“The joke at Marvel is that the reason why I made Eternals is so I can go online & read the fanfiction about my own movie. I’m also going to write some on AO3 and put it up with a different name.” - Chloé Zhao
Barry Keoghan: I’m always fidgeting my hair, I haven’t done it now but I was always on set fidgeting with my hair and Chloé would be like “stop, stop, stop, to the side, to the side”.
FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES ACQUIRES WORLDWIDE RIGHTS TO CHLOÉ ZHAO’S “NOMADLAND” WITH FRANCES MCDORMAND
Fox Searchlight Pictures Chairmen Nancy Utley and Stephen Gilula together with Presidents of Production Matthew Greenfield and David Greenbaum announced today that the company has acquired worldwide rights to writer-director Chloé Zhao’s (THE RIDER) third feature NOMADLAND. The film stars Frances McDormand in her first role since winning the Oscar® for THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI, David Strathairn (LINCOLN), Linda May and Charlene Swankie. A Highwayman Films, Hear/Say Productions and Cor Cordium Production, the film is produced by Frances McDormand, Peter Spears, Mollye Asher, Dan Janvey and Chloé Zhao.
“We are thrilled to work with visionary filmmaker Chloé Zhao on NOMADLAND. Her unique voice, combined with the extraordinary talent of Frances McDormand, makes it an important and compelling story,” said Gilula and Utley.
NOMADLAND is a road movie following Fern (McDormand), a woman in her sixties, who after losing everything in the Great Recession embarks on a journey through the American West, living as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad. A signature of Zhao’s, the film includes real people turned actors including Linda May and Charlene Swankie.
“As I fell in love with the American west, it was impossible not to become fascinated with the roads that lead to the many adventures beyond the horizon. I’m very fortunate to be able to hit the road with a talented team and collaborate with a cast of professional and non-professional actors who are deeply giving and inspiring. I can’t wait to share their stories and what we’ve discovered along the way,” said Zhao.
On this week’s FFR, we discuss Chloe Zhao’s outstanding new film Nomadland, starring Frances McDormand as one of a group of poor American workers who live in their vehicles, going wherever there’s a place to park and a job to be done. Listen now ⤴
An addition to my previous post about Eternals reviews. No spoilers here but the article I mention does have spoilers so if you wanna read it this is my heads up to you! :)
As always: my blog is a safe space and rudeness and negativity will be deleted and ignored :)
A white guy writing a review that has spoilers, completely takes a very important Phastos scene out of context to make it bad and complains that Salma Hayek was not even fun or “hayeky” is one great example of why we also need diversity in film criticism.
He provides no context or details of who the characters really are and can do, just very generic stuff, and he carefully chose what he was going to reveal about these two.
Interesting…
I won’t talk about the flashback he mentions but basically, to explain: Phastos is an inventor and engineer, and he feels guilty about what humanity did with his help with technology, he did NOT build anything intending to cause harm but he helped people evolve, just like the other eternals did in their own ways, so when he sees what humans did with technological inventions he feels like he took part in it, in the horrible things people did to each other. I’m sure Phastos still has this guilty in him, specially with the advanced world we live in where horrible things happen with the help of technology all the time.
About Salma: “And the group’s leader Ajak is played by Salma Hayek, who is not even allowed to be fun and Salma Hayeky!” I don’t even have to explain his complaint about Salma cause that’s just so clearly xenophobic and sexist his quote speaks for itself. She is a leader and a healer, is she suppose to heal by the power of gritos?
He is not even trying to hide that he expected her to show up yelling in Spanish at the eternals and acting crazy (as we latinas often do in movies). Perfect example of how these people will only like the angry and loud latina and when we have a dramatic role they’ll hate it.
We need more inclusion in film criticism, so productions are not affected by the prejudice that goes in the minds of the majority of the people who’s opinions are valued and considered as the right ones, specially those who get to watch them first and can really damage a movie’s marketing and future chances of diverse productions to get produced.
Quick note: my blog is a safe space and rudeness and negativity will be deleted and ignored :)
All the “bad” things I’ve seen are the reasons I think I’ll love it.
It doesn’t feel like an mcu film, not too much humor with jokes every 5 minutes, slower pace, focus on story instead of action, more adult… All this seems like a win for me!
We have 10 new characters, that are 7 thousand years old, we explore the creation of the universe, different galaxies and planets, and deeper topics like what it means to be human. Of course it’s heavy and dense.
We’ve been spoon fed light plot with cheap humor every 5 minutes, so when we get a decent plot and a character focused story of course it feels alien. But hey, you can’t complain for years about not having character development, not exploring character’s personalities and personal traumas and fears, too many jokes ruining the moment and too much cgi distracting you, and then when we get something different you give it a bad review and a bad ratting saying it feels different. It doesn’t make sense. Do you want a break from the Marvel formula or not?
