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The Red Suitcase offers a glimpse into a different reality < Back The Red Suitcase offers a glimpse into a different reality Cynefilms, 2022 18 minutes Director/Writer: Cyrus Neshvad / Guillaume Levil and Cyrus Neshvad Reading Time: 3 minutes 📷 : Licensed from Pixabay The Red Suitcase Just A Dream (TRRI0X7EOJWAGDDF) 00:00 / 03:26 Ginseng Suspenseful and intense thrillers Chris Chaisson 2023-03-11 Short films have their obvious limitations, and in order to stay within time and budget limitations, they often narrow their focus to one character, one location, or maybe even one object. Even with this narrowed scope, every filmmaker, regardless of project length, wants to properly convey the universe of their story’s setting.. It could be a fantasy realm, a period piece, or a multiverse. Or it could be more grounded, set in the present-day and located where most of its audience resides. However, some shorts give you one character, one location, one object, and a culture you may not have been exposed to, but nonetheless exists for a large population. Such is the case in the cat-and-mouse Oscar nominated short The Red Suitcase . The Red Suitcase drops us into the middle of 16-year-old Ariane’s life-changing dilemma. As she arrives at the Luxembourg Airport from Iran, she dreads the new life that awaits her: a marriage arranged by her family. Her spouse-to-be waits with anticipation at the arrival gate, but she does her best to evade him. He is unfamiliar with her appearance and has only one thing to identify her by: her red suitcase. Ariane does her best to make it through and out of the airport in covert fashion, rebelling against the future assigned to her by her father. Despite her best efforts, she encounters obstacle after obstacle to her imminent safety. Short films do not have much time to provide exposition or build tension, and The Red Suitcase expertly bypasses any unnecessary setup. The audience immediately feels the unease of Ariane before even grasping her situation. Her suitcase is filled with her own artwork, which not only reveals part of her personality but what will bring her joy should she choose to leave the airport with her fiancée. In the mere 18 minutes of the film, Ariane appears to be home free and then desperately hiding several times, giving the audience a roller coaster of emotions. Though she repeatedly uses wit and awareness, misfortune seems to lurk around every corner for her. The suspense remains right up until the final moment where Ariane is forced to accept a compromise. Beyond tension, what the short film provides is a glimpse into another culture and the reluctance of adolescents who are forced to participate in it. Leaving home at such a young age is daunting when done of free will, much less to enter into an arranged marriage. It is not explicitly stated whether Ariane is having second thoughts or ever wanted this life in the first place, but her attempts to evade her future spouse fill the audience with dread from beginning to end. Any viewer of The Red Suitcase can decide for themselves whether or not to cast judgment on the traditions of another culture, but where the short succeeds with flying colors is making the viewer empathize with a young, lonely, fearful protagonist seeking freedom of choice. Previous Next Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!

The three-season series covers the transformation of New York City’s Deuce district into what we now know as Times Square. < Back The three-season series covers the transformation of New York City’s Deuce district into what we now know as Times Square. Blown Deadline Productions, 2017-19 60 minutes Creator: George Pelecanos and David Simon Reading Time: 3 minutes 📷 : Used with permission, HBO The Deuce Tell Dem (I96IRB1HB2AEJATW) 00:00 / 04:13 Ginger Thought-provoking movies and TV shows Honeybush Nonfamily dramas with strong adult and/or socioeconomic themes Reba Chaisson 2021-07-25 While short-lived, The Deuce provides an immersive experience. Nothing less would be expected from David Simon ( The Wire , Treme ), who co-wrote and co-produced it with George Pelecanos and others. The three-season series covers the transformation of New York City’s Deuce district into what we now know as Times Square. A long way from the glitz and popular tourist attraction it is today, The Deuce, as it was known in the 1970s, burst with a bustling and open sex trade with well‑dressed pimps and tenacious sex workers who openly flaunted their stuff for sale. The gritty series captures the feel of the era with the authenticity of a warm embrace from a long-passed favorite aunt. Like a time-machine, it places us in the familiar urban settings of the period when afros were in style, communities were called neighborhoods, and everyone knew the folks who lived there—and what they did to get by. James Franco headlines the cast, playing a dual role as a resourceful but reluctant bar and dance club owner and his carefree twin who jumps at any chance to get ahead. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Candy, a fiercely independent worker in the sex trade who later realizes success producing pornographic films because “It’s just sex, right?” The characters take refuge at Leon’s Diner owned by Anwan Glover ( The Wire ), who graciously serves hot meals and pie to his customers without judgment of their dress or avocation. This sanctuary is where we get a glimpse inside many of the characters’ lives and gain an appreciation for their aspirations, shortcomings, and the life events that led them there. Beneath it all are unseen political forces working to reshape, reinvent, and reconstruct the area they view as home. During a contentious meeting about coming changes to the area, Abbie, played by Margarita Levieva ( The Blacklist , The Lincoln Lawyer ), proudly proclaims her bar as a place where people in the neighborhood are treated with respect and can get “an honest pour” no matter their walk of life. While she doesn’t hide her disdain for the pimps who patronize the Hi Hat, once referring to them as “slap-a-hoes,” she spoke truth about the bar’s customer service. Lines like this run throughout the series. This one provokes thoughts about the exclusivity of establishments of all types today, the degree to which respect and an honest pour is afforded to everyone who enters them, or if these courtesies are perhaps doled out only to those viewed as worthy. Indeed, this questioning of ourselves and what we have come to accept as normal treatment are part of what makes the writing so great and keeps the show’s subject matter relevant even 50 years later. Beyond the struggle for survival, most of the characters in The Deuce are running away rather than toward something, while a smaller contingent desperately fights to remain relevant and to keep the status quo intact. As we know though, change is inevitable. Indeed, this story is about the inevitability of change. So real, it is as palpable as the raw emotions of fear and love displayed by the characters, along with the seemingly necessary emotional detachment they exhibit at crucial times throughout the series. The depth of the characters and their transformation over the series resonate with the experiences and aspirations of many everyday people who strive to maintain their dignity and strength. This suggests that the show has something that appeals to everyone. It is raw, but a necessary raw that pushes forth conversations about power, race, class, and gender. If this is your thing, go for it—and be prepared to think a lot about its themes in the days that follow. Previous Next Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!

< Back Derek Magyar A Conversation with River of Grass Director Derek Magyar River of Grass Writer/Director Derek Magyar sits down with Cup of Tea Critiques Chris Chaisson 2024-09-18 Reading time: 13 minutes River of Grass provides a look into a young Vietnam veteran suffering from PTSD who returns home to the Florida Everglades and joins the family’s crime business. The film was accepted into the Oscar qualifying festival Hollyshorts this summer and screened for the festival audience. Cup of Tea Critiques caught up with director and co-star Derek Magyar, who plans to shoot the full-length feature in 2025. Derek gives us background information on the origins of River of Grass’ setting in the Vietnam era. It's based on real events, and for one of my co-writers, it is sort of based on his family lore. And so in Everglades City, all the kind of things that happened there, which, if you Google it, is crazy. That's when this happened. So it made sense to have him come back from Vietnam, because that's when the real story takes place. Derek gave his perspective on who makes up the target demographic for River of Grass. I think it has a really broad demographic. The short is exciting to 18 to 39 [year olds] because PTSD is something that a lot of people can connect to in lots of different ways. As we know, PTSD is not just one thing, and so I think that has a lot of resonance for people as well as there's some fun action stuff which happens in the second half, which I think is also really gripping. I think the older audience is really engaged by the family drama. A lot of people can connect to that time period, whether they served or not, and really relate and reminisce to what their lives were like during that period. Derek expanded on the process of turning the story from a TV series to an on-spec feature. The project was brought to me as a pilot of sorts, from the guy who it's based on. Instead of a pilot, it was more like lots of episodes in one episode. He was trying to get it all out there, and we started developing it as a TV series. And then a production company got involved and asked us to write the feature on spec . I was like, “Sure, why not?” It just made sense. And then from there, it just evolved, and the writing began, and now it's going to be a feature film that we're shooting at the beginning of next year. River of Grass was shot with a team of about 40 to 50 people over a four-day stretch. Derek shared the most challenging aspects of the shoot. There