Wednesday morning Colorado-based New Belgium Brewing announced they have teamed up with St. Petersburg-based Cycle Brewing for Beers with Vrienden to create Of Snow and Sand, a toasted coconut Baltic porter.
Doug Dozark, Cycle Brewing’s owner and brewmaster will join New Belgium’s Ross Koenigs, employee owner and pilot brewer, in Ft. Collins, Colo. for the official Of Snow and Sand brew day on January 15, 2016.
“Our logos both have the beloved bike on them, so it was only a matter of time before we had to get together and brew,” said Lauren Salazar, New Belgium’s specialty brand manager and blender. “What we’ve created for this first collaboration beer is something that’s a winter-ready porter built for the beach. The white caps of the Rockies are our playground in the winter, but sometimes we can’t help but dream of the sand and so this beer merges our worlds.”
About Of Snow and Sand: A tropical twist thanks to a dose of experimental hop HBC 472, which offers a breezy coconut aroma, plus the addition of hand-toasted coconut. The complex malt line-up includes Maris Otter, Black Prinz, Honey and Caramel malt. At 8.3% ABV and 38 IBUs, Of Snow and Sand is hearty enough to enjoy in the winter, yet also great to take along to the beach.
Cycle Brewing will hold a release party in St. Petersburg for Of Snow and Sand from February 18-21, followed by a second brew date Of Snow and Sand on February 19.
Marvel announced Tuesday, an ongoing series for the character Gwenpool starting in April. The Unbelievable Gwenpool has the creative team of Christopher Hastings and Gurihiru.
About Gwenpool: Gwen Poole used to be a comic book reader just like you…until one day she woke up INSIDE the Marvel Universe! Now the characters she read about are all real! But they can’t be really real, right? This must all be fake, or a dream or something right? You know what that means – NO CONSEQUENCES! First order of business, get a costume and start fighting crime. Why? Because that’s what everyone who has a solo series does!
“The series is a lot about her believing she’s in a fictional world with no consequences,” says series writer Hastings, speaking with Entertainment Weekly. “She’s seen everyone come back to life at some point, and it sort of seems like she’s living in a video game. And then the book is going to be the universe fighting back at that. Like, ‘you can’t really get away with everything’ is kind of the struggle there.”
Annapurna Pictures and Paramount released the trailer for Everybody Wants Some from the creative genius that is Richard Linklater. A Van Halen song is always a good start to a film (Better Off Dead, Superbad).
Officially billed as a “spiritual sequel” to Linklater’s seminal Dazed and Confused, the film takes place in the world of 1980s college life and follows a group of college baseball players as they navigate their way through the freedoms and responsibilities of unsupervised adulthood.
Everybody Wants Some stars Will Brittain, Zoey Deutch, Ryan Anthony Guzman, Tyler Hoechlin, Blake Jenner, Glen Powell, and Wyatt Russell and will have its world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in March before opening in theaters on April 15, 2016.
Linklater has been nominated for five Oscars, most recently for Boyhood (Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Achievement in Directing, Best Writing, Original Screenplay).
Into The Badlands season finale begins with Sunny paying a visit to the River King, presenting him with a head, as the King demanded in the previous episode. Sunny expresses his need to leave the Badlands that very night, the River King tells him that he will depart at midnight, and to not be late. Telling Vail they are leaving tonight, she demands to know how her parents died. Sunny finally tells her the truth, that Quinn killed her parents with his sword while he stood by. Vail questions whether Sunny can be different if they do leave the Badlands, and not the Clipper he has been his whole life.
Last weeks’ episode saw Jade collapse in Quinn’s arms, the Widow wounded in her fight against Sunny and barely escaping, while Quinn looked on and witnessed M.K.’s hidden power.
A lone traveler walks along the road, heading towards a mysterious building in the distance. Inside, three monks sit in meditation and the traveler tells them that a dark one has been found.
