Andrew Kendall
@DepartedAviator
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“Lecturer” in Lit&Film; words @stabroeknews and elsewhere; writer for hire; rejected Tennessee Williams character / almasydk @ gmail dot com
walking in space
Joined August 2009
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I had a chat with Ruth Negga about PASSING (novel and film), Nella Larsen, and understanding Clare Kendry’s last moment in the film.
“I really feel she did the fucking best she could.”
(Explicit spoilers about the ending in our conversation.)
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Greetings from the “third world”, and fuck right off.
Few things are as tiring as American exceptionalism dismissing all the parts about itself it hates as “third-world” and “not-American”. It’s all America. Go stand in it. Keep the third world out of it.
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The full clip is even more hilarious
“Nothing worse than being a woman in this business. I really believe there’s nothing worse…Actually, in America. Because in France it’s fine.”
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Marisa Tomei could do Joker but Joaquin Phoenix could not do My Cousin Vinny
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Funny how Rebecca Hall directed the best performance of 2021 (Ruth Negga in PASSING) and then gave the best performance of 2022 (in RESURRECTION) and we’re still living in a world where she isn’t getting all the money in the world to do whatever she wants next.
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This actually could be a scene from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
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Here’s five seconds of Martin Scorsese laughing at Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig at the Oscars.
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@urslovesthemets
@shOoObz
@Blackamazon
See also the insidious “homophobic parents should get gay kids”. Like. Excuse me? Using children to test adults only puts those children in harmful environments.
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Why have so many critiques of film and tv recently been arguments that realism is the most legitimate mode of expression?
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Rewatching THE FAVOURITE and the layers upon layers in Rachel Weisz’s performance in this is really astonishing. I discover some new nuance in her work each time I revisit it.
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@throwing_shayde
@mattemattmatte
@killmepill
The exasperating thing it’s not just them. It gets worse.
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(Ruth Negga forever and ever and ever)
Show the greatest "I'm about to die" moment in cinema.
Oh, I got this.
Show the greatest "I'm about to die" moment in cinema.
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@TheNYCFilmChick
So frustrating. And chances are the first audition will be for playing what Rami Malek called “acceptable terrorist” roles that Arab actors have to suffer through.
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@Joseph_Fasano_
“Poetry’s beauty lies in the care and thought put into the creative process. That process is as meaningful as a final piece; it is in the “errors” of the process we find what is true and beautiful. Your request, unfortunately, does not prioritise that process so I just decline.”
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How did Billy Porter even get the rights to write a film about James Baldwin with this much vapidity?
Can’t remember the last time I’ve been rooting for a movie *not* to be made as much
‘Those Friends people make $100m a year! I’m getting six-cent cheques! It’s not OK!’: Billy Porter on race, recognition and the Middle East
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I feel like folks misremember ROMA as some lilting hagiography dedicated to Cuarón’s childhood, rather than what it is: a very specific tale about a specific Indigenous woman in a specific city grappling with a very specific year in her life. Young Cuarón is peripheral, at best.
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When (mostly white) critics say old movies/Scorsese/period films/pre-code cinema/&etc were “made for white people” or “the elites” do they realise how that language erases the many POC who enjoy, critique and write excellently on these films?
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It’s instructive how the American right and left always seem to join hands on a shared use of countries in Latin America, Caribbean, Africa, Asia as comparisons to show how “bad” America has gotten.
“This kind of thing shouldn’t happen here. That’s for _____ brown/black place.”
Mexico's Supreme Court rules that penalizing a woman for an abortion is unconstitutional. Why the fuck is Mexico ahead of us on women's rights?
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Every day I’m grateful for THE ENGLISH PATIENT being my favourite movie. Why? Because for a decade and more, it’s conditioned me to deal with bad-faith (and sometimes good-faith) critiques of something that I care about.
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For the “debate me, bro” crowd
If David Lynch won’t acquiesce, why should I?
(I love his little grin)
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Why is it that, so often, when a woman-led piece of film/TV captures the zeitgeist with an “abrasive woman” lead it’s acclaimed as the “first” of its kind - heralding in a sea change in media? But ignoring the history of female-focused media that came before...
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@Blackamazon
YES!!! One thing that frustrated me when the film came out is folks arguing that he was the only revolutionary in the film. When the film opens with Nakia working to support the computer outside Wakanda in revolutionary ways. But of course, women were ignored in the convos.
