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< 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!

< Back Why do we like crooked cop movies? A Deep Dive into the Appeal of the Cop Subgenre Reba Chaisson 2/23/26 Reading Time: 6 minutes 📸: Used with Permission, Netflix The Rip was released on Netflix in January 2026. Why a box-office worthy movie with stars like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck was released on streaming is a bit perplexing, but we’ll take it. In the 113-minute film, Damon and Affleck lead a small team of cops who stumble upon a large stash of cash when they investigate a tip about a home outside of their jurisdiction. The money stirs temptation and distrust among the teammates. Add to this the curious events that occur in the surrounding neighborhood, The Rip makes for a stimulating and immersive story. So much so that it got us thinking about the appeal of crooked cop movies. You know the ones I’m talking about: The Negotiator , Training Day , Triple 9 , American Gangster , Crash , 16 Blocks , and many, many others. We live in a violent culture here in the U.S., so it should not be surprising that movies with violence, or more specifically, gun violence, have broad appeal. Other than military films, stories most likely to contain gun violence are those centering cops. We can probably even argue that the more corrupt the cop in the story, the more violent the film will be. After all, the officer has already dispensed with the moral code and the police code of conduct. Layering desperation on top of that just increases the likelihood that volatility in the story will increase as well (think L.A. Confidential , The Departed , and Training Day ). Yes, we love these types of movies as evidenced by their critical acclaim and box office success. A Deep Dive into Cop Films To dive deep into the appeal of this subgenre, I composed a random list of fifty cop movies using listicles from Looper , SlashFilm , and CBR . In addition to recording each film’s opening weekend box office numbers from IMDB, I tagged each movie as comedy/buddy (i.e., Beverly Hills Cops , Bad Boys ), good cop (i.e., Heat , Fargo ) or crooked cop story (i.e. Training Day , The Negotiator ) based on its synopsis. The charts reflect what I found. To say the distribution is lopsided is an understatement. Granted my list represents a small, no, infinitesimal sample size, but what if it reflects the distribution of cop-centered films released by studios over the last fifty years? Such lopsided numbers suggest our appetite for crooked cop stories is much bigger than our desires for police comedies and substantially smaller than dramas with straightlaced police officers. Despite our apparent propensity for good cop stories, I have to admit I was disappointed when Vincent, Al Pacino’s character in the movie Heat , captured Neil (Robert De Niro), even though Vincent conducted himself in an ethical and just manner throughout the investigation (well mostly). The Purpose of Cop Films Films are ideological apparatuses. The stories and images are not just there to entertain but also to impart lessons and inform our perspective. For instance, while good cop stories comprise the majority of cop films despite bringing up the rear in average weekend box office earnings, they encourage us to think positively about police officers and their intentions. Vincent in Heat was determined to catch murderers and thieves. Samuel Gerard, Tommy Lee Jones’s character in The Fugitive , was committed to bringing in Dr. Kimble to face justice regardless of the good doctor’s claims of innocence. Earning the highest of the three categories in average weekend box office earnings, comedy/buddy cop stories have varying themes and levels of drama, but their purpose is to make us laugh and have fun. The Hard Way , Beverly Hills Cop , and Hot Fuzz were all crafted primarily to make us laugh and leave us light on our feet as we walked out of the theaters. What is the function of crooked cop stories, though? Owning a healthy slice of the subgenre's pie, these movies earn more on average than good cop stories during opening weekend. Perhaps the difference is not statistically significant, but the raw numbers are what they are. Allure of Crooked Cop Movies During the Cup of Tea Critiques podcast on this topic, Terry asserts that the allure of crooked cop movies is in the humanity of the corrupt cop. The officer’s backstory exposes inner conflicts and reveals the motivations for their behavior, helping us, the audience, understand what drives them to boldly violate law enforcement’s code of ethics. Backstory, then, is crucial for helping us appreciate the complexity of the person beyond their identity as a police officer. But let’s use Training Day as an example of this. Training Day is arguably the most popular corrupt cop movie released in the modern