Latest news with #Michael Shanks
Irish Times
14 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Four new films to see this week: Materialists, Together, Night Always Comes and Oslo Stories: Love
Together ★★★★☆ Directed by Michael Shanks. Starring Dave Franco, Alison Brie, Damon Herrimam. 16 cert, gen release, 102 min Franco and Brie, a long-term couple, find themselves melding creepily together after relocating to the country. Never underestimate the impact of the profoundly unpleasant in horror cinema. There is a lot of that in this stomach-churning debut from Michael Shanks: hair is swallowed; genitals are stretched; most distressingly for many viewers, animals are shown in states of violent distress (computer-generated, of course). Some may view this as a bit cheap, but it takes real invention to make hardened critics squirm as they were in the press screening for Together. This is a masterclass in eugh. Full review DC Materialists ★★★★☆ Directed by Celine Song. Starring Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, Pedro Pascal, Zoë Winters, Martin Ireland, Dasha Nekrasova, Emmy Wheeler. 15A cert, gen release, 117 min Johnson stars as a matchmaker plying her trade amid the moneybags of New York City. Attending a wedding, she bumps into a hugely wealthy financier in the currently unavoidable form of Pedro Pescal and decides to date him rather than grab him as a client. But Chris Evans, as her less-well-off ex-boyfriend, is waiting in the wings. Song's gorgeous follow-up to Past Lives presents itself as a romcom, but, short on laughs, it works better as a tart analysis of how money poisons relationships. None of that gets in the way of a delightfully romantic conclusion. Full review DC READ MORE Night Always Comes ★★☆☆☆ Directed by Benjamin Caron. Starring Vanessa Kirby, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Zack Gottsagen, Stephen James, Randall Park, Julia Fox, Michael Kelly, Eli Roth. No cert, Netflix, 108 min Kirby, who worked far too hard to save the unnecessarily glum Fantastic Four: First Steps, is yet again overexerting herself in an unworthy vehicle. Adapted from Willy Vlautin's novel, Night Always Comes opens with a lazy lesson in the failings of trickle-down economics delivered as incidental radio broadcasts on homelessness and grocery bills. Unhappily, Night Always Comes eschews its real-world dilemma as it swerves into low-life criminality. The heroine juggles prostitution, bartending and cocaine dealing as she encounters safe-crackers, low-lives and Eli Roth's sleazy club owner. Even Kirby can't make the theme-park poverty feel authentic. Full review TB Oslo Stories: Love ★★★★☆ Directed by Dag Johan Haugerud. Starring Andrea Braein Hovig, Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen, Thomas Gullestad, Lars Jacob Holm, Marte Engebrigtsen. No cert, limited release, 120 min The second instalment in this disarming Norwegian movie trilogy follows two friends, practical urologist Marianne (Hovig) and big-hearted nurse Tor (Jacobsen), as they enter meaningful, if unlikely to last, relationships. Marianne is nudged toward Ole (Gullestad), a divorced father of two, by her matchmaking chum Heidi (Engebrigtsen). Tor, who spends nights riding the ferry between Oslo and Nesodden, meets Bjorn (Holm), a therapist he later treats at the hospital. The romantic destinies remain open-ended, and the film leaves space for the audience to decide what their various connections mean. Subtle. Intelligent. Full review TB
Gizmodo
05-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
‘Together' Director Explains How that Wild Final Shot Was Made (Without AI)
Ever since its debut at Sundance earlier this year, fans of horror have had Michael Shanks' new film, Together, on their radars. Neon picked it up out of the festival and, after some really creepy trailers and marketing, opened it in theaters last weekend with solid results. It's a provocative, surprising, and incredibly disgusting movie with an ending viewers will not soon forget. An ending that was achieved through traditional methods of visual effects and without a hint of per that spoiler warning above, we're about to explain what happens at the end of Together, so if you haven't seen it and want to, we urge you to look away right now. In the film Tim and Millie (Dave Franco and Alison Brie) get infected by this unexplained force that wants their bodies to become one. The how and why behind it is pretty weird, mysterious, and fun, but eventually, the couple realize the only way to defeat this force is to give in to it. And so we watch as their bodies combine from two into one, and, in the film's final shot, a completely new person, the amalgamation of both of them, opens the door to Millie's visiting parents. Speaking on Indiewire's Filmmaker Toolkit Podcast, Shanks explained that both the blending of the bodies and the new character were achieved without the use of AI. 'The amount of screenings I've gone to now, and people come up to me and say, 'Was that AI at the end?' It's just so crazy that people assume AI is now the cause. We've used absolutely none of it on this film,' Shanks said. 'As a VFX guy, as somebody that's worked with all these teams that put in so much work, it's so frustrating now that people look at something that looks interesting or good, and they [assume] just a computer made it. It's like, 'No, no, no, no, no.'' Instead, the 'Tillie' character was created using makeup and visual effects compositing by Genevieve Camilleri. 'In pre-production, Gen just went up and took photos of Dave and Alison and then in Nuke, she made a bunch of variations on which elements to take from which of their faces to figure out what is essential to seeing both of them in that final image,' Shanks said. Then, on the day, the director shot the scene with both actors. 'After we shot the scene with Alison, we moved in Dave, with a bunch of dots on his face,' he continued. 'Gen has taken his jaw and his lips and stuck that onto the bottom [of the face]. It's really a combination of makeup and, you wouldn't call it CGI, because nothing's computer-generated, but it's compositing.' Stepping back a bit from the specifics of Together, it's wild that Shanks has to defend that his film didn't use generative AI. If it had come out even just 3-4 years ago, it would not have even been a thought. We all would've just assumed it was one of them dressing up as the other or visual effects. Ultimately, it's kind of both. But the whole conversation changed when we began living in a world where you can put 'Dave Franco and Alison Brie as one person' into a program and get something back in seconds. Basically, props to Shanks for doing something right, working hard at it, and making something memorable. And boo to the world for making us forget that the real magic of filmmaking comes from the human touch. Together is now in theaters. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
