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Learn about Cup of Tea Critiques, an online hub for Proof of Concept & Insightful Movie Reviews designed for film and TV enthusiasts. Click here if this sounds like your cup of tea! Welcome to Cup of Tea Critiques® Cup of Tea Critiques examines movies and television series through a critical lens. Our main focus is independent cinema—films rarely talked about, found in mainstream theaters, nor advertised on billboards. However, they are broadly available on streaming platforms and can be watched from the comfort of your own home. The shows consist of stories from across the globe—often important, funny, and entertaining stories—that captivate and inform, expose you to underrepresented perspectives, stimulate your thoughts, and facilitate discussion. Reviewing elements like story, depth of character, aesthetics, and themes, we develop a synopsis and denote it with a tea brew that evokes a feel for the work. So, instead of likes, ratings, emojis, or thumbs up or down, our reviews are tagged with a type of tea that, based on its benefits, gives you a sense of the show's feel and substance. In the mood for a lot of dialog? Maybe a movie tagged with a barley tea is just for you. Prefer something light? Perhaps a show tagged with ginkgo biloba is what you're looking for. Don't worry, we provide a legend that describes every tea we use. So, what movie or show are you in the mood for? Reading the review and noting the show's brew will help you decide if it's your "cup of tea." ® chris@cupofteacritiques.com Hi! I’m Chris reba@cupofteacritiques.com Hi! I’m Brandon brandon@cupofteacritiques.com Hi! I’m Reba Subscribe to receive email alerts for new movie and television critiques. Follow us on our Facebook, Instagram , and Letterboxd pages.

The First Time I Never Met You adds a wrinkle to the time-traveling genre < Back The First Time I Never Met You adds a wrinkle to the time-traveling genre Blue SiReine Productions, 2024 13 minutes Director/Writer: Eric Kole Reading Time: 3 minutes 📷 : Used with permission, Eric Kole The First Time I Never Met You Home Inside 00:00 / 03:50 Coca Movies and TV shows about drugs or with disorienting presentations Saffron Movies and TV shows with great visual effects Chris Chaisson 2024-11-08 Whenever the question of, “What would you do if you could travel through time?” comes up, the common answer tends to be stopping a catastrophic world event. In reality, most people would rewind to a key moment in their personal lives. A regrettable action, a crossroad, or a fond memory would be the likely options. There is no moment quite so blissful and heartbreaking as a character seeing a deceased loved one again, whether real or imagined. Eric Kole’s sci-fi short The First Time I Never Met You touches on this phenomenon. John, a physicist, dives headlong into his work in the midst of grieving the loss of his wife, Esmé. Dismissed from his job, he seeks a distraction, even neglecting those around him to find it. After an accident in his workspace sends him time-traveling, he winds up at a familiar pub, glancing around and trying to get his bearings. His bartender and close friend tells him the date on the calendar, and he realizes where he is: the scene of his first date with Esmé, right before she enters the pub. Knowing what he knows now but still being his younger self, can he make the right first impression for a second time? The First Time I Never Met You creates an interesting pressure-packed situation for its protagonist. John does not get to time-travel and be a casual observer, nor does he get to follow in the footsteps that he already walked. First, he desperately wants to woo Esmé but also shift to a path that does not lead to her untimely death. Second, he finds himself in this situation just a few minutes after sitting in his workspace completely morose over her passing. So, the shock to his system ultimately will take some time to wear off before he can be his most charming self. Lastly, John must silence his inner physicist that is still trying to piece together how he wound up there. Though time-travel is a familiar concept in the world of sci-fi, the premise of The First Time I Never Met You calls attention to the things we take for granted. It is easy to get bogged down in our daily, weekly, and yearly routines and forget that nothing is forever. The reality that the future is not guaranteed never fully hits John. Rather than relishing the opportunity to be in Esmé’s presence again, he becomes preoccupied with creating a parallel timeline where Esmé has a chance at a longer, and perhaps in his mind, more permanent life. Understanding this, the short urges us to appreciate every moment with our loved ones and avoid trying to control what we ultimately cannot. Time-traveling sci-fi movies are often married with the action genre rather than romance. Nonetheless, the first comp that comes to mind is the critically acclaimed About Time , starring Domnhall Gleeson as a son who gets to see his deceased father again. Digging deeper, The First Time I Never Met You resembles an older and less discussed rom-com, Serendipity . John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale co-star as a couple-to-be ruminating over the idea of whether fate brings people together. The topic of how much control we have over our lives seems to intensify surrounding our significant others. Do we have a soulmate or could every little action, thought, or word be the difference between companionship and loneliness? In any case, John’s quandary of changing the future while laying on the charm makes our first dates seem a little less nerve-wracking. 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 Content Manager Apply Now San Francisco, CA, USA Job Type Full Time Workspace Hybrid About the Role This is placeholder text. To change this content, double-click on the element and click Change Content. Want to view and manage all your collections? Click on the Content Manager button in the Add panel on the left. Here, you can make changes to your content, add new fields, create dynamic pages and more. Your collection is already set up for you with fields and content. Add your own content or import it from a CSV file. Add fields for any type of content you want to display, such as rich text, images, and videos. Be sure to click Sync after making changes in a collection, so visitors can see your newest content on your live site. Requirements This is placeholder text. To change this content, double-click on the element and click Change Content. To manage all your collections, click on the Content Manager button in the Add panel on the left. This is placeholder text. To change this content, double-click on the element and click Change Content. To manage all your collections, click on the Content Manager button in the Add panel on the left. This is placeholder text. To change this content, double-click on the element and click Change Content. To manage all your collections, click on the Content Manager button in the Add panel on the left. This is placeholder text. To change this content, double-click on the element and click Change Content. To manage all your collections, click on the Content Manager button in the Add panel on the left. About the Company This is placeholder text. To change this content, double-click on the element and click Change Content. Want to view and manage all your collections? Click on the Content Manager button in the Add panel on the left. Here, you can make changes to your content, add new fields, create dynamic pages and more. You can create as many collections as you need. Your collection is already set up for you with fields and content. Add your own, or import content from a CSV file. Add fields for any type of content you want to display, such as rich text, images, videos and more. You can also collect and store information from your site visitors using input elements like custom forms and fields. Be sure to click Sync after making changes in a collection, so visitors can see your newest content on your live site. Preview your site to check that all your elements are displaying content from the right collection fields. Apply Now

Almost Certainly False drives home the risk of reductionist language < Back Almost Certainly False drives home the risk of reductionist language EKHO, 2025 20 minutes Director/Writer: Cansu Baydar Reading Time: 5 minutes 📷 : Used with permission, Cansu Baydar Almost Certainly False Eastern Sunrise (L3G6QGJF4FNZRQBY) 00:00 / 06:23 Honeybush Nonfamily dramas with strong adult and/or socioeconomic themes Ginger Thought-provoking movies/shows Reba Chaisson 2025-02-27 The thing about the word “refugee” is its reductive and objectifying connotation, reducing the person to an object and robbing them of their humanity. While not unique to the U.S., we are one of the biggest purveyors of language that dehumanizes people (e.g. slave, undocumented, illegal, foreigner, criminal). But for this talk, the focus is on “refugee,” which refers to a person fleeing dire circumstances in their home countries, circumstances like political retribution, religious persecution, climate change, famine, and of course, war. Several years ago, COTC published a review of the theatrical release, In Syria , which is about the plight of a family sticking it out in their bombed-out apartment building during the nascent stages of the Syrian War. During its 2025 festival in Utah, Sundance screened a short film that gives another perspective of this war. Rather than a look from the inside-out, Cansu Baydar’s Almost Certainly False gives a glimpse from the outside-in through the eyes of Hanna, a 20-something who fled Syria for the safety of Turkey with her adolescent brother, Nader (Isa Karatas), in tow. Now settled in Istanbul, Hanna, played by Rahaf Armanazi, has a one-bedroom apartment from which she makes a living doing manicures, as her restless little brother looks on. The two often have conflicting priorities. She needs to work when he wants to play with a ball in the small space, for example. Or he beckons her attention in some other way, but she is distracted with straightening up. Though they occasionally tussle when Nader gets frustrated, ultimately, the two hug it out as they learn to manage what has clearly been a difficult adjustment for them both. Hanna has a social life, which includes hanging out with her best friend, Esra ( Büşra Albayrak) , who is slightly younger than her and seemingly oblivious to the fact that Hanna is responsible for a younger brother. Still, the two manage to find time to talk and hang out socially. When Benjo arranges a blind double-date with her and her boyfriend, Hanna meets Ibo, a Turkish gentleman played by Ferhat Akgün. Ibo confirms with her what he seems to already know, that she is “a refugee.” He then persists in telling her that she doesn’t “look