era. Denzel Washington won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as Alonzo, a corrupt Los Angeles police detective. In the movie, he is depicted with a young son and in scenes hinting at intimate moments with his girlfriend. Beyond this, we get no glimpses into his origin story—family and experiences that might explain the drivers of his corrupt behavior. Lacking this backstory, the audience is left with the view of Alonzo as devoid of humanity and thus an unsympathetic individual. He is what even Denzel Washington described as “ the worst kind of cop .” The character itself relies on Alonzo’s inhumanity . The same can be said about the bad officers in all the aforementioned corrupt cop films. For instance, I know nothing about Anthony Mackie’s character in Triple 9 and even less about Josh Brolin’s character in American Gangster , and this is by design in the presentation of the stories. I must concede, however, that there are degrees of corruption. All the bad cops in these films are sold to us on the basis of their inhumanity, but they vary in how far they stray beyond the line of ethics. Conclusion Brandon suggests that beyond gawking at the spectacles that are the characters in these films, we carry deep inside of us a secret hope that these corrupt cops are redeemable. Maybe we do this because in real life, we need them to be as close to ethical and just as possible, particularly given the violent culture we live in. Could this be what gets at the deeper allure of crooked cop films? That we want these cops to transform themselves because we need them to help save us from ourselves? And does the abundance of good cop films satisfy this need and give us a sense of comfort? What do you think explains our seemingly insatiable cinematic appetite for crooked cop films? Be sure to check out the Cup of Tea Critiques Podcast “From The Negotiator to The Rip: Where’s the straight line through crooked cop movies?,” wherever you get your podcasts. Appendix Movie Year Category Opening Weekend (millions $) 16 Blocks 2006 Bad Cop 11.9 American Gangster 2005 Bad Cop 43.6 Bad Boys 1995 Comedy/Buddy 15.5 Bad Lieutenant 1992 Bad Cop 0.05 Beverly Hills Cop 1984 Comedy/Buddy 15.2 BlacKkKlansman 2018 Good Cop 10.8 Blade Runner 1982 Good Cop 6.2 Blue Streak 1999 Comedy/Buddy 19.2 Colors 1988 Bad Cop 4.7 Cop Land 1997 Bad Cop 13.5 Crime 101 2026 Good Cop 14.2 Die Hard 1988 Good Cop 0.6 Donnie Brasco 1997 Bad Cop 11.7 End of Watch 2012 Good Cop 13.2 Falling Down 1993 Good Cop 8.7 Fargo 1996 Good Cop 0.7 Gone Baby Gone 2007 Good Cop 2.3 Hard Boiled 1992 Good Cop 0.14 Heat 1995 Good Cop 8.4 Hot Fuzz 2007 Comedy/Buddy 5.8 Infernal Affairs 2002 Bad Cop 5 Inside Man 2006 Good Cop 29 Internal Affairs 1990 Bad Cop 5 L.A. Confidential 1997 Bad Cop 5.2 Lethal Weapon 1987 Comedy/Buddy 6.8 Mad Max 1979 Good Cop 8.8 Manhunter 1986 Good Cop 2.2 Minority Report 2002 Good Cop 35.7 Mystic River 2003 Bad Cop 0.6 No Country for Old Men 2007 Good Cop 1.2 Police Academy 1984 Comedy/Buddy 8.6 Reservoir Dogs 1992 Good Cop 0.1 Robocop 1987 Good Cop 8 Rush Hour 1998 Comedy/Buddy 33 Se7en 1995 Good Cop 13.9 Sicario 1988 Bad Cop 0.4 Silence of the Lambs 1991 Good Cop 13.8 Speed 1994 Good Cop 14.5 Takers 2010 Good Cop 20.5 The Departed 2006 Bad Cop 26.9 The Fugitive 1993 Good Cop 23.8 The Hard Way 1991 Comedy/Buddy 6.3 The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! 1988 Comedy/Buddy 9.3 The Negotiator 1998 Bad Cop 10.2 The Town 2010 Good Cop 23.8 The Untouchables 1987 Good Cop 10 Traffic 2000 Good Cop 0.2 Training Day 2001 Bad Cop 22.6 Triple 9 2016 Bad Cop 6.1 Witness 1985 Good Cop 4.5 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 Alain Fleury A Conversation with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Assistant Editor Alain Fleury Alain Fleury joined COTC to discuss the ins and outs of assistant editing for big-budget Marvel movies Chris Chaisson 2023-10-04 Reading time: 16 minutes It’s no secret that editing can be intense, time-consuming, and pivotal to the reception of the finished product in filmmaking. What may be less common knowledge is how much teamwork and communication editors must exhibit to make a large-scale project run smoothly (or at all). Cup of Tea Critiques caught up with Alain Fleury, a VFX editor on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and assistant editor on Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever . Alain shared his insights on the importance of knowing the structure of every department, having editors on set, and learning as much as possible from an intensive college program. Alain shared with us what his first Marvel project taught him about working on editing staffs for big-budget, effects-driven films. Dr. Strange was my first Marvel studio gig. And that was probably the biggest budget film that I was working on at the time. It really shed a light on different