were a few. I would say one, certainly for me was, I've directed and acted before, but this was different. We had a very limited budget. We chose to shoot with natural light, which I always think has a better quality to it, a more honest quality. But that also comes with limited time, because the sun is only there for so long. It was very complicated for me to drop in as an actor present in the scene, and then also be able to remove myself and check monitors and make sure that I was happy with the composition of the frame, or, the performances. When you start running behind on time, that got even more complex. It was more like, “Get that, get that, cover that, cover this, let's shoot that.” And I stopped looking at the monitor because time was tight. I needed to focus on my work as an actor, and I just sort of picked off things that I knew we'd need or use. Luckily, we had two cameras, and it worked out that way, but that was really challenging. We had the car scene; it was a bigger scene originally, but we chose to do sort of a hood mount. That's very complicated, because you're limited on what you can do, and the setup time is a lot more than you'd expect it to be. You don't get enough sort of variety of shots. I couldn't make the scene the way I wanted to. It's worth spending a little bit more money potentially, and having a poor man's process trailer to be able to focus on the work, as opposed to, “Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.” Everything is a learning lesson, and everything is sort of complicated, especially when you're on a limited budget. It's just about making your day and making sure that your actors are happy, which is the first thing for me. My cinematographer, and everybody, luckily, who's in the nucleus of the team are all people I know and people I know well. So we have a real shorthand, and that helped make things a lot easier, thankfully. I'm very fortunate in that sense. Given Derek’s dual perspective of acting and directing, he can speak to both experiences. He weighed in on whether or not actors should try directing in order to step into someone else’s shoes. It's a choice. There's a lot to learn and to take away from it. I think that depending on how focused you are in just one specific medium, which I think in today's world and in this business, it's impossible to be in one lane, unless you're extremely successful. You really have to be a “multi-hyphenate,” in which case I encourage people to direct, act, produce, write, first AD [assistant direct]; do it all, because you never know where the next paycheck is going to come from. You never know where you can fit in. I think the more that you can do on a set, the more valuable you are. So yes, I would say absolutely everyone should try it. In that sense, it's not for everyone, but I would encourage everyone to try everything. Directors not only dictate the look of the film but influence the acting performances. Derek shared which he enjoys more, coaching actors or composing shots. Working with actors. I think probably because I've been an actor my whole career, pretty much before in the last sort of five or six years I was directing, but I was also acting still. I started acting when I was 10, and I've been acting all the way until a few years ago. So being connected to my actors is really something that is very important to me. I went back to school and studied at AFI [American Film Institute] and really honed my skills as a director, which I think in my first feature film was a challenge. I understood how to direct actors, how to work with actors, and I understood basic composition, but I needed to learn a lot more. It was really important for me, and it's not for everybody to go back to school and really learn the foundation, the principles of which directing are built upon. Not allowing that to totally dictate how I am or how I create on set, but to give me information and help me through the process. As stated above, Derek had a fellowship in the American Film Institute Directors’ Program for two years beginning in 2015. He revealed his favorite part of his experience as a fellow. The people; meeting really amazing people, people that I work with. My cinematographer on this is someone from AFI, my production designer, producers, writers. It's about finding a family of creative people that are really cool, talented, creative people. That was by far the coolest thing about AFI. Surrounding yourself with talented people is only going to make you better and make you work harder. It's about the education, the first year especially. And I think the first year is really important. I think that you don’t necessarily need to go to get a Masters, to get that learning, but what AFI does so well is you just make movies. That's awesome, because you learn by doing, and there's no better way to learn. That was really valuable. So the people you meet, and just getting to create and make movies, there's no better way to learn than that. Artists of all types tend to find inspiration in their everyday lives and sometimes even their hobbies. Derek revealed what aspects of his life outside of film he believes influence his filmmaking. I don't know about just hobby wise, but, from the birth of my daughter, to my wife, to family and friends and just ups and downs and working through challenges. I think all of those things have made me a stronger director, because they've tested my courage and they've tested my ability as a man and as a human being, and that makes you that much stronger. I think that life experiences, good and bad, as well as reading and learning and being voracious about what you do. I watch a ton of film and TV, and it's [that] work for me that I enjoy. To me, it's really all of those things that have made me a stronger filmmaker. I really love cinematography, so I've studied certain parts of cinematography that I also think have made me a better director. I've also learned how to direct as an actor, as opposed to just being an actor, [such as] directing actors to have more of a director’s lens on how I approach a given scene or blocking or things like that. So, I really think the biggest thing is life and just continuing to live. Ups and downs make you a stronger artist, as well as studying and learning and watching and reading. All of those things will make you an evolved artist. And you're constantly learning; you're constantly growing. You're always learning from the moment you start ‘til the end. River of Grass was accepted into the Hollyshorts Film Festival over the summer, one of 150 Oscar-qualifying festivals for winning short films. Derek shares on the gratifying experience of having his short screened at a prestigious event. We had a great run. We were honored to be selected. Then we headlined the action category, which was sort of surprising to be in that category, but there is some action in it, so, still cool. We were nominated for Best Drama at the end, which was really exciting to us. We lost to a really wonderful film called Motherland . It was a great run. For our domestic US premiere, I don't think it could have gotten any better, other than I would have loved the win for Live Action, so we would have had the potential [Oscar] nomination. But we're just starting the journey, and so we're really focused on not this year's Oscars, but next year's Oscars and listen, that's shooting for the moon, right? But, just enjoying the ride while we're going through it all the way until we get there, whether it's Oscars or not. I think Hollyshorts was indicative of what we hope is to come. Watching other people watch your work can be an unnatural feeling. Derek dishes on what it was like for him to sit with people watching a work he produced. Nerve wracking. Always for me, as an actor or director; I'm always anxious, nervous, and I'm always very critical. It's hard for me to not watch something and say, “Why did you do that?” As an actor, a writer, a producer, director, in all of the hats that I wear, I am picking apart everything. “Why did I have him walk over here?” Or, “Why did I deliver that line that way?” It’s challenging. I've gotten better, but it’s still tough. Fans of electronic dance music may recognize Derek from acting in… a Zedd video? I did. It was before Zed blew up. That song was sort of his first, second major hit, and I had a blast doing the video, and it was actually with my ex-girlfriend from a long time ago, and we just had a lot of fun making it. It was a blast. Zedd’s a really cool guy. We had a lot of fun making it. Great director, great team. Zedd's awesome. [Singer] Matthew Koma’s really cool. And what lies around the corner? I'm definitely quite tunnel-visioned, but I do have some other things I'm working on. I have another short film that I'm really excited about that's exploring the theme of death. I think something that I hope will also be cathartic for me, and that's a project that I'm going to be working on a bit with my wife. I have mixed feelings about it, to be honest. I'm really looking forward to it, but I'm also terrified to go there. But I think it's important, and I think there's a really interesting story to be told. It's something that I think everybody is afraid of in different ways, for different reasons. The idea of this story is a glimpse into the beauty of life and the suddenness of loss. I think it's something that a lot of people will be able to connect to. That's more on the back burner, but this short is something that we'll be working on as I'm prepping for the [ River of Grass ] feature, which is pretty much all I'm doing, because that's taking up all of my time. I do other work gigs, to keep me busy. I need to work and provide. I do a lot of real estate photography, videography, and I direct music videos. I direct brand videos, I direct all sorts of stuff. In terms of directing, I know I have a very diverse portfolio of stuff, so I'm always doing things like that. In terms of really creative stuff, right now, it’s that short and the feature. Updates on Derek’s ongoing and upcoming projects can be found on Instagram (@derekmagyar) or at Derek’s official website . Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!

