A24 To Release The Wondrous Family Adventure 'The Legend Of Ochi' On Blu-Ray This July
A24 has just announced that they will be releasing director Isaiah Saxon's lushly handcrafted adventure The Legend of Ochi in a special Blu-Ray Collector's Edition that is expected to ship in July 2025, exclusively from the A24 Shop. The film stars Helena Zengel, Willem Dafoe, Finn Wolfhard, and Emily Watson. The release will come with a Dolby Atmos track and new special features including a commentary track, featurettes, and more. Get more details below!
Synopsis: In a remote village on the island of Carpathia, a shy girl is raised to fear an elusive animal species known as ochi. But when she discovers a wounded baby ochi has been left behind, she escapes on a quest to bring him home.
Special features:
Commentary with Writer-Director Isaiah Saxon
'The Ochi Quest' Behind-the-Scenes Featurette
Deleted Scene: Emily Watson's 'Singing Bird'
Six Collectible Postcards with Behind-the-Scenes Photography by Alexandru Ionita
This is the latest of many Collector's Editions from A24. Which of their films would you like to see get this treatment next? Let us know in the comments or over on Twitter.
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Forbes
a day ago
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Interview: ‘Sirens' Cinematographer On Secrets, Inspirations, & More
Netflix has a hit miniseries with Sirens from creator and showrunner Molly Smith Metzler. Last weekend I brought you a look behind the lush curtains at the cinematography of Sirens. This weekend I bring you part two of that conversation. Milly Alcock stars in "Sirens." Inspired by Metzler's original play that itself took inspiration from a real-life experience and place, Sirens stars Milly Alcock, Meghann Fahy, Julianne Moore, and Kevin Bacon. The first two episodes were directed by Nicole Kassell, while Quyen Tran directed the third and fourth episodes, and Lila Neugebauer directed the fifth episode. The series was scripted by Metzler, Bekah Brunstetter, and Colin McKenna. Sirens tells the story of two sisters whose lives took very different paths, and whose choices lead them to a decisive moment in their relationships that will determine their future. This all happens on an island of wealthy socialites and the huge staffs they employ, divorced from the influences and stresses of the outside world… or so they say. The truth is, of course, that nothing is what it seems to be, and mysteries pop up as the past and all of its secrets unravels over the course of a couple of eventful days. If you've already seen Sirens, then you can read out more about the shocking ending here. Suffice to say, the rest of this article and the interview includes information about the plot and events of the series, so consider this your spoiler warning. So without further ado, let's get to the rest of my interview with Gregory Middleton. Again, be sure to check out the first part of this interview. MH: [You spoke previously about the gaze and] capturing that experience from both perspectives in the photography. And it helps a lot with the conflicting themes about the sirens as well. Because of, on the one hand, that gaze and being the hypnotized, and so there's the myth of the sirens that you're drawn in. But then on the other hand, there's the opposite, which is, the sirens were these were women who were stranded, and when they called for help and men would see them, men would crash their boats on the rocks. And [in Sirens] And it's such a-- the way the camera work brings that to life is interesting and complex, but [many people aren't noticing those even deeper layers]… There's so much more people will think about and get as they rewatch it. It's just it's really terrific. GM: Thank you, Mark. It's in it's in Molly's writing, it's in the in the in the concept of the show, because part of it is kind of like, who is the siren? What are sirens? It's a question it's posing. And also the idea of like, you know, there's a certain amount of "sirening" that goes on from all sides, right? It's not like there's a one mythical siren seducing everybody. It's also about self-deception, right? The way Simone says at the end of the show, it's like, well, he was just there and I couldn't stop myself, what was I supposed to do? It was like, I couldn't refuse the call kind of thing. That idea of [being] overwhelmed, I just had to do this, having a sign or a feeling you can't control, to compel you to do something, to compel you to make a choice. And that idea is very internally generated, right? But blaming the siren… [that] the sirens had a power to make me do something, is a way to self-excuse away any responsibility for any choices you make. And that's sort of one of the aspects the show is trying to explore is this idea of self-deception. There's this idea also of calling people who have made me do things monsters, right, the sirens are monsters. Like Simone gets called a monster. The word is used very deliberately by Milly. Because it's a way of blaming, like, 'You made me do this. It's your fault.' Which is like, well, don't you have agency yourself? But the idea of what it's like to feel this way-- with the incredible performances by our amazing cast, in the moment it's like, yeah, I mean if you're sitting in front of, you know, Milly Alcock or Julianne Moore, and they're looking at you like that, you're like, yeah, let's go. You know, you're going to make a choice that they're going to suggest. And [first-person camera] is a way to sort of understand what that feels like, because it's something that's sort of universal. I mean, it's just in my own point of view, is the myths are created out of a desire to express things about what it's like to be a human being. The stories are designed to express some idea. And the idea of someone saying, you know what? I just had no control of it. This, you know, this person had this hold over me and I I was totally beholden, I couldn't help myself. Meaning like, well, maybe they're magic, maybe it was real magic that was doing it. Right? This idea of excusing it away-- like maybe they were a witch or a warlock, or a siren. I mean, they could have been a