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That’s Jonathan Groff on the right
You’re trying to tell me that both of these men aren’t Ben Platt??? Hmmm
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If this isn’t proof that raising the topic of superhero films - with no real relation to anything - as a way to drum up attention isn’t the new journalist norm I don’t know what is.
What in Jane Campion’s filmography might even prompt this as a genuine enquiry?
Jane Campion Will Never Direct a Superhero Movie: ‘I Hate Them’ (EXCLUSIVE)
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I spent ten minutes explaining a plot point in THE HOURS last week so my therapist would understand a point I was making.
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Why is it so hard as a Black critic writing from Guyana in the Caribbean/South America, to get publicists to a) respond to enquiries; b) follow up on requests; c) provide access to media; d) provide access to talent?
This is a rhetorical question. I know why. I want to discuss.
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These two tweets are in conversation with each other, and goddamn are they both accurate.
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@schuyleresprit
I’m teaching Jamaica Kincaid’s A SMALL PLACE this month, and it’s as angry and necessary then as it is now. The dynamics of the tourism industry are frustrating.
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Guys, I know getting angry is very irresistible right now when everything is shit. However, let’s NOT prioritise getting angry at clickbait we know is misleading. Taika Waititi is obviously speaking ironically and is in praise of Curtiz and doesn’t recommend he be forgotten.
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@HitFactoryPod
why do you think this reads as hostility for the entire genre instead of unhappiness with *some* of the genre? I feel like this statement could be true of many film forms/genre being abused by the system but I didn’t read it as a rejection of the entire field
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Critics I am BEGGING you, stop framing your initial reactions to movies within a paradigm of how it measures up as a hypothetical “award contender”. I can’t count the ways this cuts against any kind of empathetic engagement with film.
Also, it’s just tedious.
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Tweets like this becoming viral make me realise that a lot of online discourse depends on folks digging into the past to bring up annoying things primarily to wallow in being annoyed about other things. But, to what end? Beyond being addicted to being annoyed about stuff?
Remember when White Gays were so eager to own Stonewall riot vandalism that they created a whole Whitewashed movie with a fictional White Gay who threw the first brick?
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@Chucho_Q
@smashley_lara
@keatonkildebell
Vanessa Williams WAS was in character, though, and it was planned. Amy talks about it in her book.
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When we talk of art that we love, or art that moves us, it’s not to convince doubters that we are correct. It is to show them why and how it moves us. Others might mishandle the fragile thing you love. You can’t stop that. You can just ensure that you handle your loves with care.
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And, yes, this is about BELFAST which I’m sure is great but ROMA isn’t a nostalgic creation of Cuarón’s childhood. The specific point of ROMA is that it’s NOT about him. ROMA is not Cuarón’s coming-of-age story.
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@emilynussbaum
For a split second I genuinely thought voiceover from a MARRIAGE STORY deleted scene was playing, or something.
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I know people get weirdly tribal during awards season but the narrative that Laura Dern is doing a redux of her BIG LITTLE LIES role is baffling.
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@Blackamazon
Only the other day I saw someone on here say they “forgot” he killed his girl. And I was thinking, “Exactly. Because for you that didn’t register as a big deal. Now why is that?” Not just a random stranger but his GIRL. That’s not nothing. Even amidst the things of value.
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I love so many movies that folks on here dislike, and it genuinely doesn’t bother me.
Why are folks so pressed that *trailers* for a movie aren’t being well received? They’re not even full pieces of art. They’re ads.
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GATTACA is essential to me for many reasons but especially for beginning the 1-2-3 run of Jude Law playing the physical embodiment of a perfect man in movies. Because. Yes.
Gattaca is another movie that I would’ve been much kinder to if I had known what commercial cinema would eventually become. I remember complaining that the first half was more interesting than the second. Now it all seems interesting.
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@Blackamazon
Propping up the ideas from Kilmonger that work without examining the toxicity that defined a lot of them and his relationship with gender/history/elders is just bad critique. Which so many were doing. 😒
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Herein ends my earnest thread. Here’s a scene from THE ENGLISH PATIENT where Kip shares art he loves with someone he loves.
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You know whose Lady Macbeth I’m really waiting for? Julia Stiles returning to her true place as the contemporary Shakespeare interpreter after her Katherina/Ophelia/Desdemona triptych. But who plays Macbeth opposite her?