At the Fort, while Lydia comforts Jade, Quinn has discovered that Lydia poisoned Jade and that the poisonous flowers she used were also responsible for the death of Quinn’s previous wife, Beatrice. Quinn spares Lydia’s life and opts to cast her out of the Fort. Pleading with Ryder to help prove her innocence, and her pleas falling on deaf ears, Lydia returns to her father and begs to be taken back by the father she abandoned for a better life with Quinn years before. Meanwhile, Ryder sets his plan into motion to become Baron, making the Widow’s infiltration look like a betrayal by Sunny. Quinn confronts Sunny, accusing him of treason, stripping him of his position as Regent, and has him put in chains. Sunny vows to clip Quinn first once he gets free.
Sunny (Daniel Wu) accused of treason and taken prisoner Photo: AMC Networks
Vail is taken, not by Quinn, but by the Widow’s butterflies. Wounded from the battle at the Fort, her wound has become infected and requires immediate treatment. Treating her to bargain for release, Vail gives Tilda a choice, heal the widow with medicine she has left, or poison her and make her own path.
In chains, Sunny receives a visit from Waldo. Two swift moves later, Waldo has disabled the guard and released Sunny, revealing himself as the Widow’s spy inside the Fort. Quinn, having cast Lydia out and imprisoned Sunny, decides to take M.K. to the doll house to celebrate a new beginning for both of them. Ryder and Zypher confirm their plans to unseat their respective masters when Quinn heads into town that evening.
Calling out his attackers before they strike, Quinn is not surprised to see Jacoby and Zypher, but is taken aback when seeing Ryder. Taking his father’s lessons to heart, Ryder seeks to take power, as his father took it from the previous Baron. As stated in previous reviews, and pretty much any article talking about this show, the fight scenes and action sequences, they are superb and the final one of this season is no different. Cutting M.K. to give himself the advantage, Quinn steps aside while the three attackers attempt to subdue him. Quinn slinks off and looks to wait out the fighting and runs into Sunny. Clipping his Baron as promised, Sunny tells Quinn that he will be his last tattoo before attempting to stop M.K. from doing further damage, and then the monks show up.
Monks have come for M.K. Photo: AMC Networks
Shutting M.K. down in efficient fashion, the leader (former UFC fighter Cung Le) look to leave with M.K. and Sunny isn’t about to let that happen. Taking on the other two, Sunny holds his own, but the leader takes him on head to head. At this point, Sunny may stand a chance but then all three monks are shown to be what M.K. is, their pupils go black and they thump Sonny through 3 walls and into darkness.
Vail gets back to town to find nothing but bodies and Sunny’s broken blade. We next see Sunny in the hold of a ship, the River King knows Sunny lied about the head he bought him. In chains, the River King tells Sunny that a man of his skill has value and that his wish to leave the Badlands has been granted, and M.K., is taken by the monks into parts unknown.
A solid season finale has answered a few questions but leaves many more. Quinn is dead, it is unsure if Ryder and Jacoby survived their encounter with M.K., and the Widow is alive but wounded. Lydia has returned to her father Penrith and his religious order, of which we know very little about, and there is a whole lot of territory left unclaimed.
A 6 episode first season of Into The Badlands has raised the bar for any action series going forward. Engaging characters, strong performances, and action sequences that would make a Hollywood blockbuster question its’ own worth, we’ll have to wait until late 2016 for season two.
An upcoming column will feature the best fight scenes in the show this season.
Did you like this episode? Let me know in the comments
One of the the biggest questions in the back of my mind with each installment in the ongoing Marvel Cinematic Universe is one that we get a small taste of in May. With Captain America: Civil War hitting theaters, we will see one of, if not the largest, casts of Marvel characters to ever grace a feature film.
Iron Man and the Winter Soldier are just two of many characters within the Marvel Cinematic Universe
Aside from the massive battle of X-Men: The Last Stand, we are seeing the names of Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow, Ant-Man, Falcon, Hawkeye, Vision, Bucky Barnes and War Machine getting another big screen feature. Adding to that list, Spiderman and Black Panther getting their first taste of the MCU continuity. All in all, we see a major uptake in the body count from years past culminating into this major release.
