“Ammonite” Trailer Review!

Director Francis Lee managed to make the lives of English sheep-herders look downright sensual in God’s Own Country, so it’s somehow no surprise that his next feature film project, Ammonite, stars two 19th Century English paleontologists passionately courting each other in between long walks on the windswept beaches of Lyme Regis, searching for fossil fragments. Despite how seemingly bizarre the concept might be, it’s the chemistry between Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan (moving from one period piece, Little Women, to another) that is going to carry this film to what could easily be a slew of Oscar nominations.

Ammonite
Kate Winslet & Saoirse Ronan | wmagazine.com

Winslet plays an actual historical figure, English paleontologist Mary Anning, one of the most remarkable women working in science during her era: though she made numerous important discoveries during her lifetime, she was undermined at every turn by men who took her work and gave her little to no credit, and she suffered from financial difficulties until her death in 1847. To make ends meet, she opened a fossil and seashell shop for tourists – but the fossil-hunting business was surprisingly risky (she was nearly killed during a landslide on one occasion). Her hard work and perseverance eventually won her the respect she deserved after her passing. Ammonite follows her during her bleak later years. Ronan, meanwhile, plays Mary Anning’s younger apprentice, the real-life Charlotte Murchison, who suffers from “melancholia” and hates the sea, at least initially. The two women couldn’t be more different, but eventually find themselves falling deeply, hopelessly in love with the other. There is no concrete evidence that Anning and Murchison were lovers in actuality, or that either was a lesbian, as Ammonite suggests, but when the topic came up last year (after one of Anning’s distant relatives expressed her displeasure with the idea), Francis Lee wrote that: “After seeing queer history be routinely “straightened” throughout culture, and given a historical figure where there is no evidence whatsoever of a heterosexual relationship, is it not permissible to view that person within another context?”. Lee is correct that Anning never married, and is not known to have had any relationships with men, whereas her close and long-lasting bonds with the women in her life are well-documented.

Ammonite
Mary Anning | independent.co.uk

Whether Anning and Murchison were or were not lesbians and/or in love, Ammonite still looks like an excellently made film with a clearer vision and a tighter, more well-written story than God’s Own Country: and it’s sure to be a big hit amongst fans of the “cottagecore” aesthetic. For those unaware, “cottagecore” refers to the escapist fantasy of living harmoniously with nature by enjoying a simple life that can include past-times such as baking, gardening, knitting, and, yes, living in tiny cottages, and it is particularly popular with LGBTQ+ folks, especially lesbians and queer women. If there’s a “maritime cottagecore” subgenre of the aesthetic, then Ammonite conveys it perfectly: brisk walks along the beach; houses perched on cliffsides; lots and lots of fossils and shells (interestingly, although it’s never been confirmed, Mary Anning is sometimes said to be the inspiration for the “She Sells Seashells” nursery rhyme; just something to keep in mind); and, just as importantly, a lesbian romance. Those interested in learning more about “cottagecore” and its prominence in LGBTQ+ culture should definitely check out Rowan Ellis’ deep-dive into the aesthetic’s origins and meanings.

Ammonite
Twitter | @FilmUpdates

Basically, it’s a good time to be alive if you’re a fan of “cottagecore”, LGBTQ+ friendly content, historical fiction, romance, women in science, paleontology, geology, Kate Winslet or Saoirse Ronan (who isn’t a fan of Saoirse Ronan at this point?). Somehow all of those elements work together very nicely, and I’m excited to see if Francis Lee has progressed enough as a director (I really didn’t like God’s Own Country) that he can make this understated romance pop onscreen and attract all the media attention it will need to start a strong Oscars campaign. Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, a French film from last year which followed a very similar concept (two women meet on a beautiful coastline and fall in love while bonding over art) was a fan-favorite but failed to score even a single nomination from the Academy. Ammonite, luckily, has Winslet (an Oscar winner and six-time nominee) and Ronan (a four-time nominee) as its secret weapons. Fingers crossed that their fossil-hunting expedition proves fortuitous for everyone involved!

Trailer Rating: 9/10

“Tron 3” Moves Into Production – With Jared Leto Starring.