Yahoo
31-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Together' is sexy & hilarious — it's also, accidentally, the queerest horror film of the year
Together might not have started out as an interrogation of gender, but it accidentally became the queerest horror film of the year anyway. It also happens to be one of the year's best, too The film, which comes from first-time feature director Michael Shanks and stars Alison Brie and Dave Franco (who also produced the movie), introduces audiences to Tim and Millie (Franco and Brie, respectively), an outwardly happy, middle-class, unmarried couple on the eve of a big milestone in their relationship. Millie, a teacher, has taken a new job outside the city, and Tim has agreed to come along, potentially leaving behind his dreams of rock stardom. Tim is also wracked with grief over the loss of his father, which has taken a toll on their intimacy — something Millie is willing to look past, but that secretly gnaws at her. In other words, just beneath the surface of this relationship simmers a stew of resentment and insecurity. The question at the heart of the film is whether they really want to commit to a lifetime together — flaws and all — or if they should, wait for it, no longer be together . Germain McMicking/Neon Moving away from their friends and Tim's gigs only puts more pressure on the fault lines of their already fractured connection. To reconnect, they go for a hike, only to stumble — quite literally — into an underground chamber where something they encounter sets off a chain reaction. What follows is a feverishly toxic bond that only grows more intense... especially when their very flesh seems to want to fuse — once again — together. It's a concept born from Shanks' own romantic history. Like his principal characters, he and his partner have been together since they were quite young, and the film reflects his own anxieties around commitment, toxic enmeshment, and loss of identity. 'It's about how crazy it is in any relationship to kind of fully commit to somebody, to share a life with somebody,' he tells PRIDE. 'It's a weird and scary kind of thing to do.' Ben King/Neon Michael Shanks directs Alison Brie and Dave Franco in 'Together' It's a dynamic that anyone, regardless of sexuality or gender, can relate to — but how it's expressed in the film is where things take a surprising left turn into a post-gender world. It's challenging to discuss without revealing the film's many twists and turns. But without venturing too far into the weeds, the film presents a mythology that renders gender obsolete and even a symptom of something fundamentally broken in humanity. It also features a pivotal queer character who serves as both witness and confidant to Millie and Tim as their life transition becomes more of a — shall we say — transformation. Brie is proud of the way the character's presence is treated casually, and she emphasizes the importance of that approach. 'You don't always have to be making a commentary on it — really, just reflecting the way the world is, where we have all types of couples,' she tells PRIDE. Germain McMicking/Neon Although the film takes a darker view on the subject, in Together, love really is love. As a result, couples of all varieties will see their anxieties and emotions reflected in the story — even Brie and Franco, who are married to one another and creative partners together, found themselves reflecting on their own dynamics while making the film. 'We had a lot of discussions about the differences between toxic codependency and maybe sort of like mild codependency,' says Brie. 'I think we came to realize that we have some codependent tendencies in our relationship, but because of our jobs, we actually end up spending a lot of time apart, so we're able to cultivate really good independence and social circles away from each other. Then, when we come back and work together, it feels really nice.' 'It's healthy to kind of miss each other from afar every once in a while,' adds Franco to PRIDE. 'We don't really have many boundaries, and it might kind of become the toxic version of codependency,' he jokes. Although the film is doubtlessly body horror, it's a rare entry in the subgenre that offers some lightness. Part of that comes from the sharp comedic edge of its cast — and it makes great use of more, shall we say, visceral moments for some shockingly funny sight gags. 'We were debating the other day if this is the first feel-good body horror movie. You do kind of walk away wanting to, like, dance and move your body and you're feeling good,' says Franco. Although he also admits with a laugh, 'We've also heard from single people who've seen the movie who have said, 'This is a strong argument for staying single.'' Germain McMicking/Neon Regardless of where audiences fall on that spectrum, they will undoubtedly also be presented with some fascinating questions about gender, what a post-gender world would look like, and if we're better off without it all. Intentionally or not, the film presents those fascinating questions and leaves you with plenty more to chew on — which is the sign of a great horror film. Together is the most romantic, queerest, and funniest body horror film in recent memory. Brie and Franco are perfectly cast, and their real-life chemistry shines through. It's a rom-com for sickos and queer folks — and that's the highest compliment I can give a film. Together is out now in theaters. Check out the trailer below. Years into their relationship, Tim and Millie (Dave Franco and Alison Brie) find themselves at a crossroads as they move to the ... - YouTube This article originally appeared on Pride: 'Together' is sexy & hilarious — it's also, accidentally, the queerest horror film of the year
