First and foremost, this is a film for the already initiated. For everybody else? Well, it’s complicated.
The film opens up with a flipped view of palm trees on a melancholy purple sky of twilight in Los Angeles, serving almost as a notice that the film will be nothing like the glittering starlight of the Los Angeles in La La Land. Instead, Gemini gets intimate and grounded within the reality of the life of a Hollywood star and a gruesome murder in Beverly Hills.
Navy SEAL to Michael Bay actor–the transformation of Remi Adeleke
On Wednesday night, Director Aaron Katz and co-stars Lola Kirke and Zoë Kravitz came together at BAMCinemaFest 2017 for the premiere of Neon’s “Gemini.”
For many, the Hare Krishna might be most recognizable from films, where they are often used as a punchline.
Sofia Coppola’s “The Beguiled” is an atmospheric thriller with visuals and performances that burrow under your skin.
This week, The Knockturnal had the pleasure of attending the Pretty Little Liars: Made Here exhibit at Warner Bros. Studio Tour. Stars Shay Mitchell and Sasha Pieterse attended, as well as series creator Marlene King as Warner Brothers launched the exhibit opening. We were fortunate enough to interview the three! Check it out:
Is there a specific prop or costume that brings back a fond memory from the show?
Shay: I haven’t walked around a lot to see all of the props but what I can see is my Barbarella costume, and that for me as Shay was like, the most exciting thing because I got to wear heels, and I’m such a girly girl so I was like ahh! So for me this costume was one of my fondest memories.
Sasha: I think my painting behind me is one of my favorite things. *chuckles as she references the painting of her sitting on what looks like a throne*
I wanted to take it but I was like where would I put that that wouldn’t make me look like the most conceited person? I just love it so much and they did such a good job. I think that’s probably my favorite and it was so fun and so different and I think we were the only teen geared show that did a black and white episode so it really did feel like history and having a black and white show. We used lights form that era, everything was so authentic. Watching it makes me proud. Everything was very inspiring. So the painting brings me back to that.
Do you have a favorite moment from filming the entirety of Pretty Little Liars?
Shay: For me it’d be the last scene of filming. Now there’s the actual last scene we shot together and the last episode we shot – you feel me? But it was really really difficult. We were begging Marlene to make it a silent scene because we were like “no ones going to be able to talk or get through it!” But it was really really hard. I think that episode was one of the most special ones because it was a full circle. It’ say favorite episode we’ve shot – and I’m proud we even just made it through shooting.
Sasha: It’s also one of my favorite episodes, I was so emotional filming it. Every time I would go through security and they were sad WE WERE sad! It was very special to me for a lot of reasons. Also the pilot – I felt the same way filming both. There’ son favorites but as far as amazing memories, I think the finale was very dear to my heart. We were all so connected and cherishing our last moments filming.
Marlene: I always go back to the pilot as my favorite episode but theres the scene where you’re in a body bag, technically it wasn’t you. But it’s the scene where you run up they found your friend and your body and she’s dead. That’s the scene that launched the show because they were disconnected but then Aria and Spencer all get together and that’s where the true friendship reunited with this girls. It’s an emotional scene where the girls are saying good bye to each other.
Shay: It feels like yesterday. It’s so crazy.
The exhibit is a collection of authentic props and wardrobe from the show, including iconic costumes worn by the show’s five lead characters: Aria (Lucy Hale), Hanna (Ashley Benson), Emily (Shay Mitchell), Spencer (Troian Bellisario), and Alison (Sasha Pieterse).
The special exhibit will be located inside Warner Bros.’ interactive soundstage, Stage 48: Script to Screen, where guests experience each stage of the production process while exploring original props, costumes, and sets from some of the studio’s most legendary films and television shows that have entertained the world for more than 90 years. Following the Pretty Little Liars: Made Here kickoff at Stage 48, we were invited to tour the set of The Brew, the coffee house featured in the series.