Tron, an epic story of civil war between tiny cyber-people living within computer programs, has never been an easy concept to sell to general audiences: not back in 1982, when the original film became a financial disappointment and a strange, yet admirable, cult classic; not in 2010, when the sequel turned a profit but fell short of fan expectations, giving the franchise a bad name; and not today, in 2020, a decade since the second film’s release, when it was announced that director Garth Davis would be teaming up with Jared Leto to produce the third film in the series. About a month ago, it was reported by The DisInsider that a third film might be in the works: these new details confirm that.

Tron
cinemablend.com

So no, not quite the total reboot that many of us had been hoping for: Tron 3, as it’s being referred to (though there’s a possibility the title is Tron: Ares, which is…something), will indeed follow the events of Tron: Legacy, the poorly-written sequel that tarnished the brand’s reputation and halted the franchise dead in its tracks for years. That means we will probably be forced to resume where we left off with our protagonist, the average straight white guy played by Garret Hedlund, whose character name I’ve completely forgotten despite having watched this film extremely recently (if I had to guess, it’s probably Jake; it’s always Jake), and Olivia Wilde’s Quorra, a Grid resident who escaped from the destruction of the cyber world at the end of the second film and now lives in the real world. Jeff Bridges will likely return as both Kevin Flynn and his villainous clone Clu, because there’s no way either one actually died in that blinding flash of white light, and Tron himself is probably due for a return, having finally overridden his malevolent programming before crashing into water and definitely not drowning. Bruce Boxleitner will probably be back, and Cindy Morgan, as before, will probably be left out of everything.

Tron
newsweek.com

But despite accumulating so much star power, the people over at Disney apparently felt like a little more was needed – so they settled upon Jared Leto. Leto, an Academy Award winner, has been circling a lead role in the Tron franchise for years, long before this third film was greenlit, but it appears to be official as of today: he will star, in an as yet undisclosed role. Nobody appears to be very happy about this news, and Disney would probably be wise to take note of the general dissatisfaction with this peculiar casting before they go through with it, but they’ve never been very wise when it comes to managing the Tron brand, so this latest misstep is hardly a surprise. Leto is not a bad actor, by any means, but the horror stories about his particular form of method acting have done a lot to ruin his reputation, and have already sparked a deluge of fair complaints on social media. Thus, what could have been a joyous occasion for Tron fans has now been almost irreparably tainted.

Tron
nme.com

Fortunately, there is a little bit of good news to come out of this. Though it’s a less flashy headline than Jared Leto’s attachment to Tron 3, a director has also been selected for the third film. Garth Davis, an indie director best known for his Oscar-nominated 2016 drama Lion, “aggressively pursued the job”, according to Deadline, and seems to have succeeded in his mission. Whether Davis will be able to combine visual spectacle with top-notch storytelling remains to be seen, but it’s at least a welcome change of pace for the franchise, which needs to find some way to achieve that balance again. Tron: Legacy tried to use dazzling blue CGI (seriously, everything in that movie is neon blue: it’s pretty at first, but it gets old real fast) and nostalgic music to disguise its heavy reliance on stale tropes, one-dimensional characters, and meager use of both Cillian Murphy and Michael Sheen’s talents, but fans saw right through it.

So what do you think? Are you excited for Tron 3? More so or less so because Jared Leto is attached to star? Share your thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments below!

“Chicken Run 2” Will Recast Ginger, And I’m Not Happy.

Ageism (particularly aimed at women) is, has always been, and will continue to be a huge problem in Hollywood – but I have to admit, I’m shocked that a studio as universally beloved as Aardman Animations would ever entertain the notion of recasting one of their most iconic characters simply because the original voice actress is “too old” for the role. That’s right: Julia Sawalha, the voice of Chicken Run‘s lovable protagonist Ginger, will not be returning for the film’s sequel, but will be recast with a younger actress whom Aardman hopes will be more recognizable to modern moviegoers.

Chicken Run
deadline.com

This is massively disappointing news for several reasons. For one thing, I was very excited to see what a Chicken Run sequel would be like – it’s been twenty years since the original animated film about chickens trying to escape from homicidal pie-makers opened in theaters, and the thought of seeing a continuation to that story had me over the moon, especially when it was announced that Aardman would be teaming up with Netflix to make sure the sequel got a mainstream release. There was never any doubt in my mind that one of the original film’s lead voice actors, Mel Gibson, would be recast for the sequel because he’s been wallowing in controversy for years (even as recent as last month, Winona Ryder accused him of making both blatantly anti-Semitic and homophobic comments in her presence), and indeed, Sawalha noted that he is not being asked to return either: but what did Julia Sawalha ever do that would cause her to be recast? Well, she aged, and – oh wait, that’s it?