Your Friends & Neighbors gives a birds-eye view into a type of social mobility < Back Your Friends & Neighbors gives a birds-eye view into a type of social mobility Apple Studios, 2025 50 minutes Creator: Jonathan Trooper Reading Time: 6 minutes 📷 : Apple Studios Your Friends & Neighbors Match Point (7BFGRIMDEVIEX77A) 00:00 / 07:58 Ginger Thought-provoking movies and TV shows Honeybush Nonfamily dramas with strong adult and/or socioeconomic themes Reba Chaisson 2025-06-17 You may be familiar with the term “downward social mobility.” It refers to the loss of income and/or wealth that can lead to a dramatic drop in a person or family’s social position, lifestyle, and most immediately, living situation. According to psychologists , it is not unusual for such an occurrence to induce physical, mental, and emotional imbalance in the person or family that experiences it. Your Friends & Neighbors is an Apple TV+ series about a man who is blindsided by the sudden loss of his job. Divorcé Andrew “Coop” Cooper ( Jon Hamm) has all the trappings of wealth: mansions, swimming pools, high-end cars, and upscale parties. In Coop’s case, all of this comes with the bonus of paying alimony, private school tuition for his two teens, and a mortgage on the mansion now occupied by his ex-wife Mel (Amanda Peete) and her live-in boyfriend Nick (Mark Tallman) — you know, the one Coop caught in bed with his then-wife. Coop is well-liked by his friends and neighbors, and he is particularly close to his business manager Barney Choi (Hoon Lee), who never hesitates to speak truth to his client and close friend. Exemplary of their relationship is a scene where the two meet for lunch (at an upscale bar of course), and Coop tells Barney he was just fired. Barney’s expression quickly changes from joy to serious as he sternly asks Coop, “Who did you f***?” You might remember Hoon Lee as Jobe from the long-running Banshee series on Cinemax. His character in Your Friends & Neighbors is equally steadfast and entertaining. While Coop earned millions as a hedge fund manager, he is mildly concerned about how long he can sustain himself without income, though fairly confident that he has plenty in cash and investments. When Barney tells him that he will run out of money in six months, Coop is shocked. As with those who make substantially less than Coop, the prospect of downward social mobility is frightening, especially when family not only depends on the support but expects that the money and other resources will always be there. We see this expectation play out when Mel casually tells Coop that she has hired a private tennis coach for their daughter. When he bristles at it, she asks in frustration, “What’s the problem? It’s just ten thousand dollars a month!” Other effects of job loss are loneliness and shame, and this is particularly the case for men. Psychologists note that when men subscribe to the notion of being the family’s breadwinner, their identity is strongly tied to work, hence the shame in losing their jobs. Loneliness seeps in when they don’t share their job loss with close friends and those who rely on them. To Coop’s credit, he shared this with Barney. But family and other friends were left to wonder about his sudden aloofness, complaints about money, and altercations with long-time pals. During one of many pool parties at a neighbor’s mansion, Coop excuses himself to use the restroom and begins casually wandering throughout the house. Admiring trinkets, lifting his eyebrows at furniture, and pulling open the drawers of nightstands and chests, he nonchalantly takes an expensive watch and puts it in his pocket. Wait, what? Yes, that’s what I said. Indeed, this is so easy for Coop that he later absconds with another valuable item from a different neighbor’s house. And he does it again and again. It has been said that once someone crosses the line into deviant behavior without getting caught, the act becomes easier and easier for them to continue doing it. Coop’s stealing is an example of this. I like this series not because it centers on a man once grounded and secure and now seemingly lost, but because it depicts the process of that destabilization. While we frequently throw around labels like “criminal” and “thief,” we rarely consider the individual’s circumstance nor psychological state that led to the behavior. Understanding these aspects of the person’s life experiences can potentially engender empathy for them rather than judgment and condemnation. This is not to confuse understanding with holding the person accountable for the actions. It is to suggest that forever relegating them to purgatory for uncharacteristic behavior is problematic. What is being depicted in this series is the direct link between the triggering event (job loss), the scary prospects of downward social mobility (along with its psychological effects), and their sometimes deviant manifestations. Interestingly, for people of lower socioeconomic status (SES) than Coop, the labels “criminal” and “thief” stick, and the individuals are then forever viewed with suspicion. This is the case even if the event occurred only once. It makes you wonder if (or when) Coop’s thievery is uncovered, will he be labeled in the same way and will these labels stick. We get a sense of the likelihood of this in the series when Coop is accused of a serious crime that is unrelated to his new extracurricular activity. How he recovers from this tells us a lot about differences in the perceptions of wealthy people versus those who are not. In any event, the truth is, we all lose our footing at times, and rarely does the decline from there happen overnight. In Coop’s case, he gradually becomes emboldened and moves on to brazen and arrogant. In addition to depicting the process of downward social mobility and the wrong paths some take at the prospects of it, Your Friends & Neighbors confronts us with biases we might have about wealthy people, mainly that they are trouble-free and filled with choices. The characters in this series, though, are all carrying some kind of weight. Despite Coop’s fairly good relationship with his ex-wife Mel, he has yet to put to rest the matter of her cheating on him. Barney, who is quite wealthy as well, worries about keeping money. He struggles to talk to his wife about her excessive spending on property enhancements that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Samantha Levitt (Olivia Munn) says she is happy to be divorced from her ex-husband but repeatedly gossips with her friends around the pool about his new, young girlfriend. And then there’s Nick, the retired NBA player who enjoys spending time with his friends and neighbors but behaves as if oblivious to the fact that he and Coop’s ex are a pair. So, while some wealthy people really do have a lot of money, others not so much. Many in the latter group maintain a façade to keep up with the Joneses. And while most in the zip code are quirky and at times entitled and clueless, they carry a lot of baggage — kind of like the rest of us up and down the social hierarchy. Previous Next Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!

Peter & the Wolf provides a goth-animated adaptation to a familiar fairy tale < Back Peter & the Wolf provides a goth-animated adaptation to a familiar fairy tale Blink Industries, 2023 33 minutes Director/Writer: Elliot Dear and Stephen McNally / Bono and Sergei Prokofiev Reading Time: 4 minutes 📷 : Licensed from Shutterstock Peter & the Wolf Boo! (RESPVDYED21KBUR7) 00:00 / 04:02 Ginkgo Biloba Youthful, lighthearted, and fun movies and TV shows Jasmine Movies and TV shows with heart, positive vibes, and warm messages Chris Chaisson 2023-10-26 Peter & the Wolf tells the tale of a grieving 12-year-old boy sent to live with his grandfather in the forest after the death of a parent. While he wants to play outside, his grandfather tries to keep him close to the house and back inside early, as there is said to be a wolf on the prowl. However, Peter seeks out an encounter with the wolf with the help of a duck, a bird and his cat. He initially finds the wolf aggressive and predatory, but once he tames it, Peter attempts to protect it from capture at the hands of two hunters. Bono’s adaptation of a 1946 Disney animation (which itself was based on a classical composition by the same name) centers heavily around the idea of protection. Peter spends the entire short film trying to protect his animal friends from each other and from humans, while his father also tries to protect him from the wolf and the hunters. Peter uses several methods as means of protection, including his slingshot, trickery, and reasoning skills. His adventures allow him to transfer his angry energy about the loss of a parent into something productive, as he essentially makes a new family out of his animal friends. In stages of grief, we often need to withdraw from our routines in order to emotionally recover. Peter & the Wolf paints a different picture of processing grief, with its protagonist taking on the responsibility of caring for animals. The short also uses gothic animation to portray the good and bad, or innocence and guilt, in its characters. The wolf, initially in its predator state, is outlined in chalk with X’s for eyes, making it the clear villain. Once Peter has tamed it, the wolf’s outline goes away to reveal its fur and soft, round eyes, drawn the same as the other characters. Another example is the duck wearing a snorkel mask while it wades in the pond. Not only does it add a touch of humor, but it makes the duck seem more like a human. We see Peter’s animal friends experience the full emotional spectrum, from fearful to brave to playful to serious, and even annoyed (the cat jumps and glares at Peter for slamming down a book). Even more clever than the art is the way Peter & the Wolf uses music. The classical music accompanying this children’s story might even offer a nice reprieve for parents who still have Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling” or the Hamilton soundtrack ringing in their ears. Accompanied by singer Gavin Friday’s narration, the short consists of similar music to the original, which contained compositions by Sergei Prokofiev. Each character (bird, duck, grandfather, wolf, Peter, and hunters) has their own instrument and musical theme. As with Prokofiev’s symphonic fairy tale first performed in 1936, the musical pace quickens to represent impending danger and the rush to safety, while the normal slow, bouncy tunes symbolize calm. The music, along with the character’s behavior, exhibits how violence begets violence, with the characters threatening each other’s safety one after the other before being subdued. Peter & the Wolf differs from a lot of children’s stories that tend to be about lost characters and their adventures in trying to find a way home. Rather, it depicts the need for safety and security of the most vulnerable creatures. There are few symphonic fairy tales available for a comparison; however, a recent one to shout out is the 2021 Merregnon: Land of Silence , about a wooden robot who must find his creator in a realm of eternal frost. Both projects offer adults a chance to introduce classical music to their children within the context of what is still a children’s story. Available on max Previous Next Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!

