James Dean, who died in 1955, just landed a new movie role, thanks to CGI - The Verge

James Dean is making his return to the big screen more than 60 years after dying in a car crash, thanks to two VFX companies.

Finding Jack is a movie set within the Vietnam-era that is “based on the existence and abandonment of more than 10,000 military dogs at the end of the Vietnam War,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. Dean isn’t the leading role, but his performance as “Rogan” is “considered a secondary lead role,” according to the Reporter. Finding Jack marks the first movie that Dean will star in since Giant in 1956, just one year after his iconic role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause.

Magic City Films, the company producing the movie, obtained the rights to Dean’s image from his family. The goal is to re-create “a realistic version of James Dean,” the film’s directors told the Reporter. To do so, they’re working with Canadian VFX studio Imagine Engine and South African VFX company MOI Worldwide. Dean’s body will be fully re-created using CGI technology, and another actor will voice his lines.

“We searched high and low for the perfect character to portray the role of Rogan, which has some extreme complex character arcs, and after months of research, we decided on James Dean,” co-director Anton Ernst told the Reporter.

It’s unclear exactly what any of that means, especially since there are thousands upon thousands of living actors who are probably capable of performing the role. Acquiring the rights to actors’ looks and using them for CGI re-creation purposes isn’t totally new — just look at Furious 7 or Rogue One: A Star Wars Story — but it is a conversation Hollywood is taking more seriously than ever. Vox critic Alissa Wilkinson touched upon the problem this faces in her review of Gemini Man, Ang Lee’s action movie that stars Will Smith and a younger version of Will Smith who plays his clone. Wilkinson wrote:

So just imagine the options if you could perfectly recreate any actor — and the potential savings (and earning potential) for a movie studio that owns the rights to, say, the perfect replica of Keanu Reeves or Angelina Jolie or Will Smith, all while sharing licensingwith the actor’s estate. You might doubt it will ever be done; I would put money on it happening in the next decade, unless somehow the industry unions intervene. It’s already happened before, with actors like the late Peter Cushing recreated for Rogue One. And if you can recreate actors, you can create them, too, replacing the need to hire people to play all of those parts where nobody knows the actor’s name anyhow.

Was James Dean really the only actor who could play this role? Doubtful. Whether it’s a marketing stunt that will draw attention to the movie or the future of cinema, it’s representative of a world we may soon be living in.

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2019-11-06 17:05:34Z
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Our poor, unfortunate souls are grateful for Queen Latifah's Ursula in 'The Little Mermaid Live' - CNN

As the villainous sea witch, Queen Latifah proved herself to be the much-praised standout in a show that otherwise had high and low tides, so to speak.

She brought the bravado needed to pull off both the big dialogue and the even bigger signature number, "Poor Unfortunate Souls," which was one of the best performances of the night.

Queen Latifah's spot-on performance was further helped by a costume department who put together an impressive ensemble worthy of one of Disney's greatest villains.

"Hi, yes, Disney? Please hire Queen Latifah for the live-action The Little Mermaid film. Please and thank you," wrote one Twitter user.

"Okay, nothing more to see here. Queen Latifah killed it. Everyone else can go home," wrote another.

Sadly, had the costume department used a fraction of the effort put toward constructing one of Ursula's tentacles toward Shaggy's Sebastian outfit, perhaps he would have hit the stage in something a little more crab-like and less Britney Spears in her "Oops I Did It Again" video.

His red, latex-like jacket and pants combo lacked the pop needed to standout in a ocean floor filled with robotic puppets and costumed sea creatures, and it was one of the most jeered aspects of the production. (That, and John Stamos' unfortunate flub where he referred to Ariel's love as "Prince Albert.")

Other highs, meanwhile, included the dreamy vocals of Auli'i Cravalho, whatever Shawn Mendes-esque vibes Prince Eric (Graham Phillips) was giving out, the dog (because of course) and "Jimmy Kimmel Live's" Guillermo Rodriguez dressed as a blowfish.

Cumulatively, however, there was little question about who proved themselves to be the queen of the sea and the stage.

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/06/entertainment/little-mermaid-live/index.html

2019-11-06 13:53:00Z
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Our poor, unfortunate souls are grateful for Queen Latifah's Ursula in 'The Little Mermaid Live' - CNN

As the villainous sea witch, Queen Latifah proved herself to be the much-praised standout in a show that otherwise had high and low tides, so to speak.

