Over the weekend, Warner Bros. announced it will be moving its entire 2021 theatrical slate to Day-and-Date release on HBO Max. That is, when these 17 movies – whose production costs total over one billion dollars – hit theaters, they’ll also be available for streaming on HBO Max that very same day. When the news broke, most people shrugged it off and didn’t give it a second thought. However, the ones who were paying attention knew it was a turning point.
For the past few weeks, we at Era of Good Feeling have been struggling to put into words our thoughts regarding society’s status. To be honest, we’ve never taken any sort of political stance and often times have avoided doing so. It has never been our nature to side with political viewpoints. But the silence from us has lasted far too long, and the public dissolution going right now is only fueled by it. That being said, we stand with our black and LGBTQ friends who have made us better people and the world a better place, and who continue to fight for their lives and what they believe. We are here for you.
Last week, we published an article about what the world was missing in the void of live music. Immediately following that, Coachella released their 20 Years in the Desert documentary featuring never before seen footage, thus adding to the stress unalleviated by the only outlet that could relieve such a thing. The twenty-first installment of the Coachella Music and Arts Festival would have taken place these past two weekends, and just earlier this week, it was announced that live music events probably won’t return until Fall 2021 “at the earliest.” Well fuck us then. Sadly, it is not merely a switch that we can flip on and off at our convenience, much to our dismay. As a result, we’ve compiled a list of the best concert films ever made to watch from quarantine. Surely this won’t last you until Fall 2021, but it’s a start. Here are our top 10 concert films of all time.
Many people slept on Birth upon its release back in 2004, which is a shame because it’s arguably one of the most underrated films of the past 20 years. Jonathan Glazer has only done three features throughout his career (so far) – 2000’s Sexy Beast, 2004’s Birth, and 2013’s Under the Skin. Interestingly enough, Glazer makes his career possible by sustaining himself through music video and commercial productions, putting his cinematic touch on just about every game-changing music video (see Radiohead’s “Karma Police,” “Street Spirit (Fade Out),” and Jamiroquai’s “Virtual Insanity”). Given that it took him ten years to develop Under the Skin due to its numerous rewrites and novelty camera technology, it was Birth that took his career more toward the surreal.
Another year, another post trying to make sense of this bull shit ceremony that more often than not disappoints instead of transcends. There were some surprises upon announcement day (Florence Pugh, The Lighthouse’s cinematography nomination, Rian Johnson’s writing nomination), but at the end of the day, you and I both know none of these has a shot in hell in winning.
I’ve only been doing this blog thing for a couple years now. Yet, it’s been much longer than that since I’ve dived into filmmaking. 2010 was the year I started getting serious about the craft from watching flicks on my laptop in a Berklee College of Music dorm room. Back then I was studying jazz and still trying to pursue music as a career (somehow I thought film was a smarter choice instead.) Nonetheless, one passion culminated into the other. I know these lists have all been subjective, and that’s the point – these lists were never supposed to be the best thing, they were supposed to be my thing. But I still strive to find the greatest common denominators. The 2010s for film probably won’t be as iconic or memorable as films from the 70s, or even the 90s, but leading into this new decade where we’re inundated with new streaming services and content more than ever before, it’s the best time to be a young writer with fresh, new ideas. Here are the top 20 films of the decade.
Deep in the east side of downtown L.A., Slamdance’s DIG Showcase took place at Wisdome LA’s immersive art park. Filled with interactive art installations by emerging visual artists and indie game developers, it took up a whole square block with giant domes, taking us a second to find our subject for the evening – Hayk Matevosyan, director of his film Art in Motion, which is playing on display here as a featured exhibit.
The film starts with an interview of Rick Dalton (DiCaprio) and Cliff Booth (Pitt) on the set of the NBC show Bounty Law. The image of the two actors in the same frame alone is already worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The exuberance jumps off the screen, which is precisely what separates Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood from today’s blockbusters – its extravagant vision is one that is not necessarily done anymore (save maybe for franchises), but one that truly feels out of its time, and also feels like it’s of the time the film depicts. That’s what, essentially, is at the soul of this film: a time that has long died off where personality and name were enough for movies to make a buck.
For the non-writers outside of the Hollywood sphere, there’s been a change happening lately that’ll likely impact how your favorite shows are made. Last month, the ATA (Association of Talent Agents) failed to update its policies in accordance with their contract with the WGA (Writer’s Guild of America), which expired on April 7th. As a result, the WGA asked its members to fire their agents if they did not comply with the WGA’s demands of a change of contract, which has to deal with how agents are paid via staffing and payments of their clients.
Harmony Korine has always been that outlier of a filmmaker – one doesn’t seem to figure out where the artist ends and the man begins. And during his nearly 30 year career, he’s always played that card like a magician: you don’t call upon him to show you a trick. Rather, he calls upon you.