Aside from this, you still have Thor, the Hulk, Doctor Strange and the entire ABC and Netflix properties that exist in this massive universe, all looking to make a break into a massive conglomerate of Marvel characters.
Possible? Absolutely. Likely? Not very.
Year by year, Marvel has grown each and every property, with new movies and new characters galore that create this world around themselves and opens up great storylines that may be inclusive to their respective titles, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Much like how everyone thought that 2008’s Incredible Hulk was the red-headed stepchild of the MCU, the reestablishment of General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross in Civil War shows that the events in Harlem have existed.
As mentioned above, among the movies we also have Agents of Shield and some plot lines from Agent Carter, but more of the former and not the latter. Add Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, the Punisher and Iron Fist in the Defender series, with the likelyhood of Marvel adding new names to the mix each year.
In the wide scope of things, we deal with a lot of mismatching when it comes to including each and every character in the MCU. One being the content of each property. As it is now, the movies and ABC shows are lighter, opposed to the darker toned Netflix series. But that is an easy route to avoid, simply have the characters there and sub out some of the more explicit content.
Of course, there is a hard concept of the SHIELD characters making a jump from TV to film, with the elusiveness of Agent Coulson and the lack of the heroes knowledge of his existence still might make for a hard crossover.
First, is the Civil War storyline, the entirety of the MCU is at war. Sides are taken and lines are crossed. Every hero has their alliance and it culminates into epic battles between people who should be allies, but are more threatening to each other. We could see the sides divided and spend the entirety of the story in a massive battle that could set up a lot of stories down the road.
While Thanos’ existence withing the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been pretty low key, it’s only a matter of time before he steps into the mix.
My second thought of every single character making the jump to a single movie would possibly be down the road for Avengers: Infinity Wars Pt. 1 & 2.
With the thought of the Infinity Stones coming into play and Thanos ramping up his search for them, it’s only a matter of time before he comes into possession of them and merges them to the Infinity Gauntlet and truly hones in on his power. This power will be unmatched by the mainstay heroes and will require all of the MCU to band together. We still have Dr. Strange, Black Panther, Captain Marvel and Spiderman getting ready to establish themselves in the universe, along with those coming along in Netflix over the next few years.
So my thought is, when Thanos assumes his unlimited power, it will be the call that someone makes and calls all of the heroes together to try and defeat him. While it’s a bold prediction, I don’t see any avenue earlier that makes sense for all of them to join up, and with as big of a villain as Thanos, it makes total sense that everyone introduced up to that point when Part I hits theaters in 2018.
I would love to see the entirety of the Marvel Cinematic Universe be on the big screen all together when Thanos attempts to take over the universe. And I fully think that they can do small crossovers in the mean time with the big stars and the Agents of SHIELD, whether it’s bringing some down to the TV screen or giving some of the characters a bit of a promotion.
Finally, and this is the most out there, but the introduction of a Secret Wars storyline. This would be a huge budget film and likely wouldn’t be in the realm of going into production until after 2020, but it would be a great way to explore the outer space portion of Marvel, outside of Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy.
So the question is asked to you, Monkeys Fighting Robots readers, will we ever see every character together in one movie?
Short films have always been a good calling card for directors. Most if not all of the world’s filmmakers have made one or more shorts, whether it’s for fun, for school or to exercise their skills before moving on to greater things. This list includes some of the greatest examples from around the world.
The Letter by Michel Gondry
Remember that feeling when you were twelve years old and had a crush on a girl? This short is all about that. Throw in Gondry’s trademark crazy in-camera and imagery effects, and you have a sincere, funny and heartfelt short that feels like not just a snapshot from Gondry’s memory, but from anyone who’s ever been a teenager.
A brisk, darkly hilarious movie that shows that almost plays out like an anxiety dream about hitting on someone. And if you were ever curious about how do sneakers end up hanging from power cables, this is the film for you.
Meant as a metaphor for the Vietnam War, this short by Martin Scorsese may not have the full technical prowess we’d see in his later works, but the imagery is simple and powerful, showing signs of what was to come from one of cinema’s masters.