< Back Anton Deshawn A Conversation with The Untold Story of Mild Sauce Writer/Director Anton Deshawn Writer/Director Anton Deshawn joins COTC for a deep dive into his short film Chris Chaisson 2023-05-03 Reading time: 11 minutes After completing his first feature film Call Center , writer/director Anton Deshawn switched gears and created The Untold Story of Mild Sauce, a short film shot and edited during the pandemic. The short serves as a parody of 90s R&B groups, managers who swindle artists out of their earnings, and frequent in-fighting that leads to their breakups, told in the style of a VH1 exposé. Cup of Tea Critiques sat down with Anton to learn about his filmmaking process, Mild Sauce , the challenges he faced while shooting during the pandemic, and his personal tastes in music and movies. Mild Sauce is shot mockumentary style and tells the story of a 90’s R&B group through a VH1 bio-pic style. Anton shared his inspiration for the short film and the group itself. I am a big 90s R&B music fan, so I'm a big fan of Jodeci, Boyz II Men, H-Town, Dru Hill. Also too, I am a huge fan of shows like Behind the Music … So I'm a nerd when it comes to stuff like those biography-type shows. I just thought you know what, what if I made a film about a fictional R&B group that had the sound of the 90s, that I made sure I touch on the new jack swing, the freaky R&B type sound, and the traditional love songs and then throw in like, the more pop-sound R&B. So that was mainly the inspiration. If I had to give a couple movie examples, This Is Spinal Tap, The Five Heartbeats, The Wedding Singer . The reason why I say The Wedding Singer is because it has that 80s nostalgia to it that I really love. I wanted to get that spirit and just move into more of just the 90s instead of more 80s that The Wedding Singer did. One other inspiration was a film called Fear of a Black Hat . [Mild Sauce] is like a combination of Jodeci, Dru Hill, and probably like H-Town; H-Town was one of my favorites too. But more so Jodeci if I had to get one more group. But Jodeci didn't really dance like that. Dru Hill did. But I wanted to kind of highlight that cheesiness in it. And not to go too far ahead. One of my cheesiest favorite videos from the 90s was the Az Yet song “Last Night.” So that was the whole inspiration for that video [in the film], “Could You Be the One,” the last music video, that was just entirely blue screen. The Az Yet song was where that video came from. “Last Night,” which was like, their only hit. That kind of inspired me. But if you go back and look at that song where they were dancing in the tank tops and stuff. I kind of did bits and pieces not just with male R&B groups, but some of the lighting I kind of stole from TLC's "Red Light Special." So if you go back and look at that video, where part of is in black and white and part of is in color, I kind of use that same color scheme with my cinematographer and my set designer to where I wanted to highlight that "Red Light Special" video where they had that red dim light to it. So I didn't just limit it to male R&B. I also wanted to kind of highlight some female groups from the 90s too, because I was a fan of those as well. Anton shared his plans for the concept moving forward. …I always had it in mind to make it a feature film… and I originally wrote the first draft as a feature film. …I finished that draft in probably 2017. Then I went back in 2019, 2020 and minimized it to make it more like a short film. Mild Sauce contains several original songs and music videos. Anton shouted out the artists who wrote and produced the music in his short and discussed how their collaboration came about. I actually went to school for music business. That was actually my first love before I even got into filmmaking. I wanted to own my own record company. And I have my degree in Arts and Entertainment Media Management. I still keep ties with folks that are artists, songwriters and things like that. So [for this film] I had a total of three songwriters and two producers. So basically, I knew in my head the sound I wanted for this film… I had great producers, who actually gave me what I wanted it to sound like. A friend I went to college with…her name is Sherry Amour. She wrote two of the songs. She wrote the female group song, “Makes Me Want to Dance” and she wrote “Could You Be the One.” [My wife’s cousin in Atlanta] wrote the Stony Mack song “Funk”. And my cousin who was the co-writer [of the film], one of his roommates from Gary, Indiana wrote “Big Willie” and “Be a Super Freak.” So it was just a collaborative effort where either I reached out to folks, or my cousin reached out to the one songwriter. I told him what I was looking for and boom, it didn't take too many takes for them to send me back what they came up with. I was like, “Hey, I like this. We're gonna go with this.” Many filmmakers draw inspiration from another hobby or discipline that they have. Given this, Anton revealed whether he plans to make his background outside of film into his signature. I don't really limit myself on that. I didn't think of it like that. It's funny because the most recent script that I'm writing is a story based off one of my favorite freestyles that I heard, so [music] is a lot of times inspiration for a lot of my work, but I have other stories that I just haven't put pen to pad on yet that really don't have anything to do with music. As artists you get inspired from any and everything. So it doesn't take much to inspire me. But I will say music probably plays a pivotal influence on a lot of things that I do. Anton listed some of his favorite filmmakers and what he enjoys about their work. I like Martin Scorsese. I like the Coen Brothers. I actually like their versatility. No Country for Old Men is one of my favorite movies, and so is The Big Lebowski . As far as Black filmmakers, I like Ryan Coogler. Spike Lee for the most part, I mean more so his older stuff… Did I say Quentin Tarantino yet? Yeah, I like Quentin’s work as a director. He's [influenced] some of the stuff I've done as far as storytelling. The Hughes brothers. I like mostly all their work they've done. Yeah, so those are some of the ones that [come] to mind. Directing encompasses a lot of different responsibilities, from composing shots to coaching up the on-screen talent. Anton divulged his favorite aspect of the job and why. Conversing with the actors, just giving them direction on what I envision. It's a collaborative effort, because even though I write the material, I'm not so tied to it that it has to be my way or the highway. A lot of times, actors will have questions or come up with suggestions, like, ‘Hey, how about, [or do] you think [I can] do it like that?’ So, and then also, too, I've done quite a few comedies as well. I also give my actors freedom to ad lib. So a lot of times, if they feel like, hey, this line doesn't really flow, [they’ll ask] can I say it like this? I give them that room. So I think that's one thing I kind of take pride in is that I give my actors freedom. But I know when to reel it back in if I need to. … Basically, I let people do their jobs. I'm hiring you, if I cast you, I'm gonna let you do your job. You know, if I hire you, as cinematographer, as set designer, to do sound, I'm gonna let you do your job. Productions can be very fragile and take a lot of planning and good fortune to reach completion. Anton shared his biggest challenges to shooting The Untold Story of Mild Sauce and how he navigated through them. Well, the biggest challenge was that we actually shot this in the middle of the pandemic, in the fall of 2020. And it was a SAG project (Screen Actors Guild). So they had new guidelines in place. Safety was number one. … It's always the top thing, but it was even more so… We had to walk a fine line, because everyone had to get tested. So that was challenging. And the vaccine wasn't even out yet. So you had to get tested, and then actors wearing their masks on set, and also we couldn't have normal craft services. So everything had to be in prepackaged bags for individuals. That was the biggest challenge. Just trying to make sure we were in COVID protocol. And this was a big production with crew and with actors too. So this was literally a two-day shoot, believe it or not. I was crazy enough to think I could do this in one day. I don't know what I was thinking. The other crazy thing is one of my actors dropped out, literally two days before we shot. So thankfully, I went back to a person that auditioned for a different role. And I was like, oh, this person can do that. They were available, and it worked out. After finishing a short, filmmakers spend a lot of time submitting to festivals, scheduling screenings, and marketing the finished product. Anton reveals his perspective on whether or not he was exhausted by the process and the value of feedback. Oh, no, man, I was looking forward to it. I couldn't wait, that was an exciting thing. I was just thankful to make the film festival, any film festival that we submitted to and we were able to get in. So even to this day, somebody accepts the film, and they're gonna screen it in person, I'm gonna be there. Because you never know who you're going to meet. Just a prime example, when we were in Black Harvest for my first feature film, Call Center , I had actors come up to me. And one of the actors that came up to me during that screening was one of the actors I ended up casting in Mild Sauce . So you never know who you're going to meet. I'm all about networking. So that's actually the fun part is actually seeing that, and seeing that audience reaction like okay, did this joke work? Okay, this joke worked in the Chicago crowd, but it didn't work here. So it's almost like a focus group; you kind of know what works and doesn’t work. Like other directors Cup of Tea Critiques has talked to, Anton enjoys the social aspects of directing the most: working with actors, networking and getting feedback from audience members. Anton’s experience coming up with the music for The Untold Story of Mild Sauce serves as a reminder that some of the best helping hands already exist in our social circle. Watch The Untold Story of Mild Sauce on kweliTV , available on the web or any smart TV, or watch Anton’s feature film Call Center on kweliTV or Amazon . Follow Anton on the following social media for updates: FB: Anton Deshawn Twitter: @AntonDeshawn IG: @anton_deshawn Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!

Loudermilk’s crude humor goes against the grain < Back Loudermilk’s crude humor goes against the grain Primary Wave Entertainment, 2017- 30 minutes Creator: Peter Farrelly and Bobby Mort Reading Time: 4 minutes 📷 : Licensed from Adobe Stock Loudermilk Delighted (AFT4OKLKGGWMNT7B) 00:00 / 04:23 Jasmine Movies and TV shows with heart, positive vibes, and warm messages Coca Movies and TV shows about drugs or with disorienting presentations Chris Chaisson 2021-08-30 In recent years, anti-bullying efforts have altered the subject matter of many comedies. Most mainstream half-hours have taken on a more wholesome approach to storytelling, highlighting family and relationship struggles. For many cable and streaming companies, comedies have shifted to dramedies, and the humor results from the characters’ overexposure to each other or complicated psychology. Loudermilk chooses a different route, opting for the older style of somewhat obscene humor. After his career as a music critic is cut short, Sam Loudermilk, played by Ron Livingston of Office Space fame, leads a support group for substance abuse that meets in a church basement. While this profession leads you to believe that he is a sensitive and caring individual, Sam is kind of a jerk. The critic in him never fades into the background. Every episode opens with him picking a fight with a stranger over their behavior, throwing out opinions he could have easily kept to himself. Nonetheless, our protagonist strives to help people fight addiction and he excels at it despite his antagonistic nature. Sam’s ability is underscored by the show’s inciting incident; a rich widow asking him to rehabilitate her troubled teenage daughter, Claire (Anya Savcic, Big Sky ). He obliges, and over the pilot episode, we see how his flaws as a human still manage to make him good at his job. His visage of apathy sets him apart from your stereotypical counselor and allows him to subvert the expectations of the cynical people he meets. Loudermilk’s imperfections set the tone for much of the series’ humor, as the recovering addicts in his group do not exhibit much tact either. On the surface, they are not easy characters to wrap your arms around. The group consists of deadbeat dads, womanizers and bookies, with Loudermilk himself having nearly committed vehicular manslaughter before finding his calling as a support group leader. However, they possess a shared redeeming quality, in that they acknowledge their wrongdoings and their need for help. They have reached a stage of self-improvement that many, addicts or not, never reach. Having this de facto family of misfits allows the series to create a diverse cast, with people of different ethnicities and nationalities represented as well as a character with a disability. The show does not shy away from storylines concerning sexism, ableism and racism, but still takes jabs at all the characters regardless of their background. In a strange way, the series exhibits a more progressive tone than many of the more culturally sensitive modern comedies. Despite their differences, the members of Loudermilk’s group bond through their efforts to mend their relationships and stay clean. We see them reconnect with people that they’ve hurt, and struggle exhibiting patience or with changing how they communicate. If you know people battling addiction, many of the show’s recurring messages may hit home. Though not overtly stated at any time, it hints at the fact of life that you cannot change the past; you can only strive to do better going forward. We see this play out specifically among Loudermilk in his attempts to atone for harsh music critiques, Ben (Will Sasso, MadTV) , Loudermilk’s best friend and roommate, and Mugsy (Brian Regan), a member of the support group who abandoned his family. A line that Claire throws back in Loudermilk’s face multiple times is that “getting clean is easy; living is hard.” In the end, Loudermilk effectively tackles difficult subject matters and shows how a group of people who are not at all family-oriented can still somehow form a family. While it is difficult to think of a strong comparison, Orange is the New Black comes close, as we see many of its main characters ponder how they wound up in prison and how to cope. It would be easy to observe the style of humor and dismiss Loudermilk as juvenile, but the show’s ability to humanize its main characters and portray the struggle to self-improvement with pinpoint accuracy make this half-hour series a tempting watch. Previous Next Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!