She brought the bravado needed to pull off both the big dialogue and the even bigger signature number, "Poor Unfortunate Souls," which was one of the best performances of the night.

Queen Latifah's spot-on performance was further helped by a costume department who put together an impressive ensemble worthy of one of Disney's greatest villains.

"Hi, yes, Disney? Please hire Queen Latifah for the live-action The Little Mermaid film. Please and thank you," wrote one Twitter user.

"Okay, nothing more to see here. Queen Latifah killed it. Everyone else can go home," wrote another.

Sadly, had the costume department used a fraction of the effort put toward constructing one of Ursula's tentacles toward Shaggy's Sebastian outfit, perhaps he would have hit the stage in something a little more crab-like and less Britney Spears in her "Oops I Did It Again" video.

His red, latex-like jacket and pants combo lacked the pop needed to standout in a ocean floor filled with robotic puppets and costumed sea creatures, and it was one of the most jeered aspects of the production. (That, and John Stamos' unfortunate flub where he referred to Ariel's love as "Prince Albert.")

Other highs, meanwhile, included the dreamy vocals of Auli'i Cravalho, whatever Shawn Mendes-esque vibes Prince Eric (Graham Phillips) was giving out, the dog (because of course) and "Jimmy Kimmel Live's" Guillermo Rodriguez dressed as a blowfish.

Cumulatively, however, there was little question about who proved themselves to be the queen of the sea and the stage.

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/06/entertainment/little-mermaid-live/index.html

2019-11-06 09:30:00Z
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Acclaimed novelist Ernest Gaines dies at 86 - The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Novelist Ernest J. Gaines, whose poor childhood on a small Louisiana plantation germinated stories of black struggles that grew into universal tales of grace and beauty, has died. He was 86.

The Baton Rouge Area Foundation, which sponsors a literary award in Gaines’ honor, confirmed he died Tuesday in his sleep of cardiac arrest at his home in Oscar, Louisiana.

“Ernest Gaines was a Louisiana treasure,” foundation president and CEO John Davies said in a statement. “He will be remembered for his powerful prose that placed the reader directly into the story of the old South, as only he could describe it. We have lost a giant and a friend.”

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a statement that Gaines “used his immense vision and literary talents to tell the stories of African Americans in the South. We are all blessed that Ernest left words and stories that will continue to inspire many generations to come.”

“A Lesson Before Dying,” published in 1993, was an acclaimed classic. Gaines was awarded a “genius grant” that year by the MacArthur Foundation, receiving $335,000.

Both “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” (1971) and “A Gathering of Old Men” (1984) became honored television movies.

The author of eight books, Gaines was born on a plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish. His first writing experience was writing letters for illiterate workers who asked him to embellish their news to far-off relatives. Bayonne, the setting for Gaines’ fiction, was actually New Roads, Louisiana, which Gaines left for California when he was 15.

Although books were denied him throughout his childhood because of Louisiana’s strict segregation, which extended even to libraries, he found the life surrounding him rich enough to recollect in story after story through exact and vivid detail.

In “A Lesson Before Dying,” for example, the central figure is the teacher at the plantation school outside town. Through the teacher, whose profession Gaines elevates to a calling, the novelist explores the consistent themes of his work: sacrifice and duty, the obligation to others, the qualities of loving, the nature of courage.

Gaines found that using his storytelling gifts meant more than militant civil rights action. “When Bull Connor would sic the dogs, I thought, ‘Hell, write a better paragraph.’

“In 1968, when I was writing ‘The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,’ my friends said, ‘Why write about a 110-year-old lady when all of this is going on now?’ And I said, ‘I think she’s going to have something to say about it.’”

What Gaines’ characters said about it achieved a power and timelessness that made him a distinctive voice in American literature. Much of the appeal of his books is their seeming simplicity and straightforward story line. “I can never write big novels,” he always maintained. But the questions he explored were the eternal ones great writers confront: what it means to be human, what a human lives and dies for.

A large, gentlemanly man with a certain bohemian air — braces and berets were favorite attire — and a stately manner, Gaines was devoted to friends and family. When he married in 1993 at age 60, he celebrated in Lafayette, New Orleans, Miami, and San Francisco, so the gatherings could include his intimates. Dianne Saulney Gaines is an assistant district attorney for Dade County, Florida. The couple divided their time among various abodes but spent the MacArthur money on a year in France and other travels.

