Leonora Anne Mint
@leonoralermontov.bsky.social
110 followers 76 following 180 posts
Filmmaker in the PNW.
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
Love to hear this, can't wait to see what they've cooked up!
There’s an interview going around about AI, so before there are any questions, let me state unequivocally that BLACK PHONE 2 is 100% organic. AI was not used at any stage of the filmmaking from idea generation, research, look books, writing, onscreen images - anything. We’re old school and love it.
I agree! It seems like JC didn't know what to do with the matriarchal society worldbuilding at all. Pretty much a wasted opportunity, and one of many things about the movie that feels underbaked/amateurish. But I love that he was at least always going for an ambitious concept!
Maybe tonight I will finally finish GHOSTS OF MARS, which is shot & edited like a 1950s western on lots of drugs, but scripted like half the John Carpenter filmography got tossed in a blender, with a design strategy somehow combining those two things!

It's not great, but I love that it exists 😅
GHOSTS OF MARS has been on the Criterion Channel since the first of the month, and I have been watching it in bits and pieces since then. I don't even hate it, I just put it on for a bit and then about 10-15 mins later I think "that's enough Ghosts of Mars for now." I'm about 3/4 of the way through
She's really enjoyable in it, though the movie deeply under-uses her... She & Jason Statham should have somehow swapped places, screen time-wise. I wish she & Carpenter had worked together more, since she's fun in Escape From LA too (despite some odd choices with that role)
I'm sorta enjoying it in a very esoteric way, but that doesn't surprise me at all 🤣
GHOSTS OF MARS has been on the Criterion Channel since the first of the month, and I have been watching it in bits and pieces since then. I don't even hate it, I just put it on for a bit and then about 10-15 mins later I think "that's enough Ghosts of Mars for now." I'm about 3/4 of the way through
The one I just finished watching (A Tale of Two Cities 1935, which he carries) had him moustache-less and it honestly felt strange, like when Tom Selleck is clean-shaven. I'd buy that it kept him bound to his own fashion era in a similar way too
This one's for the #classicfilm nerds: why don't people talk about Ronald Colman more? Only seen him in 2 or 3 movies but his charisma was devastating. He arguably out-suaves Cary Grant in TALK OF THE TOWN, but Cary cast a much longer shadow culturally. What happened there?
Reposted by Leonora Anne Mint
Reposted by Leonora Anne Mint
Need to escape the horrors? Come listen to us talk too long about horny Athenians!
Reposted by Leonora Anne Mint
If you’re canceling subscription services with giant companies with ties to terrible people, you should think about replacing them with a library card. Many library systems give you access to physical media (some of which you can’t find on streaming!) as well as other great stuff.
There is also a scene where a reporter says Denzel's character was famous (and I'm quoting directly) "for decades in the early 2000s"

and I feel like I kinda know what they mean there but I'm also super confused
Two complaints I've yet to hear elsewhere:
- feels like huge missed opportunity not to have the villain be using AI to write his music, but still thinking he deserves fame. It'd make him a lot more interesting and pay off those early quips

- WHY is the damn "Mayhem" car insurance guy in this movie
I actually have been feeling like this has been a great year for movies, outside of the usual mainstream slop that continues to get less effortful every year. But Spike Lee of all people managed to bring that slop feeling to the indie sphere. Cool chase scenes tho
Unfortunately, yeah, HIGHEST 2 LOWEST isn't good. Last time Spike & Denzel worked together, INSIDE MAN was studio-smooth and is still a fave. This is studio-bland instead!

Crazy to say but it feels like Spike Lee has met our horrible political moment with...personal artistic insecurity
Reposted by Leonora Anne Mint
Much like Target there are certain things that every middle class politically active liberal has enjoyed using but know they don’t actually need
Reportedly, Hulu’s site is crashing from all the cancellations.
so many people are canceling HULU that their site is crashing
Also possible, if not probable, that your local library can give you access to SO MANY movies, either through Kanopy which has a better selection than many paid streaming services, or via physical media (which, once discs are on the library shelf, is truly out of corporate control!)
As you cancel streaming services, here is a casual reminder that only 16% of Americans read for pleasure anymore, and your local library has hundreds or thousands of books you haven't read.

They would love to see you stop by and renew your library card.
Reposted by Leonora Anne Mint
As you cancel streaming services, here is a casual reminder that only 16% of Americans read for pleasure anymore, and your local library has hundreds or thousands of books you haven't read.

They would love to see you stop by and renew your library card.
Reposted by Leonora Anne Mint
What Robert Redford contributed to American films via Sundance is genuinely immeasurable. He was also an extraordinarily talented director--Ordinary People and Quiz Show are two of the best American studio movies of their eras--and an actor who somehow wore his incredible charisma almost shyly. RIP.
(I am also striving not to ape things that already exist which means it's probably time to stop thinking about Challengers for a bit?)
Basically TL;DR I am trying to get over my own judginess and the intense hand-slapping I saw so much of on Tumblr & Twitter about how characters "should" behave, to write stories where everyone is fucked up but you can watch it and still resonate with them.
It says something to me that the only people I've seen hand-wring about that movie seem to barely know what it's about. It didn't draw any of those "intense handwringing about fictional infidelity" people to actually watch it. I think because it doesn't give them the infrastructure to complain
Challengers is one of the best recent examples. Everyone behaves in some kind of fucked up way & being bothered by that doesn't sink the movie. The movie is clearly in love with all of them but doesn't ever give any of them an implausibly noble "out" - they do the messy thing & we love them anyway
I like it when the movie doesn't let its characters off the hook OR judge them mercilessly. Both reflect human nature, have their cathartic places, and you can find many examples to draw from. Letting characters just Be, and still driving the story forward, is what I respect the most. But it's hard!
Trying to figure out how to make your main character messed-up enough to be truly interesting but not SO messed-up as to capsize the tone of the whole script is a wonderfully distracting pastime for days like these