< Back Do Slasher Movies Still Cut It? (No Pun Intended) Examining the Shift in the Thematic Trends of the Horror Genre Chris Chaisson 2/9/23 Reading Time: 8 minutes 📸: Used with Permission, Snollygoster Productions (hello@snollygoster.productions ) My music fandom runs deep. As a lover of both oldies and hip hop, I sometimes lament missing the Beatles craze and not being able to connect with why they are so beloved. Recently, I attended the Beastie Boys exhibit in Los Angeles and had the same feeling of having missed out. I can hear the instrumentals and sing along with the lyrics, but I have no recollection of the pure excitement fans had when these groups were in their primes. Hearing the music of these two uber-popular groups over the last few weeks brought me back to a movie night that a good friend of mine hosted several years ago. As it was October, he chose to hold a horror movie night filled with the classics of which he knows all too much trivia. After another one of his trivia nugget-filled monologues before hitting play, he turned on Halloween . No, not Halloween 2, Halloween 3 or Halloween 45 and a half. The original Halloween . A good strategy when watching classics, if you can help it, is to somehow put your mind in the time period when the movies were released. Imagine that all the tropes, visuals, and story twists have never been done before. I couldn’t do that. To me, Halloween seemed dated and clichéd. As my friend had pointed out before his screening, it was actually the first horror movie to do many of the things that I was perceiving as overdone. The piano score, shot composition, and entire slasher concept was initiated by John Carpenter’s 1978 masterpiece and frequently emulated afterwards. In fact, the film was so renowned that it was inducted into the Library of Congress . Nonetheless, I felt slight disappointment that the heavily revered trailblazer of horror movies seemed so past its time. Playing Mind Games Fast forwarding to the present, I notice that the ground under the entire slasher genre is giving way to a new standard in horror movies. Rather than a crazy, masked, freakishly strong guy chasing around and killing people at random, the villains in today’s horror movies seem much more conniving and mentally torturous. Instead of hunting down the main characters, they toy with the psyches of the protagonists until everyone around them believes they are losing their grip on reality. You may have heard the term gas-lighting in popular culture. People often use this word to describe the behavior of an emotionally abusive ex-partner who makes them believe that they are making things up or overreacting, simply so they can avoid accountability. In recent years, depictions of this manipulative behavior have infiltrated the horror landscape and become a go-to trope. Just for fun, I researched movies about gas-lighting. There are a handful of thrillers from the ‘90s and 2000s that stick out (i.e. the 1991 film, Sleeping with the Enemy ), as well as the 1944 film that originally coined the term, Gaslight . I compiled a list of projects that I would classify simply as horror. My list tilts largely towards very recent hit movies: The Invisible Man, Resurrection, Get Out, Smile, Barbarian, Midsommar, and The Girl on the Train (released in both 2016 and 2021). All of these movies, along with several others, hit theaters over the last seven years. While there is the occasional oldie in the mix, the imbalance feels strong enough to hypothesize a fairly significant movement in the thematic content of horror stories. Possible Explanations Everyone still on board must be wondering why this trend has emerged. A tongue-in-cheek theory may be that building a story around psychological horror allows you to shrink the hair and makeup budget by having less blood and guts on screen (I kid). A more serious theory may be to point the finger at the production companies and how they have chosen to self-brand. A24, for instance, has produced many popular horror movies in recent years, and many deal with stories of personal trauma inflicted by loved ones. A Sign of the Times Though horror movies sometimes seem divorced from reality, I would argue they reflect the prevailing fears of the time of their release (we’ll ignore Sharknado and its sequels for the purpose of this argument). Though less calculated, slasher movie villains and their depravity could be reminiscent of real-life serial killers. During the 1970s and 1980s, the prevalence of serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy was a big news story. Police had a tough time catching many of them or rescuing their victims, and to this day, a lot of mini-series and podcasts are dedicated to their atrocities. While they have by no means gone away, the stigma around them has dissipated with the numerous ways that people can protect themselves or contact the outside world. Therefore, a slasher movie may not hit the same nerve as it did at the time. Case in point, the original Halloween was released in 1978, right in the middle of this scary time period. Another possibility could be that sculpting a horror story around abusive partners and mental health is a more inclusive narrative. Critics of the horror genre believe it to be rooted in misogyny, as much of it revolves around villains chasing around attractive, promiscuous women. More often than not, the victims make very silly decisions that lead to their demise, as Neve Campbell called out during her infamous phone conversation in Scream . Newer narratives in horror movies shift the accountability to the villains and provide more three-dimensional protagonists with which to empathize. Talking Bout My Generation Younger generations have learned to be more open about their experiences in both romantic and platonic relationships. Between sharing stories and seeking out mental health resources, many individuals have come to the conclusion that what their partners put them through is not normal or acceptable. With the normalization of terms like gaslighting and self-care, 20- and 30-somethings more easily articulate what they have endured and how to avoid it in the future than the generations that came before them. For fans of horror, especially the millennial/Gen-Z crowd, seeing these shared experiences portrayed in newer hit movies may be more viscerally frightening but, in a strange way, cathartic. A counter-argument would be that gaslighting has always been an element of horror movies. It is fairly common for the protagonist of a horror movie to be doubted and questioned about the danger they are in or what they have witnessed. After all, Mia Farrow’s character spends two and a half hours being treated as if she is in a state of postpartum delirium in Rosemary’s Baby , a movie that is now over five decades old. I would argue that though horror movie characters have long had their grievances met with a skeptical eye, it has never before been such a central focus of the horror genre so consistently. In older horror movies, the main characters were doubted about whether or not a man that had been shot and set on fire was still alive, or if a child was actually the devil (both of which do sound ludicrous). Now, the protagonists are betrayed by the person they trust the most and doubted by people they’ve known their whole lives. Even in the satirical 2022 horror movie Bodies Bodies Bodies , gas-lighting and other new-age terms are explicitly brought up and discussed by its collection of 20-something characters. Of the movies that I named earlier from my compiled list, all of them had an antagonist who was a significant other, in some cases even a spouse. Regarding slasher movies, there will always be something unsettling about an indiscriminate homicidal maniac who cannot be reasoned with. However, an equally scary thought is that very normal human beings that we love and confide in will chip away at our mental well-being through lies and manipulation. Young, diverse, and talented filmmakers have picked up on this reality and implemented new elements in a genre as old as motion pictures themselves. Previous Next Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!