A 20-minute ride that follows suicidal drug addict Richie taking care of his niece during a night out in New York City. Beautifully shot, emotional and surprisingly funny at times, this short won a well-deserved Academy Award in 2015.
You can find it as part of the Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013 digital collection right here.
Geometría by Guillermo del Toro
What happens when you’re about to fail Math? Ask the Devil for help, of course. Del Toro’s short film is hilarious, with a touch of old school horror, complete with dubbed voices.
You can find it as part of the Criterion DVD and Blu-Ray for Cronos .
For the ninth day of Deadpool, IMAX has revealed an exclusive poster for the film. The poster shows the entire cast in flames, with Deadpool riding on top of Colossus’ shoulders at the center of it all. The coolest part of the poster is Deadpool battling Ajax at the bottom and of course the Stan Lee Cameo.
as an added bonus we were also given a new 30 second IMAX trailer.
Based upon Marvel Comics’ most unconventional anti-hero, DEADPOOL tells the origin story of former Special Forces operative turned mercenary Wade Wilson, who after being subjected to a rogue experiment that leaves him with accelerated healing powers, adopts the alter ego Deadpool. Armed with his new abilities and a dark, twisted sense of humor, Deadpool hunts down the man who nearly destroyed his life.
It certainly seems that the marketing and the push behind this much anticipated film is right on target and is only building excitement amongst the core fanbase. I don’t know about you but I’m counting down the days till we see Ryan Reynolds become Wade Wilson once again in 2016.
There were hundreds of questions leading up to The Force Awakens. But for every one question the film answered, it seemingly spawned a whole band of new ones. One of the biggest enduring mysteries is what is up with Supreme Leader Snoke.
Very little was revealed about this character during production, and the finished product didn’t really answer who he actually is. All that’s known is that he runs the First Order, he wants Luke Skywalker removed from the picture, and he’s responsible for turning Ben Solo into Kylo Ren. He is probably a Sith Lord, and he casts a pretty menacing hologram, but is there more to his story? Here are the five most likely, and most serious theories (sorry Boba Fett theorists):
This is a pretty vague theory, but no less plausible than the rest. What if Snoke is just a projection meant to instill fear and cast an imposing shadow? And, if so, who is the man behind the curtain? Could it still be the Emperor, hurt and decrepit from his defeat in Jedi, unable to impose his own will? Is Darth Jar Jar real and in play here? Again, the details to this theory are vague, but the concept is solid: Snoke is merely a diversion while someone else is pulling the strings.
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So what do you think? Which of these theories is most plausible? Are you committed to the Boba Fett theory? Sound off in the comments!
We currently sit on the eve of a glorious celebration: the continued legend of one man having turned his life over to the human race in order to give us something we do not deserve. His persecution in light of this sacrifice is oft-discussed and challenged but history constantly reminds us that his undeserved public shaming will always take a back seat to the life he led and the stories and joy he was able to bring to the world. I am, of course, speaking of Quentin Tarantino and his beautiful dearth of filmic heaven. This Christmas, we receive yet another movie from the famous auteur with The Hateful Eight. Before we all bask in the glory of his new Western, let’s take a look back at Mr. Tarantino’s storied career and do what us internet-age folk with attention spans the length of Mr. Blonde’s rational thought do best: RANK HIS MOVIES!
Note: This list is legal and binding and shall never be disputed for there is no other logical explanation to refute the opinions listed below. I am counting only Tarantino’s feature length films he directed starting with Reservoir Dogs and am also approaching the Kill Bill films as separate entries. Let’s get started, shall we?