Sawalha is 51, still younger than a number of male actors who are always getting asked to return for franchise reboots and remakes. And as she proved unequivocally in a side-by-side comparison video she provided to Chicken Run 2 producers (since she wasn’t even allowed to go through a proper voice test before Aardman made the decision to cut her from the film), her voice hasn’t changed substantially in the past twenty years: there are several points in the video where it’s impossible to distinguish between thirty-one year old Sawalha and fifty-one year old Sawalha. And need I remind Aardman that this is a sequel they’re making? As in, a movie which takes place after the events of the first film?

But logic isn’t going to win a fight against something as insidious as ageism. I discussed this just a few days ago in my review of 1982’s Tron, where I talked about how the film’s male leads were allowed to return for the 2010 sequel – but female lead Cindy Morgan never even got so much as a phone-call from Disney. Unfortunately, this is a problem that comes up time and time again. There’s always an excuse – in Sawalha’s case, it’s because Aardman wants the film to appeal to a younger crowd, and is looking for an actress with more name recognition: though I’m sure they’ll have a hard time finding anyone who wants to touch this role with a ten-foot pole, considering the circumstances under which it’s been vacated – but it’s time we stopped allowing these excuses to fly. Julia Sawalha is Ginger. She shouldn’t be recast when there’s absolutely no reason to do so.

Chicken Run
empireonline.com

I’m very disappointed with Aardman Animations. I’m suddenly very uninterested in the notion of a Chicken Run 2. I’m extremely sorry for Sawalha, who helped to create the character of Ginger and now will get no say in the next chapter of her story. And, above all, I’m upset that Hollywood continues to deny work opportunities to actors (but let’s not fool ourselves, this mostly happens to actresses) once they hit a certain age. At this point, the best we can do is petition Aardman to change their minds – and the internet has already rallied loudly and passionately around Sawalha, so it’s not impossible: though I doubt Sawalha herself would feel comfortable working on the film.

What do you think about this casting controversy, and do you still plan on watching Chicken Run 2 even without Julia Sawalha? Share your own thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments.

“Tron” Review!

Because of the recent news that the Tron franchise is apparently still a priority at Disney and plans for franchise-expanding sequels or reboots are still underway, I thought it might be interesting to take a circuitous stroll back down memory lane and revisit one of the strangest movies from what is often considered Disney’s Dark Age, in the early 1980’s. This era of the studio’s long and storied history isn’t known for producing a whole bunch of timeless classics (if there are any hardcore fans of The Black Cauldron out there, I’d love to know about them), nor box-office hits – but how do you even begin to describe Tron? The needlessly convoluted sci-fi adventure flick about glow-in-the-dark humanoid computer programs fighting to overthrow their tyrannical leadership doesn’t seem to fit neatly into any box, and so of course it has acquired a kind of well-earned cult classic status over the years – even leading to the creation of a poorly-received sequel in 2010 which, while not a box-office flop, failed to recapture much of what made the original film so…bizarrely endearing.

Tron
looper.com

There are so many things wrong with Tron from a storytelling standpoint, and yet, despite quickly falling into the classic sci-fi/fantasy trap of trying to seduce the audience with incredibly complex world building instead of, you know, a particularly good story, or well developed characters (though, considering how badly the sequel’s attempts at character development went over, perhaps we weren’t missing anything anyway?), somehow it still works – or at the very least, it works about as well as a movie about warring sentient computer programs possibly could in 1982, at the very dawn of the age of special effects. Knowing some of the story about the cutting edge technology used to create the sprawling electronic landscape of The Grid (which, to the modern viewer’s eye, probably just resembles partly-completed digital artwork of Flatland) definitely helps to make the movie interesting from a cinephile’s point of view: its influence on CGI is far less well known than the influence of, say, The Little Mermaid on animation, but the two films are arguably comparable in terms of the lasting impact they made on the industry. The difference is that The Little Mermaid was a juggernaut that almost immediately birthed an unstoppable Disney renaissance – Tron was a financial disaster for the company that was snubbed at the Oscars for the Special Effects award it clearly deserved, apparently because Academy voters thought using computers was cheating.