< Back A Clash of Knuckles: Movies and the System of Rating Them Highlighting the Tension Between Filmmakers and the MPA Reba Chaisson 3/15/25 Reading Time: 19 minutes 📸: Cup of Tea Critiques As a teenager, I paid close attention to ratings because they dictated whether or not I could get into the theater to see a movie. If it was “R,” I simply wasn’t getting in, as they were serious about ticket admissions back then! Things have softened quite a bit now. I can’t remember the last time I saw a ticket agent card a young person. Also, now that we can buy tickets in advance on the Web, and just show our phones and grab a seat, who is stopping to question anyone about seeing any movie these days! After all, the ticket checkers are teenagers too. I even hear toddlers yelling in the theater when I’m there to watch an R-rated movie. When I was young, I envisioned movie ratings as a task done by committee — you know, a bunch of people in a room who watch movies all day and ultimately agree on a rating after deliberating over its content. You know, like a courtroom jury trial. It turns out, I wasn’t far afield in my understanding of the process. But there is a bit more to it than that. This paper covers the film industry’s rating system and reports on the usefulness of the ratings to many of us today. Indeed, more interesting than the ratings themselves is the history of Hollywood’s system of rating films. Hollywood’s History of Rating Films Hollywood’s system of rating films didn’t begin with the goal of rating movies at all. Its goal at the outset was to “ensure the financial stability of Hollywood.” So, the new Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), founded in 1922, set out to secure funding from Wall Street to do this. Perhaps there was a quiet quid pro quo, but soon after, the organization resolved to maintain a “clean moral tone” across the film industry in the United States. The studios were already ensuring that the directors, actors, and other talent they had under contract adhered to a “code of conduct.” The next step, in the view of executives and the MPPDA, was to get the film content inline. This is where the MPPDA came in, effectively inserting itself as gatekeeper and enforcer of the film content. Through 1934, films were not rated, or what was then referred to as not “coded.” In this pre-code era, religious clergy and politicians carried a great disdain for films with scenes of nudity, and what they called illicit dealings and morally gray matter. In 1930, with the support of congressmen, senators, and other influential people in the U.S., former politician and Republican National Committee chair William H. Hays assumed leadership of the MPPDA and established stringent rules for rating film using what became known as the Hays Code , also referred to as the Production Code. The rules of the Production Code became legally binding and breaking them was punishable by law. Hays even established the Production Code Administration (PCA) to enact and oversee the ratings process, empowering it to make the binary decision to either approve or deny films and to dole out $25,000 fines for rules violations. Some filmmakers would be penalized or their works denied for displaying such social activity as liquor use, ridiculing clergy, miscegenation, and even engaging in same-sex behaviors. This glimpse back in time, though nearly a century ago, feels like an oppressive creative environment for filmmakers, who not only were required to submit their films to the MPPDA for ratings, but had no recourse on the decisions made about their films. In many cases, they were forced to re-edit their films as a condition of the films’ release. The MPPDA was not the only film watchdog during the early 20th century, however. The National Legion of Decency , a consortium of partially Protestant but predominantly Catholic organizations, evaluated films and assigned ratings using “A” for morally unobjectionable, “B” for partly morally objectionable, and “C” for condemned. The group assessed more than 12,800 movies between 1936 and 1959. But this represents only a partial list since the Legion continued to operate through the late 1970s. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film, Psycho , was among those given a “B” rating by the Legion because, according to Daniel Gauss of Taste of Cinema , the shower scene was sadistic and “Marion [laid] on her bed with a man while only wearing a bra.” It is important to note that not everyone agreed with the MPPDA’s and the Legion’s censoring of film during this era. Letters to the New York Times Screen Editor regarding the Legion’s rating of Psycho pan this out. Upon seeing the movie at the theater in 1960, one gentleman wrote a response to an enthusiastic supporter of the Legion’s “B” rating of the film. He replied, To be more specific, [the supporter] objects to a scene which presents, he says, “the stabbing of a naked woman in a shower in ugly detail," a description which would be more accurate if the scene were either ugly or detailed . Another individual writing to the Times noted, I realize that it is not to everyone's taste … As for Psycho's being ‘deliberately sadistic,’ I certainly don't think it a film for children, but can mature audiences take it as anything but a macabre prank …? Even then, some viewers of the film appreciated Psycho as a brilliant work of art, even though it was scorned by others and condemned by the Legion. Consider also that such rigid ratings of film decontextualize the work’s visual content, failing to account for a scene’s mood, the story that encompasses it, or even the film’s overall themes. As we pointed out during the Cup of Tea Critiques Podcast on short films , even the shortest films use dialog, compelling media images and creative cinematographic techniques that when viewed collectively tell strong and powerful stories. In the end, the films often pose searing questions that encourage us to think critically, ultimately broadening our perspectives. The early rating systems reduced the works to a scene here or there, failing to account for these crucial elements of the art form, not to mention being oblivious to the breadth of cinematic tastes of audience members. Hays left the MPPDA in 1945 when, coincidentally, the organization changed its name to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). This is not unusual, as many organizations, companies, and sometimes even people, adopt this tactic to decouple from the past and reset their respective identities as something different. The Production Code, though, was not repealed until 1968, when the industry summoned a collective exhale, and filmmakers once again enjoyed exercising their creative freedoms. By this time, the National Legion of Decency’s influence had shrunk tremendously thanks in part to a series of Supreme Court decisions ruling against censorship. Burstyn v. Wilson is one such case, where the justices in 1952 unanimously ruled that free speech in film is guaranteed based on the first and 14th amendments. Another is the 1964 Jacobellis v. Ohio case, where the Court reversed the conviction of a movie theater manager accused of showing an obscene film. The justices opined that the film was “not obscene” and that obscenity needed to be based on a national standard. Together, these and other cases chipped away at censorship across the film industry and the Legion’s influence along with it. Although the Hays Code was not repealed until the late ‘60s, the MPAA had already begun to signal a new day in the way the organization conducted its business around rating films. Taken over by Washington D.C.-insider Jack Valenti in 1966, the MPAA no longer required filmmakers to submit their films for rating. And rather than using a code to effectively censor films, the organization, which soon shortened its name to Motion Picture Association (MPA), established a new objective: providing information about the age-appropriateness of a movie. Valenti ushered in a more nuanced system for rating movies, one which we are most familiar with today, The Motion Picture Association Classification and Rating Administration (CARA). You probably know it best as the movie rating system. The Movie Rating System and the MPA Today’s movies are slotted into one of five ratings categories, each of which is listed in the table below, under columns “Rating (1990).” As seen by their predecessors to the left (“Rating (1968)” and “Rating (1984)”), the ratings have varied ever so slightly over the last several decades. In 1984, M became PG and PG-13 to signal the appropriateness of content for children ages 13 and under, and the age limit for R was raised from 16 to 17. The most significant change to the system was ushered in in 1990, with NC-17 replacing the notorious X rating which had been assigned to what were then deemed pornographic films . One X-rated film included Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris , which was the seventh highest grossing film in 1973. Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider led the cast as a couple involved in a relationship based only on sex. Another film is John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy which won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1969. The film starred Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman, with Voight’s character as a male sex worker for gay men. Best Picture honors are typically not given to bad films. So, despite Midnight Cowboy containing a lot of nudity and/or sex between persons of the same or different sex, the movie had a powerful story with strong themes that likely left the audience with deep searing questions about ourselves and some aspect of the world around us. In doing so, it proved the point that film as an art form has great value. As for Last Tango in Paris , Gauss suggests it encourages us to question if sex without intimacy is fulfilling enough. As a professor of mine once said, “chew on that for a bit.” While doing so, consider that being among the top 10 grossing films in any year is itself an accolade and attests to the broad cinematic tastes of viewers. While one would think the X ratings for these films would directly convert to NC-17 under the current rating system, a quick lookup in IMDB shows Last Tango in Paris with an NC-17 and Midnight Cowboy with a rating of R. A recent article in Vanity Fair painstakingly explains how this inconsistency came about. In short, the MPAA begrudgingly gave United Artists's Midnight Cowboy an R rating along with strong suggestions that they make changes to it. The studio steadfastly refused. The studio did, however, consult with a psychiatrist about the film. Since the doctor expressed concerns about the sex and sexual innuendo, the studio made the decision to give the film an X rating. Midnight Cowboy ’s ratings journey, though, is highly unusual. Filmmakers are typically coerced into making concessions to get the ratings they want for their movies. This means recutting the films to make them more palatable to the MPA in order to get an R rating. R is such a coveted rating because it means the films are more accessible to the public and can thus maximize its earning potential. The substantially smaller audience for X rated films makes it difficult to achieve these goals. To get the R rating, though, filmmakers must agree to edit some scenes. This complexity around ratings in film is a good place to segue into a discussion on the longstanding tension between filmmakers and the MPA. The Tension between Filmmakers and the MPA Kirby Dick’s 2006 documentary, This Film is Not Yet Rated , highlights the sharp divisions between the MPA and filmmakers. At the center of the breakdown, according to Dick, is the rating of films as NC-17 versus R. To put it mildly, filmmakers bristle at NC-17 ratings because the films potentially lose millions of dollars in sales. According to several directors featured in the documentary, an NC-17 rating presents marketing challenges for films. Walmart, for example, will not carry an NC-17 movie, which is where many people, they say, buy their DVDs. Another point of contention is that the MPA will not provide the filmmakers with notes, so they can potentially make adjustments to their films to get them from NC-17 to R. They are simply told that they can “recut it.” This area is a special point of agitation for filmmakers because they have discovered that deferential treatment exists for independent filmmakers versus those producing films for large studios. For example, the 1997 independent film, Orgazmo , received an NC-17 rating. When director Trey Parker asked for suggestions to get the film to an R, the MPA representative told him that they don’t give specific notes and he was “welcome to recut it.” Parker’s experience was quite different, however, when he directed South Park at MTV Entertainment Studios. When South Park initially received an NC-17 rating, he was given “extremely specific edits” to get an R rating. This suggests that a level of discrimination is occurring at the MPA, to the detriment of