Vancouver filmmaker's tragicomic documentary about Filipino typhoon survivors gains buzz
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National Post
10 hours ago
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Streaming: Ryan Coogler's Sinners hits Crave
Article content Ryan Coogler's film Sinners made a quick trip from cinemas to streaming — it's new on Crave — and, well, it's a trip indeed. Article content Coogler's creative journey started with his first feature Fruitvale Station (2013, Apple TV+) starred Michael B. Jordan as Oscar Grant, an ex-con attempting to rebuild his life. It's based on a true story, with Coogler striving to humanize Grant in the 24 hours before he died at the hands of the BART cop who would shoot Grant in the back. Coogler next played with the Rocky franchise with Creed (2015, Prime) before taking on one of the more masterful entries in the Marvel Universe, Black Panther (2018, Disney+). Article content Sinners feel like Coogler's most ambitious film, a long way down the line from the social realism origins of Fruitvale Station. Jordan (Coogler's most frequent collaborator) does double duty here playing twin brothers, named Smoke and Stack, who have returned to their Mississippi birthplace after scoring big, dirty money in Chicago. They buy a disused sawmill with the ambition of transforming it into a juke joint, with the help of young would-be bluesman Sammie (Miles Caton) and select members of their community. Article content The brothers anticipate trouble from the Ku Klux Klan, but nobody expects the kind of trouble delivered by Remmick (Jack O'Connell), a drifter with his own vampiric designs on the juke joint. Article content It is apparent Coogler was granted carte blanche to make the movie he wanted, which explains why it has the bravado elements of a musical as well as a Southern Gothic drama. It touches on Black history, but also Black mythology, offering its own take on the story of bluesman Robert Johnson, who purportedly sold his soul to the devil in exchange for mastery of the guitar. Article content Article content But it's a horror movie first. As such, it's a film that warrants the viewing of another film to put it in a greater context. Article content That film is the 2019 documentary Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, now playing on the genre specialty streaming service Shudder. In it, director Xavier Burgin makes the case that the horror genre best reflects the Black experience, although not always in a positive way. Article content 'We've always loved horror,' writer-educator Tananarive Due (an executive producer of the doc) observes at the beginning of the film. 'It's just that horror, unfortunately, hasn't always loved us.' Article content The doc proceeds to demonstrate the sorrowful history of black characters in horror movies, often the first to die, and just as frequently sacrificing their lives so that the white hero may live. Scatman Crothers in The Shining is the film's example of the 'sacrificial negro' trope, double painful because the character in Stephen King's book escaped with his life. How interesting it is that Coogler pays a kind of homage to The Shining with a shot of a vampirically possessed character, as well as a scene which is essentially a replay of the blood testing scene in The Thing. ('My very first movie was The Thing,' actor Keith David proudly notes in the doc. 'And I lived all the way to the end.')
CBC
a day ago
- CBC
Vancouver filmmaker's tragicomic documentary about Filipino typhoon survivors gains buzz
Twelve years ago, Typhoon Haiyan claimed thousands of lives in the Philippines, and filmmaker Sean Devlin went to the country a year later to work on a film. In the process, he created a semi-fictional movie featuring Filipino people who made the best of the tragedy. His film Asog has received praise at many international film festivals.
CBC
a day ago
- CBC
What will Maybe Happy Ending's casting controversy mean for the show — and the industry?
Social Sharing The musical Maybe Happy Ending has made waves this season on Broadway. Starring Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen, the unique new show is a comedy set in Seoul, South Korea that follows two robots as they find love at the end of their batteries. At this year's Tony's it not only won the most awards, but it also broke ground, with lead actor Criss becoming the first Asian American to win best leading actor in a musical. Recently, the tides have begun to turn for the show, however, as it receives backlash for its latest casting announcement. After Criss set his date to depart the show, the production announced a white actor, Andrew Barth Feldman, will be stepping into the lead role. Today on Commotion, theatre critics Glenn Sumi and Joshua Chong join guest host Rad Simonpillai to talk about what Maybe Happy Ending 's Broadway casting controversy could mean for the future of the show as well as the industry. We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player. WATCH | Today's episode on YouTube: Rad: Joshua, the two main characters are helper robots who are sent to live out the rest of their batteries at a robot retirement home. I mean, this is an eccentric premise, right?... Kind of this underdog narrative. So what is it that made this show such a big hit with audiences? Joshua: It was so refreshing, after so many years of these jukebox musicals, to get a totally new, original musical. And the score was so special — jazz influences, hints of Sondheim. And it was refreshing to see a totally new musical be so successful on Broadway. I was in New York when it was in previews. People thought it was going to close after a few weeks. There were no big names — maybe Darren Criss, but he's not really an A-lister on Broadway — and for it to succeed was incredible. It's about robots and whether they can fall in love. It's a robot story: Wall-E, meets Up, meets Once, the musical. But it's a really human story as well about what we do with the rest of our lives. Rad: OK. Glenn, let me talk about this backlash to Andrew Barth Feldman's casting. The creators of the musical responded with a middle-of-the-night Instagram post. They said that they wanted their show to be, and I'm quoting here, "comfortably performed by anyone, anywhere, yet distinctly set in Korea." What did you make of their statement? Glenn: Yeah, I just think it's a little wishy-washy. I mean, in that statement, they said that every role could be played by an Asian performer, but without the intention that the robot roles always would be. I just think it is really wishy-washy. It's like wanting to have their cake and eat it too. I get it. Obviously, they want it to work internationally and on tour; that's how you make money. I was trying to think of a comparison and I thought of you and film, Rad. So you know how the original script for Ridley Scott's Alien, Ripley was supposed to be played by a man. And then Sigourney Weaver comes in there. They didn't have to make a lot of changes to the part, but it made history, especially because there were virtually no action roles for women at the time. So what if Alien had been a big success, and then in the sequels, Ripley was changed back to a man. I mean, that's sort of how it feels. Rad: That upsets me already. You knew exactly how to cut right to my core. Joshua, there's actually another layer to this that's complicating all of this. And that's the lead actress, Helen J. Shen, is in a relationship with Andrew Barth Feldman, who took on this role. So what has she said about this? Joshua: It's so complicated for her, and she actually posted about this shortly after this controversy erupted. She acknowledged the pain that the Asian community is feeling and understands that a lot of people saw this production as an opportunity for Asian actors, especially male actors, who did not have these opportunities previously. But she also said it's complicated because she is in a relationship with Andrew, and she said it is going to be a joy to play opposite him eight times a week, for these nine weeks that he's in the production.