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@cleverrgirrl
Every day people wake up and choose to be angry and wrong and loud. You hate to see it.
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This is the kind of niche content I’m on Twitter for.
We want answers.
Everybody wants to know who wrote My Immortal but honestly I’m more curious about whomever wrote that “Scream 3 - Starring *NSYNC!” email forward that went around in 2000
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Cleansing the timeline with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in this excellently choreographed Bollywood number from Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. Choreography by Saroj Khan, the first major woman choreographer in Bollywood.
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Lone Scherfig’s AN EDUCATION premiered at Sundance 12 years (and a day), ago and Carey Mulligan’s performance is one of my favourite “a star is born” moments in 21st century film. And what a star.
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Don’t care how many Palme D’Or awards they win, I will never forgive NEON for their erratic distribution. Justice for Clemency and Alfre Woodard
Still thinking about Alfre Woodard’s face in CLEMENCY and still righteously indignant at the way that that Neon completely mishandled the distribution of this film, which feels even more vital two years later.
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@Blackamazon
Look I’m all for being horny on the main and sloppy kissing but you can’t even see the suit! Understand the assignment at least.
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An important part of this map is the way that it emphasises the geographical boundary lines and extends the ways that global travel is linked to imperialism.
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@koviebiakolo
Turning women, especially Black women, into superheroes is rarely the compliment that many folks tend to believe.
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“Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new.”
Two lines that I think about almost weekly. Heartbroken at the loss of Stephen Sondheim. He gave us so much.
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And to turn those two previous retweets into a triptych: cast these two in a period-vampire movie.
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The responses to some critiques of some films (and TV) on here recently make me think that many persons aren’t used to the things they love being misread. Or misunderstood. Or “unfairly” interpreted. And I think that’s a skill we all need to have.
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It’s not that we should throw our hands up and encourage “bad” takes or “hot” takes, but the price of a piece of art being in the public’s eye is that it’s accessible to all. Persons read, respond to, engage with, interpret art differently. We can’t police that, and we shouldn’t.
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There’s a conversation to have about the use of academic language in literary studies but this tweet is so exhausting for the ways it repurposes the familiar argument that literary studies is a field is not allowed any specialisation and should be immediately knowable to all.
I know, academic writing: fish in a barrel. But imagine a student eagerly signing up for a course on Middlemarch, Jane Eyre, Vanity Fair and Our Mutual Friend; starts reading the assigned book about them called The Novel As Event; and finds it filled with passages such as these.
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@franklinleonard
Isn’t it just wonderful? I’d even go further and say it’s the perfect way response to bad reviews even if you weren’t involved in the film. Focus on the thing you love than hitting back at the pans
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@kylebuchanan
He gets it!
Ever since that video of him humming along to “Break My Soul” Austin Butler really has had his finger on the pulse of all my sensibilities
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If POC critics could only enjoy and write on films made for POC we’d have little to cling to. Cinema, as a medium, is white. We negotiate our relationship with cinema. POC can see ourselves in film without seeing ourselves on screen. (The same is untrue for many white audiences.)
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If you’re a film critic of any level and any of this applies to you, apply to the
@TIFF_NET
Media Inclusion Initiative to attend the Toronto Film Festival in 2023.
Applications close in eleven days, and TIFF is a good option for a fest to cover if you’re now starting out.
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Old movies may not be made with many of us (POC/queer/Global South) in mind. But look how our love for it has made discussions of it richer. You don’t have to be white to like them. And you don’t have to be white to write about them.
(Hire POC critics who like old movies.)
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It’s happening with MARE OF EASTTOWN now. Before that, PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN, FLEABAG, WIDOWS, GONE GIRL etc. The list things goes on.
But the discussion is “finally women can be mean/tough/difficult” when there’s so much value in tracing how they emerge from earlier works.
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In SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY, Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch pay two sad, lonely people in an open love-triangle with a restless, young sculptor played by Murray Head.
Glenda’s scene, when her younger lover suddenly announces he’s moving to the US with nary a care, is a beauty.
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One more souvenir of bliss
Knowing well that this
One must be the last
Dreams are a sweet mistake
All dreamers must awake
On, then, with the dance
No backward glance
Or my heart will break
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Anika Noni Rose sighing, touching her chest ,and going, “Ooooh, Minghella!” when I told her how important THE NO 1 LADIES DETECTIVE AGENCY (and her work in it) is to me is the best late birthday present
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Critiquing whiteness in cinema is essential. But dismissing X facet as “for white people” shuts POC critics out because we aren’t allowed to write on those films because they’re not for us. Those old movies? “They’re for white people.” Like new cinema is so diverse. Yeah right.
