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The premiere of the new Universal Pictures film First Man was an incredible cinematic experience at the Toronto International Film Festival. Audiences screened the film at the dome-shaped Cinesphere on an IMAX screen — appropriate for this narrative with a setting in outer space. Filmmaker Damien Chazelle stated before the screening started, that several scenes were shot in IMAX and he was excited that we can see the film in its best form.
Chazelle teams up with the award-winning team from La La Land and has executive producer Steven Spielberg along for the ride in this groundbreaking story about the first man to ever walk on the moon, aeronautical engineer Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling). Based on James R. Hansen’s book First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, the movie takes us through the decade leading up to the historic Apollo 11 flight and landing. What we uncover in this motion picture is more about Armstrong himself — including family, close friends, and colleagues as well as a series of fateful events that led to him piloting the mission.
Neil Armstrong suffered tragedy and death seemed to surround him. The film first features the death of his daughter which haunts Neil for many years after her passing. His wife Jan (Claire Foy) struggles to keep the family together and be a rock for Armstrong as he continues to work his way up through the NASA space program. However, the risks of being an astronaut come with the loss of life which Armstrong experiences throughout the years along with his wife, and the two become all too familiar with attending funerals.
First Man balances between being a docudrama about Neil’s life as an astronaut and a Discovery network narrative with impressive panoramic shots of space and the moon. The unsung hero of this film is the sound editing. The sound matches perfectly from scenes inside of the wedged compartment of the Gemini capsule to the moment when Armstrong begins his first step on the moon, indelibly placing a historical print — one that will be remembered among all nations forever.
Audiences will also learn about some of the idiosyncrasies of astronaut Buzz Aldrin (Corey Stoll) who was with mission commander Neil Armstong on that historic flight. He’s depicted as being a bit cocky and arrogant, and it appears as if Armstrong himself was annoyed by Aldrin’s eccentricities.
The opening scene of First Man is an intense POV directly through the lens of Armstrong, in his tightly spaced capsule orbiting space. We get to experience for just a moment what he endures as the camera shakes, the motors run high and fast and the dimly lit spacecraft is preparing to take us to new heights. It is also in this moment that the sound editing does its magic in preparing us for the kind of experience we will have.
Ryan Gosling delivers a performance that I don’t necessarily will think become groundbreaking or memorable but one that will give insight about Armstrong the father and family man — as opposed to Armstrong the astronaut. We get more of a gripping performance from Stoll as the super-confident Buzz Aldrin, and during the historic mission even Aldrin himself takes it down a notch to absorb the miracle of what is happening around him and is humbled. First Man also provides perspective on what the families of astronauts have to contend with since the risk of life-threatening missions is inevitable. There is one poignant scene with Jan and Neil Armstrong as she insists to her husband that he has to be the one to tell their children he may not come back from the mission.
First Man provides an experience for the viewer that goes beyond just telling the story of Armstrong but seeing and feeling it through his perspective.
First Man opens in theaters and in IMAX on October 12.
The post BGN TIFF 2018 Review: ‘First Man’ appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.
The premiere of the new Universal Pictures film First Man was an incredible cinematic experience at the Toronto International Film Festival. Audiences screened the film at the dome-shaped Cinesphere on an IMAX screen — appropriate for this narrative with a setting in outer space. Filmmaker Damien Chazelle stated before the screening started, that several scenes were shot in IMAX and he was excited that we can see the film in its best form.
Chazelle teams up with the award-winning team from La La Land and has executive producer Steven Spielberg along for the ride in this groundbreaking story about the first man to ever walk on the moon, aeronautical engineer Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling). Based on James R. Hansen’s book First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, the movie takes us through the decade leading up to the historic Apollo 11 flight and landing. What we uncover in this motion picture is more about Armstrong himself — including family, close friends, and colleagues as well as a series of fateful events that led to him piloting the mission.
Neil Armstrong suffered tragedy and death seemed to surround him. The film first features the death of his daughter which haunts Neil for many years after her passing. His wife Jan (Claire Foy) struggles to keep the family together and be a rock for Armstrong as he continues to work his way up through the NASA space program. However, the risks of being an astronaut come with the loss of life which Armstrong experiences throughout the years along with his wife, and the two become all too familiar with attending funerals.
First Man balances between being a docudrama about Neil’s life as an astronaut and a Discovery network narrative with impressive panoramic shots of space and the moon. The unsung hero of this film is the sound editing. The sound matches perfectly from scenes inside of the wedged compartment of the Gemini capsule to the moment when Armstrong begins his first step on the moon, indelibly placing a historical print — one that will be remembered among all nations forever.
Audiences will also learn about some of the idiosyncrasies of astronaut Buzz Aldrin (Corey Stoll) who was with mission commander Neil Armstong on that historic flight. He’s depicted as being a bit cocky and arrogant, and it appears as if Armstrong himself was annoyed by Aldrin’s eccentricities.
The opening scene of First Man is an intense POV directly through the lens of Armstrong, in his tightly spaced capsule orbiting space. We get to experience for just a moment what he endures as the camera shakes, the motors run high and fast and the dimly lit spacecraft is preparing to take us to new heights. It is also in this moment that the sound editing does its magic in preparing us for the kind of experience we will have.
Ryan Gosling delivers a performance that I don’t necessarily will think become groundbreaking or memorable but one that will give insight about Armstrong the father and family man — as opposed to Armstrong the astronaut. We get more of a gripping performance from Stoll as the super-confident Buzz Aldrin, and during the historic mission even Aldrin himself takes it down a notch to absorb the miracle of what is happening around him and is humbled. First Man also provides perspective on what the families of astronauts have to contend with since the risk of life-threatening missions is inevitable. There is one poignant scene with Jan and Neil Armstrong as she insists to her husband that he has to be the one to tell their children he may not come back from the mission.