small, independent filmmakers. This is especially the case when the films contain sexual content. In the documentary, actress Maria Bello complains that the ratings board has “desexualized sex.” Expounding on this, she explains that her film, The Cooler , was given a rating of NC-17 because they said some of her pubic hair could be seen in a love scene. Filmmakers also note that intimate acts involving persons of the same sex consistently receive NC-17. Others remark that the raters seem to have a number for sexual thrusts, and that when there’s more than two, then the film is doomed to an NC-17. Still, others say that the distance of the shot is also a factor. The closer the camera is to the sexual activity, the more likely it is to receive an NC-17 rating. While NC-17 ratings may seem reasonable to some given the stated mission of the MPA to advise parents on the appropriateness of content for children, the problem, filmmakers insist, is the built-in bias, the lack of accountability or explanation for the ratings, and the lack of transparency about who is making the ratings decisions. UCLA professor and researcher, Theresa Webb, added to this by noting the MPA’s preoccupation with sex but little attention paid to violence. So, what are we not getting about the way the MPA operates? The Disconnect Between the MPA and Independent Filmmakers Today, the segment of the MPA whose direct and sole responsibility is to watch films and rate them is parents. They are believed to serve 3–7-year terms, with the requirement that their children be between the ages of 5 and 16-years-old. The rationale for using parents is related to the organization’s mission regarding the appropriateness of film content for children. Given this, it makes sense to have parents perform this function, as long as their demographics are representative of the parent population in the U.S. with respect to race, education, income, religion, and even region. If due diligence is paid in this regard, then the rationale for choosing parents is reasonable. As for the MPA itself, it is a member association, where major studios like Disney, Netflix, MGM Studios, Paramount, Prime, Sony, Universal, and Warner Brothers essentially agree to the terms and conditions of the MPA and its strategy for rating films. That the MPA and the studios work in tandem is not new. As I alluded to earlier, major studios historically controlled all aspects of the film industry in the first several decades of Hollywood. Each studio had exclusive and binding contracts with the talent in front of and behind the cameras. Each controlled the distribution of its films. And each owned the theaters where the films were shown. This vertical integration broke down in the wake of the 1948 Supreme Court ruling in the United States vs Paramount. But the social relationships between studios, as facilitated through politically-connected organizations like the MPA, religious clergy, and executives’ similar values and sensibilities, allowed for the “studio system” to thrive and remain positioned as the arbiters of film and the film industry. For the most part, studios have enjoyed their stronghold over the industry. The benefits have outweighed the drawbacks. When they don’t like the ratings of their films, they have not only obtained the feedback for the necessary changes, but they’ve had access to the financial resources to recut a film if necessary. This is still the case today. Studio heads are well-connected enough as MPA members to cajole leadership into giving a film the rating they want. A rater in Kirby’s documentary revealed that Valenti regularly broke ties in their votes and tried to cajole raters to vote a certain way when he didn’t like their rating of a film. According to the rater, he appeared before them once saying, “Come on, you can do better than that.” What this suggests is the studios get their movies to their target rating (and ultimately to market fast), while small studios and independent filmmakers languish. Will the MPA ever evolve to support the full filmmaking community while fulfilling its mission to parents? Today’s MPA and What Parents Have to Say Today’s MPA is significantly more user-friendly than it was under Valenti, who retired in 2004. Its mission as it regards the rating of films is still the same, but Charles Rivkin, a former U.S. diplomat, has been the new head of the organization since 2017. Rivkin describes his role as “the best job in the world” and talks of creating “new ways for storytellers to reach even bigger audiences” and adapting to “changes in consumer tastes and behavior[s].” Indeed, under his relatively short tenure so far, streaming channels like Disney, Netflix, and Prime have come into the MPA fold. Independent filmmakers are now provided with an explanation of their films’ ratings, including suggestions on how to make changes to the movies to reach their rating goals. Extending upon the gradient ratings ushered in during Valenti’s tenure, the MPA also now augments the rating we see on the film with a descriptor that explains the basis for it (see image below). And there’s even a weekly bulletin published listing the films reviewed, along with their ratings and the explanations for them. This newfound transparency is undoubtedly welcome to filmmakers and even satisfies the curiosity of cinephiles like us! One way to assess the effectiveness of the ratings for the consumer, though, is to see how they are resonating with a representative sample of parents. As recently as 2022, the MPA commissioned a survey to understand how well the organization helps parents in determining the appropriateness of film content for their children. The 20-minute online survey was administered to 1,500 parents of 5 to 16-year-olds. More than 70% indicated they are quite satisfied that the new descriptor does a good job advising them on the amount of sexual content, violence, and profanity in films. They also agree that the ratings themselves are accurate. There is some variance by region, though. While parents in the South Atlantic region of the country (Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky) believe the ratings to be accurate, their “familiarity” results indicate they are less aware of the ratings than parents in other regions. Belief in the accuracy of something we are unfamiliar with, though, is paradoxical, which suggests the survey respondents in the region take the validity of the ratings at face value rather than having a true understanding of it. When asked about their content concerns, parents listed their top 10 in the order below. While parents are uncomfortable with numbers 1 through 4 and 6 for PG-13, they are most uncomfortable with the N-word, even in R-rated content. They are quite flexible, however, on the F-word, as evidenced by its absence in the top 10. Twenty-five or more uses of the term, however, pushes the film firmly into R territory. And related to Professor Webb's point regarding raters' oblivion to the violence element, parents' concerns about violence in film run a distant second to their anxieties about sex and nudity. Summary The MPA, throughout its history, has been self selected as an arbiter of morality and a guardian of privilege. It has maintained a studio system that advantages the powerful, helping them to sustain their positions of power at the expense of creators who lack such influence and affluence. To its credit, however, the organization has evolved and continues to do so. It operates in a much more inclusive manner toward independent filmmakers than it did a century ago. And based on its recent survey, its work, as it regards the movie ratings system in recent decades, has been useful to most parents. Having said this, about a third of adults go to the movies each year (even to a G or PG movie with a child). While the demographic representation of survey respondents seems balanced, the paltry number of individuals sampled leaves me questioning the strength of the survey results. Still, though, I am both informed and impressed with the MPA’s continued progress. Regarding the matter of violence in film. The survey indicates that parents are not very concerned about this element, which hearkens back to Webb’s statement regarding raters’ not assessing the films for violence. This is troubling because it suggests that the neither the rating panel nor the survey sample is sufficiently representative of a large swath of the movie‑watching public. All communities are affected by violence such as domestic, burglary, robbery, and rape, but poor communities of color are subjected to it with great frequency and intensity. It is beyond the scope of this paper to delve into the structural factors contributing to it. Like other families, however, families in these communities go to the movies and watch television. That sensitivity to their lived realities is not reflected in the ratings of films, is problematic and requires addressing. There is undoubtedly a subjective component to rating films. Consciously or subconsciously, the parents who rate them bring in their own values, experiences, and yes, even their biases into the assessment. Knowing this, I wonder how the MPA is thinking about the future for rating films given the move toward what are mistakenly viewed as “bias free” intelligence technologies. Couple this with the lack of political will in the United States to limit their use or curb their proliferation. Consider also the film industry’s eagerness to use these technologies to replace some functions around cinema production. So, what do you think is next for the MPA’s rating system? Will robots programmed to tally sex scenes, nudity, profanity, and perhaps even thrusts soon be occupying the theater at the MPA in place of parents, and automatically assigning a rating to the films? Or will the films’ digital media be downloaded to "RaterGPT" to do this work? Or — will the MPA accept, live with, acknowledge, or tolerate the human flaws in rating films as it does at this moment, while continuing to strive to improve it? References Abreu, Rafael. (2023). What is the Studio System — Hollywood’s Studio Era Explained. (2023). Studiobinder , (2023 January 1). https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-the-studio-system-in-hollywood/ American Parents’ Views on Movie Ratings. (2023). Motion Picture Association , (April 2023) https://www.motionpictures.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/American-Parents-Views-on-Movie-Ratings.pdf Dick, Kirby (Director). (2006). This Film is Not Yet Rated [Film]. Independent Film Channel. https://watchdocumentaries.com/this-film-is-not-yet-rated/ Film Ratings. Motion Picture Association . https://www.motionpictures.org/film-ratings/ Frequency of going to see a movie in theaters among adults in the United States as of May 2022. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/264396/frequency-of-going-to-the-movies-in-the-us/ Gauss, Daniel. (2017). 20 Films Banned by the Legion of Decency That Are Worth Your Time. Taste of Cinema , (2016 January 2017). https://www.tasteofcinema.com/2016/20-films-banned-by-the-legion-of-decency-that-are-worth-your-time/3/ Glenn, Frankel. (2021). X-Rated: Inside the Myths and Legends of Midnight Cowboy. Vanity Fair , (2021, February 26). https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/02/inside-the-myths-and-legends-of-midnight-cowboy?srsltid=AfmBOorTKptBhmiYOHWoAbx_e7d1tb-vuF8RDrc3Vj3GrB4FksflDCfv Hudson, David. (2009). Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964). Free Speech Center , (2009 January 1). https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/jacobellis-v-ohio/#:~:text=Jacobellis%20(%20Jacobellis%20v.%20Ohio%20)%20's,not%20obscene%20and%20was%20thus%20constitutionally%20protected . Heckman, Sam. (2021) Movie Censorship — A History of Film Censorship in America. Studiobinder , (2021 June 20). https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/movie-censorship-in-america/ Johnson, Ted. (2024). MPA Renews CEO Charles Rivkin’s Contract For Three More Years. Deadline (2024 January 17). https://deadline.com/2024/01/mpa-charles-rivkin-contract-1235795088/ Kench, Sam. (2022). What is MPAA — History of the Hollywood Ratings System. Studiobinder , (2022 August 7). https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-the-mpaa/ Knight, Rich. (2024). 6 Famous X-Rated Movies And What Made Them So Controversial At The Tim. Cinema Blend (26 June 2024). https://www.cinemablend.com/movies/famous-x-rated-movies-and-what-made-them-so-controversial-at-the-time Legion of Decency Collection (1933-1968) . Catholic Historical Research Center of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. https://archives.chrc-phila.org/repositories/2/resources/33 Motion Pictures Classified By The National Legion Of Decency 1936 1959 . https://archive.org/details/motion-pictures-classified-by-the-national-legion-of-decency-1936-1959 . PG‑13 Rating Debuts. History . https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/pg-13-rating-debuts Previous Next Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!