Gaines spent the fall teaching creative writing at the then-University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette (now University of Louisiana at Lafayette) since 1983. It’s only about an hour’s drive from his childhood home.

He could not write and teach at the same time. He needed five or six hours each day devoted to writing and “I can’t write a couple of days and skip two or three days.”

“A Lesson Before Dying” took seven years.

“I work five days a week, just like a regular job. I get up in the morning, do a little exercise, eat a little breakfast. I’m at my desk by nine in the morning, work until three with a little break for lunch,” he said.

His literary influences were eclectic. Since he got a late start as a reader, he read with a vengeance.

“I discovered John Steinbeck ... then Willa Cather ... then the great 19th Century Russian and French writers, writers like DeMaupassant and Flaubert. Then I discovered Ivan Turgenyev, the great Russian classicist. He wrote small novels where everyone wrote big novels. ... (Turgenyev’s) ‘Fathers and Sons’ was one of my favorite books when I was a young man. It was my Bible when I was writing my first novel, ‘Catherine Carmier’ (1964),” he said.

Other books include “Of Love and Dust” (1967), “Bloodline” (1968), “A Long Day in November” (1971), and “In My Father’s House” (1978).

Among his numerous awards, Gaines received prestigious grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundations. He held honorary doctorates from five colleges and universities.

The Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence will continue as his legacy. It will be presented Jan. 30 to a rising African American author.

___

Former Associated Press writer Cain Burdeau prepared material for this story.

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https://apnews.com/e9fe833a0686427eaa6cf3cc768d264d

2019-11-06 08:53:40Z
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Martin Scorsese Explains Why He Turned Down 'Joker', And Why Marvel Isn't Cinema - esquire.com

The still-rumbling Martin Scorsese versus Marvel showdown, which has dragged in players as diverse as James Gunn, Francis Ford Coppola and Ken Loach, has taken another turn today, with Scorsese dropping an emollient – if unrepentant – opinion piece in the New York Times.

"Many franchise films are made by people of considerable talent and artistry," Scorsese writes. "You can see it on the screen. The fact that the films themselves don’t interest me is a matter of personal taste and temperament. I know that if I were younger, if I’d come of age at a later time, I might have been excited by these pictures and maybe even wanted to make one myself."

Which is nice. However.

"For me, for the filmmakers I came to love and respect, for my friends who started making movies around the same time that I did, cinema was about revelation — aesthetic, emotional and spiritual revelation. It was about characters — the complexity of people and their contradictory and sometimes paradoxical natures, the way they can hurt one another and love one another and suddenly come face to face with themselves.

"It was about confronting the unexpected on the screen and in the life it dramatised and interpreted, and enlarging the sense of what was possible in the art form."

In the Empire interview that kicked all this off, Scorsese said he felt Marvel films are "not cinema," and he explained what he meant a bit more there.

"Many of the elements that define cinema as I know it are there in Marvel pictures," he writes. "What’s not there is revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger. Nothing is at risk. The pictures are made to satisfy a specific set of demands, and they are designed as variations on a finite number of themes."

They are "sequels in name but they are remakes in spirit," he writes. And then he comes to the nub of it: how the pressures of late capitalism, in the form of stagnating wages, rising ticket prices and the inclination to replicate films that have already succeeded, have stymied cinema.

"But the most ominous change has happened stealthily and under cover of night: the gradual but steady elimination of risk. Many films today are perfect products manufactured for immediate consumption. Many of them are well made by teams of talented individuals. All the same, they lack something essential to cinema: the unifying vision of an individual artist."

Which explains why despite his name being bandied around Joker for years, and its clear debt to his early films, he decided to pass and let Todd Phillips have a crack at it.

"I know the film very well," he told the BBC. "I know [Phillips] very well. My producer Emma Tillinger Koskoff produced it. I thought about it a lot over the last four years and decided I did not have the time for it. It was personal reasons why I didn’t get involved. But I know the script very well. It has a real energy, and Joaquin. You have remarkable work."

Scorsese also wasn't certain that he could wrangle with the Joker's origins convincingly enough to make the thing worthwhile.

"For me, ultimately, I don't know if I make the next step into this character developing into a comic book character. You follow? He develops into an abstraction."