workflows, and how that works. When you're on something as big as a Marvel film or at a studio, you can't just do your workflow, and then you move on. There's a lot of different departments, a lot of different people, that need to also be involved. When I do something, it affects everybody else down the line, whether it’s the send out to the vendor or send out to music, or whatever I do, everybody needs to be in the know. When you're in the VFX Department, your job is [to go] between the editor and the VFX vendors. We're not VFX artists, we are VFX editors. Basically, what that means is that we take what the VFX artists do, and bring that into the edit. And we keep track of every shot throughout the whole film; where they're at, and the different phases. ‘Oh, we're at the animatic phase here. Oh, now we're getting a color pass.’ We're just keeping track of everything, the different versions that come in, we show that to the editor and the director. If they like it or if they have notes, then we do a temp mockup of that note in the Avid system, and we send that out to the VFX vendors. They kind of go ‘Oh, okay, this is what they're trying to do; this is what they're trying to accomplish.’ So that everybody can get a clearer picture. That's your main job as a VFX editor. You bring the shots you edited into the timeline. And sometimes you have to do some temp comp work, a lot of the blue screen or green screen. Just put something in the background so that they can really visualize and see, but this is not going to be the final CGI or anything like that. I've learned a lot as far as working with a team of that magnitude, and how to communicate throughout that. Which you take on to the Black Panthers , which you take on to the Transformers . When you get to those kinds of levels of film, it is different, communicating with people and making sure you get the right things. You’ve got to know how to do office politics and who to talk to. You're talking to so many different personalities, so many different people that have different jobs. Knowing the hierarchy of every department is very important. And that definitely taught me that to take on to do other films. The perception of editing is that it can be an isolating, solitary job, with professionals confined to a room for hours staring at cuts. Alain enlightened us on the collaboration necessary for editors. On an independent project, or when you're at home, and you're editing your own short or your own independent feature, there's not a lot of resources and you tend to do a lot of things yourself. There is the editor and there's a VFX editor. If I was on that [independent] project, I’d probably be doing both jobs. But [on a larger project] I'll be like editing and then later on, I have to turn over all these different VFX shots to my VFX vendor. Occasionally, directors and even actors wield influence over the final edits of a film. Alain informed us as to when this is the case. As far as the actors, it's not a typical thing where you see the actor in the editing room, not at all. The times that you see actors have actual input in what is going on in the editing room is when they're also a producer on the film. That's why, sometimes you watch movies and you see the name of the actor, as an executive producer, or as a producer, that means that's what they negotiated. That's what they have in their deal. ‘Hey, I'll do this film, but I need input.’ Depending on how big you are, like if you're a Tom Cruise producing Mission Impossible , he has a lot of say in how things run. I don't really get to interact a lot with actors on a daily basis. Except for if I am on set, then I will see them and talk to them, have a casual conversation. For Wakanda Forever, I was on set. I was in Atlanta, so I got to be on set and see the actors, have lunch with them, and talk to them. It's not really part of my job to do that, but that happens if we're all there. What happens on these [big-budget] movies is that they are edited as they go along. The editing starts on these big projects even before the actors are on set, because they edit the animatics. They try to get the big picture, because there's a lot of planning that goes into these films. You got to make sure that you're getting the right shots. Everything is pretty much edited without actors before we even hit the set so that they know exactly, ‘Okay, this is what we have to do on set.’ Since we're editing as we go along, I had an office there on set close by. Whenever the footage was done, I would be bringing it in and prepping it and getting it ready for the editors because I was an assistant editor there. [My job was] making sure the footage was right and everything was good. I was in Atlanta, and the editors were here in California. When I got in over there at 9 a.m., it is 6 a.m. their time [in California]. We already got a head start on them. I've seen the footage first, and I already know what's good, what's not, and where to still have marked everything up for them. ‘Oh, this is the good stuff. Here's a string of all the takes that they did today.’ You could choose how you want to cut it. Then, if I have to do other things to the footage, I do all of that before they even get in there. By the time they reached the studio [in California] at 9 a.m., it’s 12 p.m. my time [in Atlanta], and they already have stuff to start cutting and watching. Alain offered some advice to indie filmmakers about how editors can help your entire production run more smoothly. I try to take that knowledge into my independent work that I do. When I work with independent artists, or independent directors, I tell them it's beneficial for you. I know a lot of people don't have the budget to have an editor from the beginning to the end, but do it if you can manage it. If you can make a deal with your editor, it's best to have them involved. Even when you're writing the script. If you already know your editor, you could be asking them, ‘How do you think this would cut? Or could we do something cool with this?’ That's how you get the best out of your time. I feel for independent projects, you'll go and shoot things. Afterwards, when you're in the editing room, you figure out, ‘Oh well, we didn't think about that. We didn't get this shot.’ And you don't have the budget to go back and film things. Now you're stuck with what you have, and you just gotta make it work. If you were planning already, and if you had your editor on set with you, they can already call out things. ‘Hey, you didn't get a reaction shot from this other actor; that's not going to cut well.’ When you get into the editing, you're already there. Alain dished on what skill can make any aspiring editor better at his craft. As much as people think that editors are supposed to be a little recluse and stay in their little Batcave, it's okay to have people skills. It is something that really helps you in the editing room. Being able to communicate with people, out and about, that's a skill that you learn by just doing in real life. Going out to events, being able to interact with people and hold the conversation. I would say that skillset really translates well in the editing room, where you're dealing with different personalities, different types of directors, different types of producers. The producer might want one thing, ‘No, you have to cut this in,’ and yet the director is telling you [another thing]. So now you’ve got to manage this situation. I have to give the producer what they want, but also give the director what they want. That's definitely a skill that [aspiring editors] should practice more. Filmmaking can be a long process where unforeseen problems arise. With a big enough team where everyone has input, someone will come up with the solution. Alain shared a story about how his Haitian roots allowed him to be that someone on the set of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever . Every day is a challenge, to be honest. You always think you're going into work, and going to have such a great day. And then next thing you know, the world is on fire. Especially in these [Marvel] films, there's a lot of moving parts. Anything can go wrong at any time. That's why it's great to have problem solving skills, on the spot. There's always going to be something that comes up and you just got to be able to adapt to whatever the situation is. For example, for Wakanda Forever, when we're looking for the Haiti shots. We're like, ‘Oh, we need to get aerials of Haiti.’ Everybody was brainstorming how to get the shots and all of that, and my background is Haitian. I'm like, ‘Well, I know people that can get your shots in Haiti.’ Even though I'm assistant editing on this project, I was able to have my input in there and say, ‘Listen, I can fix this problem for you.’ One big thing that definitely saved the day. Eventually, I recommended the shots there and they're in the film. I read and write in French and Creole, so it was great for me to get that different perspective on life and how people live. Also, [I got] to reconnect with my culture, my heritage and where I come from, where my family comes from. I've had some great summers in Haiti. Alain pinpointed exactly when he knew he wanted to go into filmmaking as a career. As a kid, I watched Ninja Turtles so many times, the original. I was the biggest Ninja Turtles fan; I still am the biggest Ninja Turtles fan. Seeing that in the theaters just opened up everything for me in my mind. Batman, Darkman, Ghostbusters . All those movies had a little bit of influence. I knew that I loved this type of storytelling. I also loved a lot of martial arts films; all the Jackie Chan stuff, all the Van Damme and Steven Seagal. I always knew I wanted to do this. I used to watch the movies when they would premiere on HBO on Saturday. Right after, it would have the “making of,” so I would stay to watch the whole “making of.” I was always intrigued by that. I can really say like the main film that got me to go ‘I have to be a part of this magic too’ is Jurassic Park . In theaters, seeing the dinosaurs on the big screen, my mind was just blown away. That film holds up so well, because it’s so well done. That movie made me go, ‘Okay, I definitely want to do this.’ When I was in high school, I discovered Robert Rodriguez. I already knew, ‘I want to do film’ from watching these big blockbusters, but how many people from my neighborhood or from my walk of life actually do these big blockbusters? I didn't know anybody. And then I saw Robert Rodriguez as El Mariachi . I read his book and found out, ‘Oh, here's this guy in college that had done some experiments, sold a part of his body to science to get $7,000 and made a whole film with his friends.’ That made it more tangible for me. And I thought, ‘Okay, even if I can't do the Spielberg stuff, this guy actually went out and shot a movie.’ So just grab the camera and let's just go do it. Alain shared details on his educational background and how it prepared him for the industry. I was [at Full Sail University] for a year and I got my bachelor's degree in that time. It was an accelerated program. Every month was a semester. You start the month, and you're in English and camera. They always have an academic class and a film class at the same time. So you're in English and also camera class. So that starts in the month. You only have those two classes for the whole month, and you have to go Monday through Friday. Four hours of lecture, and then four hours of lab right after it. It's a full-time job. And they were open. They had classes at all kinds of times. We’d have classes at 2am. It's all around the clock. There's classes on Saturdays and Sundays; it all depends on where you land on the schedule. I think what they were really preparing you for is how the real world works, as far as how films are made and how schedules are. You could be working on a Sunday, or a Saturday, and it could be all these weird hours and all these long hours. It's preparing you for that. I started with a lot of people in my initial class, but not everybody made it through the end, because it is grueling. If you miss a couple classes, then you're already way behind, and it’s hard to catch up again. Some artists choose to stick to the genre they specialize in while others seek to branch out and experiment. Alain shared which approach he takes. For me, I'm a filmmaker. I'm a storyteller. I like to tell stories; it doesn't matter if it's a romantic comedy, or if it’s a drama, or this crazy epic movie. They're all stories to me. They all have characters. They all have characters that need to change throughout the course of the story. It doesn't matter if it's a small indie project, or even if it's a Disney Channel film. As silly as they may be, they still have a structured story that they need to follow. I'll do whichever story that I find interesting. I love horror. I'm a big horror film fan, too. That’s why when I got on to Dr. Strange , I was like, ‘Oh this is great,’ because I'm combining my two loves of superhero and horror. Lastly, Alain gave us a heads-up on the personal projects he has in the pipeline. Right now, I'm currently editing a short film with one of my really good friends from college. We decided we wanted to do a really different type of short film for superheroes. We’re doing a dark superhero drama called Vigilante . Basically, it's in a world where superheroes exist, kind of like My Hero Academia or The Boys or something like that, where a lot of them fly over the underprivileged cities. They don't really patrol those neighborhoods, they don't really stop the crime. They focus on the big global threats. There's still crime, there’s still gangs and all kinds of things happening within those communities. So these four guys in this neighborhood have superpowers; each of them have a different set of powers. They decide for themselves, ‘You know what, nobody's coming here to save us. So we got to save our community.’ It's a dark, gritty superhero drama, and it stars Cleo Thomas from Holes and Maestro Harrell from The Wire ; he played Randy. That's a really good one that I'm looking forward to. We pretty much have a full cut of that already. We're in the process of doing the visual effects right now, and the scoring is happening also. We have a really great team on this project. I'm excited to show to people what we can do. Alain is currently editing a short film titled Rear and a feature film titled Restaveks. You can follow Alain’s projects, articles and other updates on Instagram at @alain_inthecut 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!