Syrian.” Throughout the evening, Ibo is obsessed with Hanna’s appearance, looking at her with a gaze of disbelief like she is something other-worldly. Again, he says, “You don’t look Syrian.” It is not clear if Ibo is smitten with Hanna’s looks or taken aback by how full of life she is or perhaps, that she is even human. It is as if he expects her to be or look like something or someone else. Hanna maintains a very strong sense of self despite enduring difficult circumstances in her short life. We see this as she confidently shares with Ibo her plans for the future. With a tone of disbelief, he wonders aloud how she is going to accomplish this. She retorts indignantly, “How do you think?” and “How else would anyone do it?” Ibo’s gaze and obsession with Hanna’s appearance reminds us of the rancor around the heavy European immigration to the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It also brings to mind the more recent hostile sentiments expressed by political leaders hyper‑focused on people arriving from countries in North Africa, East Asia, and especially nations south of the U.S. border. The same can be seen and heard in Europe in recent decades, as evidenced by news stories on immigration and dramatized in films such as The Old Oak . Ken Loach’s 2023 film, The Old Oak , is centered on a working‑class Irish enclave in the UK, where struggling residents resist the settling of new Syrian immigrants in their community. They not only stare at them because of their difference in appearance, but they also view them as something other than human. This is evident in the harsh words they use and in their often-combative treatment of them. While Cansu Baydar’s Almost Certainly False avoids delving into nasty forms of rejection, Ibo’s objectification of Hanna is enough to give us hints about her experiences as a Syrian immigrant in Turkey. Interestingly, the film also conveys that xenophobia is not unique to countries in the West, but perhaps manifests quite differently. There is a tendency to objectify those who look different and paint them as something other than what they are. The problem with this is it runs the risk of locking them into concrete boxes stamped with words and meanings that not only fail to convey who they are, but they narrow the aperture through which they are viewed by others and limit what they can become. In Almost Certainly False , Ibo’s view of Hanna suggests this marginalization of her has already begun. She is viewed as this thing called a “refugee” who doesn’t look like who she claims to be and has no chance of achieving what she dreams to become. In The Old Oak , 20-something-year-old Yara, a Syrian immigrant played by Ebla Mari, asserts herself in the community and works to organize a regular meal at a local tavern for all to come, share, and get to know one another. In this sense, young Yara refuses to be objectified. The same can be said of Hanna. Fearlessly and forcefully pushing against the ideas and sentiments about her, we see in Almost Certainly False that Hanna is not a figment of anyone’s imagination. Like Yara, she is alive and real. 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 Getting Up Close and Personal with Crawdads and Vengeance A look at how film informs our perspective Reba Chaisson 11/4/22 Reading Time: 11 minutes 📸: Licensed from Shutterstock I don’t think we consider enough what film teaches us about ourselves and the circumstances of people with whom we have little sustained contact. Vengeance and Where the Crawdads Sing ( Crawdads ) are two films that accomplish this, taking us out of our comfort zones and bringing the unfamiliar up-close and personal. Crawdads follows Kya, a girl who is abandoned by her family in the 1950s and grows up alone on their land in a North Carolina marsh. When the restless 8-year-old ventures into nearby Barkley Cove for school, the town’s privileged adults hurl names at her like “Marsh Girl” while the children tease her for lacking shoes and suitable outfits for school. Traumatized by the treatment, Kya withdraws to shield herself from the sting, minimizing even casual encounters with anyone but her shadow. Destitute, she makes a life for herself in the marsh without the help of formal schooling, family, or even neighbors. She trusts less than a handful of people, two of them being Jumpin’ and Mabel. Played by Sterling Macer Jr. ( Double Take , BAB ) and Michael Hyatt ( The Little Things , Snowfall ), respectively, the congenial Black couple own the General Store in town and support the young girl with clothing and food. Kya also comes to trust Tom Milton, a kindly older lawyer, played by David Strathairn ( The Bourne Ultimatum , Godzilla ). In her seemingly endless days, weeks, months, and years of solitude, Kya, played by Daisy Edgar-Jones ( Normal People , Under the Banner of Heaven ), evolves into a naturalist, making beautifully detailed drawings of shells, and documenting the different species of birds and insects along with their habits. As she grows into a young adult and yearns for intimate relationships, she opens her heart to Tate, played by Taylor John Smith ( Cruel Intentions , You Get Me ) and slowly begins to discover what it feels like to be connected to people beyond her tiny circle, to learn what it feels like to love, be loved, and all that it means. But when a popular guy in town is found dead in a well-known hangout in the marsh, Kya is conveniently accused of his murder and the people in town unhesitatingly accept that “the Marsh Girl did it.” While Crawdads focuses on the life and travails of a young woman, Vengeance centers on Ben, a 30-something budding journalist from New York City. The inciting incident occurs when Ben receives news of the sudden death of Abilene Shaw, a woman from rural Texas with whom he had a one-night stand during her visit to the Big Apple. When her distraught brother, Ty, calls with the news, Ben initially struggles to remember her, and even when he does, he expresses only obligatory condolences rather than the genuine sense of sadness expected by her brother. Confused as to why he received a call at all, Ben, played by B.J. Novak ( The Office , Inglourious ), quickly learns that Abilene led her family to believe he was her fiancée. When Ty, played by Boyd Holbrook ( In the Shadow of the Moon , The Predator ), coerces him into coming to Texas for the funeral, Ben stays and writes a story about southern rural life, under the guise of helping the family find the person responsible for Abilene’s death and getting “retribution.” In his half-hearted effort to get answers from authorities, Ben becomes flabbergasted and exhausted as none appear committed to investigating Abilene’s death, let alone finding out who is responsible for dumping her body in an oil field where, conveniently, jurisdiction is unclear. Resigning himself to the reality that the case will never be solved, Ben returns to what was always his priority—writing his story. Crawdads and Vengeance are released at an interesting time in the U.S., when the states are segmented into red or blue and the language used to assess and even describe the phenomenon is largely negative (i.e. separate, divided). Like labeling, the consequences for this are prejudgments and deepening antagonisms about the people in each segment, affecting our ability to view them as residents of the same country or even as situated in a culture that is unique to each state. Perhaps the stories in these films will blur the lines a bit, encourage us to see what we have in common and still appreciate the uniqueness of our lived experiences. It is also interesting that these two independent films landed in mainstream theaters. If released at all, films centering Whites in rural areas of the South typically feature characters who are passively ridiculed in a short-lived cut or portrayed one-dimensionally as villainous because something went quite awry in their lives. Ironically, Ben is presented as the oddity in Vengeance, as he missteps the culture of a rodeo event and later has a meltdown because he cannot get the answers to what he views as simple questions for his story. In stark contrast, for the Shaw family, it ain’t that serious; it just is. Sociology teaches that you cannot understand a person without engaging him or her. In the case of a community, you cannot understand it without becoming a part of it. Some of the best research is conducted by engaging people and becoming a part of communities (Read Nickel and Dimed by the late Barbara Ehrenreich.). The engagement—questions, conversations, immersion in the culture—is meant to learn about people given their everyday circumstances, not as tools for manipulating and shaping their world views. This learning takes more than a minute, an hour, or even a day. Rather, it takes weeks, months, and sometimes even years. Ben’s effort to exploit the Shaws for a story and shape them into viewing the world through his eyes (i.e. expressing themselves in ways he understands them, and believing they are missing out by not being connected to urban life as he is) speaks volumes about how our biases shape who we are. They also speak to how, at times, we consciously or unconsciously view ourselves as more accepted, normal, or in some way better than others. From this vantage point, we (intentionally or not) impose constraints on others, stripping away their humanity and treating them as outsiders. We also see this in Crawdads , when Kya is indicted for murder and the other citizens are convinced, without evidence, that “the Marsh girl” did it. This label and Kya’s lack of connection to the influential people in town who had effectively relegated her to the marsh, allows for objectifying and dehumanizing her. This influences the attitudes and actions of authorities and other townspeople toward Kya, making it seem perfectly logical to believe she committed the crime. At the risk of being redundant, it fascinates me that these two films that do a wonderful job humanizing Whites in rural areas of the South landed in mainstream theaters. Classified as a comedy/mystery, Vengeance falls on some obvious stereotypes of Whites in rural areas. But the development of the characters over the 107 minutes allows us to see the Shaws as people rather than the typical cinematic caricatures of Whites in the Deep South. Crawdads , a drama/mystery film, provides a singular laser-focused glimpse into the life of a girl abandoned by her family at a very young age and forced to grow up alone, living off the land. In presenting these circumstances and her ostracism by the people in town, the film humanizes her and even tugs at the audience’s heart strings. I wonder, though, if these are still viewed as one-off portrayals. Much has been written on the power of film representations in shaping our perspective. In a 2017 interview with the Huffington Post , Dr. Ana-Christina Ramón who now heads the