Also, pretty dope — the exhibit will showcase some of the memorable set design elements from the show, including a recreation of A’s lair, complete with costumes, props, and décor; all five Pretty Little Liars dolls; select pieces from the Caleb, Ezra, and Toby characters, including Toby’s Rosewood police uniform; the Liar’s Lament ”endgame” board; Radley Sanatorium; Halloween/Masquerade Ball episode costumes; and an interactive green-screen photo opportunity.
Last night, co-stars Jenny Slate and Abby Quinn appeared at BAMCinemaFest 2017 for a special screening of their new film, ‘Landline.’ In the 1995-set film, they play sisters who suspect that their father is cheating on their mother, and do some detective work, while also dealing with their own respective lives. Before entering the Harvey Theater’s quaint auditorium, Slate and Quinn spoke about their characters, their on-screen relationship, and the unusual setting of the film’s story.
Jim McKay’s En El Séptimo Día (On the Seventh Day) is a triumph, a compassionate, warm, and deeply humane tribute to the everyday existence of undocumented workers who like so many other people, are committed to simply waking up and going to work.
Except of course for the men McKay’s film focuses on, all of whom are undocumented themselves and non-professional actors, that simple task is fraught with danger. We see the daily humiliations of working low wage jobs for bad bosses, against whom these men have no recourse. We see them crammed together in one apartment, spread across mattresses and couches, sleeping wherever they can find room.
And yet McKay avoids the obvious pitfalls inherent to this genre. There’s no overt exoticising, no liberal pitying, no moral high ground. From the very first scene, in which we see their soccer team, Puebla F.C. (named after their hometown team in Mexico) win the semi-finals match in their recreational league, its clear that McKay sees these men as human beings. The main character, Jose, who is so charismatic and so full of pathos that you forget it’s probably his first time in front of a camera, is also deeply flawed. When his boss at the restaurant where he works as a delivery guy won’t give him the following Sunday off, he hides the information from his teammates as long as he can, too afraid to challenge his boss and too ashamed to admit he won’t be able to play in the finals.
That, by and large, is the whole plot. The film is broken up by each day in the week, each sequence following Jose as tries to balance his job, staying in contact with his pregnant wife in Mexico, helping out his teammates, and worrying about whether they’ll win the big game. It’s a simple story, simply told, and the result is a film defined by quiet moments, drawing out drama and comedy from the mundanity of every day life. Waking up for work, going to soccer practice, cooking dinner together as a makeshift family. There are no grand revelations to be found, its most dramatic implications left onscreen. In their place, the non-professional actors and neorealist style work to implicate you in a world that is both completely foreign (at least for those of us who are not either undocumented immigrants or related to one), and yet deeply familiar.
The Brooklyn brownstones, situated amongst leafy streets and interrupted by more bodegas and churches than make sense, are instantly recognizable. McKay’s camera catches everything. The Chinese laundromats, the Yemeni store owners, the English pubs and German soccer teams— while the last year has often felt like a battle for the soul of America, here we the foundational myth put to the test. The United States of America is a nation of immigrants, we are constantly told from the moment we are born, and yet in En El Séptimo Día we see exactly what that means. It’s people working side by side, in solidarity with each other based on their shared experiences and shared struggle— to be recognized, to put food on the table, to get to work. When a fellow delivery man is hit by a car, we understand that it could have been Jose, or any of his teammates, and it is by pure luck that he can continue to get his bike from his restaurant to whoever orders from it, and hopefully get a tip at the end.
For some the soccer game Puebla play at the end might just be a game, and yet what McKay succeeds at is that without a character ever having to say it out loud, we completely understand why something as simple as a recreational game can mean so much more for the people who struggle day in and day out merely to survive. Like Happy Go Lucky or last year’s Patterson, En El Séptimo Día is ultimately a testament to the inherent bravery of waking up, putting on your shoes, getting out the door, and getting on with the business of one’s life. It’s simply perfect.
En El Séptimo Día plays as part of BAMcinemaFest, June 17th.
“You grow up around something and it feels like nothing” says the character Jin in Columbus, the directorial debut from Kogonada.