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BGN interviews singers Montell Jordan and Chris Kirkpatrick — the latest contestants eliminated from the Fox series The Masked Singer.
The Masked Singer is a top-secret singing competition in which celebrities face off against each other and appear in elaborate costumes with full-face masks to conceal their identities.
Interviewer: Jeandra LeBeauf
Video Editor: Jamie Broadnax
The Masked Singer airs Wednesdays 8/7c on FOX.
Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is the latest Stephen King adaptation, to be released on Netflix October 5th. Watch the trailer below and read on for our review of the film:
When Craig, a young boy living in a small town (Jaeden Martell) befriends Mr. Harrigan, an older, reclusive billionaire (Donald Sutherland), the two begin to form an unlikely bond over their love of books and reading. But when Mr. Harrigan sadly passes away, Craig discovers that not everything is dead and gone and strangely finds himself able to communicate with his friend from the grave through the iPhone in this supernatural coming-of-age story that shows that certain connections are never lost.
Based on the short story by Stephen King, Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is written and directed by John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side, The Founder). Produced by Ryan Murphy (American Horror Story), Jason Blum (The Invisible Man) and Carla Hacken (Hell or High Water).
The first thing to make clear about Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is that it is not a horror film. Seeing Jason Blum and Stephen King’s names attached suggests a darker tale than what we have here. There are dark elements, but it never goes full King. Director John Lee Hancock describes it as a supernatural coming-of-age story and that is a very accurate description.
Mr. Harrigan’s Phone struggles with pacing at times, you can tell it was a short story stretched out to fill the 1hr 44min runtime. However, I was never bored. I wanted to know how it ended and I wanted some answers to the supernatural occurrences in the film, which kept me intrigued throughout. But there is no doubt that it takes too long to get going and tests the viewers patience occasionally.
The film relies heavily on Jaeden Martell (IT, Defending Jacob). Despite still being a teenager, Martell has put in many great performances going all the way back to St. Vincent nearly ten years ago. Once again, Martell handles the material well. The film covers a three-year period and Martell makes subtle changes to his performance to show Craig’s growth.
Donald Sutherland (Invasion of the Body Snatches, The Hunger Games) gives a nuanced performance as Mr. Harrigan. I expected another grouchy old man performance, but he is a deeper character who changes in the limited screen time he has. The relationship between Martell and Sutherland is the heart of the film and they work well together.
The supporting cast largely doesn’t make much of an impact as they’re not given much screen time or development. Joe Tippett (Mare of Easttown) as Craig’s Dad has the most to do and puts in a good performance.
Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is well shot by director of photography John Schwartzman (Jurassic World Dominion). There are lots of wide angles, showing off the great work of production designer Michael Corenblith (Saving Mr. Banks). Together their work shows the somewhat cold nature of the world Craig inhabits.
Mr. Harrigan’s Phone aims to show us the double-edged nature of our relationship with technology, something it accomplishes fairly well. The ending is somewhat open for interpretation, giving the viewer something to think about.
The film seems very suited to Netflix, it’s a small-scale film that doesn’t scream big screen. It may be tempting to scroll through your phone while watching it, but then you might miss the point. Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is worth sticking with and investing your time and attention despite its flaws. Jaeden Martell is a great actor and is one to watch for the future. The messaging about technology isn’t exactly new but putting a Stephen King touch on it makes it interesting. While it isn’t a great film, there is enough good in Mr. Harrigan’s Phone to make it worth a watch if you go in knowing it’s lacking in scares.
Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is released on Netflix October 5th.
The post Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is a Coming-of-age Tale Lacking in Horror appeared first on The Nerd Element.
Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire had its first episode premiere on AMC, and so far, the response has been very positive. Episode one of the show captured the Gothic mood of Rice’s celebrated 1976 novel, while reinventing it for the 21st century. But while some changes worked, others didn’t land as much. Here’s how the first episode how the Interview With a Vampire series diverted from Rice’s prose the most, and how we feel they succeeded, and how it sometimes did not quite hit the mark.
Louis de Pointe du Lac’s Evolution
The biggest changes to the series revolved around our lead vampire Louis (Jacob Anderson). In the novel and film, Louis was a white plantation in owner in 1791 Louisiana. One with all the slaves that role implies. The series sets Louis’ origin story 120 years later, in 1910. Louis is now a wealthy African-American brothel owner in New Orleans’ red-light district. Both versions show Louis as a morally compromised person in life, even before becoming a vampire. The series also implies that Louis is a closeted gay man while alive. This was something not the case with the book or the film. In Rice’s novel, Louis had intense feelings for a plantation owner named Babette, who does not exist in the show.