8) Death Proof
The funny thing about Death Proof is that it’s Tarantino making a “bad” movie on purpose. Billed as the second feature in the duology, Grindhouse, Death Proof is exactly the movie Tarantino wanted to make. Often, when directors make bad films, we can chalk it up to the intentions not matching up to the final product. In this case, Tarantino was purposefully making his version of a grindhouse movie. Where the general public was mistaken was believing that Robert Rodriguez’s entry, Planet Terror, actually embodied what it meant to be “grindhouse”. Planet Terror is to grindhouse cinema as every Die Hard sequel is to Die Hard. It really, really wants to be this one thing, but just isn’t. The key to a grindhouse film, which Tarantino understood very well, is that they’re often quite shambling and even boring. Death Proof follows a lackadaisical pace and tells two very long stories with plenty of shag to spare. Now, I think this is all still lovely material, but it is very much a trial to get through. His cast is phenomenal with Kurt Russell (about to star in The Hateful Eight) giving a chilling and darkly comedic performance amidst plenty of deliciously hokey material. This being someone’s worst movie is a miracle indeed.
7) Jackie Brown
Jackie Brown had the deep misfortune of following the masterpiece that was Pulp Fiction. Tarantino had just won an Oscar for his Pulp Fiction screenplay while also shifting the paradigm for modern storytelling. Audiences were stunned to see the director follow that up with a lengthy LA neo-noir following a hardworking flight attendant (Pam Grier) trying to evade and outwit a gun-runner (Samuel L. Jackson), a federal agent (Michael Keaton) and an ex-con (Robert De Niro) with the help of an aging bail-bondsmen (Robert Forster) in order to secure half-a-million dollars. This 70s throwback featured all of the wit and talent of Tarantino’s former work but was admittedly not as watchable as those films. It absolutely works, it just doesn’t scream like the best of his movies. Its greatest achievement is making a whole new generation fall in love with the beautiful and amazing Pam Grier. Also, bonus points for Chris Tucker.
6) Kill Bill Vol. 1
With Kill BillVol. 1, we begin to step into the realm of masterpiece with each Tarantino entry henceforth on this list. I consider Kill Bill Vol. 1 separate from Vol. 2 because they are both such clearly different movies. Sure, one is the extension and conclusion of the other, but Tarantino smartly knew that the ebbs and flows of his story don’t fit simply all within the same genre. Kill Bill Vol. 1 is arguably his most watchable movie and also represents his ascent into the national codex. People knew who Tarantino was before Kill Bill but they adored him after. Working within the framework of a martial-arts film, Vol. 1 presents the ferocious plight of The Bride (Uma Thurman) as she seeks revenge against the gang of killers which left her for dead on her wedding day. The action is tight and furious and the music, designed by Wu Tang Clan genius RZA, has implanted itself into the national consciousness like none of Tarantino’s other movies. The perfect kinetics of Vol. 1‘s action is unfortunately bested by the perfect storytelling and catharsis of…
5) Kill Bill Vol. 2
It wouldn’t be right to separate these movies in an overall discussion but the Kill Bill films are different enough in goals and style that they need to be separate in terms of the quality of result. Kill Bill Vol. 2 is genius in that it doesn’t try to be a movie it isn’t. The story of The Bride and her retribution doesn’t track as solely a martial-arts action show. As the film quotes Star Trek, “revenge is a dish best served cold”, Vol. 2 leans into Spaghetti Western territory in order to tell the conclusion. We get to see where The Bride came from and how her tortured past is deserving of a slow, twisted revenge tale. Her final encounter with the nominal Bill is a classic sequence that highlights Tarantino at his best in terms of storytelling and character work. Still, each of these films represent only one half of an excellent story.
4) Reservoir Dogs
It will be an eternal debate as to which movie is Tarantino’s most important film. I’d argue that Reservoir Dogs more than deserves that title. His first feature directorial effort presented a movie so cool, so different, that it completely redefined what it meant to be independent cinema. Telling the story, out of chronological order, of a jewelry store heist gone wrong, Reservoir Dogs cemented Tarantino’s famous pop culture-based dialogue and musical choices as a thing of astounding cool. Mr. Blonde’s (Michael Madsen) torture of a police officer is likely Tarantino’s most famous scene and will be forever aped as the paramount of psychotic badassery. If this list were solely about which movie caused the biggest shift in cinema, Reservoir Dogs would probably be number one.