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2019-11-05 11:42:00Z
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The Pros and Cons of the De-aging Effects in ‘The Irishman’ - The Ringer

When it comes to the discourse around The Irishman, the exhausting and seemingly never-ending debate surrounding Martin Scorsese and Marvel has distracted us from the things that really matter about this film: Al Pacino’s working with Scorsese for (somehow) the first time in his career; the great Joe Pesci’s coming out of retirement; and, of course, the movie’s highly publicized, highly expensive foray into de-aging VFX. Because The Irishman spans decades, following hitman Frank Sheeran from his service in World War II to his time with the mob and Jimmy Hoffa in the subsequent decades—the film’s framing device is an older Sheeran reminiscing about his life from a retirement home—and because the film’s leading actors are in their 70s, having capable de-aging tech was an essential component of the project. (Sure, Scorsese could’ve used young actors or something, but seeing living legends like Robert De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci share the screen again is a huge part of the movie’s appeal.)

But The Irishman’s de-aging VFX also ran the risk of being the film’s biggest problem. Since so much of the movie takes place in the past with “younger” versions of the characters, unconvincing de-aging technology could be a huge distraction from the actual storytelling. The film’s trailers and production stills didn’t inspire much confidence; World War II–era De Niro looked like he came straight from a mid-2000s video game and was gloriously memed into oblivion.

Where The Irishman’s de-aging landed on the spectrum from Samuel L. Jackson’s surprisingly convincing Young Nick Fury in Captain Marvel to the hauntingly soulless expressions of Evil Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy was always going to be important for the film. With de-aging effects already being used to varying degrees in Gemini Man, Terminator: Dark Fate, Captain Marvel, and It: Chapter 2, 2019 has been a watershed year for using the technology onscreen. (Most of the effects have been surprisingly fine—or at the very least, doesn’t distract from the viewing experience.)

On the whole, The Irishman’s de-aging isn’t exactly flawless, but it manages not to ruin an otherwise-great Martin Scorsese film. Though, having seen the movie in a theater, I’m curious whether audiences will find the effects better or worse watching it at home—this is how most people will see the film—where it’ll be available on Netflix beginning November 27. Having spent more than three hours with my De-aged Italian/Irish Sons, these are the biggest pros and cons you should take into consideration before seeing The Irishman for yourself.

Pro: It’s Way Better Than Most De-Aging Efforts

While The Irishman was something Scorsese had hoped to make for years, the director wanted to be sure the de-aging tech was up to the task first. In 2015, he tested the aptitude of de-aging visual effects by having De Niro re-create a scene from Goodfellas; it was good enough that The Irishman went into production two years later. Four years isn’t a long time, but when it comes to using visual effects to de-age and/or re-create someone’s likeness—remember the bizarre and ethically dubious use of CGI Peter Cushing from Rogue One in 2016?—it might as well be a lifetime.

Pacino and Pesci’s de-aging stand out as the most effective in the film—for the former, it especially helps that Jimmy Hoffa was in his 60s by the time he mysteriously disappeared. As for Pesci, if we were all willing to accept that he was playing someone in his late 20s in Goodfellas—Pesci was 46 at the time and won a much-deserved Oscar for the performance—I think we can handle 76-year-old Pesci playing someone decades younger yet again.

Con: The De-Aging Effect Is Still Uncanny and Takes Time to Get Used To

Where The Irishman’s de-aging occasionally stumbles is, unfortunately, with its lead. De Niro, as Sheeran, looks nowhere near as bad as the trailers and production stills would make him out to be, but there’s a certain sheen to De Niro’s de-aged face. (The brief World War II moments were, predictably, the worst of the bunch; de-aged De Niro did not look anything like a person in his 20s.) Not helping matters is the fact that De Niro gives a rather subdued performance. Sheeran spends good portions of the film being a quiet observer to mob/union chaos, and De Niro’s de-aged face looks weirder when it isn’t moving as much.

But perhaps worst of all, Pesci’s mob boss Russell Bufalino repeatedly refers to Sheeran as “kid,” a statement so off-putting it’s genuinely distracting the first couple of times it happened. Pesci and De Niro are the same age in real life, and that extended to the de-aging effects for both of their characters. There’s never a point when you’re convinced that Pesci is playing someone who’s Sheeran’s senior, or that anyone who isn’t an old man in a wheelchair should be calling De Niro “kid.”