That doesn’t make the work that went into designing Tron any less commendable, however. The film was born out of an idea to create a neon gladiator mascot for the fledgling Lisberger Studios, which felt that the character needed a starring vehicle to sell him to audiences and establish the studio’s brand – ironically, the cost of making the film became so high that Lisberger Studios had to turn to Disney for help with financing and marketing. In a classic case of studios being afraid to invest too heavily in something radically new, Disney allowed them to make the movie but decided not to give it the marketing push it also needed until too late in the game. Behind the scenes, the process of designing the world of Tron using rotoscoping and the even more grueling technique of backlit animation (which gives the movie its one-of-a-kind glow in the dark look) had to be fast-tracked to meet its release date, with director Steven Lisberger eventually having to hire a whole separate team of animators from Taiwan to ease the stress on his own employees. Miraculously, they managed to get the job done within nine months, a true credit to the power of teamwork.

Tron
mentalfloss.com

But on its own, separated from its later impact and the behind-the-scenes work that went into it, just looking at the finished film as a whole: does it hold up? That’s a bit of a harder question to answer. As I said, Tron has a lot of story issues – the audience gets handed a whole bunch of information about the cyber world right up front, and is then expected to retain all that information for the next thirty minutes, while we watch the Real World storyline play out (which itself is pretty complicated). Then the Real World completely ceases to exist as far as the movie is concerned, and we’re plunged into The Grid, where computers wage brutal warfare against each other: highly ritualistic warfare involving motor-bike/smart car hybrids, but warfare nonetheless. There are solar sailers to be flown, beacons to be lit, and electric blue water to drink (I bring that up because there’s one scene of the main characters drinking said water that seems to go on for way longer than it probably needs to). It’s all very confusing.

Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner lead the cast of mostly identical white men trapped in glowing outfits with ridiculously oversized helmets, most of whom wield Frisbees to complete the look (a look which somehow warranted an Academy Award nomination for Best Costume Design). Bridges’ character, brilliant programmer and arcade video game champion Kevin Flynn, is supposedly the star of the movie, though there’s no good reason for why that is when Boxleitner’s character (dissatisfied ENCOM employee Allan Ward in the real world, legendary hero Tron on The Grid) has his name in the title, has just as much if not more plot agency than Bridges’, and actually is the clear male lead for the first thirty minutes of the movie. It’s like if Star Wars: A New Hope started out being about Luke Skywalker and then changed to become Han Solo’s story partway through (interestingly, there’s actually several similarities between Kevin Flynn and Han Solo, particularly in the sequel). David Warner gives the best performance in the film as the sinister E. Dillinger, President of the ENCOM company (in his Grid form as Sark, he comes off as a sad Darth Vader ripoff). As a side note: whenever Warner’s Dillinger was onscreen, I was constantly distracted by the nagging thought that, if Disney ever reboots this franchise, they absolutely need Ben Mendelsohn for this villainous role. Lora Baines (Cindy Morgan), the female lead, shows a lot of potential as a spunky scientist, but of course this is the 80’s, so it’s not long before she trades in her intelligent and pro-active role for the part of demure, soft-spoken damsel Yori. In keeping with the Hollywood tradition of rebooting classic franchises with the original male leads but conveniently forgetting to bring back the female leads, both versions of Morgan’s character were dropped for the sequel, despite her repeated efforts to try and contact Disney.

On the flip-side, two women played an integral role in giving Tron the eerie techno vibe we know and love: composer Wendy Carlos, an openly trans woman best known for her work on A Clockwork Orange and The Shining, collaborated with Annemarie Franklin on the score – parts of which, unfortunately, were removed by Disney and replaced with songs by Journey: the rock band’s contributions to the film were honored in the sequel via a slightly random use of the song “Separate Ways”. But Carlos’ iconic score is still a lasting testament, like all her work, to the often underappreciated achievements of trans people in the film industry.

Tron
reelworldtheology.com

I, for one, am glad that Tron will be getting another chance at proving its value to modern audiences: moviegoers (or, quite possibly, Disney+ subscribers) deserve a chance to see more stories from The Grid, told with the best new technology available to the studio, and longtime fans of the franchise deserve a continuation of a series that has been pretty much dead for a long time. We all deserve a little more Tron in our lives.

End of line.

Movie Rating: 7.8/10