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Nimic serves as a sneak peek for the rest of its creator’s filmography < Back Nimic serves as a sneak peek for the rest of its creator’s filmography Superprime Films, 2019 12 minutes Director/Writer: Yorgos Lanthimos / Efthimus Filippou, Yorgos Lanthimos, and David Kolbusz Reading Time: 3 minutes 📷 : Licensed from Shutterstock Nimic Sliced Bread (X82MDOT4PFWFSZ2O) 00:00 / 03:26 Coca Movies and TV shows about drugs or with disorienting presentations Oolong Movies/shows that make you laugh or involve physical activity like exercise/dance Chris Chaisson 2023-08-02 Most film students are no stranger to the term “auteur,” often used to describe a well-known filmmaker with a signature style. Indeed, some writer/directors become well-known for the universes that they consistently represent. Maybe their characters speak in monotone voices and are void of facial expressions. Maybe their movies always have a clever plot twist at the end. Maybe every feature of theirs has at least 78 and a half explosions in it. Regardless, their personal taste is reflected in every project they undertake, including short films. While they are often meant to give investors a sense of story or universe, short films can also provide interested parties with a sense of the director’s personal style. Director Yorgos Lanthimos effectively pulls this off in his 2019 short Nimic . Nimic stars Matthew Dillon as the nameless protagonist, a routine-oriented family man and professional cellist. He has a wife and three children and plays for a classical string ensemble. One day while riding the train, he asks a stranger for the time in what turns into a regretful encounter. She recites his question, then follows him home in an effort to take his place as the husband and father figure. Though it at first seems ludicrous, his wife and children seem nonplussed by the presence of the stranger and willingly accept her as his replacement. As a feature, Nimic would likely include a second and third act of the protagonist attempting to regain control of his life. However, being the short film that it is, Yorgos Lanthimos’s project simply serves as a snippet reflecting his storytelling. Known as an existentialist, Lanthimos often depicts a bleak existence where characters feel very forgettable or replaceable, hence Matt Dillon’s character. The stranger he encounters demonstrates her ability to fill his role in the family and string ensemble so aptly that he may as well be invisible. In order to reflect this replicability, Lanthimos often presents humorless characters with no inflection in their voice (i.e. Dr. Steven Murphy in The Killing of a Sacred Deer ), as these features would make someone seem unique and endearing. Adding to the existentialist vibe is the fact that none of the characters in the film have a specified name. Dillon’s character, once followed home by the stranger, addresses his kids simply with a collective “children.” Most reflective of Lanthimos’s philosophy is the short film’s title itself, which is Romanian for “nothing.” The ominous tone of Nimic is reinforced with a soundtrack filled with strings being played violently, inducing anxiety in multiple scenes. The music is reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho soundtrack and is consistent with Lanthimos’s longer projects. From both a technical standpoint and a philosophical perspective, Nimic , in just 12 minutes, precisely conveys to a viewer unfamiliar with Yorgos Lanthimos what to expect in his other works. Available on Vimeo Previous Next Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!

Hit & Run leaves us considering if it’s worth the risk to know the truth < Back Hit & Run leaves us considering if it’s worth the risk to know the truth Artists First, 2021 42 minutes Creator: Avi Issacharoff, Dawn Prestwich, and Lior Raz Reading Time: 6 minutes 📷 : Used with permission, Netflix Hit & Run Life's Mystery (OLLLP7JCTXBC9LYN) 00:00 / 07:03 Ginseng Suspenseful and intense thrillers Matcha Mysteries or whodunnits Reba Chaisson 2023-09-12 Some people follow the old wisdom to accept things as they are, rather than digging around to find what’s hidden beneath them. Others, though, feel quite differently – that it is better to know the truth even if it hurts. Netflix puts this question front and center with Hit & Run , a 9-part series about a man desperate to know what happened to his wife, a professional dancer who was killed in a suspicious hit and run accident. And thanks to his military background, Segev Azulay, played by the series’ co-creator Lior Raz ( Fauda , 6 Underground ), has the skills to handle anyone who gets in his way of finding the truth about Danielle’s death. We realize something is awry early in the series, as Danielle “Dani” Azulay, played by Kaelen Ohm ( Taken , Flint ), prepares to leave their home in Israel for an audition in New York City. She seems distant and is frequently distracted by messages coming through on her mobile. While he clearly adores his wife, Segev, who is intense and high-energy, doesn’t seem to notice. When he bids her goodbye as she heads to the airport, he takes Ella, his 10-year old daughter from his first marriage, to school and goes straight to work as a tour guide. Upon leaving his property, he encounters a man parked by the side of the road just outside of his home, but Segev dismisses his unease when the man explains that he is waiting for someone who is late. Tali Shapira, Segev’s 30-something cousin played by Moran Rosenblatt ( We Were the Lucky Ones , Fauda ), is a captain on the police force and helps him in his investigation with mostly off-the-book research. Although she is in the third trimester of her pregnancy, she wears a gun holster around her waist, drives and crashes cars in chase scenes, and throws bad guys up against walls. Her toughness and tenacity as a woman so far along in her pregnancy make her casting unusual but likely deliberate. Women, especially white women who are pregnant, are typically depicted in cinema as fragile, often ending up in the hospital because a fall, faint, or sneeze put either the baby or the mom in distress. “The Waiting Room” episode in This is Us when Chrissy Metz’s character goes into premature labor is an example of this. Another is when Kim Raver’s character suffers a pregnancy complication in the “Add it Up” episode of Grey’s Anatomy . I could go as far back as the ‘80s with the movie, She’s Having a Baby, and the ‘90s with the “What Child is This?” episode of The Practice , but I won’t. In Hit & Run , Tali challenges this representation, as she even endures an explosion and comes away with just a few cuts and bruises and her unborn child still active in her belly. Perhaps a bit unrealistic. But while not the central character in Hit & Run , Tali is by far the most dynamic and interesting one. The Hebrew dialog in the series is overdubbed in English, making Hit & Run an easier watch than shows with subtitles, where we are tasked with reading while trying to watch what is happening on screen. The weather throughout the series is cool and perpetually overcast, likely to remind us of the somber circumstances. Also perpetual is Segev’s scowl. This is quite distinct from a look of sadness, but it hints at gender differences in how we handle grief. Though researchers emphasize that grieving can be a blend of emotional and physical displays, they acknowledge that women tend to talk with others while men express grief physically. Segev’s response to Dani’s death is unquestionably the latter. Indeed, it would have been refreshing to see him as a more complex character with a blend of emotion and physicality in the handling of his wife’s death. Instead, his character reinforces the traditional gender stereotypes around grieving. In addition to Segev’s overwhelming grief, Dani’s death sets into motion home invaders, where we see Segev display his fighting skills, explosions, and confrontations with the police because they “still don’t have any answers.” Eventually, his need for the truth takes him from his home in Israel to New York City, where he enlists Ron, his longtime friend and former military buddy, for help. Ron, who is down on his luck but enthusiastic about reuniting with Segev, provides him with weapons and accompanies him on his mission. Curiously though, he is surprised when Segev’s tactics for extracting information get out of hand. This inconsistency in the show is never explained. The show also stars Sanaa Latham as Naomi, an accomplished journalist for a high-end investigative magazine and Segev’s close friend. As with his cousin Tali and friend Ron, Segev enlists Naomi’s help in understanding the circumstances surrounding Dani’s death. Initially reluctant because she fears he will go off the rails in his coercive techniques, as he did often when they were in Mexico, she nonetheless goes down the rabbit hole with him in the investigation. In addition to the ending, the show leaves some holes. For example, the story begins in Israel, where Segev and Dani live in a rustic setting on a big, beautiful piece of property that includes a large home. Although he is a former Israeli soldier, it is unclear how his present self-employment as a tour guide generates the means to own such a large piece of real estate. This is never explained, but perhaps it is from the ill-gotten gains reaped during his stint in Mexico that is alluded to during his talks with Ron and Naomi. Another question concerns the repeating of Segev’s name. Each character states his name a minimum of three times during every exchange. It is as if the creators want to emphasize his character as the lead in the show, or that they’re concerned we will forget his name while watching it. This becomes obvious and annoying as the show moves on. Think about it. How many times do you name-drop during a 3-minute conversation? Hit & Run is comparable to The Agent , a Netflix series about a CIA agent working with his protectee to uncover who killed her aunt and uncle in their home and why. Both productions blend action and politics to render an intriguing story. As a whodunnit, action-filled, international thriller, Hit & Run offers a few surprises in the things uncovered about Dani and the circumstances surrounding her death. Nonetheless, the findings of the investigations in Hit & Run , leave us questioning if all the death, destroyed lives, and lives placed at risk were worth the truth, or if Segev should have just left well-enough alone. I don’t know. Could you? Previous Next Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!