Entertainment and Media Research Initiative at UCLA states, “What you see [on film] often becomes a part of your memory and thus a part of your life experience.” Will audience members come away from these stories with an informed perspective about people in rural areas of the South, or will they soon dismiss the depictions as atypical and not representative of Whites in the Deep South? In films where White characters from rural areas are ridiculed or portrayed as criminally defective (i.e. Deliverance , Winter’s Bone , Mud ), we don’t typically walk away viewing Whites as a group in these ways. This is largely due to the preponderance of “normal” middle-class Whites in the film and television images we see. Thus, White representations that deviate from these depictions are dismissed as one-offs—oddities, expendables, a glimpse of people who just “don’t fit,” “don’t matter,” and “aren’t relevant.” I still wonder, hope maybe, that the representations in Crawdads and Vengeance will take up space in our memories, even if just a little, to influence the way we think about people in these regions. I also wonder if viewers’ ideas about racial identity will begin to turn over in their heads. If Vengeance and Crawdads did not center Whites, one might think the subjects in the films were people of color in the U.S. Had they been, I wonder if we would have exited the theaters with our biases confirmed or challenged about these groups. Author Florentine Bakkenes writes in her 2022 Diggit Magazine article , that “The media people consume, the movies they watch, and the television series they follow, are not just entertainment, it also has an impact on the way people think and view other people.” In her 2018 New York Times article on what film teaches her about being a woman, film critic Manohla Dargis writes, “There isn’t a causal relationship between viewer behavior and the screen. There doesn’t have to be. Because movies get into our bodies, making us howl and weep, while their narrative and visual patterns, their ideas and ideologies leave their imprint.” In Crawdads and Vengeance , the characters are normal and/or heroic ones that display the depths of their humanity. They are loving, caring, funny, rude, smart, not-so-smart, good, bad, and all the gray areas in between. If the Shaws were Black and Kya was Latina, would this tickle viewers' sensibilities about the depth and breadth of the humanity of Blacks and Hispanics as a whole? I love these films and my eyes watered as I left the theaters (particularly for Vengeance ), because these were stories that needed to be told. Whites in rural areas are rarely centered and humanized in film, but Crawdads and Vengeance do a wonderful job of changing this trend. Having said this, I look forward to seeing similar cinematic presentations centering underrepresented people of color. Vengeance brings to mind the film, Wind River , which is about the death of a Native American woman on a reservation in Wyoming and the reluctance of federal authorities in working the case. As in Vengeance , law enforcement was not interested in investigating the death of a woman of poor background in a rural area. Where the Crawdads Sing is reminiscent of the 1972 film, Sounder , starring Kevin Hooks as David Lee and the late and great Cicely Tyson as Rebecca. Set in the Deep South in the 1930s, the film is about Nathan Lee (played by Paul Winfield), a Black sharecropper who is wrongfully jailed for a crime he did not commit. I still remember the poignant scene where a sheriff’s deputy used a knife to cut holes into the beautifully frosted chocolate cake meant for Nathan, as his 10-year-old son David helplessly watched a symbol of his mother’s love for her husband be destroyed. My recollection of the details of these films reinforces the point that film “imprints” itself, teaching us something about who we are and the circumstances of people with whom we have little if any sustained contact. While what we glean from the lessons vary depending upon our vantage point, experiences, and knowledge of the past, the depictions of people and circumstances have the power to inform, thus shaping our perspective. Sometimes film confirms our views and other times, its stories and depictions challenge them. In either case, good or bad, welcome or not, we are learning something. References Bakkenes, F. (2022). Diversity and Representation in TV and Movies and Why it Matters. Diggit Magazine . https://www.diggitmagazine.com/papers/diversity-and-representation-tv-and-movies-and-why-it-matters Boboltz, S and Yam, K. Why On-Screen Representation Actually Matters. The Huffington Post . https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-on-screen-representation-matters_n_58aeae96e4b01406012fe49d Boorman, J. (Director). (1972). Deliverance [Film]. Elmer Enterprises. Dargis, M. (2018). What the Movies Taught Me About Being a Woman. The New York Times . https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/30/movies/women-in-movies.html Ehrenreich, B. (2001). Nickel and Dimed . Metropolitan Books. Granik, D. (Director). (2010). Winter’s Bone [Film]. Anonymous Content. Newman, O. (Director). (2022). Where the Crawdads Sing [Film]. Columbia Pictures. Nichols, J. (Director). (2012). Mud [Film]. Everest Entertainment. Novak, B. J. (Director). (2022). Vengeance [Film]. Blumhouse Productions. Ritt, M. (Director). (1972). Sounder [Film]. Radnitz/Mattel Productions. Sheridan, T. (Director). (2017). Wind River [Film]. Acacia Filmed Entertainment. 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 How Do We Measure Box Office Success Considering the Value of a Movie Chris Chaisson 12/18/21 Reading Time: 5 minutes 📸: Photo from Pixabay In recent years, pandemic notwithstanding, the box office has seen record numbers from blockbusters. Despite the prevalence of pirating, many of the highest grossing movies in film history have been fairly modern. The year 2019 set a record for global box office earnings with $42.3 billion. Though this number clearly dipped in 2020, the film industry had seen increased profits despite a plethora of other increasingly popular options for entertainment. Many factors contributed to these unprecedented turnouts. For one, the advancements in visual effects and sound quality make the movie-going experience more appealing, specifically for the biggest action movie franchises ( The Fast and the Furious , Transformers , Marvel , etc.). Additionally, the largest movie theater chains have opened new branches over the years and scaled up their venues to attract customers. Not only are the marquees and glass windows bigger and fancier, but the concessions have become more diversified. Some theaters have even carved out space for restaurants near the entrance and acquired liquor licenses to entice those of age. All these tidbits lead to the biggest contributor to increased box office numbers: movie tickets cost more now . A trip to the movies used to be a fun activity for a group of teenage friends or a young couple that didn’t have money to make more expensive plans. Enthusiastic cinephiles would hang out at the movies all day, maybe taking in two or three flicks and just hanging out with their buddies. What the box office represented culturally has since changed. Now, between the tickets and the concessions, going to see The Avengers cost about as much as going to see the Yankees. The year I was born, 1989, the average price of a movie ticket was $3.99**. While my hands weren’t big enough to hold four dollars at the time, that price provides evidence of a time when attending the movies was a less grandiose experience. Today, the average movie ticket price is $9.16**, and the most popular theater chains are all charging much more. Likewise, many venues have increased the number of private screenings and Q&As in recent years, which are primarily attended by members of the industry or patrons who spend the most money there. Research shows that 11% of the U.S./Canada population accounts for nearly half of all tickets sold, and frequent moviegoers tend to have more key technology products. Both findings reflect a possible class distinction on who attends the movie theater most frequently. As the future of cinema holds more rewards programs, QR codes and email confirmations, movie theaters likely won’t return to the minimally staffed, dollar-matinee feel that they had in the past. Many of them have simply embraced more upscale branding efforts. Whether good or bad, the modern and lavish atmosphere of the Cineplex makes box office sales difficult to compare to the era of more simplistic, communal venues. Returning to the discussion of the highest grossing movies, can we judge a movie’s popularity solely by what it grosses now? Once we account for the change in the cinematic experience as well as ramped up marketing efforts through T-shirts and theme park rides, Orson Welles seems to have been at a competitive disadvantage. What if we judged movies less by the dollar amount and instead checked the ticket stubs? How many tickets were actually sold for any specific motion picture? This re-examination of a movie’s earnings could highlight films that achieved extreme popularity when cost of living was low and other films that simply benefited more from inflation. Though not a perfect equation, I would suggest taking the dollar amount a movie grossed and divide it by the average ticket price of that year. Click the charts below to see what the Highest Grossing Movies vs. Movies with the Most Ticket Sales looks like. Chart by Gross Sales .pdf Download PDF • 133KB Chart by Tickets Sold .pdf Download PDF • 132KB There are very few surprises in these two tables as a whole. The most popular movies are the highest budgeted and most well-marketed, regardless of what measure you use. Nonetheless, contrasting dollar amounts against the number of tickets sold illustrates that some of the most popular movies would be even higher on our list if they had premiered after the industry-wide renovation of modern cinema. For instance, despite an exorbitant dollar amount for American Sniper , the film benefited significantly from an increase in ticket prices. Conversely, the original Star Wars was incredibly popular but premiered at a time when movie tickets were less than $3. Had Titanic been released after theaters introduced their expanded menus and 4K screens, it may have set attendance records never to be broken. Cultural shifts never stop happening, so the future remains to be seen. Maybe movie theaters will scale back down as everyone retreats to their HBO Max accounts. Or maybe they’ll continue their upward trajectory and offer lobster dinners with Courvoisier to wash it down. Either way, it’s always worthwhile to think critically about the record-breaking statistics being thrown in your face. But right now, time for a matinee. 