siren because sirens have this ability to make you do things you shouldn't or whatever. But myths would express ideas about people, and about us ourselves. And in this case, in the show for me it's trying to explore all that. And it's also a comedy. I find the script extremely funny, because people when people are in self deception, they can be pretty damn funny. I mean, I'm laughing a lot when I was reading the script sometimes, because people are saying those ridiculous things. I mean, Michaela is trying to save nature, and yet she got all these like stuffed things on her wall, and she's taking things off the beach. She's like, oh, let's save some wildlife now, but it's like totally deceiving yourself, and what she does is destroying stuff mostly. So I find that can be quite funny. So there's an interesting, dark comedy element to people that are deceiving themselves. And then the core of where that would come from is what the story is about. Like from some trauma, some really intense desire for something, or to get over something, or through something. And then a willingness to be deceived, right? Then in the climax of the show, you know, Kevin Bacon makes a pretty profound choice. But it's kind of self-generated. He's blaming somebody else for his issues. He decides, oh, this is the one thing it will do, it'll make things better for me, and I'm blaming someone else for my difficulties. And, you know, it's sort of perpetuating the cycle. And that'll turn someone else into behaving more the same way. And it perpetuates. MH: It was a fascinating shift in that perspective of, oh, Julianne Moore is heading a cult. And it's that outside perspective of what's behind the glow, and as you slowly come to realize at the end that, oh, well, Paul runs the cult, he's just bored with it. And essentially, he's the one each time, "Oh, they work for me. They work for me. And they work for me. And it's like Paul's really the one that everything revolves around., and he's the power behind the scenes. GM: Yeah, it's kind like he does have the most money. So yes, he is like in that way, his choices have the most impact, and everyone else around him has that. Another aspect that you were mentioning about the cinematography in terms of the effect on these things is, also, I did a couple of things with the camera and the lenses apart from the lighting to help indicate how far into a sort of warped reality we were. So whenever someone had more of a skewed view, and especially also in the "sirening" point of views with people being under the gaze, I was using some lens -- ARRI Signature Primes -- and they have an option, you get these little rear diopters, which are basically like magnifiers from the back of the lens. And they have a way of, like, sort of detuning the lens a little bit, and they can change the shape, like the shape of someone's face slightly. The stronger ones will make the face a bit more round. But also they create more aberrations around the edge of the frame, so whatever you're focusing on seems a bit more isolated. And the character of the way things go out of focus on the edge become more and more broken apart. You see different like bits of chromatic aberration, and it just becomes a very interesting mosaic out of focus, which is a bit subconscious. But it's a very simple technique I can sort of change and add through certain scenes. And it sort of helped out subconsciously, it would affect a little bit like, you can tell things are off kilter now in this way. And now things are more sharp. And there'd be no diffusion and none of that in Buffalo, for example. But when things are really getting trippy, I'll alternate between how much I want the edge of the frame to go a bit mosaically wacky. It basically breaks things apart a little bit. And that was a way to totally subconsciously lead into that. I don't know if it had any effect, we'll see. It didn't seem to draw attention to itself too much, at least, which is important. MH: That's again, yeah, what's wonderful about so much of this. It's the unfortunate nature of what I do that whenever I watch stuff, there's part of my brain I have trouble keeping turned off that's watching it as a reviewer or a screenwriter, thinking about and trying to figure out, you know, how was this shot done or whatever? And for so much of it, I wasn't being taken out of it or focusing out of the story, but then I would remember to put my reviewer hat back on, and then I'd go back and rewatch because it's like, yeah, it was very organic sense of surrealism and shifting tone. You feel it a lot, which perfectly doves tails into something I want to be sure to mention, which is Hitchcock, because this all ties back into, again, the house and the landscapes. GM: Yeah, the cliff house! MH: I mean, I love the way even just how you shot the staircases, for example, the different angles and the focus on them, and just how imposing that outdoor staircase is with the spiral from above. A lot of these shots are subverting kind of secretly and with the satire of the story, the way it projects the mystery and thriller elements, there's even I would say some some horror coding, some psychological horror coding. And it all has a nice Hitchcock feel. But watching it, you don't notice that it's being done to create that feel. So you're getting all those benefits without being like, 'Look here! Look at the edge! Look how this is framed!' It just is, and you feel it more than noticeably see it. That's what makes Hitchcock Hitchcock, I think. And that's what that vibe is. And it contrasts so perfectly with the pastels and brightness and the way that you're using that. GM: Yeah, it's interesting. I think also with Julianne Moore's presence, too, the way she's describing, 'I love walking along [the cliffs],' when she's walking with Devon's character when she's first arrives… and they're walking on the edge of the cliff, waxing poetic about, 'Oh, remember, the sailors used to crash here for hundreds of years.' It's like, was she a siren, was she here the whole time? But she's sort of absconding or taking these myths as her own, because she's a local now and now she's here so she's just immersing herself in