3) Django Unchained
This movie almost topped this list. Django Unchained is Tarantino’s most assured piece of filmmaking. It takes head on what is probably America’s biggest black eye and gives us a hero set on righting injustice through the filter of true love. This is Tarantino’s greatest love story and it also serves as a brutal reminder of what atrocities this country and humans in general are capable of under the guise of societal norms. This revenge Western is amazingly stylish and represents the best of Tarantino’s use of anachronisms when it comes to music and tone. Its world bursts at the seams with colorful characters and features all-time performances by Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio. I’ve found myself coming back to this film more than any other in Tarantino’s filmography undoubtedly because of the straightforward nature of the story and themes. It’s about a good man taking back what’s his and making right all he can in spite of a horrific situation, all told with astounding confidence and rhythm.
2) Pulp Fiction
It is because of the sheer genius of Tarantino’s filmography that Pulp Fiction will likely always be his second best film. This is absolutely no dishonor. Pulp Fiction is the tantamount Tarantino film which cemented his voice which was established in Reservoir Dogs. This film created the stigma amongst actors that working with Tarantino was like a career resurrection. Tarantino notably cast John Travolta in the lead role when no one else wanted to give the middle-aged actor the light of day. It wasn’t so much about giving “aging” actors another shot but rather Tarantino knowing exactly what he’s a fan of and knowing perfectly how to use actors at his disposal. John Travolta represented “cool” unlike any actor before him and Tarantino knew how to bring that back to the forefront. Pulp Fiction is a benchmark for all of cinema with scenes and beats that have transcended film and have rooted themselves within our culture for those who have never and maybe will never see the actual film. However, being the most important film a director makes doesn’t mean that film will be the best a director makes.
1) Inglourious Basterds
In a career full of masterpieces, Inglourious Basterds is Quentin Tarantino’s greatest achievement. It takes the absolute best of each of his directorial charms and turns them each up to 11, creating a rich cinematic tapestry that gets better and better with each viewing. Inglourious Basterds is a pure celebration of cinema while also being a very drastic bit of revisionist history. Told through Tarantino’s signature chapter style, the movie presents three different stories coming together to shape each other’s fate during Hitler’s WWII reign. Unlike the way history ultimately resolved, Tarantino places the power back within the hands of the persecuted as Brad Pitt’s Lt. Aldo Raine leads a band of Jewish soldiers through Germany on a Nazi hunting mission. Lt. Raine ultimately ends up on a collision course with Shosanna (Melanie Laurent), a French Jew who narrowly escaped the clutches of the famed Jew Hunter, Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), as a young girl. The resulting climax is the perfect resolution and catharsis of a world absolutely stymied by the evil purported by one man. The fact that the art of film stands at the forefront of this revolution is icing on the cake.
My favorite thing about Quentin Tarantino is that this list could change drastically with each movie he makes and releases. He is on record for wanting to retire before he hits a denouement in quality but the fact that he is batting 1.000 with each film he has released gives us no reason to believe that decline is eminent.
Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, The Hateful Eight, opens in limited release on Christmas day. I can’t wait to worship at this particular altar on the holiest of holy days.
Eddie Redmayne has shown his incredible capacity for reinvention in The Theory Of Everything. The dashing freckle-faced British actor pulls off the ultimate identity overhaul in The Danish Girl, portraying gender-reassignment trailblazer Einar Wegener, who was one of the first to make a sex change via surgery. For an actor, this has to be the challenge of a lifetime as you have to tackle the very nature of character and identity itself. Redmayne gives the greatest performance of his career in this intimate and less technical term – that already portraying Stephen Hawking, which won him the Oscar last year. Redmayne reunites with Les Miserables director Tom Hooper and himself along with co-star Alicia Vikander in one of the most talked-about films of 2015.