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< Back Game of Thrones Audience Appeal The Enduringness of Story Reba Chaisson 7/22/22 Reading Time: 18 minutes 📸: Licensed from Shutterstock About 20 years ago, I sat down separately with several film and television development executives in Los Angeles to talk about their aesthetic priorities and what influenced their decisions to greenlight a project. I wrote the findings of the interviews in my book, For Entertainment Purposes Only? (Lexington Books, 2000). Each person gave me permission to disclose his or her company’s names because it was essential to lend credence to the views of such influential leaders in the business. Among the people I spoke with were development executives from HBO and October Films, the latter company went defunct in 1999 and now exists as Focus Features. I flew out to Los Angeles to join them for lunch after each kindly responded to my letter (sent via regular mail) to interview them about their work. It was an engaging hour with each. They helped me understand the elements they look for in a film and their rationale for them, as well as some of the challenges they face in the review and selection process. The business priorities of both people were consistent with respect to the goal for a film project, mainly that is is profitable as measured by premium channel subscribers and modest ticket sales, respectively. They also noted that generating "buzz" was important, Hollywood’s term for ‘talk’ and media attention about a project. This helped the project's popularity and increased its chances of critical acclaim in the form of awards and positive reviews. A strong consistency in my talks with all of the people I spoke with, including Smoke Signals (1998) writer/director Chris Eyre, was remaining true to the values of what was then considered independent film. Also described as artsy works with budgets under $20 million, independent film carries the tacit mandate of telling intimate stories with deep characters portrayed with strong acting. These projects differ from major (or mainstream) studio productions in several respects. Mainstream studios typically incur high production costs, emphasize splash over story substance, use high‑profile actors to carry the film, and are motivated to maximize ticket sales at the box office or rake in advertising revenue on television. In short, the focus of major studios is on the commercialization of the films they produce and distribute, measuring a project’s success in dollars more so than accolades. Of course, there are exceptions in that many mainstream films are simply great, with strong stories and acting such as Paramount and Twentieth Century Fox’s Titanic (1997) and New Line Cinema’s Lord of the Rings (2001), both high‑grossing and award‑winning films. But exceptions notwithstanding, mainstream film contrasts sharply with independent film, which endeavors to stay true to the art form by consistently telling compelling stories with high-quality cinematic presentations. Examples of 'indie' films in the '90s were Miramax’s Smoke Signals (1998), October Films’ The Apostle (1997) and Fox Searchlight’s Boys Don’t Cry (1999), all of which won multiple independent film awards and the last even won an Oscar for best acting. Recently, films such as Annapurna Pictures’ If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) garnered Oscar and Golden Globe wins for acting in 2019, and A24’s Moonlight (2016) won the Oscar for best film in 2017. All of these films fit the mold of indie as defined years ago, but there is a spirited debate occurring in the industry today over what indie is. The indie debate concerns what constitutes independent film and whether budget should factor into a project’s classification as indie or mainstream. Admitting my bias here, I agree that budget should not be a factor in making this determination, and instead the emphasis remain on the story and the quality of its presentation. I will save these arguments for another day. But it is worth mentioning that none of the arguments considers where the original programming of premium and streaming channels fits, whether in the form of movies or television series. At this point, even this doesn't matter, though. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, any arguments that assert where these platforms belong in the schema would be moot, now that the channels have become vessels for distributing theatrical releases of films of all types. It will be interesting to see if this changes as the public's sensitivity to news reports on COVID-19 diminishes. Years ago, HBO’s original programming was considered independent because it adhered to the indies' tacit mandates which required: that the film be produced independently of major ones; and that besides profit, the measures for success must lie heavily in the project's critical acclaim. Today, like HBO, companies like Netflix and AMC not only develop award winning movies, but also television series. Their success is measured in the indie tradition of awards and of course, channel subscribers rather than commercial advertising dollars. Because of this differentiation, we consider original programming to be of the indie mold. So, in addition to assessing just how well independent studios have remained true to the sector’s values, I wondered if the aesthetic priorities of the industry 20 years ago reflect the aesthetic tastes of the audiences they seek to attract today. If audience preferences align with studio priorities, it would suggest that it is the appeal of a story that endures, and audiences simply thirst for a good cinematic presentation of it. Given this, the story’s underlying elements could offer insights into what can potentially predict the success of a film or television project. Back in the Day Twenty years ago, DVRs had not yet arrived; VCRs were the recording devices of the day. Cable TV was limited, with just a handful of premium movie channels like HBO and TMC. The worldwide web was on the cusp of exploding into homes and moving into mainstream prominence. Mobile phones were quite literally just a phone, not the handheld microcomputers that we use today to manage our everyday lives and stay in constant touch with friends and family through texts, emojis, social media posts, and instant photos. So, with the technological revolution we have experienced since the turn of the century, have audiences’ cinematic preferences for independent works changed too? This is the question I wanted to explore, and I designed a survey on the HBO series, Game of Thrones (2011) to help me with some answers on this. About GoT Described in part as a fantasy drama, Game of Thrones (GoT) is a television series set in medieval times about a battle over seven kingdoms. The first seven seasons depicted battles among the various factions leading up to the showdown in the final season, which premiered April 14, 2019. In addition to war, the show integrates elements of politics, gender, race, class, and age. GoT’s U.S. viewership quadrupled over its seven seasons, growing from about 2.5 to more than 10 million on average per episode. By comparison, The Sopranos (HBO, 1999-2007) series finale drew 11.9 million and The West Wing (NBC, 1999-2006) pulled approximately 8 million viewers on average. GoT generated a lot of buzz over its first seven years, making it arguably the most talked about series, with cultural critics, pundits, psychologists, and marketers weighing in on its value and offering explanations for its appeal. With these achievements, it can be argued that GoT is an outlier because of its wild popularity. I can counter that it is because of its reach that the show warrants a teasing out of the elements that appealed to so many people. In short, GoT seemed to exemplify viewers’ aesthetic tastes, making it a very appropriate choice for the study. Viewer Demographics The online survey was administered over two days, March 27-28, 2019, prior to the release of season 8. It consisted of 11 questions posed to 540 individuals across the country who were 18 or older, asking about their level of interest in the season 8 premiere of GoT. With a response rate of 89%, the survey contained 482 responses and a completion rate of 86%. The sample yielded a margin of error of +/-4.6% at a 95% confidence level. Sixty-two percent of respondents indicated they were somewhat to very likely to watch the season 8 premiere. Of these, 53% were women. People ages 45-54 made up the largest segment at 28%. Each segment of 18-24 and 25-34 year-olds comprised 19%, for a total of 38%. The respondents’ ages are consistent with those noted by Variety , which identified the key demographic for GoT as 18 to 49 years old. Together, they make up more than 70% of the sample. I was unable to find a mainstream television series that matches GoT’s ratings and breadth of appeal across age groups. Most have a younger or older audience, not both. The series boasts an IMDB rating of 9.5 on a 10‑point scale! ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013-2020) comes to mind when considering a mainstream show that rates high among 21-34 year-olds in particular. The action packed, science fiction series had a rating of 7.5 as it approached its eighth season, with approximately 2.3 million viewers. It was twice nominated for an Emmy in the visual effects category only, suggesting that story and depth of characters do not explain the show’s appeal. Instead, its staying power is its ability to draw advertising revenue and its syndication potential. On the older side of the age band is ABC’s Castle (2009-2016). The underrated show is about a writer who partners with a female detective to develop material for his novels, but he falls in love with her along the way. The series ran for eight seasons, and won Emmys for music, People’s Choice awards for Favorite TV Drama, and TV Guide awards for acting. A high quality show with an IMDB rating of 8.5, it pulled strongly among 45-64 year olds . Despite being canceled more than five years ago, the show still enjoys syndication and is quite popular. But in short, nothing comes close to the broad appeal of the Game of Thrones series. More than 3/4th of survey respondents indicated they had at least some college education. Interestingly, Game of Thrones is often described as one of the smartest shows on television, with Walton, a writer for Forbes's , commenting that it was: “[So] smart, in fact, that it can be hard to follow. ” While the educational attainment of the largest audience segment in the sample has some college level education, a fifth of viewers indicated they have attained something less. This suggests that the show’s audience is not monolithic and has something for everyone. The show's appeal is further indicated across income groups. Just under 40% earn $35,000-$74,999. One quarter earn $75,000-$149,999. Thus, the audience is diverse even across income. Together, the sample’s demographics