I completely understand people have different opinions, and I respect that, but what I’m seeing so far are critics (not marvel fans necessarily, let’s not forget that) giving a negative review because it doesn’t have typical mcu jokes and it’s character focused. And let’s not forget this movie has been getting heat since forever, it’s diverse, has gender swapped characters, legit gay representation (gay Joe Russo I’m looking at you) and it’s not made by a white straight american dude.
Also, many reviews are contradicting themselves. They don’t like the directing choices then call it Zhao’s masterpiece, they complain about locations being barren but when Dune was basically all sand it was cinema, they have issues with marvel movies not focusing on characters but then say the movie was too focused on character and plot instead of action.
A movie full of layers, complex, focused on characters and slower paced is far from a bad movie. There’s a huge difference there. Different doesn’t equal bad.
It seems Marvel went out of their comfort zone with this one and I’m really happy with that.
The cast is incredible, Chloé Zhao is a master, I love everything Ramin Djawadi creates, and I’ll always be a Marvel girl. I’m super excited and can’t wait to watch this beauty on the big screen!
Circe was a goddess of sorcery who was especially skilled in the magic of transmutation and would transform her enemies, or those who offended her, into animals.
Sersi has similar powers, wieldingthe power of matter transmutation, changing the makeup of any non-sentient material she touches.
Ikaros x Ikaris
Ikaros was the son of Daedalus with whom he attempted to escape from Crete by means of wings that Daedalus constructed from feathers and wax. Icarus though flies too close to the sun, causing the wax in his wings to melt. He tumbles out of the sky, falls into the sea, and drowns.
Ikaris is the only one of the Eternals with the ability of flight and he is able to project powerful cosmic energy beams from his eyes (which is rather unrelated to Ikaros). He also died by flying into the sun which is quiet similar to the way Ikaros died.
Athena x Thena
Athena was the goddess of wisdom and war and was regarded as the patron and protectress of various cities across Greece, particularly the city of Athens.
Thenawields the power to manifest any handheld weapon she can imagine with pure cosmic energy. Like Athena her weapons of choice are most of the time a spear and a shield. She is even referred to as ‘goddess of war’ by her teammates since in this universe the greek goddess Athena is based on her.
Ajax x Ajak
Ajaxwas a great hero, who plays an important role in the Trojan war and is portrayed as a towering figure and a warrior of great courage in Homer’s Iliad .
Ajak has, besides being a leader, not much in common with the Greek Ajax (in the comics on the other hand, where she is potrayed as a male, it is stated that she/he fought in the Trojan war). She was able to use her cosmic energy to heal humans and Eternals alike from injuries and illnesses.
Hermes x Makkari
Hermes is considered the herald of the gods and able to move quickly and freely between the worlds of the mortal and the divine, aided by his winged sandals.
Makarri uses her cosmically powered super-speed to scout planets for the Eternals, and as the only Deaf Eternal, the sonic boom that accompanies her cosmic running does not affect her.In the comics she is sometimes referred to as Mercury, the Roman version of Hermes.
Hephaistos x Phastos
Hephaistos was the god of fire, smiths, craftsmen and metalworking. He made all the weapons and armour of the gods in Olympus and served as their blacksmith.
Phastos is a technopath, able to create any invention or weapon, powered by cosmic energy. He isoften seen as the blacksmith and weapons-maker of the Eternals.
Last night’s Oscar nominees producers/directors dinner was a blast. What a privilege to be amongst some of our greatest living directors!! With all the horsing around they did to prep for a group photo, they obviously enjoyed being in front of the camera as much as behind! Problem was, no one was directing! lol.
Particularly heartwarming for me was reconnecting with Steven with whom I spent every minute of the shoot in Shanghai on EMPIRE OF THE SUN. Thank you, Steven (and Kathy and Frank) for the amazing opportunity to work on this historic film. Steven and I had so much fun reminiscing about the experience. What I also learned is that he had just watched a Russian movie the night before the first day of shooting which had 150,000 extras, so he was nervous that our mere 10,000 extras wouldn’t be enough! (That’s how it was done then!! No CGI.) But all worked out splendidly.
And finally, what a pleasure it has been to get to know the director and producer of DRIVE MY CAR, Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Terahisa Yamamoto. We’ve had many occasions to get to know one another and they are definitely kindred spirits!
Thank you, Tom Oyer, also pictured, and so many individuals who are part of the Academy family for organizing these heart-warming gatherings of creative souls
Repost @janetyangofficial
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Additional pictures by Ava Duvernay and Susanne Bier