Louis’ family, however, was much more like the novel, and an aspect of his life the 1994 film entirely skipped. He had a sister named Grace, and, more prominently, a brother named Paul. Paul was a deeply religious Catholic, who believed he heard voices from God. Louis constantly chastised him for these beliefs, and Paul ultimately killed himself by walking off the roof one day. The series portrayed this event, something the movie did not do. It more clearly explained Louis’ deep sense of guilt and grief before taking Lestat’s offer of immortality.
The changes made to Louis in the AMC Interview With the Vampire series are interesting, and they morph Rice’s story in compelling ways. Updating Louis away from his initial origin story allows his narrative to take on a new strength and avoids showing slavery in a casual or flippant light.. The time jump forward also makes sense in this context. Ultimately, these changes work and make for a fascinating take on the material. It’s good to see the adaptation taking its position seriously and not simply recreating the source material if they couldn’t do so with reverence to a terrible time in history. These changes unfold seamlessly into the frame of the story already written.
The Interview With the Vampire series also gives us a glimpse into Louis’ family the film brushed aside, giving his character greater depth and his emotional state, both before and after his transformation, more nuance.
The Vampire Lestat in the Interview With the Vampire Series
The characterization of the vampire Lestat in episode one of the series was very much like the novel. Only, that novel is not Interview with the Vampire, but The Vampire Lestat, its sequel. Lestat’s seduction of Louis in the series was thoughtful and slow, like two lovers in a dance. But in the original book, Lestat simply attacked Louis one night, out of the blue. The choice he gave him was simple “become a vampire, or become my victim.” Anne Rice portrayed Lestat in book one as far more petulant and cruel.
Sam Reid’s characterization of Lestat is far more in keeping with how Rice wrote him in later books. Also, Lestat alluded to two important characters in his backstory from The Vampire Lestat. These two characters his lover Nicolas, and his mother, Gabrielle. The suggestion here is that his backstory remains very much the same as in Rice’s later books. This softening up of his character was smart. Simply because Lestat will need to carry the rest of the series should it go past Interview. It’s not a wise move to make him completely unlikable if you want him to carry the leading man torch later on.
Once again, the Interview With the Vampire series moves to adapt rather than imitate, and the merging of the two worlds works well here.
The Interview (and the Interviewer)
The concept of episode one of Interview With the Vampire is that the interview between the reporter and the titular vampire happened once already, nearly fifty years ago. What we saw play out in the first episode was “take two.” Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian) interviewed the undead Louis in 1973. At the end of that interview, Daniel begs Louis to make him a vampire. This enraged Louis, and he attacked him. But ultimately, Louis let him live. That is all consistent with Rice’s original text.
In the novels, Daniel (who Rice merely referred to as “the boy,” and never named until book three of the series) kept the audiotapes of the interview and published them as a book, which the world believed was fiction. In the TV series, he becomes an award-winning journalist, but he never publishes a book about his vampiric encounter. Louis kept the tapes, and he mails them to a much older Daniel decades after their disastrous first encounter.
While an interesting take, it also is one that ultimately makes little sense. When Daniel plays the tapes back for Louis, we hear verbatim lines of dialogue from the book. The suggestion is that the TV series sequalized the book in a way, an attempt at a rewrite. But the events of Louis’ life differed so much from the Interview With the Vampire book and movie, that the TV series can’t really be an “answer” to it. The show would have benefitted from rebooting the entire concept and having the interviewer be a young man doing it for the first time. The current format is just confusing and unneeded.
It will be interesting to see how the show both adheres to and deviates from the source material in the coming weeks. Especially as the child vampire Claudia will soon enter the story. With Interview with the Vampire, which was already renewed for season two, and soon, The Mayfair Witches, Rice’s world will flourish on-screen as never before. We are looking forward to seeing how it all connects.
The post How Successful Is the INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE Series as an Adaptation? (So Far) appeared first on Nerdist.
Mikkel tries to stump Victoria with one of the most random games of madlibs in TWINN history. Then, the two go down a list of surprising, if not confusing, live-action adaptations that are in production.
P.S. Long live Quibi! – Keith
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The post TWINN: King Kong, Spiderwick, and More Adaptations No One Asked For appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.