the history, appropriating all the local culture and stuff, as another self-deceptive thing. The staircase thing is very interesting, because that's very deliberate in Molly's script -- and Nikki, when she directed the first episode, was like it's aspirational because Simone is running on the beach, and she's happy and running up to this house, right? It's like, I'm going up to this place. It's aspirational, this is where I'm going to go, it's pretty, it's beautiful, it has a majestic feel. But later on with Devon, walking to the edge of cliff, it's like, you know, you might die if you fall off this cliff, right? This idea of it's a threatening place. And then in the later episodes, in episodes three and four, it's like, yeah, you might die if you do fall over. You're going to be in trouble, as we know from what happened to her boyfriend. And we think maybe Jocelyn was killed, maybe the previous wife was tossed off the cliff, so it becomes this menacing thing. And then by episode five, with the climactic turn with Kevin's character, is that like he's ascending the staircase, right? He's going down there to meet Simone. He's thrown caution to win. He's decided, 'I'm just going to go on this journey.' And it's very symbolic. He's just leaving his perch. He's going right down to the water, as far as he can get away from where he's normally isolated, to meet Simone and make this big choice, right? And visually I think… it's just simple screen directions that can help psychologically create a feel for where a character going, like they're going left or right or up or down. It's something about someone climbing something, most people's feeling about climbing something is to have to get to somewhere. When people descend something, usually the feeling could be more about getting away from something sometimes. And it's just like internally psychological for most for most people, and it was used very deliberately in the staircase that was both beautiful and majestic, but also like a bit scary. And trust me, going up on the stairs while we're on the shoot you got to be careful, you know, you got to stay away from the edge. MH: It's some of those some of the hikes in around Runyon Canyon [in Los Angeles] and stuff. There's some of the long ones and there's one that has a really long staircase. And that's the thing I thought of was well, you better be careful going up and down a staircase that high. GM: Yeah, for sure. It was an incredible location that John Pano, the production designer, found. And we did digitally augment the house slightly. But just the idea of this house on a cliff, green, lush, bright, you know, facing the sea. And it provided what was for me, one of my favorite images of the show is Simone being on that rocky cliff. But we finally find that one spot where Julianne Moore's character would be like, this is where I watch the sunset or where I want to look at my domain. And for her to take over that position, and have the sun going down and her glowing was like-- this last transformation into something with the next version of her, the next version of someone who's going to now be a bit of a monster and a bit of a seducing force, you know, and this location provided that. And it gave you all this opportunity to create this type of staging. So it's an incredible place. MH: It's a great mix of the beauty and the idea that look, it's beautiful. But the hidden danger. And then, sometimes even though it's like, well, it's a cliff. It's not exactly hidden. It's the danger people worry about. But it's only dangerous to the person who does it to himself, essentially. And the real dangers are hidden in the real. What's the real danger? Well, you know, there's a lot of it… Big thanks again to Gregory Middleton for taking time out of his busy schedule for this extra-deep examination of the cinematography and making of Sirens. Sirens remains among the most-streamed series on Netflix this week, after nearly 17 million people tuned in over its debut weekend.
Geek Tyrant
a day ago
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Behind-The-Scenes Featurette For JURASSIC WORLD REBIRTH Focuses on Bringing Dinosaurs To Life — GeekTyrant
Universal Pictures has shared a new behind-the-scenes featurette for Jurassic World Rebirth , and it puts a focus on bringing the dinosaurs to life for the movie. The video offers interviews with Gareth Edwards, the cast and his VFX team discussing the making of this movie, footage from the production, and some new footage from the movie, which looks like a really fun ride! This script for the movie is written by original Jurassic Park Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp, and that is what excites me most about the movie! In the film, 'The planet's ecology has proven largely inhospitable to dinosaurs. Those remaining exist in isolated equatorial environments with climates resembling the one in which they once thrived. 'The three most colossal creatures within that tropical biosphere hold the key to a drug that will bring miraculous life-saving benefits to humankind.' The movie stars Scarlett Johansson as Zora Bennett, Jonathan Bailey as Dr. Henry Loomis, and Mahershala Ali as Duncan Kincaid. The director previously said that the movie is 'a giant love letter to Steven Spielberg and his earlier films. There are moments in this movie that remind me very much of Jaws. 'It's like little greatest hits of all those aspects of his films that I loved growing up as a child. It's essentially a little adventure odyssey across this island, a survival story, really.' The film is set five years after the events of Dominion , 'in which dinosaurs mingled with humans all over the globe, these creatures are now dying out. 'The present-day planet proved to be inhospitable to the prehistoric ilk, except for a small region in the tropics around the equator, where many of them now congregate. 'The three most colossal dinosaurs of land, sea, and air within this biosphere hold genetic material precious to a pharmaceutical company that hopes to use the dino DNA to create a life-saving drug for humanity.' Universal Pictures will release the Steven Spielberg-produced film in theaters on July 2, 2025.