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If Twitter were around in the 90s, name a famous event/moment that definitely would’ve had the TL in shambles.
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I have a type.
What's the best a person has ever looked in the MCU?
Answer with pictures, gifs or clips.
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THE ENGLISH PATIENT is the only film I've seen where lovers rip their clothes off and have to deal with the repercussions of mending them.
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Even more than Ondaatje’s gorgeous Booker Prize winning novel, of its awards history, THE ENGLISH PATIENT exists within pop-culture as something that people feel ambivalent or hostile and about. (Thank you, Seinfeld.)
That’s okay.
Your favourites are *your* favourites.
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Even injudicious takes of a thing you care about can illuminate something about the work. And even the take you find most incendiary, or unfair, might just be that person’s way of working through their readings. It doesn’t affect your relationship with what you love.
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Why isn’t Garrett Hedlund a star yet? He digs deeper into complex characters in ON THE ROAD and MUDBOUND, a one two-punch few (if any) if his immediate contemporaries have matched and is reliably charming in COUNTRY STRONG/DIRT MUSIC/PAN.
What gives?
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Still thinking about Ruth Negga’s eyes during one the best acted moments in a 2021 film
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A lot of you are saying “work hard play hard” and no part of that is about happy
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1. The
2. Talented
3. Mr
4. Ripley
5. .
give us your top 5 1999 movies: go! (which, yes, Go is deserving of some votes)
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Steeling myself for history repeating itself at the expense of a note-perfect Penélope Cruz performance in an Almodóvar film.
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Still thinking about Alfre Woodard’s face in CLEMENCY and still righteously indignant at the way that that Neon completely mishandled the distribution of this film, which feels even more vital two years later.
Alfre Woodard's face in CLEMENCY is a goddamned special effect. She's so marvellous and I think of all the great things she could have done and would have done in cinema over the last 30 years if only she'd gotten the roles she deserves.
#TIFF19
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I get why people who are not Caribbean think this is annoying and a case of burdening Black creatives but this is not a critique of the film but a gentle “this is kind of weird”. I can tell you Caribbean people are confronted with remnants of slavery everywhere in our countries
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@Blackamazon
My friend’s brother had a party for his dog and invited neighbourhood dogs, last year.
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@SamuelAAdams
Somewhere along the line the value of “lived experience” as a part of analysis has turned into “if I haven’t lived this, it’s inaccurate”
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It’s great to see so much appreciation for Andrew Garfield’s warmth in Tick, Tick... Boom! but I’m also imploring everyone who think it’s far and away his best work to seek out his superlative work in SILENCE, which is also one of the best films of the last decade.
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Meanwhile some of the most insightful investigations of Kate/Audrey/Bette/Orson/Marty/Barbra/Barbara/etc etc has been my POC writers. Sure, it wasn’t “made for us”. But that’s not going to stop us from making it for us.
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Joe Wright directs Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 with Patrick Wilson as Pierre, Denée Benton returning as Natasha, Andra Day as Hélène, Christine Baranski as Marya Dmitryevna
Right many wrongs and wish this into existence.
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I think 2020 just peaked for me with my interview talking about SMALL AXE with Steve McQueen.
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Since there has been only a single film adaptation of Baldwin’s writing (Barry Jenkins’ note-perfect IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK), I think the Baldwin-on-screen priority should be adapting Baldwin’s other potentially cinematic works rather than a biopic
Billy Porter set to play James Baldwin in an upcoming biopic about the legendary novelist and activist.
🔗:
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@Blackamazon
Many people think they’re asking for love but what they’re really asking for is fealty.
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Do folks ask James Gunn or Justin Lin if they’ll be doing a Victorian period piece on press tours? Or a literary adaptation? It would be equally bizarre because nothing in their filmography would make that relevant.
Genuinely baffling waste of questioning time.
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Stone sis right but her point isn’t really not about Streep at all. The industry does fuck-all for women of a certain age. It demurs, hedges and persists with the lie that no one wants to see those films and use that defence to justify Streep as the only bankable option.
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Do you really like movies or do you just like using movies to prove you’re smarter than other people?
I wonder…
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