point to Game of Thrones as having a very broad appeal, spanning age bands, education segments, income, and in grabbing the interest of both men and women. Critical Acclaim The critical acclaim of cinematic work is one standard of measure for assessing a film or television production. It manifests in awards and positive reviews that essentially validate several elements: the quality of the story being told; depth of the characters; and strength of the acting. It stands to reason then that a successful production is one that garners a lot of prestigious awards. Awards are the film and television industry’s nod to the strength of a show or movie’s critical elements. GoT won numerous prestigious awards over its first seven seasons: a Golden Globe for acting and multiple Emmy awards for Outstanding TV Drama Series, acting, production design, music composition, and visual effects just to name a few. The show’s accolades are reminiscent of drama series like AMC’s Breaking Bad (2008-2013), Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale (2017- ), and ABC’s Scandal (2012-2018). Like GoT, Breaking Bad and The Handmaid’s Tale won multiple Golden Globes for Best TV Series and best acting performances. These along with Scandal , won Emmys in all or some categories, including Outstanding Drama Series, writing, acting, cinematography, production design, and others. Baffling is a notable series like HBO’s The Wire (2002-2008), which was only twice‑nominated for Emmys in writing and received no Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for acting. The show’s IMDB rating is 9.3 out of 10, second in the aforementioned only to GoT which has a 9.5. One journalist described it as “ the greatest television [program] ever made. ” The explanations for this absence of tangible critical acclaim for The Wire is still being debated more than a decade after the show’s series finale. Nonetheless, accolades such as these attest to the critical acclaim of these shows. But still, do the tastes of viewers support the industry’s notions about GoT? Audience Appeal The most interesting and poignant finding from the survey is how respondents described GoT’s appeal for them. Based on the frequency in their responses to the question regarding what they find appealing in the Game of Thrones , the single, most prominent element that grabs their interest is 'characters.' Blake, a writer with CNN noted that critics often laud the complexity of the characters in GoT. Arya’s character, for example, defies her expected role to marry royalty and instead becomes a fighter determined to avenge her family. And Daenerys, who began as a victim and over time built an army and nurtured dragons, now wields undeniable power. The depth of the characters and their transformation over the series resonate with the experiences and aspirations of many everyday people who strive for strength and courage. There are also other character elements that we recognize in ourselves, such as: the cunningness of Littlefinger; the immaturity of Joffrey; sadly, the brutality of Ramsay; and even the gentility, loyalty, and empathy displayed by Tyrion and Jorah. Viewers relate to these in terms of what they see, hear and in some cases experience every day. Thus, the characters in the series display both broad and deep ranges of humanity, reinforcing the idea that the show has something that appeals to everyone. Second in text frequency are ‘storyline’ and ‘story,’ indicating their high importance for respondents. GoT is a story of race, gender, politics, and the wielding of political and military power to conquer. Examples of these are: the ruthlessness practiced by those in power to keep it and gain more; dark skinned people being brought out of bondage by a blond, white woman; young and older women occupying seats of power like Sansa and Cersei, respectively. Viewers can connect with these elements in large part because they are relevant to present-day issues and events. As I wrote in my book , cinema has historically been tied to the events of the day so it can resonate with people’s lives during that period. For example, a flood of war and comedy productions are released during times of military conflict, the former to reflect reality and the latter to provide an escape from its horror. Recently, Aaron Sorkin, a writer of The West Wing , noted that the series almost did not air because the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke soon after the show was penned. Said Sorkin, “[We knew] we simply can’t do this right now. People will giggle.” Today, strong political divisions and race and gender issues are playing out on television news programs and in social media, making the GoT storyline especially palpable. We found no major differences in the show’s appeal for men and women. Both emphasize characters and story as appealing elements, highlighting drama, action, acting, fantasy, and intrigue as important but relatively minor. The notable difference between the two is the appearance of ‘nudity’ for men and ‘love’ for women. But even these do not come close to the two primary draws of characters and story. Escapism and Anticipation ‘Action,’ ‘plot,’ ‘dragons,’ ‘fantasy’ are also highlighted by respondents, so it is evident that the level of escapism provided by GoT is quite high. Forty‑one percent planned to decorate their homes and/or wear GoT‑themed costumes for the viewing, which exemplifies the degree to which entertainment in general provides for escape from everyday routines. With sports, some fans wear jerseys, guzzle hats and paint the team’s colors on their faces to immerse themselves into the event. With cinema, some viewers carry props and don period clothing and costumes imitating those worn in a film or show. Star Wars and GoT are just two examples of this. More than half of respondents who indicated they were likely to watch the premiere planned to watch it with friends and/or family, and many were preparing for its airing much like football fans do for the Big Game. They shared plans to prepare meals, and 4 out of 10 indicated they were somewhat likely to very likely to purchase a big screen television for the event – a fairly common phenomenon for the Big Game . A handful indicated they would binge on the previous episodes to build excitement for what’s to come in the season 8 premiere. In addition to show loyalty, the constant media buzz about GoT spurs its anticipation even before trailers of the premieres are released. For example, a simple search of Game of Thrones articles yielded more than 209 million results. Even if half of these were duplicates, the sheer number demonstrates the wild popularity and interest in the show by journalists, scholars and viewers. By comparison, a search of The West Wing yielded 126 million and AMC’s Mad Men (8 seasons) 150 million. GoT‑related publications were exceeded only by the AMC series, Breaking Bad (5 seasons), which had 241 million hits, ABC’s Scandal (7 seasons) 336 million and HBO’s The Wire (5 seasons) with a whopping 389 million. College courses have been developed to explore the cultural success of GoT as well as The Wire , and many academics have commented on the appeal of Scandal . Conclusion The findings here suggest that the tastes of today’s audience do indeed align with those of Hollywood’s independent sector of yesterday, and that story is the point of intersection. The multigenerational appeal reinforces this along with the use of terms like ‘characters,’ ‘story,’ ‘storyline,’, ‘action,’ and ‘plot,’ to pinpoint the elements of the show that account for their interest and enjoyment. Viewers simply have a strong affinity for the characters depicted in the show and the quality of the story unfolding on the screen, which is consistent with the aesthetic priorities articulated by the development executives I spoke with 20 years ago. We can say then that these qualities are enduring aspects of a cinematic work in that they stand the test of time. Then, now and very likely in the future of cinema, these elements will be the factors by which the potential viewership and critical acclaim of an independent film or television series are predicted. The fact that many viewers can enjoy these original programs (at times commercial‑free) and in the comfort of their own homes with family and friends is a bonus. Indie contrasts sharply with mainstream works that pull in audiences with the implied promise of adrenaline rush through action, splash, quick cuts, brief interactions among characters, popular music genres, often cartoonish characters, and recognizable actors with fantastic bodies who appear in the presentation. This strategy has worked for the majors over the past 60 years or so, and particularly since the advent of home computers, mobile phones, DVRs, and DVD players. These technologies have made movie tickets easy to buy and shows easy to record, rent, and even purchase. While many of these works are truly enjoyable, indie film and television series offer a different cup of tea. And it is clear from this analysis that its appeal exists across multiple segments of people—and that story and characters are the threads that connect them. (Originally published April 2019) 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 Steven Renkovish Interview: A Talk with Writer/Director Steven Renkovish Interview with Writer/Director Steven Adam Renkovish on The Awakening of Lilith Chris Chaisson 2021-11-19 Reading time: 18 minutes Synopsis: A woman finds herself in the midst of a dark mystery after the unexplained loss of a loved one. Her mind begins to unravel as her sense of reality begins to slip away. Principal Cast: Brittany Renée as “Lilith” Justin Livingston as “Noah” Mary Miles Kokotek as “Mother” Rachel Sims Jackson as “Elizabeth” Tiffany Majors Doby as “Emily” Christiana Wilson as “Dawn” Jessie Roberts as “Iris” Crew: Writer/Director/Editor: Steven Adam Renkovish Director of Photography: Thomas Springer Music: Seth Anderson Producers: Ashley Renkovish, Lorraine Renkovish, Steve Renkovish, Brittany Renée Special Makeup Effects: Jessie Roberts During 2019, writer/director Steven Adam Renkovish decided to build off the momentum he gained from his short film, Fugue , by writing and shooting its feature-length version, The Awakening of Lilith . Starring Brittany Renée in the role of “Lilith,” the film addresses how we grieve in the aftermath of traumatic events and how some remain in that state, seemingly unable or unwilling to fight their way out of it. “ The Awakening of Lilith explores this idea of the weight of grief - how some of us long to forget it the minute we feel it, the very second it shows its face, and how others almost see it as a comfort,” Renkovish states in the film’s press kit. “Because grief tethers us to our loved ones for eternity, every time that we grieve for them, they are there, in some way or another… I hope that the experience