Thoughts on Celluloid

Ms. Marvel #5 (2014) | Writer: G. Willow Wilson | Artist: Adrian Alphona

Len Wein took the visages of Gods and monsters and used them to create characters who were achingly human. He brought the X-Men back after 6 years on the shelf, and he turned them into the cultural behemoth they are today by injecting their tales with necessary diversity of race, culture and viewpoint. That bar we're still trying to raise? He helped set it in the first place. RIP.

‪Holy shit, Mister Miracle #1 is the best DC comic I've read this year. Even New Gods must fight their way out of the darkness of depression‬

‪This Fantastic Fest 2017 banner by Chris Bilheimer is so rad. A timely spotlight on Arabic films in Austin, Texas 👌🏼‬

OKJA and THE LOST CITY OF Z were both shot by Darius Khondji. They're also two of the best films this year, and that's no coincidence. . In Z, Khondji makes watching James Gray's period adventure feel like discovering a relic, marrying light with fog and trees to make it feel like more than just reflection. It's a living part of the celluloid, like a dream of a past life unfolding at 24 frames per second. . In contrast, for Bong Joon-ho's OKJA he paints with shadow, punctuating the emotional heft of what is, for the most part, the loopiest dark comedy this side of BURN AFTER READING. It's a deeply uncomfortable film, but its intermittent rays of hope are allowed to stand out amidst an intentionally drab palette like candles in absolute blackness, as he obscures even the lush greens of rural Korea in favour of moral and narrative uncertainty. . Khondji's name received the loudest cheer after Z's premiere at last year's New York Film Festival, and rightly so. I wasn't at OKJA's Cannes debut this past May, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn the reaction was similar. . Both films are streaming now.

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‪Phillip Seymour Hoffman would've been 50 today‬