First Man provides an experience for the viewer that goes beyond just telling the story of Armstrong but seeing and feeling it through his perspective.
First Man opens in theaters and in IMAX on October 12.
The post BGN TIFF 2018 Review: ‘First Man’ appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.
A prequel to the longstanding The Conjuring horror series, The Nun follows a young Sister Irene, an old Father Burke, and a village Casanova named French on a survival adventure through a haunted Abbey. If you thought The Conjuring already had a prequel or two, you’d be right about that — both 2014’s Annabelle and 2017’s Annabelle: Creation explains demonic life pre-Conjuring. The Nun fits in specifically as an origin story to Valak, the demon you may remember from The Conjuring 2. If the history confuses you (or disinterests you altogether), rest assured that The Nun doesn’t rely on series knowledge in its exposition, so there’s no entertainment lost in coming in cold. The downside? There’s little entertainment to be found at all. The Nun is a sequence of jump scares that starts strong, but whose horrors rapidly dwindle with each passing encounter.
Set in Romania, a young traveler finds a dead nun hanging by a noose outside a largely abandoned abbey. The audience knows how she got that way — it was the opening scene and the scariest of the film — but the hanging nun is mysterious to the Catholic church who launches an investigation into the nun’s death. A brief leap to the Vatican introduces us to Father Burke (Demián Bichir). He is the priest put in charge of the investigation, and he travels to Romania to uncover the paranormal activity rumored in Romania. He has to bring a partner to help investigate the nuns at the abbey, and that partner is Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga). Dark, gothic horror scenes spanning European cities bears a Van Helsing-esque feel during the first act of the film before settling in Romania for good with a cast of 3 characters: Father Burke, Sister Irene, and Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet) as the young traveler who initially found the hanging nun on the doorstop of the church.
The movie is anchored by jump scares based on rotating cameras as our 3-person cast are inevitably separated and walk through the church and its grounds outside. The jump scare will get you, and there’s a real sense of terror through the end of the first act and leading into the second. Where The Nun goes astray is the convoluted story they try to tell within the long, meandering scenes in between the terror, a mystery that is poorly told if not downright boring in its essence, only to have it more quickly and easily explained later on: an evil was buried during the Crusades, which was later released when bombs were dropped during the war, and now that evil is slowly gaining strength to take over the abbey and eventually leave it. Our heroes’ quest is to use the blood of Jesus (literally) to re-seal the evil before it grows strong enough to leave. Meanwhile, Father Burke is also being haunted by the memory of a past exorcism gone wrong, adding a fleeting layer of character depth that adds more convolution than its addition is worth.
There’s a real head-scratching unclarity between the physical realm and the demonic which undercuts the film as it goes on. Part of what makes spiritualistic horror so terrifying is your physical helplessness against your assailants, but Father Burke is able to struggle against demons and Frenchie, in perhaps the most ridiculous choice of the movie, is able to protect himself with a gun, turning it less from a demonic-possession horror into your garden variety zombie movie, only the zombies wear habits. Rules are poorly defined and rarely followed, as Father Burke can be mystically buried alive through the power of Valak, but physically rescued shortly thereafter and Valak, having the power to bury someone alive at will, has quite the difficulty killing anyone from there. Actually, I’ve never seen a less effective demon at killing, period. By the end, you almost expect it to come down to a fist fight between Valak and our survivors, and the horror is gone. You fear less a demon you can square up against, one that is vulnerable to your gun and their go-to move is an air burst.
If you’re wanting to be scared, rest assured, The Nun will offer you moments of that, including eerie sound effects of bone-cracking and which-direction-will-it-come-from jump scares. If you’re a fan of religious horror, demon possessions, or jump scares, The Nun might be the movie you need to get you ready for the fall. It will hardly keep you up at night though: nothing from The Nun will resonate to terrify you in your bed after the credits roll. The most novel aspect of horror The Nun has to offer is the depiction of a demonic nun itself, a visual that is eerily and inexplicably horrifying in its eyes. That, and the weightiest horror that comes with it, can be found in the opening scene. After that, enjoy playing the game of guessing the jump scares, as that’s the best enjoyment you’re going to find.
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The post Jump Scares Will Get You in ‘The Nun’ Unless the Boredom Gets You First appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
Somewhere between a fox and a squirrel but with more tails, the Pokemon known as Vulpix seems engineered for cuteness (to be fair, a whole lot of them do). Literally heartwarming, they contain flames inside their bodies that never go out…except for the bright white Vulpixes that live in Alola (and the game Pokemon Sun). It’s not just their color that’s reminiscent of winter; these evolutionary offshoots are Ice Pokemon rather than Fire, and can really bring the temperature down in a room.
But now you’re going to want to snuggle with one, as Build-A-Bear brings the Alolan Vulpix into stores with all of the cuteness and none of the chill. As we heard via Comicbook.com, these snow-loving creatures will become available this Thursday, Sept. 13th, a lucky date for those of you who choose to catch ’em.
Assuming you like to dress your stuffed pets in widdle clothes, as Build-A-Bear rightly does, you have some options. The Alolan Vulpix in the buff, with an exclusive Pokemon card, is $28. For $12.50, you get to add the hooded cape. For $60, in an online exclusive bundle, you get all that plus a sound effects chip and these extra-adorable PJs:
Even if you are as cool as an Alolan Vulpix, that’s gotta melt you inside just a bit. Check out this link come Thursday, and see if you can resist those big eyes. Like Lillie, you probably won’t be hiding this one away inside a PokeBall.
Is the Alolan Vulpix going to say “Aloha” to the rest of your collection? Let us know in comments.
Images: Build-A-Bear