Pro: It Lets the Best Actors on the Planet Cook

The effectiveness of The Irishman’s VFX could set a strange precedent, where older, popular actors become de-aged for younger roles. (Upon getting a de-aged makeover, De Niro reportedly told effects supervisor Pablo Helman: “You just gave me 30 more years of my career.”) On the one hand, the development of de-aging VFX would allow a veteran actor to expand their range—Will Smith did a great job tweaking his affects to play a “younger” him in Gemini Man—but it might come at the expense of opportunities for younger actors who could play the part themselves. Like, imagine if this technology existed when The Godfather: Part II came out—it would be dope to see what a de-aged Marlon Brando would have been able to do, but playing a younger Vito Corleone remains one of the most iconic and celebrated performances of De Niro’s superlative career.

And yet The Irishman feels like a special exception—if only because of what the project signifies. De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci are practically synonymous with gangster epics; Scorsese’s getting the gang back together for [Dominic Torretto voice] one last ride is a thrilling, momentous event. When the de-aging technology allows you to let some of the best actors on the planet cook, you might as well let them while we can still appreciate their talents.

Con: The Actors’ Performances Are Occasionally Hindered

It’s one thing to have an actor’s face and body convincingly de-aged; it’s another to feel convinced someone is moving around like a younger person. That’s an occasional issue in The Irishman that Scorsese had to deal with (and that you will probably notice it a little for yourself). The filmmaker told Sight & Sound magazine that they had to digitally alter De Niro’s mouth so that he could “convey a kind of vulnerability and a haplessness.” According to Scorsese, the actor couldn’t pull the look off without seeming “threatening.” (Although, LOL, when, at any age, has Robert De Niro not looked intimidating?)

They also needed to reshoot a scene of Pacino-as-Hoffa getting out of his chair because, essentially, it didn’t look like he was getting up “like a 49-year-old.” (Scorsese joked they got Pacino down to a “62” on the second take, which is the biggest burn the actor’s suffered since the release of Jack and Jill.) No amount of technological advancements in de-aging can replace someone moving and feeling like they’re younger; extended de-aged performances that require some level of physicality will always look slightly off. When Sheeran assaults a grocery store clerk who hit his young daughter, I never got the impression he was throwing around his weight like a young man—but at the same time, I didn’t really mind since it’s still really compelling to watch an angry Robert De Niro curb-stomp someone’s hand. (If Rotten Tomatoes tries to label this as an Irishman review, please use the above sentence as a pull quote.)

The good of The Irishman’s de-aging VFX more than outweighs the bad, and while Hollywood probably won’t rush to incorporate the tech in every movie starting tomorrow, it still represents a major turning point. Ang Lee used high-frame-rate filmmaking in Gemini Man, and believes that the innovation will be the future of cinema. The future of filmmaking may indeed lie in a creative decision from Gemini Man, but not in the way Lee thought.

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https://www.theringer.com/movies/2019/11/5/20948617/the-irishman-aging-tech-martin-scorcese-robert-de-niro

2019-11-05 10:40:00Z
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Emma Watson says she's 'self-partnered' not single - CNN

Watson, 29, who rose to fame as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, coined the phrase in an interview with British Vogue in which she discussed the pressures of turning 30.

The actor and activist, whose birthday is in April, said she initially did not understand the "fuss" that surrounded the milestone.

More recently, however, she admitted feeling "stressed and anxious" about her upcoming birthday.

She told British Vogue: "If you have not built a home, if you do not have a husband, if you do not have a baby, and you are turning 30, and you're not in some incredibly secure, stable place in your career, or you're still figuring things out... There's just this incredible amount of anxiety."

Speaking of how she had never believed the "'I'm happy single' spiel," she added: "It took me a long time, but I'm very happy [being single]. I call it being self-partnered."

The new phrase is reminiscent of actor Gwyneth Paltrow's use of the term "conscious uncoupling" to describe her divorce proceedings from the Coldplay singer Chris Martin in 2014.

Later this year, Watson will return to the screen playing Margaret "Meg" March in "Little Women" alongside Laura Dern and Meryl Streep -- both of whom she knew previously through their activism.

The full interview will appear in the December issue of British Vogue and will be available from November 8.

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2019-11-05 11:40:00Z
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