Tardes De Sol. Noches de Agua. (Afternoons of Sun. Nights of Water.) provides a glimpse into the many systems perpetuating violence against vulnerable people. < Back Tardes De Sol. Noches de Agua. (Afternoons of Sun. Nights of Water.) provides a glimpse into the many systems perpetuating violence against vulnerable people. CAY Productora, 2019 20 minutes Director/Writer: VD Menzella Reading Time: 3 minutes 📷 : Used with permission, CAY Productora Tardes De Sol. Noches de Agua A Dark Past (JLBBO78WK8JWZXUT) 00:00 / 03:19 Dandelion Movies/shows with heavy subjects Ginger Thought-provoking movies/shows Chris Chaisson 2022-09-25 Tardes De Sol. Noches de Agua. centers around Lamia, a young woman who is developmentally disabled. She resides in a small Argentinian village under the close supervision of her devoutly Christian mother. Forced to dress conservatively and refrain from any hint of promiscuity, Lamia draws and writes in her diary as an outlet for her fantasies. She creates a character, Sister Rosa, to contrast with the deity that her mother worships and wants her to fear. In her ventures through the village to deliver groceries and her mother’s knitting to neighbors, she develops an infatuation with Rabbit, a local man in the neighborhood who seduces her. After he violently assaults Lamia, she goes into a comatose state, prompting her mother and the village priest to nurse her back to health. This stellar short film highlights several significant social issues, not the least of which are the attempts of men, religious institutions and older generations to suppress women’s sexuality. Despite the close parental supervision, Lamia lives a very lonely and vulnerable existence. Her mother forces her to recite mantras about the evil nature of men, instructs her to conceal her figure at all times, and physically punishes her upon finding out about her crush on Rabbit. Director VD Menzella highlights this suppressive environment through shots of Lamia hiding her diary or avoiding eye contact with the other characters. Rabbit’s disturbing assault illuminates the reality that many people with developmental disabilities become victims of violence, despite the frequent narrative that they are more often perpetrators of it. The motive behind many such assaults stems from the culprit’s belief that they will get away with it, largely because the victim’s credibility is questioned. Lamia’s mother, for instance, believes that she has harmed herself, a theory that the local priest adheres to without much pushback. The skepticism and attempts to control women’s behavior have historically led to torture in the name of religion, be it through execution, exile, or other means. Such institutions do offer support and comfort to community members, giving them direction and hope during tough times. However, they also chastise conduct and thought processes that are different from theirs. As opposed to showing compassion, Lamia’s mother and priest instead ostracize her. T ardes De Sol. Noches de Agua. is reminiscent of feature films such as Boys Don’t Cry and Precious . Lamia, Brandon Teena and Precious are all vulnerable protagonists existing in environments where they are subject to abuse because of their sexuality, gender and skin complexion, either in the household or the larger community. While the films all have different conclusions, they each center around a young character attempting to survive and break free from authoritarian surroundings. Previous Next Sign-up for new reviews, exclusives, deep dives, and more First name Last name Enter your email here I agree to the terms & conditions Sign-up Thanks for joining us!

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