Another fantastic Spider-man movie!

Results Set the Stage for TV/Theatrical Contracts Negotiations

In a powerful show of solidarity, SAG-AFTRA members have voted 97.91% in favor of a strike authorization ahead of negotiations of the TV/Theatrical Contracts, with nearly 65,000 members casting ballots for a voting percentage of 47.69% of eligible voters.