of watching The Awakening of Lilith will initiate a conversation that needs to be had. I hope that, through the character of Lilith, people may see a bit of themselves. That is my hope.” I reached out to Steven for an interview to talk more about the film’s themes and the challenges he faced in finishing it during the pandemic, as well as his plans for future projects. Lilith’s Themes Chris: The big theme of the movie is processing grief following a traumatic event. How would you describe Lilith’s dilemma and the more surreal experiences she has? Renkovish: Throughout the movie, Lilith has two different realities that she's wrestling with, to cope with this tragedy in her life that she's blocked out. She's taken the reality and sort of put her own spin on it to be able to cope. … I did a lot of research about false memories, and how people who are grieving will create things to fill in those gaps in their memory of the stuff that they blocked out. … So I really wanted to play with that psychology of just how we can take the traumatic experiences in our lives and sort of whittle them down and get them to a point where they're something that we can live with. … Describing a poignant scene in the film with Lilith and her best friend Elizabeth, played by Rachel Sims Jackson, Renkovish explains that it was telling because it reveals Lilith’s own emotional baggage and how it gets in the way of helping people close to her. Renkovish: So, if you look at Lilith, you'll notice that there are similarities in the situations and in the dialogue, but they're twisted in a lot of ways. So I really wanted to play with that psychology of just how we can take the traumatic experiences in our lives and sort of whittle them down and get them to a point where they're something that we can live with. … Because in a way Lilith was never really prepared to help Noah in the way that he needed to be helped. … I wanted to touch on the fact that when we lose people - I feel like, we sit there and we ask ourselves so many times, what could I have done to alleviate their pain. … we have those dialogues with ourselves when really, I mean, we can't put that kind of pressure on ourselves. … And I wanted to touch on that sort of dynamic with her character of just the guilt that she's feeling and the way that it's just caused her to retreat. And it's almost like she finds comfort in her grief. And that's an odd thing, too, because we tend to look at grieving as something negative. … But it's also a comfort because whenever you grieve for your loved ones, they're there with you, in a way, their presence - it's just a lot of stuff to unpack. … But it was one of those situations where it's like, you have this opportunity to make this feature film. Why not say the things you want to say? Chris: Exactly. When I was watching it, I felt like Lilith seemed like somebody who leans on people a little bit. She's a codependent personality. So I thought it was interesting for her to be having this stage of grief in her life by herself. You see a lot of movies where the main character suffers a loss, and the movie’s about somebody that they meet that pulls them out of that. When I was watching it, I thought it was interesting, this movie where she's in this state largely by herself and at odds with some of the people around her. Renkovish: Oh, exactly. Yeah, to me, that was one of the big things because when you're in the midst of something like that, and if you're with people who are not ready to be emotionally available to you when you need that support, especially if you're someone like Lilith with the mother that she had. … the more I watch it, the more I see where my own subconscious sort of took over. And there's just so many possibilities with it. Like so many. There's a lot of mirroring in it. Like, one minute Lilith is the one just popping off or it's Noah who's popping off to Lilith in one scene. And then in the next scene, he's the more submissive one, and the more docile one, and she's the one who's aggressive. ... Sometimes, we treat our loved ones, especially when they're going through something, we can be dismissive. It doesn't necessarily mean that we're responsible for what ultimately ends up happening, but that we’re imperfect. … There's a lot of twists and turns that it takes, and it is deliberately ambiguous in a lot of areas, because I always find that I would rather have that ambiguity, and leave some strings untied, rather than have everything presented in a nice big bow at the end. ... I hope it will be able to generate these kinds of discussions. And I think that these are things that need to be talked about, especially now when there's just so much loss going on in the world. And I understand that it deals with some heavy and dense and complex themes, but at the same time, to me, it is a hopeful film. Shooting Challenges Renkovish and I spent some time talking about the challenges he faced while shooting Lilith during the pandemic. Besides directing a large pool of actors and fighting what he calls his tendency to be a “people pleaser,” he had to deal with time and budget constraints. Chris: You shot this film in the middle of the pandemic. What was the most challenging aspect of the shoot? Renkovish: Everyone that worked on it, God bless them, they were volunteers. Altogether, after the movie was through, we're like, “How much money did we spend on this thing?” Because we really didn't spend a lot. I bought a new laptop to edit; well, my sister got me one for Christmas. And we catered a little bit, paid for Thomas's gas money whenever he would let us do it. And about $3,000. About $3,000 for this little movie. … We really wanted to have sort of a homemade, homespun sort of feel to it. And the challenge was working within those constraints, and still trying to be as true to the nature of the script as we possibly could. And I really think we did. … There were several days where I was thinking to myself, you've bitten off more than you can chew, because this is a huge project … [We] didn't have the luxury of having the time to block things out … And it was just chaos, because every person there had an idea of how they wanted a scene to go. And I got really overwhelmed because I'm a people pleaser, and I didn't want anybody to get offended. And I was trying to be that director who listens to suggestions, and just works with the group … Just the fact that we didn't have the time that you usually have on a film set with a big budget to block things out and to have all that planning ahead of time. And so that was a challenge. But it brought the best out of everybody. Art Influences During our conversation, I learned that Renkovish is “old school,” in his approach to filmmaking. He talks about Ingmar Bergman and David Lynch as he delves into how he thinks about the stories he develops. Chris: As I was watching it, I was just thinking about directors who do movies with a similar tone to them. One of the ones that came to mind was Charlie Kaufman and the way some of his movies are about a main character [experiencing] a breakup or an imagined relationship, more so than the death of a loved one. They have some surreal elements concerning the state that this person was in and how they were coping with this new reality that they were having. I know you mentioned Roman Polanski, but I was wondering if there were any other directors that you looked at and saw yourself as emulating. Renkovish: Um, let's see. Okay, so I think after I started writing Fugue , which was the lead up to this, I think by then Polanski was just no longer a blip in my mind at this point. My other influences at this point were Ingmar Bergman. Specifically, his film, Hour of the Wolf, and Persona . So I really had those on my mind. And then David Lynch. And Andrzej Zulawski’s Possession , so those three juggling around in my brain, maybe with a dash of Terrence Malick. Yeah, just a little bit, I think. ... But then this was one of the first times where I could see myself also being influenced by my own little ways of doing and saying and staging things. With Fugue , Fugue was actually really big, just as far as trying to keep within the mood of that and the framing. And so it was one of the first times that I was acutely aware of the way that I like to do stuff. And then sort of pulling little bits of inspiration from these other people as well. … And so I definitely had my influences. And, especially Bergman, in this case, that bedroom scene with Noah and Lilith. I was thinking of scenes of a marriage a lot when I was shooting. So I got my people that I'm always thinking about. Chris: What did you find more interesting, as a director, the framing, and I know you leaned on your director of photography a lot, Thomas Springer is his name? Renkovish: Thomas Springer. Old Tommy, yeah. Chris: I know you probably leaned on him a lot for your framing of the shots. But what did you find to be the more interesting part of making the film, the framing of the shots or the coaching up of your actors? Renkovish: Um, I would say a little bit of both. I mean, as far as the framing and everything, I have a shot list prepared. And I talked earlier about having to make compromises whenever something needed to be changed up, Tommy would frame it up for me, and then he would bring me over and he'd be like, “Alright, boss, how does this look?” And I would confirm it and be like, “Yeah, that looks good. That looks really good; that actually looks better than what I had in mind.” So as far as that, with Tommy, I knew that I was gonna get as much coverage as humanly possible. And he was willing to do what I wanted, and then go off and experiment and do other things, too. So I gave him ... free reign. … I mean, when you have somebody like Tommy on your team that is just so dependable, and willing to just go all out. That took a lot of that aspect off my shoulders, although I was always very aware of it. ... But then just going in and talking with my actors, and especially Britney and Justin Livingston, who played Noah. Justin is like, he is incredible. I'm so proud of him in this role, he did such a great job. And he was the perfect match for Britney because they both played off each other so well. ... So I would send them long texts with background information about their characters. And they would read that and incorporate that into their characters. I would go in before each scene and we would talk about the subtext of every scene and what the scene meant and what the characters were thinking. But you give them that bit of direction, and then just let them go with it. And they'll surprise you. There's no need to get in there and micromanage and overcorrect a scene when you have actors as good as that. Promotion Plans One of the most expensive elements of making a film is promoting it. This exposure is important for gaining “buzz” about the film, which typically