Even though the film is set nearly a century ago, between 1926 and 1931, the film couldn’t be any timelier in light of recent headlines- especially the legalization of gay marriage. Some may fuss that this is too little too late but The Danish Girl has been in the works since David Ebershoff’s novel was published 15 years ago. One thing that can be said about The Danish Girl is it’s certainly a “weak tea” version of this emotional story. Hooper has scrubbed this story of the prickliest details and left us with an impeccably acted, gorgeously shot, and well-crafted story – but is it possible to have all these and still not feel a connection to the film? If anything The Danish Girl might be the most confusing film I’ve written about in 2015. On one hand we have Eddie Redmayne who’s performance is raw, intimate, and who’s desire for acceptance is so relatable that your heart breaks for him. Then you have The Danish Girl that has been scrubbed of all the “dirty” details that would cause society not to see a LGBT movie, which in essence rips the soul out of a beautiful film and leaves it just a gorgeous looking corpse.
The Danish Girl first introduces Redmayne’s character, as a dapperly dressed Danish gentleman, who’s making eyes at a gallery opening at his wife, Gerda (Vikander). The first time Einar (Redmayne) dons ladies clothes, the idea is Gerda’s. Already married, the couple both are artists, and though Einar’s work is taken seriously, a gallery owner tells Gerda that she could be great, if only she had the right subject matter. In an offhand suggestion ( while waiting for her model who’s running behind), Gerda asks her husband to slip on a pair of stockings and silk pumps, which sets in motion a chain of events that she would never have anticipated. It’s a confusing moment Redmayne’s character, who has long repressed what made him different, and who later tells his wife. “You helped bring Lili to life, but she was always there.”
During this period, the medical community would respond to such identity issues as “perverse” patients and label them schizophrenic – choosing to shock them to eradicate any “gender” issues out of them. Hooper touches on this in a very cursory manner but doesn’t even nearly come close to delve into the barbaric treatment this section of society dealt with during this period. How can we connect to the whole story if we don’t endure the whole struggle? Making progress isn’t all polka dots and moonbeams. Sometimes progress can have truly dark moments and not exploring that was a critical error on Tom Hooper’s part.
The best part of the film was when Einar 1st appeared in public as Lili. Einar ( who is understandably not the biggest fan of going to public gatherings) agrees to accompany his wife dressed as his imaginary cousin Lili. The resulting moment is a coming out as thrilling as Cinderella’s ball as Lili can feel the gaze of everyone in the room on her. It was at this moment that Einar/Lili first realized how beautiful women feel all the time in public. Now before we go lauding praise on Tom Hooper, let’s be clear that it was Redmayne’s approach to the scene that allowed this moment to sparkle. Eddie Redmayne truly lets’s his eyes do the talking as he has this look of exhilaration and such joy as feels that he’s finally who he’s always wanted to be.
Redmayne also makes sure to let the audience into his character’s inner struggle. There are points in the film where Einar/Lili seems to be torn about by his duty to his wife Greda and his desire to be who he truly is. At one point he even admits to his childhood pal Hans, he’s considered suicide, but held back because he knew he would be killing Lili as well.
It would be a critical error on my part if we didn’t discuss Alicia Vikander’s portrayal of Greda as well. Alicia gives a tremendous performance as Einar’s conflicted wife. It’s easy to see how much she loves him but in the same instance, you can tell just how much she would love to have her “husband” back. In fact, at one point she tells Einar “Stop it … Stop these Games” to which he responds “This is no game … this is who I am.” One thing that struck me as odd was why they didn’t dive into the Bi-Sexuality of Greda as well? Could this be yet another example of scrubbing all the “dirty” details?
The story of The Danish Girl is the performances of Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander. Alicia Vikander has thrust herself in the discussion Oscar discussion for Best Actress and barring some catastrophic failure she will be nominated for her role in this film. Eddie Redmayne is once again a serious contender for Best Actor and at this point is in a Two-Horse Race with Leonardo Dicaprio. Who will win between those two? At this point, it’s too close to call.
The Tragedy in all this is just how safe Tom Hooper played it when developing The Danish Girl. It’s easy to watch The Danish Girl and admire the film, but it’s hard to love the film. I simply couldn’t connect with the movie, through no fault of the actors but more so on the director. Maybe the thinking was is that a vast group of people would be more likely to see a movie about a transgender character if it were offered up as awards bait, to use a phrase that’s truly apropos.