leads to viewership and prospects for distribution. Renkovish described film festivals as the path to doing this for Lilith . Chris: You were talking to me about submitting to festivals, and you said you've gotten yours into the Tryon International Film Festival in North Carolina, and also the Mental Filmness Film Festival in Chicago. Were you able to attend those in person? And what was your experience like? Renkovish: Well, the Tryon International Film Festival in Tryon, North Carolina, is like the Sundance of this area. Like they got it going on, and they never let me down. Just about every single thing that I've had. I mean, everything that I have made thus far has gotten to try on in there. They really have been supportive of my work. And I'm telling you, Chris, they are so I mean, they're with it. Like they're there. ... A lot of festivals, God bless them, they just don't have the budget, but the people at Tryon, they take every penny and they make it stretch, and they put on quite the event. And they're always so accommodating and familial and welcoming. It really is like a home away from home. If you ever get the chance to go to the Tryon International Film Festival, you need to do it. It is well worth it. You will go away feeling so loved. ... And that's where we had the world premiere of Lilith , and it was quite the event. There were just, there's nothing like seeing your dream come true. With a room full of people that you've known your whole life who are there rooting for you. And that's it. The premiere of Lilith at Tryon was something that changed my life and something I'll never forget. It was one of those landmark moments. ... And the Mental Filmness Festival is a virtual film festival based in Chicago. So I actually didn't attend in person, but [Sharon Gissy] who runs it is phenomenal. Like she knows her stuff. She's very well read and Mental Filmness is basically a film festival that focuses on films that have the theme of mental illness and try to take away from the stigma of mental illness. And they brought our film on and we're happy to have it, and it played on their platform for about a month. And they were wonderful too; just really good people. So that was, shoot, I would’ve gone if I could have if it had been a physical event at a venue. But not at this point. It's just virtual, but another good festival. Future Projects Before ending our talk, Renkovish touched on several of his upcoming projects, including a collaboration with his co-editor on Lilith , and one that he hopes gets him in a “little bit of trouble.” Chris: That's cool. I'm glad you got to have those experiences. I mean, it's really impressive that you were able to put this film together with the resources you had and in the time period you were able to, and then I'm glad you're able to not only get it into those, but probably future ones as well. And so I will of course be rooting for you, not only for the future of this project, but for your future projects. Any, of course, is there anything else you wanted to say? Renkovish: Oh, well, number one, thank you so much for this opportunity. Like, it really means the world to me that you reached out for an interview. Yeah, I'm definitely going to keep you posted on my future projects. I've got two short films that I've sort of got on the back burner right now. One of those is going to be shot completely on eight-millimeter film stock. So that one is coming up. And then my next feature is going to be called Immersion . And it's basically going to be like an anthology film about people that are wrestling with faith and doubt in many different forms. And I'm going to take the Evangelical crowd to task a little bit in this one. But yeah, I'm hoping that one gets me in a little bit of trouble. We'll see what happens. I'm going to stir the pot a little bit. So yeah, I've got those things going. ... And my brother from another mother, Bradley Andrew. He was the assistant editor with me on Lilith . There's like a big dream sequence in the midsection of Lilith. That just comes out of nowhere. And he and I edited that together. We stayed up to like three o'clock in the morning one night and edited that whole sequence together. And so yeah, me and him are doing a short film called 16 . That is shot on eight-millimeter film stock. And it's sort of like an experimental, psychedelic film. And he's also going to act in it as well. And he's a film director and also an author, and he is working on his own series of comic books right now. So he's got a lot on his plate, too. So just a lot of really good things are coming on down the pike. So I'll keep you posted. Having submitted to 70 film festivals, the filmmaker describes himself as “broke,” but his comments indicate that he is passionate about the work while also hopeful that the film hits strongly on its themes. “I’m not always going to make films that are palatable to a mainstream audience. …,” he says. “But I’m hoping that it does well … and resonates with people [who] see it.” You can find more info about The Awakening of Lilith on Facebook , Letterboxd and IMDb , or email Refuge Films for updates. Check out our review of Lilith in our Movies section. 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Frankie highlights the difficulty of finding your voice and standing up for yourself. < Back Frankie highlights the difficulty of finding your voice and standing up for yourself. Red Seed Films, 2020 11 minutes Director/Writer: James Kautz Reading Time: 2 minutes 📷 : Used with permission, Red Seed Films Frankie Skeptical (JNOPSEQC5DDSCMWJ) 00:00 / 02:37 Ginger Thought-provoking movies/shows Dandelion Movies/shows with heavy subjects Chris Chaisson 2022-09-25 “Do you have any idea what it’s like holding back who you really are ‘cause of someone else’s fears?” Frankie opens on the title character, a trans man, crashing his partner’s all-male support group meeting to vent his frustrations at him. The other members treat him with much hostility, as they feel their safe space to heal is being invaded. Though one might assume his scorn is at being rejected, Frankie’s true gripe is over his partner’s refusal to accept his new identity. Amidst the heckles and jeers of the other group members, he recounts the details of the fight that ended their relationship. The meeting serves as a microcosm of many individuals’ emotional experience in the midst of a transition. As they try to find their voice and discover their true identity, they frequently get silenced or shouted down. There is a constant battle to get others to see them as who they are, not who they were. Frankie reveals that to be cruel, his partner dead-named him (a modern term for calling a trans person by the name they used before transitioning). Throughout his soliloquy, his partner will not even look him in the eye, a gesture that would signify acceptance of his change. Director James Kautz does a brilliant job of using sound to create tension. It begins with Frankie in the hall outside the door, debating whether or not to go through with his plan. We can hear the other support group members’ echoing laughter on the other side of the door. Once Frankie enters, silence fills the room, and this contrast conveys their overwhelming discomfort. The group moderator uses a gentle tone, but the other members speak more sharply as they attempt to shoo him away. When Frankie is finally allowed to vent, a non-diegetic, quickening drum pattern accompanies the rise in his anger level before he stands up and yells. The emotional depth of this short may bring to mind feature-length films such as 500 Days of Summer , Juno , or even The Story of Us . All three deal with a drastic change throwing relationship dynamics in flux. We see the protagonists processing their anger and confusion while simply trying to be heard. Available on Film Shortage 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 Soft and Quiet, Along With 6 Other Movies Shot in One Take A Brief List of Movies Shot in One Continuous Take -- er, Supposedly Chris Chaisson 1/27/23 Reading Time: 9 minutes 📸: Used with Permission, Snollygoster Productions (hello@snollygoster.productions ) I recently watched the Blumhouse indie film Soft and Quiet , which premiered last spring at the SXSW Festival. While the film has too many twists and turns to discuss without spoiling, one noteworthy aspect about the project is how director Beth de Araújo chose to shoot it: all in one take. “Whenever there’s a cut in a film, there’s a sort of inherent exhale where you give the audience a second to catch their breath,” Arajuo said in an interview with SXSW. “And so if you never give them that, they’re feeling the tension a little bit more effectively.” The style of shooting with no cuts or breaks originated over 70 years ago (more on that later), but we rarely see directors incorporate this technique for a variety of reasons. For starters, this approach completely changes the story that the writer crafts. Writers traditionally follow a rule of thumb with their scenes: “Get in late, get out early.” In other words, start the scene at the latest moment possible when the audience can still understand everything, convey the important plot points, then move on to the next scene once all exposition has been delivered. Scripts usually cut anything mundane, even if it is true to real life, to avoid losing the audience’s attention. When directors shoot a film in one take however, they do not have this luxury of compressed time. Additionally, shooting a feature-length film in a single take requires precision with camera and lighting setups, set design, and dialogue memorization that are very difficult to pull off with no break in the action. Thus, what many filmmakers shooting in one take have to do is rehearse ad nauseam before shooting the entire film a handful of times, ideally becoming more comfortable with each rep. The post-production crew will take the best run-through and, if needed, incorporate bits and pieces from other takes before smoothing it over to make it look uninterrupted. Which genres does this style attract? Horror movies and crime thrillers choose the shooting style more so than other genres. Its immersive nature builds more suspense and anxiety in the audience, making it an asset to thrillers and horror. For instance, a hostage or home invasion movie, where you want the audience to experience arrested development, would be movies that may utilize this technique. Here are a handful of such movies spanning several decades that embraced the challenge of presenting a story in one take: Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) Best Picture-winner Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) follows washed-up actor Riggan Thompson (Michael Keaton) attempting to revive his career by creating and starring in his own stage play. Its use of the one-take method conveys the dizzying state of being a live performer, especially one with a troublesome personal life. In no scene is this more apparent than when Riggan is forced to run through Times Square donning only a pair of whitey-tighties in order to re-enter the theater and continue his performance. While many one-take films attempt a very grounded feel, Birdman dabbles in the surreal, using voiceover narration, pulsating non-diegetic jazz music, and the occasional telekinesis. Oh yeah, and Michael Keaton flying over Manhattan streets in a bird costume. Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu stuck to a very rigorous and meticulous schedule, including both the lines and the blocking of the actors. He stuck mainly to one location and both rehearsed and shot the film in sequence, with very strict lines of dialogue and choreography (McKittrick, Creative Screenwriting ). 1917 1917 surrounds a pair of British lance corporals (Dean-Charles Chapman and George MacKay) during WWI sent into enemy territory to deliver a message that would halt a planned ambush. Winning multiple Oscars for sound mixing, visual effects and cinematography, the Sam Mendes picture uses its continuous take style to illustrate the very sudden nature of life-and-death situations in a war zone. It is not as graphic and gory as many other war films but nonetheless effectively illustrates that soldiers are never really safe, even in quiet moments. The project was quite a commitment for all actors involved, as they spent 6 months in rehearsal prior to shooting. While the film appears to be one continuous take, Mendes concealed many edits through camera movements behind objects and the occasional black screen (i.e. dirt being kicked up in front of the lens, etc.). Rope Who better to take on a herculean filmmaking task than Alfred Hitchcock? Nicknamed the Master of Suspense, Hitchcock applied the one-take filmmaking aspect to his 1948 project, adapted from a Patrick Hamilton stage play by the same name of nearly 20 years prior. In the adaptation, two students, Brandon and Philip (John Dall and Farley Granger respectively), murder their classmate and hide the body in the same location of their dinner party later that evening. The point of their daredevil tactic is to test the precision for executing the crime. As Brandon’s guilt weighs on him Telltale Heart style, one of their guests, Rupert (Jimmy Stewart) grows suspicious. Shot on 35mm film, Hitchcock had to resort to shooting a series of 10-minute takes and stringing them together due to the technological limitations at that time. As in Soft and Quiet , the camera heightens the effect of big revelations by panning around, zooming in and resting on particular props, such as a gun in one’s pocket, a message on a piece of stationary or a design inside a bowler hat. Silent House Silent House is adapted from an Argentinian horror film titled La Casa Muda . It revolves around Sarah (Elizabeth Olsen), a young woman trapped in her family’s lakeside retreat with an intruder and no way out. Without spoiling the ending, Silent House utilizes the “unreliable narrator” trope and places the audience in Sarah‘s limited perspective, leading to a dark and shocking plot twist. The film doesn’t shy away from the jump scare method through lighting effects (or lack thereof), tight shots and sound mixing. Similar to Rope , Silent House was shot as a series of 10-minute takes edited to appear continuous. Timecode Like the other films on this list, Mike Figgis’ Timecode filmed multiple run-throughs using the one-take style. Unlike the others, this particular selection incorporated a split-screen to show four takes at once. While this sounds like a battle of attrition for one’s attention span, the film foregrounds the audio of the screen that it wants the audience to focus on at any particular point. Timecode tells the story of a jilted lover (Jeanne Tripplehorn) discovering her partner’s (Salma Hayek) infidelity and listening in to a Hollywood production company’s casting call, located in the same place her partner was heading. The initially separate characters eventually intertwine, culminating in a tragic ending. Rather than containing meticulous dialogue and action as the other films on this list chose to do, Timecode consists largely of improvisation, with each actor and actress responsible for their own clothes, hair and makeup. Figgis shot the film fifteen times over the course of two weeks, always as a continuous take. Victoria Sometimes, tourists who trust strangers can get more than they bargained for. Such is the case for the titular character, a twenty-something Spanish woman (Laia Costa) who leaves Madrid for Berlin and runs into a group of friends at a nightclub. After a fun and flirtatious start to the evening, Victoria finds herself coerced into a bank robbery with dire stakes and consequences. As is common in one-take movies, Victoria takes place in real time over one evening. The film contains many emotional swings, as the protagonist goes from guarded to trusting, euphoric to depressed and back multiple times. As Victoria is in every scene, we see the events unfold through her viewpoint. The limited perspective also drives home how loneliness can compromise anyone’s judgment. Like Timecode , Victoria leaned heavily on its actors to improvise, with the original screenplay being just 12 pages long. While other one-take movies use clever editing to smooth out cuts, Victoria was shot as one continuous take three different times during the early morning hours in Berlin. Director Sebastian Schipper watched them all and picked the best run-through. What are the takeaways? For starters, a lot of one-take movies are not actually one take. Editors tend to weave together clips in a way that appears continuous by using black screen, extreme close-ups and stagnant frames as in and out points. Movies meant to appear as one continuous take tend to require a lot of preparation, even relative to other detailed shoots. Some of the movies on this list performed well at the box office while others didn’t. Some received critical acclaim while others did not. The reality is that this style can be a turnoff for moviegoers who see it as a gimmick used to distract from a script’s gaping plot holes. Despite viewers' complaints, one-take movies can be done very well, as evidenced by the critical acclaim and accolades of Birdman , 1917 , and others not on this list. It is yet another cinematic tool that provides directors, crews and cast one of the best things about art: an opportunity to challenge 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!

War is Over! shows how bonds can be formed amid desperate situations < Back War is Over! shows how bonds can be formed amid desperate situations ElectroLeague, 2023 11 minutes Director/Writer: Dave Mullins / Dave Mullins and Sean Lennon Reading Time: 4 minutes 📷 : Photo from Pixabay War is Over! Storyteller (ISEAHXTOBZNX3FRV) 00:00 / 04:14 Ginger Thought-provoking movies/shows Mint Movies and TV shows in cold weather and blizzard conditions Chris Chaisson 2024-03-18 I spend a lot of time playing chess online, mostly against one of the many bots that are free to play against. His name is Antonio, and I can’t stand him or his stupid pre-programmed responses. My resentment is built up from having played him dozens (hundreds) of times, and I have reached the conclusion that it is way too easy to start new games and play over and over again. If it took more of a concerted effort, I may appreciate the game and my opponent more. Now pluck me from the comfort of my heated apartment unit and into a more primal setting, and this game may become my only escape. War movies can be dark, grisly and bleak. Despite the critical acclaim many receive (i.e. Platoon , Saving Private Ryan , Braveheart , The Hurt Locker ), they can be a tough second watch, particularly for the squeamish. Nonetheless, the genre consists of some of the most visually stunning works cinema has seen, thanks to creative filmmakers and sizable budgets. The biggest challenge for war movies, one could argue, is instilling their story with a glimmer of hope for the audience to take with them as they file out of the theater. Particularly when based on real-life events, this challenge can prove too much, if embraced at all. Dave Mullins' Oscar-winning short, War is Over! , pulls off this feat by juxtaposing war with a fun board game. This critically acclaimed animated work takes place during World War I, as a pair of soldiers on opposite sides of the battlefield become entrenched in a spirited game of chess. Both have their own board set up and communicate their moves via carrier pigeon. The pigeon takes the messages containing the newest move back and forth across the battlefield, dodging flying projectiles to reach the other side. The catch is that neither soldier really knows who the opponent is, let alone that they are technically an enemy. The game becomes an escape not just for the two, but for the soldiers around them who observe and cheer their comrades on. The fun comes to an end when a general discovers the game and berates his soldiers for taking part instead of focusing on the mission at hand. He knocks the board over and even physically assaults his soldier to teach him a lesson. Forced back into battle, the soldier ends up engaged with his chess opponent in a fight to the death before their carrier pigeon finds them in the middle of the battlefield. Is the realization of their connection enough to stop the violence? While only 11 minutes, War is Over! highlights several unfortunate truths. For instance, in the course of their training, soldiers are often forced to purge any shred of their individuality. This tactic makes it easier for them to dehumanize their enemy and even themselves to a large degree. The display of a soldier playing a game he enjoys and the response from his general show the deliberate attempt to suppress any humanity that may come about during wartime. The fact that the soldier is able to bond unknowingly with someone on the other side shows that there is common ground to be had, even among senseless violence. Aside from any war themes, the biggest takeaway from War is Over! is that limitations create not only bonds but increased levels of passion. Many people might like chess or any other game, but playing via carrier pigeon takes a different level of dedication. In our comfortable, tech-filled lives, many modes of communication have made it too convenient for us to discover what, or who, we care about the most. While our productivity has been boosted, we no longer must give the same effort to maintain relationships or follow through on promises. So the next time you think of a friend or family member you haven’t seen in a while, pull out your feathered quill and parchment and send them a handwritten, bird-delivered hello (kidding). 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!